Viewing TV on Mac OSX using an HDHomeRun and Plex

The original HDHomeRun plug-in for Plex Media Server no longer works on the later versions of Plex and V2 is still in need of work. Thanks to those on the PlexApp forums, especially enduser, I am able to easily generate a quick work-around until the plug-in can be finished.

The work around involves creating .strm files for each of the active channels. I wrote a simple bash script, to run as a user on OSX, to find the HDHomeRun device, determine the channel list, and create a number of .strm files in your ~/Movies folder. Make sure to run this app as the person who will be running Plex.

To view a channel, select Video Channels in Plex, then select Movies, and finally select the channel you wish to view.

Copy the following code to a file on your desktop, create-hdhomerun-strms.sh, and when comfortable with the code within, execute the script in the Terminal app, using

sh create-hdhomerun-strms.sh


#!/bin/sh
CleanUp()
{
  rm -rf $SCAN_FILE
}
TUNER_ID=$(hdhomerun_config discover | awk '{ print $3 }')
SCAN_FILE=/tmp/${TUNER_ID}.log
trap CleanUp 1 2 3 15
read -p "Ready to create .strm files for HDHomeRun Tuner ID $TUNER_ID? " -r
if ! [[ "$REPLY" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]
then
  exit 1
fi
if ! [ -r $SCAN_FILE ]
then
  echo
  echo Please wait while scanning channels. This may take a few minutes
  echo
  hdhomerun_config $TUNER_ID scan /tuner0 $SCAN_FILE
fi
for IDX in 0
do
  sed -En "
    /^SCANNING: [0-9]/ {
      s/^SCANNING: //
      s/ .*//
      h
    }
    /(encrypted)/ d
    /^PROGRAM [0-9]+: 0/ d
    /^PROGRAM [0-9]+: [0-9]+\.[0-9]+ / {
      s/^PROGRAM ([0-9]+): ([0-9]+\.[0-9]+) ([- A-Z0-9a-z.]+)/hdhomerun:\/\/$TUNER_ID-$IDX\/tuner$IDX \2 \3\?channel=auto:##\&program=\1\&range=/
      G
      s/(.+):##(.+)\n([0-9]+)/\1:\3\2/
      P
    }
  " $SCAN_FILE | while read url
  do
    file=$(echo $url | sed -e 's/.* //' -e 's/\?.*//')
    if [ $IDX -gt 0 ]
    then
      file="$file ($IDX)"
    fi
    file="${file}.strm"
    echo $url > ~/Movies/$file
    echo $file
  done
done

Network Connection fails after Windows Update for 64-bit Windows 7 running in Hyper-V 2008 R2

I have a number of virtual machines running on a very stable Hyper-V 2008 R2 machine. Yesterday’s reboot of my instances to accomodate Windows Update left only my 64-bit Windows 7 instance without a network connection. No amount of fiddling within the instance could restore it. After much frustration I finally removed the Network Adapter from the shut down instance in the Hyper-V Manager and added a new network interface. Upon booting the instance, it installed new drivers and successfully connected to the network.

37 of My Favorite iPad Apps

1. Air Display – turns your iPad into a secondary monitor.
2. Angry Birds – a fun game, great way to pass time. The other Angry Birds games are also recommended.
3. Calorie Tracker (LiveStrong.com) – tracks calories. I also like FitDay.com (just a web site but excellent and free!)
4. Dragon Dictation – it does a good job, although I don’t use it often. There is a service called Jott that I like much better, but it is now a paid service.
5. DropBox – great for sharing files between computers and people.
6. Evernote – note taking application; notes are shared shared between computers.
7. Find My iPhone – Apple provides a free MobileMe account to find your iDevice – it works, too!
8. Friendly Plus for Facebook – an easy to use Facebook interface.
9. GarageBand – to get your creative juices flowing.
10. GoodReader – a very good PDF reader.
11. Glympse – allows friends/SO to track your whereabouts on a map for a brief period of time (if you have the GPS version). Probably better on the iPhone, but still deserves to be on this list.
12. Google Search – better on the iPhone but features voice-based search and other niceties.
13. Instapaper – mark items to read later and then can read them here. Kind of like a scrapbook.
14. iSSH – my preferred method of command line access to Internet-connected machines.
15. iTap RDP – RDP connectivity to a Windows PC (Remote Desktop).
16. iThoughtsHD – my personal favorite mind-mapping tool on the iPad.
17. KeyNote – for when you want to create and/or display (with a connector) presentations.
18. Kindle – allows you to read your Amazon Kindle content on the iPad.
19. A Monster Ate My Homework – fun, and free, game.
20. NASA App HD – interesting content from NASA.
21. Netflix – a must if you subscribe to the service.
22. NewsRack – my favorite RSS news reader. Simple and clean and easy and fast!
23. Pandora – this is so good I am considering signing up for a paid account.
24. Parallels Mobile – if you run Parallels on a Mac, this gives you access to the virtual machines.
25. Scrabble HD – if you are a scrabble fan than this is a must.
26. Star Walk for iPad – lights up the night sky and provides useful content.
27. Tap Tap Radiation – another fun game.
28. TweetDesk for iPad – very good Twitter application – I prefer it for creating content for multiple systems (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).
29. Twitter – I’m torn between this app and TweetDesk for access to Twitter. I prefer TweetDeck for posting to multiple accounts and Twitter to read status updates.
30. TWITpad – free audio/video access to lots of great content from Leo Laporte.
31. VNC Viewer – I use this to access my VNC-enabled computers.
32. WeatherBug – my weather application of choice.
33. WeatherStation – a nice display of weather information.
34. WolframAlpha – because it is just cool. Lots of great information in there. Of course, you can always use the free, web version.
35. WordPress – helps to maintain my WordPress blog when I am away from my computer.
36. Zillow Real Estate – satisfies my real estate curiosities.
37. Zite – news “magazine” started with information from your Twitter and/or RSS feeds.

Being Open To New Ideas

Although not an avid Angry Birds player, my 3yo son is and has told me that the red bird does indeed do something when the screen is tapped. In fact, when he told me what happens, I had a difficult time believing it, even when trying it multiple times myself. But now, it is crystal clear to me.

Turns out my son has found something about Angry Birds that I have not seen anyone else find. Most (if not all) people think when you tap the screen while the red bird is airborne, nothing will happen. That is not entirely correct. The red bird makes a sound similar to “peee-kaaaaa!”

The moral is the obvious one – don’t dismiss an idea because of the messenger or because you think you may know better.

OpenVPN Stops Working on DD-WRT v24 preSP2 (Build13064)

After struggling for quite some time to discover why the once-working OpenVPN setup on my DD-WRT router suddenly stopped working, I finally realized the configuration was corrupted. I had been issuing a number of iptables commands (inserts and deletes) at the command prompt via ssh prior to the failure, although I do not know if the two are connected.

After disabling the OpenVPN client and rebooting the router, I noticed the Public Client Cert was partially truncated. I pasted the certificates back in, applied changes and rebooted the router and it works again once more.