for keeping track of my digital experiments

Last weekend I was playing around with running nginx, SSH, vsFTPd, and MediaTomb on this 1GHZ, 512MB RAM machine that I jacked into my network. So let me get the obvious things out of the way first:

• SSH for administering
• vsFTPd for getting files onto the media server
• nginx for serving the media files externally to the WAN

What is this MediaTomb you may ask? It is a DLNA/Media UPnP server daemon, that is administered via a sleek javascript front end, and run by a fast C back end (for nix machines). There were issues though, when I tried accessing it from the new DirecTV set top boxes that have network/internet support built in. According to my dad, who works for DirecTV, the boxes are supposed to be able to access DLNA compliant content. It is not an advertised feature, just an “under development” feature. He says the only reason that ethernet ports are on the set top boxes in the first place is for VOD content, served by Limelight Networks. In the future, the DLNA support will probably be phased out, but for now I guess I’ll get to have some fun.

I managed to get a few computers in the past week, just in time for my spring break. I transferred my XP Home license onto one of them. I then stuck a 128mb GPU I had, and enough ram into the 1.6ghz computer, I snagged from recycling intentions, to run pc Halo. I then plugged in a playstation 2 controller into this pc by means of an adapter I had purchased from a Hong Kong EBay shop. I hooked a S-Video cable into my graphics card instead of to a VGA cable and jacked into my tv. The graphics need to be tweaked a bit to display just right, but it worked great for a trial run.

The setup in picture form

Halo for PC gameplay on a TV