Thanks to an invite from Tom Sella of Boxee and Boxee’s recent support of Tiger (which I shouldn’t need for too much longer, as I’ll be coming up to speed with Leopard soon), I was able to conduct some tests using the stream pack and the alpha version of Boxee.

Some of the feeds—such as RTR Planeta, displayed above—tended to bomb out and crash the application from time to time. I need to submit a bug report for when I get a chance, and it’s something that didn’t seem to happen with the Atlantis beta of XBMC for OSX. Overall, though, the pack seemed to work quite well.

One slight annoyance I discovered between all OSX variants of XBMC (and XBMC itself) was the extremely slow buffering of each stream before finally displaying. Granted, XBMC on the Xbox did take its time, but not nearly as much as it seems to on the OSX varieties.

Yes, indeed, XBMC-TV should in fact work with Plex for OS X. In fact, it should work with any XBMC port that retains STRM functionality.

Unfortunately, due to a fire which destroyed the apartment above ours in late June—and left ours an almost total loss due to the water, mold, and smoke—my own XBMC-modded Xbox was destroyed, and until further notice no updates will be made to XBMC-TV. (Once I get 10.5 on my Macbook, I’ll likely install Plex and resume compiling and testing XBMC-TV using that instead.)

You can get the latest pack here.

I’ve been playing a little bit^* with this expired and expiring domain script in my after-hours free time to get a good workout using SimplePie now that I’m pretty much ditching another parser at work. It’s pretty nifty, even though it isn’t 100% perfect.

Check it out and see if you can’t find something better for yourself than thisismydomainitreallyrockshellyeah.com.

* Ok, I totally rewrote it.

The latest version offers a clean sweep; I reviewed every single stream over the past 72hrs and removed any streams having problems at the time they were tested. As a result, there are far fewer streams than normal in this release. The ‘Adult’ and ‘TV Shows’ categories have also been removed; all were defunct at the time they were tested.

On the upside, however, the signal-to-noise ratio has been vastly improved and many new streams have been introduced in their place. More will be added for the next release as they’re verified.

Updated 08/16/2007

• STRM (stream) file pack for XBMC 1.1+
• 407 Streaming TV Feeds from 90 countries around the world
• Contains live and recorded streams
• Most verified working; some may be part-time stations, others may go down intermittently. Compiling these is an inexact science.
• Contains Windows Media, NullSoft NSV, and RealMedia streams.

To Use:

1. Extract ZIP into a directory on your PC/Mac.
2. Upload that directory to the Xbox (on mine, F:\)
3. Add source under “My Videos” pointing to the directory
4. You should be all set at this point. Enjoy!

If you find this pack useful, simply drop me a line to let me know how useful you find it. For maximum compatibility (due to the dynamic nature of XBMC’s player), the latest version of XBMC is recommended, although many of the streams will work on most any 1.1+ version.

Download: XBMC-TV, Round VII (80kb) | RSS Feed
Submit New XBMC-TV Streams / Report Bad Stream
→ Haven’t modded yet? The Black Art of Xbox Mods

Note: Before reporting ‘broken’ streams, please test several times over a week-long period at different times of day, as some stations are very intermittent and would prefer not to remove a valid stream.

(Update: To get the latest release, visit this entry.)

Here it is, finally: The sixth release of XBMC-TV, the definitive international TV stream pack for Xbox units running Xbox Media Center. It’s been a long time coming, but the number of stations available has increased by over 100 since the last update and this doesn’t even factor in the number of defunct stations I removed. Enjoy.

Updated 07/24/2007

• STRM (stream) file pack for XBMC 1.1+
• Now up to 668 Streaming TV Feeds in 106 categories: Countries (104), Adult (1), and TV Shows (1)
• Contains live and recorded news, entertainment, talk shows… You name it, it’s probably somewhere in here.
• Most verified working; some may be part-time stations, others may go down intermittently. Compiling these is an inexact science.
• Contains Windows Media, NullSoft NSV, and RealMedia streams.

To Use:

1. Extract ZIP into a directory on your PC/Mac.
2. Upload that directory to the Xbox (on mine, F:\)
3. Add source under “My Videos” pointing to the directory
4. You should be all set at this point. Enjoy!

If you find this pack useful, simply drop me a line to let me know how useful you find it. For maximum compatibility (due to the dynamic nature of XBMC’s player), the latest version of XBMC is recommended, although many of the streams will work on most any 1.1+ version.

Download: XBMC-TV, Round VI (131kb)
Submit New XBMC-TV Streams / Report Bad Stream
→ The Black Art of Xbox Mods

Note: Before reporting ‘broken’ streams, please test several times over a week-long period at different times of day, as some stations are very intermittent and would prefer not to remove a valid stream.

The La Crosse WS-3610 arrived last week, and just now am I getting the finishing touches done on the mount located on the roof of our apartment. I was able to fashion an alternative configuration of this mount holding the anemometer, while the rain gauge sits on a level platform a few feet away…

→ continue reading "Weather Underground Station "KILCHICA64""

...very soon, in fact! I’ve spent a good lot of time over the weekend removing outdated and bad feeds, and introducing new ones. So far, I’ve been able to get through about half the countries in the collection. Look for it to show up sometime this coming week.

On the NWS4Cast front, I’ve managed to get the connectivity in place, the SOAP schema read in, and start parsing out and formatting forecasts; however, it’s going to take some thought as to how I want to package this up in the future, given the inherent space constraints and new requirements this new build will require. Right now it requires two separate parsers between the XML and SOAP feeds, which I need to reconcile down to one before I feel comfortable releasing it.

In any case, I’ll more than likely release two versions: a basic package containing only NWS4Cast without forecasts, and one with everything bundled in—with the option to turn off forecasts, if desired.

Edit: I have a La Crosse WS-3610 coming in to replace my Discovery Channel STX-7000, so perhaps another version of NWS4Cast for personal weather stations isn’t entirely out of the question…

Having downloaded and messed around with NuSOAP a bit, I think I’m going to restart one of my original ideas: to optionally pull and display 5-day forecasts using NWS4Cast. Of the mods I’ve seen performed to the script so far—primarily on academically-oriented astronomy sites—SOAP support for retrieving forecasts seems to be the most desired.

And so it shall be. Maybe I’ll have some time this weekend to get it running.

Much time has passed since the prior release of my NWS4Cast PHP Weather script. I spent some time rewriting a significant portion of the code to make it far more orderly in terms of separating methods from settings, which current users will find refreshing I’m sure.

I’ve also added icon support; various (overdue) fixes to XML node names; trimmed down the file size significantly; and tweaked some of the calcs. All-in-all, users should find this a much-improved release, and set-up should be considerably easier. As always, it’s Dreamhost-friendly as it uses CURL rather than fopen.

There’s more to be done in terms of making the code more elegant, but it’ll come. If you enjoy this script, simply drop me a line to let me know where you’re putting it to good use.

Edit: Upped to 0.55 after cutting even more extraneous code, most of it from the parser module. Now weighs in at only 5kb total.

Download: NWS4Cast 0.55 (5kb)

The /gaming and /link sections have gone boom. Honestly, it’s about time I pared down to something a bit more modest since I haven’t the time to keep especially the /gaming section moving. It’s still accessible by the search engines for posterity and the sake of anyone searching games using Google, but it will no longer be updated.

I’ve made a few other changes, but they’re not very notable.

Onto another subject, the Axis 2120 arrived yesterday and really is a great piece of kit. Installation took five minutes, a firmware upgrade took another five minutes, and the configuration took another 30 since I insisted on messing around with controls and settings. Outside of the live feed — which I’m sure as hell not linking here — the standalone 2120 also uploads a current photo every 30 seconds via FTP, which you can now see to the right.

My only complaint so far is that I won’t be able to easily mount it in order to zoom in on the skyline, but I’ll work past that eventually with some ingenuity and an 802.11g wireless bridge.

So, I haven’t been entirely satisfied with the cheap 1.2Ghz wireless CCTV solution I picked up a few weeks ago, though it’s worked well in certain indoor situations such as monitoring the home while we’re away. Having sold off yet another sizable chunk of my video game collection, I decided to pick up one of the better options out there — the Axis 2120 Network Camera with interchangeable C/CS lenses and by far the best performance in the industry.

I’ve actually had great experiences with Axis Communications’ products in the past; having managed the purchase and installation of one of the first Axis network camera models (using an outdoor Pelco enclosure) back in 1999 for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, I already have an affinity for the brand, its performance, and reputation for ease-of-use. Of course, quality and performance have greatly improved since those days, with improved bandwidth efficiency, resolution, and M-JPEG codec use instead of requiring the typical proprietary controls the old cameras necessitated back in the old days.

The one I managed to pick up happens to be a lightly-used PAL model purchased by an American a couple of months ago from Europe. All things taken into account, it really doesn’t matter the format, since the system bypasses closed-circuit television in favor of Internet-based transmission by default. [NTSC vs. PAL]

Another nice thing: while the going price still happens to be somewhere near $1,000 even today, post-model discontinuation, I managed to pick up the unit for a tiny fraction thereof — another win for being patient and frugal. I’m really looking forward to digging into it when it arrives.

(Update: To get the latest release, visit this entry.)

Technically this should have been Round IV, but this is a pretty big update and I felt like arbitrarily jumping to V.

Updated 01/17/2007

- STRM (stream) file pack for XBMC 1.1+
– Now up to 559 Streaming TV Feeds from 106 Countries (inc. mature streams)!
– News, Entertainment, Movies, etc. Minimal Internet-only stations, but some.
– Most verified working; some may be part-time stations, others may go down intermittently.
– Contains Windows Media, NullSoft NSV, and RealMedia streams

To Use:

1. Extract ZIP into a directory on your PC/Mac.
2. Upload that directory to the Xbox (on mine, F:\)
3. Add source under “My Videos” pointing to the directory
4. You should be all set at this point. Enjoy!

If you find this pack useful, simply drop me a line to let me know how useful you find it.

Download XBMC-TV (139kb) | Submit New XBMC-TV Streams
→ The Black Art of Xbox Mods

(Update: To get the latest release, visit this entry.)

Updated 01/07/2007

- STRM (stream) file pack for XBMC 1.1+
– Now up to 508 Streaming TV Feeds from 105 Countries!
– News, Entertainment, Movies, etc. Minimal Internet-only stations
– Most verified working; some may be part-time stations, others may go down intermittently
– Contains both Windows Media and RealMedia streams

To Use:

1. Extract ZIP into a directory on your PC/Mac.
2. Upload that directory to the Xbox (on mine, F:\)
3. Add source under “My Videos” for the directory
4. You should be all set at this point. Enjoy!

NOTE: Some German feeds through 1tv.de may throw demuxing errors. The experimental mplayer.dll pack here manages to fix this for the most part. However, as with the use of any experimental software, proceed with caution.

Download XBMC-TV | Submit New XBMC-TV Streams
→ The Black Art of Xbox Mods

In my effort to have a little fun and expand my knowledge of SEO and other skills, http://www.yourtimeis.com is live — but not doing very much at the moment. Nor is it very pretty.

I’ll get back to all these little projects once I’ve got my work backlog and other things out of the way.

NWS4Cast v0.5 has been delayed due to a family emergency. Expect it mid-late November.

I’m the proud owner and maintainer of the only website dedicated to the small village of Butte des Morts, WI 54927, population 378. I visited my grandparents in the village every summer from ’85-‘95, and lived there in ’96-‘97. Really good folks there, the majority of ‘em.

One might ask why I’d even bother, but it’s part of a larger idea I’m fleshing out. Slowly but surely. That and, when I went to find information on the town, not one site gave me a good roundup. The .com address had already been taken, so I snagged .net and .org while I went looking for domains the other day.

So, this is my way of giving something back.

Now that I’ve found a little time to get back into it, I should have a very simple-to-implement version ready here in the next week or so. I know I’ve said this before, but…

A few changes:
– Separation of style from content
– Considerable cleanup of styles/markup
– Separation of configuration variables from the parsing engine

Please note you must have PHP and CURL installed in order for this script to work. Older versions support the classic way of obtaining the XML file, but from 0.40+, CURL is the name of the game.

Please send any additional feature requests through the contact form.

I’ve updated NWS4Cast to version 0.41 over the weekend. It’s primarily a maintenance release to correct issues with “Visibility” not showing due to a change in the XML data feed.

If you’re not familiar with NWS4Cast (formerly ‘NOAA/NWS XML->PHP Weather Script’, of all things), it’s a PHP script I’ve created to display the current conditions from the National Weather Service on a website, as you can see running over to the right above the credits. The script pulls in the XML feed for the local area, parses it out (CURL required), and displays it in an aesthetically-pleasing format. If you’re so inclined, it’s entirely skinnable, as you’ll see inside the weather.php file.

The next version (0.5) will include the new features seen in the example to the right. It should be out in a week or two after some template tweaks and code cleanup.

Download: NWS4Cast_0.41.zip [50kb, ZIP]

Many hours of work and endless tweaking later, my latest project, this time involving a Toshiba Libretto 100CT, is a success. The GPS receiver came in yesterday afternoon, after which I promptly went to do a couple of hours of wrangling with nonexistant installation instructions, then eventually testing with Streets & Trips 2006.


Starting Specs for the Toshiba Libretto 100CT:

• Pentium 166Mhz
• 32MB RAM
• 2.1GB HDD
• Windows 98
• Internet Explorer 4.0
• Office 97
• Lotus Notes
• McAfee Antivirus 4.0
• Xircom 56k Modem/100mbps Ethernet Card

Post-Project Specs:

• Pentium 266Mhz (after soldering modification to the motherboard)
• 64MB RAM (after reseating a loose 32MB module)
• 2.1GB HDD
• Windows 98SE (pared WAY down, and secured)
• Office 97
• Firefox 1.5
• Thunderbird 1.5
• Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006
• Winamp 2.9 (streams smoothly from Shoutcast, and from MP3s over the LAN)
• Filezilla FTP Client
• AVG Anti-Virus Personal Edition
• AMN Refrigerator v2.x (for cooling the CPU, unit has no built-in fan)
• Netgear WG511v2 802.11g Wireless Card
• Xircom 56k Modem/100mbps Ethernet Card
• PQI CompactFlash to PCMCIA Adapter (GPS receiver/digital photos)
• Generic UG-200-CF CompactFlash GPS Receiver
• …and about 20 classic games from the 90s (Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, etc.)

All-in-all, it was a pretty challenging project. Endless swapfile tweaks and whatnot kept me on my toes for days. The biggest impediment to getting anything done was easily the paltry size of the hard drive — Streets & Trips takes up 1.1GB on its own, leaving the rest to sit in the remaining 900MB of space. At last check, I still have anywhere between 150-175MB free (varying due to the swapfile).

In the end, though, I’ve taken what was a pretty ancient, unused computer and given it a new life as a lean, ultra-portable machine not only capable of accessing the Internet from most anywhere, but of reading in photos from the CF card and of course uber-cool GPS functionality for the road — normally retailing in the hundreds for a standalone unit. Since it has Office 97, a modern web browser, and a decent mail client, I can pretty much do anything I’ll ever need to on it when a larger laptop would be too unwieldy. It was well worth the effort put into it; it handles everything much faster and more efficiently than I ever expected from a computer literally the size of a VHS cassette.

Image Archive: http://www.op9.net/images/libretto/

I’m a sucker for the weather. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a deep fascination with it. When The Weather Channel came about back in the 80s, I was glued to it for as long as my parents would allow (which, as an aside, also helped quite a bit when I was learning geography back in the day) and still it doesn’t take much to recall the old familiar jingles. So, it goes without saying that this guy’s site is weatherporn to me. Oh-so-beautiful weatherporn, indeed.

Since purchasing a decent weather station for my father-in-law on Father’s Day a few weeks ago, I’ve taken an renewed interest in obtaining a true-blue weather station—preferably a very scaled-down setup compared to the above guy, but full-featured enough for (at least) PC data transfers. XML feeds, data manipulation, and simply messing around for the sake of gadgetry… I guarantee it’ll be like Christmas whenever I finally find one within a sane price range (less than $200, preferably) that can spit out the raw data I need to get started.

Until then, I made a solid purchase of a lesser model—the Casio DQR-300 ($29.95 via eBay, MSRP $120.00) seen to the upper-left—though lacking many of the features of a Davis Vantage Pro, or even the mid- to upper-range models you’d see from La Crosse or Oregon Scientific. In short, it’s a beginner unit: atomic time, barometric pressure, 12/20-hour forecasting, indoor/outdoor temperature, and indoor/outdoor humidity measurement are the included features, sans any PC-link. This will suffice until I can drop the dough to get something more comprehensive.

Eventually, in reference to my NWS4Cast app, I’d like to combine the weather data (either NOAA, or that of a weather station in the future) with traffic feeds from Georgia Navigator into a customized version, which should paint a more accurate picture of the current state of affairs around our apartment. Right now I’m relying on NOAA’s XML feeds for my little NWS4Cast app, but given the propensity for KPDK to have differing conditions than my apartment, I’d certainly prefer using my own weather data.

Edit: I managed to find an even better deal on a more comprehensive model last night: a brand-new Discovery Channel Weathertech STX7000 (above, right) which features much more than the Casio, for 58% off the $199.95 retail price. Still no PC-link and it’s pretty much just a rebadged and price-hiked La Crosse, but it’s a great mid-range station to start out with and an ideal display to show everything at a glance. That said, I’ll probably throw the Casio up on eBay as soon as it gets here.

Looking through my referrer logs today, I tracked back through to see where people were coming from. Turns out, there’s another talented individual working on much the same project as I, using the NOAA/NWS feeds, only using C#.

If interested, check out Bernzilla.com.

Also linked off his site is a handy Perl version.

The only major difference between the Perl, C#, and my PHP version is that they are using the WSDL SOAP web service as opposed to directly manipulating the XML feed, which I eventually plan to transition away from [and into SOAP]. I’m a bit rusty in PHP as it’s been a while, so pardon my naivete for now.

I’ll get back to working on the PHP version after the holidays; perhaps even after I finish the redesign. These features are planned, but are subject to recommendations from users, or my very whim:

Planned for v0.4:
– tighten up code quite a bit [it’s a bit messy at the moment]
– add popup or dockable legend for color variance [humidity, temperature, etc.]
– add color variance to $weather [color value: $wea_col]
– organize, organize, organize
– incorporate on/off dockable information (sunrise/sunset, more)
– incorporate icons
– fix newfound inconsistency in handling variable winds. d’oh.

Happy Holidays to you and yours in the meantime.

I developed a small weather script in PHP tonight to take advantage of the new NOAA/NWS XML Feeds made available last month or so. I’ve even taken care of 95% of the footwork for you; as long as you know basic PHP [includes and variables, mainly] and read the extensive documentation in the source files, you can easily have this set up on your own site in five minutes flat using the provided “badge” template.

You can see it in action [using said template] in the upper right-hand corner, and unlike most of the weather scripts out there it’s also highly flexible. If you use it, please drop a comment here letting me know.

Download v0.3 Here – README File

Update: I’ve updated to v0.2 v0.3, which includes some additional streamlining, fixes, and adds color variance based on current weather conditions [temp, humidity, etc.].