VLC Playback over Wireless Network

Posted by Michael McNamara in PersonalComputing on January 10, 2010

Over the past two weeks I’ve been laid up at home quite a bit. The first week I was recovering from septoplasty surgery to repair my deviated septum which is believed to be causing me some sleep apnea.  The following week I pulled a muscle in my back while laying in my daughter’s bed. If you’ve ever pulled a muscle in your back you know how painful it can be.

With all that idle time I took to watching a few classic movies that I had stored on my Windows Vista desktop computer in the basement. I was using a laptop from my bed watching the movies over 802.11b/g wireless from a share on my desktop. Unfortunately the movies would occasionally pause and start, over and over again. When I checked the statistics from VLC I noticed that I was pushing between 5MB/s and 6MB/s which is right around the peak performance for an 802.11b/g wireless network. I went digging into the VLC preferences and found an option to increase the caching/buffering which thankfully eliminated any of the pausing and starting issues.

Here’s how I made the configuration change;

Select Tools from the Main Menu bar,

Select Preferences (Ctrl-P) from the Tools drop down menu, you should see a window similar to the figure above,

In the bottom left hand corner under “Show Settings” select All,

Expand Input/ Codes

Expand Access Modules

Select File and increase the value to 10000 (10 seconds)

Select Save

Now you just need to restart VLC and you’ll notice that it will take quite a bit longer to buffer/cache before it starts playing. The buffering/caching will help prevent any drops in network performance from being visible within VLC.

You might ask what move classics I ended up watching?

  • Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

I also ended up watching quite a few James Bond movies including;

  • Die Another Day
  • Casino Royale
  • Quantum of Solace

Thankfully my back is feeling much better and my nose looks to be healing very nicely.

I’m curious if there is an easier way to stream movies/music around the house from Windows Media Center. I’ve read about some new players to the media extender market including Roku and Boxee. I’d love to find a solution where I could stream my movies and music around the house to either a TV of another computer.

Cheers!

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VLC

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Motorola Droid and HTC Eris – Verizon

Posted by Michael McNamara in MobileComputing on January 9, 2010

Over the holidays I decided it was time to step up from the simple Motorola RazrV3 that I had been carrying around for the past 2 years. Our contract with AT&T had just expired but I wasn’t really interested in the iPhone 3GS. I had my eyes set on the Droid by Motorola and was more than willing to jump ship from AT&T.

I had done my research and was very eager to stay away from any Windows Mobile device, deciding instead to embrace Google’s Android operating system.  In the weeks leading up to my decision I was flip-flopping back and forth between a Smartphone and a Netbook. I also had to keep the wife in mind… no purchases would be authorized without her buy-in. Thankfully the wife had been looking to ‘upgrade’ for sometime, looking for a more efficient way to organize and carry her address book and calendar. It was the Motorola Droid for myself and a HTC Eris for the wife.

That was about 2 weeks ago now and I’m here to report my experiences. Overall both myself and the wife are extremely satisfied with our purchase and with the quality of Verizon’s network. While the wife was already a big fan of Facebook and social networking the HTC Eris has really brought her into the Web 2.0 world. We did have some challenges uploading her Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Contacts into Google so we could sync them up with the phone.  Other than that one issue she’s really embracing the technology and using it to improve her daily life and activities. She lives by the calendar and activities list that are now loaded onto the phone.

As for myself I’m also getting into the Web 2.0 world. While I’m on Facebook I’m not very active although I am taking a liking to Twitter and really enjoying the Seesmic Android client. I will comment on the slide out QWERTY keyboard; for a guy who is 6′ 5″  the keys are just way to small for my large hands. The on screen touch keyboard is really the only usable option for me personally. The battery life of both phones has been pretty decent although I did install Advanced Task Killer from the Android Market on both phones.

Of course as Moore’s Law goes, Google released their Nexus One only two weeks after my purchase of the Motorola Droid. I have yet to feel any buyers remorse because I’m pretty happy with my purchase. Hopefully this phone will last me two years and I’m sure that technology will have moved on by that time.

Cheers

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HTC ERIS, MOTOROLA DROID

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Nortel CS1000 Troubleshooting Guide for Distributors

Posted by Michael McNamara in Nortel, VoiceOverIP on January 7, 2010

Nortel Call Server 1000Nortel recently released another great document outlining the potential troubleshooting steps when working with the Nortel Call Server 1000 v6.0. With Avaya set to release a product roadmap around the 19th or 20th of this month, January, it’s possible that the CS1000 might not make the new product portfolio.

I should point out that this document covers the Nortel Succession Call Server 1000 v6.0 software. While this document obviously can’t cover every possibility it does a great job of getting your feet wet and is welcome addition to my library.

You can find the document here.

Cheers!

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CS1000, TECHNICAL GUIDE

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Avaya/Nortel Enterprise Solutions Integrated Roadmap

Posted by Michael McNamara in AVAYA, Nortel on January 5, 2010

There was an email message sent out to Nortel customers today announcing an Avaya/Nortel Enterprise Solutions Integrated Roadmap event on Tuesday January 19th at 1PM (EST).

You can click on the image to the left for all the details as well as the option to register for the event.

I’m not sure how in-depth and technical this event is going to be but this is going to be Avaya’s first major step in retaining the existing Nortel customer base. The event is only scheduled to take one hour so I’m not sure how much can be covered in detail within 60 minutes.

Here’s the agenda of the event;

  • Announcement of Avaya’s Vision for the future of Business Communications, the Avaya Reference Architecture and the new Integrated Portfolio Roadmap. This session will be led by Avaya CEO, Kevin Kennedy, Dr. Alan Baratz, Joel Hackney, Chris Formant, and other Avaya leaders.
  • In-depth breakout sessions focused on key product and service areas
  • Q&A with product experts and sales leadership throughout the event

Here’s an additional blurb from the email message and registration page;

The virtual event will show you how the combination of Avaya and NES products, solutions and expertise will deliver the best of both companies—giving you more ways to improve your company’s productivity, cut costs, and differentiate your business in the competitive marketplace.

Are you going to register and attend the event?

Cheers!

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AVAYA, Nortel

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