My Technology Blog

digital ocean verification is annoying....

I wrote NoAdShoutcast again for the 3rd time, this time it is using the Naudio C# libary so it should work on any windows machine.

Download Link v3 Mirror 1

Download Link v3 Mirror 2

If for some reason you want the old version.

Download Link v2

Note: Seems like it only works if u have windows media player 12, this is only available on windows 7. Updated with a hacky songname graber for people with out WMP 12.

heya guys,


So I realised that I didn’t even have a copy of my own program, no source code nothing. So I decided to rewrite, this time I did it without winamp! To do so though I have ventured to the dark side, it uses a embedded windows media player com component.

I also skipped the individual blacklist, as I found I never used this.

TODO:

System tray icon
Installer
Native support for *.pls files and other formats. (open them with notepad and copy and paste the url for now)
saving/loading settings (the old one did this).
figure out a better way to get the song name for wmp 11 and lower.

Download link

Hi everyone,

Today I was listing to my favorite Internet radio stream, chronix radio I started wondering if there was a way to remove the advertising (i have donated and have 3 shirts) that the station played. Long story short I have created a custom application that will auto mute your system wave winamp when a blacklisted ad comes on.

You will need winamp.

Download the installer Verson 1.2.0 Here better version see latest post here

Donations can be made at skidmarksteve2@gmail.com, enjoy.

Any feature requests can be made here,


TODO:
Mute winamp only
System tray icon
Auto blacklist stuff based on a critera
Winamp Plugin instead of seprate program
Play MP3 when ads are on??
Stay on top option

What is freeview?

From what i can tell from freeview.com.au its a orginsation made up of 10, 9, 7 ABC and SBS, the only stuff i know for sure is that it is coming (when???) and its going to have a EPG and more channels.

Dont get to excited though, the only extra channel we will get is a sports channel as far as I can see.

I have been reading lots of stuff about freeview as you may know I have a MCE PC running Microsoft Media Center 2005. I have been using a free TV guide service called Oz Tivo. Lets just say its not perfect but its better (in my opinion) then epgstreem.net's guide data last time I checked. Epgstreen.net have a nice way of importing Oz Tivo data in to MCE that runs daily.

The adds and site for freeview say that its coming in 2009.... um its 2009 already!!
The EPG that it says they are going to provide, could be good , it could be like Ice TV but free, in which case Ice TV should be scared.

The reliability of the guide coupled with the fact that I have a fealing that they wont suport MCE's and other DVRS, as they talk about "Freeview compadible hardware", Freeview UK suports a wide range of DVRS including MCE, lets hope its the same orginisation.

Its just a waiting game at the moment.

Yay go me first post in ages!!

I recently have upgraded my desktop computer;

on my shopping list was

1. Gigabyte ATI 3870 512M PCIe HDMI Video Card
2. Gigabyte ATI 3870 512M PCIe HDMI Video Card
3. Tagan 800 Watt Power Supply
4. Asus P5KC
5. Intel Quad Core Q6600

Looking at the specs of everything, I was assuming that I would be able to run crossfire and my Terratec 2400i on the P5KC which is based on the P35 Chipset from Intel.

The specs on Asus's webpage state that it has 2x PCIE x16 slots that support crossfire, and 1xPCIE x1 slot and a few PCI slots.

I thought awesome I need all the PCIE slots for crossfire and my TV tuner.

I installed everything last Tuesday, the install went well and everything was looking good.

Then I did some poking around and found that I would need to enable crossfire in ATI's Catalyst Control Center however there was no option to enable crossfire when I opened the control center.

I downloaded a copy of GPU-Z and to my surprise the two graphics cards were listed. However the second one was running at x1 instead of x16. The gpu load on the second graphics card was %99 and the temperature was through the roof at 75-80 degrees. The 3870 is a card that runs at a high temperature however 70-80 when it wasn’t even meant to be doing anything meant there was something wrong.

I quickly shutdown the computer and removed the card. Booted back up with just one graphics card and everything was fine.

I then though maybe I had purchased a motherboard that didn’t support crossfire, I started reading the user manual. I quickly found out that it did indeed support crossfire. However to run the second x16 slot at x4 for crossfire it disabled the PCIE x1 slot. Well that’s what the manual said.

Lets face it who reads a motherboard manual before they purchase the motherboard?

It wasn’t disabling the slot however it was forcing it to run at x1 because I had a card in a x1 slot.

I removed my TV tuner card and like magic the option for crossfire appeared in the control center. And GPU-Z was reporting that I was running crossfire, awesome I though, I can have crossfire and no TV tuner or a TV tuner and no crossfire.

I called the computer shop and explained in depth how the product was not as described and that I would like to return it. They agreed that I was able to return it as long as it was in a resalable condition.

I still didn’t know if there was a motherboard that could actually support crossfire and PCIEx1 slots.

I was also able to find a Foxconn board that has trifire (3 ATI graphics cards), the review for the board stated that the PCIEx1 slots were disabled when the third graphics card was inserted. This board was based on the x38 chipset.

I started looking at the x38 chipset and managed to find the detailed block diagrams form gig abite’s webpage for both the P35 and x38 chipset. The diagrams made it clear that I would need to get a x38 motherboard to use crossfire and a PCIEx1 card.

I returned the Asus P5KC and exchanged it for a giga-byte GA-EX38-DS4, I installed it today and I’m one happy camper. J

So in conclusion Asus should state this in there specifications on their webpage to avoid a lot of confusion, giga – byte do this and well it proves that you can do it, and you can never do enough research before you purchase something. ><

I have had my Media Center Remote since i had my first TV tuner card, it was a Compro T300 the analog/digital one that has slow channel change times.

I love this remote, so much so that the whole right hand side of the remote, is striped of paint because of people holding it with sweetly palms. There is no way you can have a MCE PC with out one. The range is excellent and the receiver has a enormous cable. This is designed for dedicated theater rooms when you may want to mount the reciver on the roof 1/2 down a 20 meter room.

The remote also has other uses i have used it with power point at university to change slides in presentations. The reciver also comes with IR transmitters so that i believe, you can set it up so it can control foxtel and other IR devices. however with my setup there is no need for this.

I also have programed the TV on/off button and the voulme up/down to my 5.1 speakers. This enables my entire MEC setup to have only one remote. the only thing i cant do is turn off my light.

The buttons light up when pressed, this i useful when watching movies in the dark, also the layout of the keys is very intuitive. It only took me half a week to learn and it was created for MCE 2005 so it works perfectly.

10/10