XBMC and Plex Media Server revisited ...

    A little over a week ago I wrote about using Plex and XBMC on the same machine. After having a few days to play around with it I have decided that its time for a revisit to this subject.

Bloatware inside of documents ...

    In my last post, I had the idea of revisiting an old project. I had forgotten just how bloated an XFDL file really is. I have spent most of the day working on refining my progress so far and making sure the stage is set for parts of the software that are not yet written. Basically, I spent the day planning and digging through the XML file contained within. I had forgotten just how bad it was in there.

XFDL Viewer for Mac

    Today I decided to revisited a project that I had dropped almost a year ago; to write an XFDL viewer for Mac osX. The last time I tried this, it was a disaster. The forms sort of exploded all over the window and being unfamiliar with RealStudio, I was unable to figure out control arrays. Basically, when ever I opened  a second form, it would also write all of that data onto the first one. It as a less than stellar first attempt.

Commodore Amiga is back ... well, not really

    Today I read an interesting article that peaked my interest. It seems that Commodore USA, LLC is producing a new line of Commodore and Amiga branded computers. As a former Amiga user, I was initially wary of the news. You see, the death throws that costumed the original Commodore company took a very long time. For years no one was certain if there would be support or not. That is until the company was liquidated and sold for spare parts. Until now ... sort of ...

XBMC, Plex Media Server, Airplay and Ubuntu 11.10 ...

     After spending a few days looking for a solution that would fit into my existing setup, I have almost found a solution that works. What I am looking for sounds really simple, the ability to watch any and all of media when and where I want and on the device that I want to watch it on. Due to conflicting standards, closed source software and the restriction of the MPAA this is much harder than needs to be. 

How to add files plex media server on ubuntu 11.10

    It occurred to me, while reviewing some of my previous posts, that I haven't yet covered some very basic "to-do's" about the Plex Media Server. So this post will cover, among other things, how to add files to the Plex Library on Linux.

Ubuntu Media Server ... whats next?

    If you have been following my blog, then you already know that I use Ubuntu 11.10 and the Plex media server software as a "Media Center PC". The Ubuntu PC also functions as file server and has two 500GB partitions for Time Machine Backup from my two Mac's. I have also managed to get Netatalk 2.2.2 and Avahi to play nice with the default Samba file sharing software. I wanted to keep Samba available for when friends with Microsoft Windows laptop's came to visit.

    So far, this setup has been working out much better than expected. The server (which is really just plain Jane Ubuntu 11.10 for desktops) is more stable than I could have hoped for and everything integrates well enough into my network that even my "non-techie" wife can use it regularly from her Mac or from the Roku without any trouble. The real question is, where do I go from here?