New Domain – DHCP
As part of the new domain project I have undertaken I wanted to use the new domain controller to provide DHCP services. Currently we use a CentOS server for DHCP and it works very well although none of use know how to set it up or support it when things go wrong. I have not ever used DHCP on Server 2008 R2 but I suspected it would be similar to DHCP on 2003 which I have used.
New Domain
Our current main Domain Controller is getting on a bit and is due to be replaced. Also our current domain is very messy where it has been added upon over the years. I decided it would be good idea to start the Domain again so that we could get rid of some of the crap and unknowns. I have never done any of this before so I may live to regret this good idea.
My plan was to purchase a new server to run Server 2008 R2 and create a small network independant from the current network so that I could configure it while I complete my normal day to day duties and once it is configured we could just rejoin the current equipment to the new domain without much disruption.
Bushcraft-Magazine Mayday Meet
Friday was Mayday and The Bushcraft-Magazine held a weekend meet to give people the chance to experience bushcraft workshops and demonstrations. The event actually started on Saturday at the Bushcraft-Magazine site, our favourite camping spot at Egerton near Ashford, Kent.
Amsterdam
On Friday 16th April I turned 28. To celebrate this occasion I decided to go to Amsterdam. I persuaded @scaira and @Captian_Jarrett to come as well. Actually they didnt need much persuading. @Captain_Jarrett left Brokley Towers and and headed to mine, we then collected @scaira and headed onwards to Dover to catch the Norfolkline ferry to Dunkerque.
XBMC – Aeon
@TheFincher came round yesterday so I could set up a few things on his Revo ( a supurb bit of kit for a HTPC) and while I was at it he asked me to install a skin for him. The skin in question is called Aeon. Now the skin itself is not being officially developed which is a shame but it seems like there is still some development being done unofficially. So I think the version I downloaded was Aeon but with some extra plugins and modifications. After installing it on @TheFinchers revo I decided it was quite nice so I installed it on my HTPC. I spent a couple of hours this morning configuring and tweaking it. It turns out that it has some really nice features that make using XBMC even better.
XBMC – Part III
TVHeadEnd
TVHeadEnd is a nice little app for Linux that allows you to watch Live TV through a capture card such as Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T. It also allows you to pause live tv (unsupported) and create advanced scheduled recordings. Once it is installed it provides a web accessable admin page where you can configure the application and the scheduled recordings.
XBMC – Part II
Installation
I am using the Linux version of XBMC which is really Ubuntu with XBMC running on top. Theres a few reasons I went with the Linux version over Windows. The first and most important reason is price. I dont have a spare Windows 7 licence and I wouldnt really want to run a different version of Windows on it. Ubuntu is free and very well supported. It also gives me a chance to improve my linux knowledge which is very useful as I have to use linux a lot at work. Also there are no real features in Windows that I need that aren't available on Linux.
HTPC + XBMC Part I
For several years XBMC (Xbox Media Center) was my weapon of choice for streaming video to a TV. It was a brilliant piece of software that runs on the original Xbox and by far the best piece of homebrew software I have ever used. I am sure that I had an Xbox for streaming purposes for far longer than I had an Xbox for game playing purposes. As HD content became more widely available, XBMC on the Xbox became less used as the hardware simply wasn't good enough to play it back. I had to find a decent alternative that would play back HD without too much messing around. Initially I tried using the Xbox 360 as a media extender in conjunction with Vista Media Center. Although this worked fairly well, it was very limited to which codecs it supported and basically all HD content needed to be in WMV format and sadly not much of it is. There are applications that can be used to transcode other formats into WMV on the fly or applications that would convert other formats into WMV, none of them worked very well and all of them involved much messing around.
Welcome to the new blog.
So my domain was up for renewal and I decided that I should probably do something constructive with it as up until now I have only ever used it for dumping files etc. I am probably well behind with the trend of blogging so I am not sure how I will take to it, in fact I am not sure I have much to say in a blog, but I am going to give it a go and try to make the effort.
I decided with WordPress and I have to say it seems very well put together and easy to use. My web host Creativemule installed it for me in about 20mins which included about 10mins of faffing around with email addresses (my faffing really). All that was required after that was to add a theme. And so here we are, let the blogging commence.