PerlerPal v. 1.4 Released!

I just finished updating PerlerPal to 1.4 – here’s the new features!

• Added a load option to the palette editor
• Added the ability to turn off and on the grid
• Fixed an issue with palettes being able to save invalid entries (which made some palettes not render correctly)
• Added a palette display for the loaded palette
• Added an option to show color numbers (good for printouts/colorblindness)
• Added the ability to create new palettes

Thanks to all that have commented – these changes were made because the users requested them. I’m happy that people enjoy using the utility – please keep the comments coming! It’s what makes me happy to keep improving the tool! Go to the new tool here!

Setting up Differential Backups for Websites

Backups. No one likes doing them, but they’re too important not to do. Typically when I’m doing stuff for my websites, I will occasionally do a tar of a directory and save it off, or even set up a script that will do this nightly. Then I have issues with disks filling up, and not wanting to delete my backups for fear of losing something (like the 20 copies aren’t enough!)
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How to Organize Your Music

So, I have a pretty extensive CD collection that I’ve amassed over the years, and have had various times when I have ripped them (with different programs, etc.). Now that I have an iPod, I’m finding the need to actually get my stuff organized. Here are the issues I’ve been having:

• Missing or incorrect artwork
• Badly labeled tracks (misspellings mostly)
• Bad ID3 tags
• Track numbers incorrect
• Incorrect filenames
• Inconsistent genres, makes playing music by genre on the iPod funky
• Album Artist not specified, so “Greatest Hits” ends up being one huge album
• Low quality tracks that need to be re-ripped – I at one time thought that 128 kpbs was just fine…
• Tracks that have bad audio (usually ripping a badly-scratched CD will do this) – need to re-buy the CD

Here’s my solution to clean up my library, feel free to use it for yours.
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How to Set Up Virtual Web Hosting with Apache

Up until a couple of years ago, I used shared web hosting for serving up my various sites. I went through several of them because for whatever reason, they turned out to not be what I wanted. I finally came to the realization that I needed to get my own dedicated host. I found a good provider (The Planet), and started migrating over my websites (along with my friend Chris’ sites). Something I knew I would have to learn is how to set up Apache to be able to do virtual hosting. In this guide, I’ll show you how I did it, and the script I created to make things easier.
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Linux RetroGaming: Atari 8-Bit

I’ve been into emulation again lately, and I started with my first favorite system of all time, the Atari 8-bit computer. When I was growing up, I had 2 different 8-bit machines:

The Atari 400:

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Gaming in Linux

One of the reasons people have a hard time making the jump to Linux is the fact that they have a hard time leaving the games they play in Windows. In this article, I’m going to describe some methods of getting around this hurdle, and make the transition to Linux easier. I’m not going to promise that your favorite game will work, but will give you the tools to be able to try. I’m also not going to be talking about native linux apps – those are pretty straightforward. This article will focus on Windows apps in Linux.
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How to Convert DVDs and TiVo MPEG2 Videos to H.264

Previously, I have showed you how to set up software to be able to rip DVDs to your hard drive, and I’ve also shown you how to copy your TiVo videos nightly. I’ve described the method I use to transcode the videos, but haven’t provided the script… Until now. After months of using and tweaking, here’s what I use. I call it VidProc.

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How to Copy Videos from a Series 3 TiVo to Ubuntu Linux

This guide will show you how to set up a script to copy programs from your Series 3 TiVo on a regular basis, without having to do a thing after it’s set up!

Information you will need:

• Your TiVo’s IP Address (needs to be static)
• Your TiVo’s Media Access Key (MAK) – this can be found on tivo.com after you’ve logged in
• The location where you want your files to be dumped (they are *big* – figure 1 GB per hour for SD, and like 5 GB per hour for HD)
• The location where the files will eventually be stored

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Installing Perl Modules on Ubuntu Linux

I’ve been a perl programmer/scripter/hacker for many years now, and I will frequently use CPAN modules to be able to do the out-of-the ordinary. This small guide is intended to help people easily install these modules.

First, let’s get the CPAN module up to date:

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
(take defaults to set everything up)
cpan> exit
$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install Bundle::CPAN
(answer yes to the question about saving data)
cpan> reload cpan

Then, to install a module, it’s simply:
$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install <name of module>
cpan> exit

Asynchronous Mirroring in Unix

One of the issues I’ve found with having lots of data is the fact that I’m worried that a hard drive will fail, and I’ll lose something important. Since I did have that happen earlier this year, I am now determined to not let it happen again. I’ve been focusing a lot on resiliency – making it so that there are no single points of failure. Since I have been collecting a lot of hard drives, I decided to put them to good use, and set up some data replication onto multiple drives.

You might ask, why not just set up a RAID5? Or, alternatively, why not buy a Drobo and be done with it? I hear the first one a lot, especially since I deal with RAID day in and day out for my day job. The main issue I don’t do either of these things is that I’m cheap! I want to be able to use all of the hardware I have without tossing out old stuff. On my server, I have the following drives:

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