There is now a single click installation route for getting Mono on the Nokia 770 and Nokia N800. Basically it sets up installation repositories and installs the runtime. From that any apps you install will install only the components they need. Whether there are any really cool Mono apps for Maemo yet is something I don’t know. But I’m sure there will be :)

If you play EVE, pay with time cards. Especially if you’re European.

Basically it comes down to the US$/€ exchange rate. I also happen to be part of an affiliate scheme selling them through Shattered Crystal, but even if I wasn’t, I’d tell you anyway (in fact I waited a little longer to post this while I found a good affiliate scheme :P).

I’ve explained the whole exchange rate thing a bit better as well as given more info about Shattered Crystal on my EVE Online Time Cards page.

After talking about for quite a bit, I finally have a computer setup running MythTV.

I decided to go for MythDora. It has the advantage of being straight forward to use and still leaves me with a fully functional desktop computer (which KnoppMyth doesn’t really do. It did leave me one slight headache - I didn’t have a spare DVD drive (MythDora is 1.2GB) so I had to borrow the one from Windows desktop). The hardware I have is pretty moderate (well, really low end for most applications - a Sempron 3200 and on board GeForce 6100 with a Hauppauge HVR 1300) but it runs as a combined backend/frontend without any problems, even when recording, transcoding and viewing TV (an “advantage” of living in a country where HDTV is still not a thing).

On the subject of transcoding, there was one stumbling point - specifically it just didn’t work at first (I got the illuminating error message “Failed with error code 0”). After posting the output to the MythTV-Users mailing list someone pointed out it was a MythDora packaging problem - libmp3lame hadn’t been installed.

The only thing that isn’t working now is the MCE IR blaster for controlling my Sky box (I’m just using Freeview though the DVB tuner on HVR 1300). lirc seems to be setup right since when I run irw and press buttons on my remotes (either the MCE remote that came with the HVR or the Sky remote) it detects them properly. Running irsend doesn’t do anything though (there’s not even an error). But at the moment I’m recording more than I can watch with just Freeview anyway.

Next time, less rambling.

I got an unexpected email today from Catherine Wynne of the BBC. Apparently they are doing a piece about TalkTalk on the 6 o’clock news tonight and during the research came across my TalkTalk problems post (the one with 500+ comments - mostly about problems people are having).

They would like a number of comments from TalkTalk users regarding the service. If you’re interested (and read this quite a bit before 6pm 27th February), call:

Catherine Wynne’s Number snipped since it’s no longer relevant

Yesterday I received a letter from TalkTalk announcing their equipment had been installed in my local exchange and that I would be connected at the end of March. Which according to some people may be the same time that I lose my internet access and phone line. They say it should only go down for twenty minutes and make big deal out of the fact that BT engineers will be doing the actual changeover. Luckily I have internet access at work so I’ll let you know either way.

Yesterday I was in London meeting a friend. We decided to go to Pizza Hut (the one on Strand near Trafalgar Square. 45 minutes later we left not even having had our order taken.

In hindsight I’m not even sure why we waited so long to be honest. There was a certain level comedy to it, after all once you’ve been waiting for half an hour there is part of you wanting to see just how long it could possibly take. There worst thing was that we weren’t the only ones. At least one of the group left (who hadn’t been waiting as long) and another was still there that arrived about minute after us. We eventually decided to leave after reasoning that considering how much food had been brought through, even if we did order there’d be a ridiculous wait for the food.

So we went down the road to Pizza Express and were served in two minutes.

Some people love them, some people hate them. Either way it seems PayPerPost are hear to stay.

They have just released a new feature to try and get more sign-ups that simultaneously gives publishers some exposure while giving out more money to them (they must be doing really well or have some confident venture capital behind them).

The new feature, “Review My Post”. You’ll notice the links at the bottom of my posts for the time being. Basically you click the link, join PayPerPost and get a special opportunity just for you in which you have to review my post. I get free exposure as you promote my blog, you get $7.50 and PayPerPost get another (hopefully) loyal postie. The odd bit is I also get $7.50… So it’s basically PayPerPost paying $15 for each new sign-up.

Considering the crazy people out there and what they are paying (there is currently a $1000 opportunity that wants PR 8 sites only) I expect they’re getting their money’s worth. This means you could get paid (as well as me) for reviewing my post (which I get paid for anyway) which is a review of a feature that lets people review other posts (and get paid) which may themselves be website reviews (that they’re paid for). That’s quite a chain of reviews…

Phil Jones has written a guide to getting TalkTalk broadband working.

Importantly the guide tells you how to do it without using the setup CD - quite a few of the problems people have had might not have happened had they not used the CD.

It’s in depth, complete and for the most part anyone should be able to follow it. I’m not sure the average user would be up to fitting a network card (something only a few people would have to do) but as he says, you may know someone who could help.

Yahoo! have launched a new service called Pipes.

It allows you take user input, grab web feeds, do clever stuff to the result and output it either as RSS or JSON - all with a nice graphical interface. I had a quick play with it and decided there was loads of potential for this. Although I couldn’t really think of any specific examples, but I’m sure people will start coming up with cool stuff eventually.

Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple has announced that the “best alternative” for consumers regarding digital music downloads is the removal of digital rights management. Implications from previous interviews have strongly suggested that he personally doesn’t like it and having the largest share of the personal music player market means it would be good for business too.

The music industry (and the movie/TV industry to a less extent) have to be worried by this. The sales from iTunes are now significant enough that if Apple threatens to remove DRM anyway then they would lose too much by not complying.

Ideally Bill Gates will announce similar feelings. Surely it’s good PR all round for Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to be united solely to protect the consumer? I’m being a little hopeful perhaps…