BillingsLUG

Backups are something that are generally ignored until they are needed. Having good backups will save you much time and headache and maybe even money. Having had backups fail before and having to pay thousands of dollars to recover the data is an experience that I hope to never have again.

Virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) is a virtualzation platform. I use it to test out new Linux distributions as well as to run some limited tests of new software for customers. It can run on Linux or windows hosts and can run quite a few guest operating systems. Installation in Ubuntu is a snap. First enable the VirtualBox repo if you don't want to use the open source edition. Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list. I added this to mine for gutsy:

deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian gutsy non-free


FreeNX is the free open source version of nomachine.org NX software. It is a VNC like program that tunnels over SSH and has compression to run well and at high resolutions over even slow internet links. This program has many advantages over the VNC protocol. The biggest is security, it is built into the program from the ground up. All connections are encrypted and tunneled over SSH by default with FreeNX. FreeNX is also faster by a huge factor over VNC this is a real plus on slow connections.

MediaMVPLately, I have had some fun with a Hauppauge MediaMVP 1000. It is a networked device that is able to receive video and audio steams and display them on your TV. It includes a remote control and once configured is very easy to use. What makes this device extra neat, is that it runs Linux with a few options available giving extra features. Be sure to attend this month's BillingsLUG meeting, when I give a demo of the MVP1000.

When it powers on, it actually loads its OS over the network. The fine people behind the MVP Media Center project have a quite nice replacement mini Linux Distro to get more out of the MVP 1000.

MVP Media Center supports a number of extras compared to the stock Haupauge offering. There is support to integrate the MVP to your ReplayTV and/or MythTV systems. MVPMC also supports streaming from everyone's favorite media player VLC in addition to audio streaming from a SlimServer.

For February's meeting, I will do a show and tell of this neat little device and we will go through the steps of setting up MVPMC and a Linux PC as a media server.