The Technika 8320HD Freeview+ Box

A while ago I snapped up a deal on a Technika 8320HD Freeview+ box and I'm very happy with my purchase. Unfortunately it appears that the company who took over development for the project (FetchTV) have since disappeared.

There are a couple of useful links around the web, specifically the Unofficial Technika 8320HD blog (http://8320hd.blogspot.co.uk/)!
However, that hasn't been updated since the last blog post in August 2012 (ironically this blog post was titled: "Probably my last post as Fetch TV does a runner").

Whilst those of us with this device have lost some of the FetchTV services (I never had them as they'd gone by the time I bought one!) however it appears that some features are still available such as BBC iPlayer (accessed by entering the channel of 222).

Below, you should find a list of handy hints from my experience of the 8320HD box. I'll try to update it from time to time.

In the mean time, if anyone has a link anywhere that the firmware for this device can be downloaded please leave a comment.

EDIT:
During my search for a manual, I was able to find this Quick Start Guide of sorts from the "Tesco Tech Team" (who knew they existed!) - check it out here.

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Exporting to USB stick/hard drive.
One of the commonly touted features is the ability to export recorded programs from the box to a USB storage device.
From the manual: "Export recordings to FAT32 formatted USB external hard drive or flash drive. Because of FAT32 limitations files will be split into 2Gb chunks, but will play back seamlessly on the SmartBox."
However, when I initially tried to use on my 60GB external hard drives that was formatted under Windows 7 the 8320HD just sat at waiting for storage device. A little bit of trial and error later and I tracked down the problem, apparently a 60GB drive will be formatted as exFAT rather than FAT32. Using a 1GB stick I was successfully able to format it as FAT32 & export a program from the 8320HD.
SD programs are around 500MB for a 30min program. HD programs are around 2GB for 1 hour.
Apparently it is not possible to export HD programs without downgrading to an earlier firmware version due to licensing constraints.

Easier Exporting of Recording Programs.
Since playing with the export feature, I've found an easier way than using the USB port. Assuming you have your8320HD connected to your network you can access a web frontend that lists all of your recorded programs. Clicking one will then start a download.
This works for both SD and HD recordings.

Accessing BBC iPlayer.
As I mentioned above, it is possible to watch programs from BBC iPlayer on your 8320HD. To do this, simply change your channel to 222 and go from there! Obviously, you need to have either an active wireless or wired network for this to work.
I picked this up from the Tesco Tech Team link above.

Subversion Repositories

When I left Uni I had a what I thought was a good idea...to digitise all of my notes!

The reasoning was sound, I could digitise and sort my notes so they were sortable and easy to store in case I ever wanted to go back to them (and actually learn the stuff they taught me!). However, I quickly realised there were a couple of problems:
1. I have a lot of notes. 4 years worth of lectures, practicals and programs to be precise!
2. I don't have a scanner so OCR/scanning is out
3. I am not typing out that many notes

 So clearly we have to start small. Before I jump into scanning all my notes I decided to work out the storage mechanisms first.

There were a lot of programming modules on my course (well it was Electronic and Software Engineering!) so a source code repository seems like a good start.

I've used Visual SourceSafe from Microsoft before, unfortunately this would require a Windows Server License and a Visual Studio license. Both of these licenses are beyond my target cost of £0. Therefore it falls to another source code control system I've used, SubVersion.

The blurb from SubVersion is...

"Subversion is an open source version control system. Founded in 2000 by CollabNet, Inc., the Subversion project and software have seen incredible success over the past decade. Subversion has enjoyed and continues to enjoy widespread adoption in both the open source arena and the corporate world."

- http://subversion.apache.org/

It didn't take long to set up an Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS server, and then it was simply a matter of finding a tutorial and following it.

So it appears I am indebted to "Arbab" from "Lazy Geek -:)" for his post SVN Server on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with Web Access.

It was concise and easy to understand, in less than hour I had my SVN server set up and working!

As with anything there were a couple of problems post install, though these were predominantly down to me not checking what I was doing. Such as forgetting to perform the chown step on new directories.

But it's now sorted, all I need to do is stop putting of digitising my notes and make a start!

Injury #1

 23/10/2012 (Forgot to Publish)

So yesterday I joined the realms of climbing injuries and popped my first pulley.

Looking back it was quite surreal, I was side pulling on a small crimp (it's really a wooden foot hold) and there was a small crunch. At the time, I thought it was the wooden hold that had settled on the board since it had only been up an hour or so and I was one of the first people on it.

It was when the guy I was climbing with asked "Are you OK?" that I realised something might be up.

As it stood, I was unable to bend my finger fully (it's the ring finger on my left hand) and pulling down on an edge hurts a little. As it's not excruciatingly painful I doubt that I've damaged the tendon, the most logical explanation is a pulley so that's what I'm sticking with.

Of course it's at this point where I started thinking "Shit. What have I done?! Will it ever heal? Will I be able to climb at all? Will it need to be amputated?", well OK that last one is a bit excessive and didn't really go through my mind but the others were all fleeting reactions to my first injury.

The anatomy of the damage is a little hazy for me (Biology was never my strong point), however the following website explains it extremely well; http://www.nicros.com/training/articles/finger-tendon-pulley-injury/

It's interesting reading various opinions round the internet about what to do in case of this injury. The most common piece of advice is to rest it and ice it. However, the length of time to rest it is where the problems start.
The nicros website indicates that the rest period should be from 2 weeks up, however other sources (none of which I have to hand) indicate 1 to 2 weeks. I think it depends on the extent of the injury.

Since I do not know the fully extent of my injury it's hard to gauge how long it'll take to recover. So this is what I did...

Week 1.
What I did do:
No climbing. Minimal exertion of finger, fortunately I have a desk job so this isn't too much hassle.
What I didn't do:
I didn't ice it. I forgot.

Week 2.
What I did do:
Introduction back to climbing for 30mins, no crimpy stuff. For those of you with access to a Beastmaker 1000 finger board, I stuck to the jugs. As soon as it felt stiff or painful I stopped.
What I didn't do:
No ice, no anti-inflammatory's (but it wasn't inflamed!)

14/11/2012

So how is it now?
Well, it's been nearly 4 weeks and the finger no longer hurts. I'm pretty sure that the full range of motion has returned (though since I have no reference other than my right hand I can't be entirely sure. It does not hurt to climb on, however it can be a little stiff after climbing for a little while.

When I'm climbing I try to not to do anything to aggravate it and when I'm not climbing I try to maintain movement.


If such an injury happens again, I will aim to ice it earlier and perhaps rest it for longer with a complete cessation of activity. Lessons learned though!

Stats

I recently upgraded my Flickr account (my photostream is here by the way) to "Pro".

I didn't do this to make myself look like a professional or to increase traffic. I did do it because I'd reached one of the limits of a free account (displaying only the last 200 photos) and I did do it because it was a gift.

However, with the pro account comes the stats page. Oh dear. I love stats, I'm absolutely pants at working them out but I find them fascinating to read. They're often bandied around in order to make statements seem profound or to deride another service.
Since my account has introduced this stats page I find myself checking it, almost every opportunity I get. Whilst I don't see a serious amount of traffic I seem to be receiving 1 to 5 views per day on my recent photos.
My latest photo is:

This is the first photo on my photostream that was taken with my smartphone, rather than a dSLR. I'm very happy with the way it came out (hence why it made it into my Project 52), I'm hoping to improve my smartphone photography!

Watch this space for more info!

A few days climbing in Yorkshire - 26/09/2012 to 28/09/2012

Day 1 - Wednesday 26/09/2012
A leisurely start to the day involved me leaving home at around 10:30am, provisions made for climbing and accommodation had hastily been confirmed a few days ago once the weather had started looking better.
The plan was to meet up with Frosty in Harrogate around lunch time before heading over to a fast drying crag for a climbing session...that'll be Almscliff then.

From the car park the top of the crag looked horrendously wet, not really surprising given the last week of wet weather and mornings occasional heavy showers, so we opted for the bouldering mats! We started at first boulder, think I've completed it before but with a sodden start and a face exposed to the wet and sheltered from the winds meant we had to look elsewhere. The face of flying grove was a good slab (well as good as slabs can be!) until the drizzle started. This we moved on to the "Virgins Traverse" (V4). The first section has a tricky start on sloped holds which flows into a section where hand holds become (polished) foot holds, finally a long reach brings you to the arete and positive holds. The traverse continues around this corner to the obvious corner under a block, a nails end to an excellent problem.
Whilst the drizzle was still coming down, the assault on problems continued including The Gypsy (V4 6a). All were nails, none were sent.

Whilst waiting for the rain to finish, we also went looking for the cave under Almscliff. Supposedly one end starts near the Virgin Boulder and comes out on the other side of the crag, information seems a little sketchy and this forum post is the only information I can find after a cursory google. 

Whilst at Almscliff, we also completed the often bouldered start to Wall of Horrors, coming in at V3 6a it is a little awkward but a very rewarding problem. I also tried the Wall of Horrors traverse, http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=69704.

...and so ended the days climbing, let's head to the pub!

Day 2 - Thursday 27/09/2012
A slow start to the day whilst recovering the nights beer consumption, whilst Frosty was at work. Then a trip over to the National Trust site known as Brimham Rocks (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/brimham-rocks/\). Although the National Trust does some sterling work in protecting and publiscing sites of interest, I do feel that their car park charges leave a little to be desired. The car park charge at Brimham is £4 (I imagine this is consistent across the National Trust sites but I do not know for sure).
For an evening's climbing £4 felt very steep at the time, however on reflection it doesn't seem to bad. To start with, if I was a family man taking my kids somewhere for the day (you could easily spend this amount of time at Brimham with a picnic etc) then £4 for a day out is pretty good value. The parking is well defined and has been laid with hardcore meaning it wears much better than a simple grass field. There are also amenities on site including a cafe (I was much too late for this). Either way at the time it felt expensive, on reflection it is reasonable for a day out.

Frosty and I started at the Cannon Rock Area, with me taking the first lead up Maloja (VS 4c). This was a nice little climb to start on, nothing strenuous (in fact it was bordering on easy) and with a move at half height that just made you think a little. Once the problems are overcome it was a simple jaunt to the top.
Frosty was next to lead and opted for Frensis (VS 5a), a short set of parallel cracks that led to a n interesting traverse unless you were willing to commit to the E1 finish!
Before I had chance to follow Frosty up and tell him he made it look hard (he didn't, it was pretty tough going!) I was asked to help rescue a child off some boulders. It turns out the kid had been able to go up the sloping stair case to the top of the boulder but couldn't reverse the moves and trust those grit slopers. I can't say I blame him, sloping holds on grit is an acquired taste and not something I'm inclined to use at the best of times. 

With the rescue and seconding complete, it was getting late so we headed on to Castle Rock for Frosty to try Desperation Crack (HVS 5b). About three quarters of the way up Frosty had decided he could go no further and opted to be lowered off and ab for my gear. During this time, the sun finally set and we were benighted, given the easy access to this crag this is definitely not a major problem.

With the climbing over for another day, we headed back to the pub...

Day 3 - Friday 28/09/2012
The last day in Yorkshire. After a brief walk around Harrogate city centre I picked Frosty up and headed up out to Almscliff with the intention of leading some routes. However as with most plans, they were laid to waste when the heavens opened for some short heavy showers. As we sat in the car contemplating the rain in Yorkshire we decided that an afternoons bouldering was the way forward.
For the first time this trip we were not alone at the crag, several other groups had the same idea and were bouldering.
Starting from the Low Man area, Frosty sent the Matterhorn Arete (V0 5a) as a warm up, something that I found I could not commit to. So instead I went to solo Low Man Easy Way (Diff) followed by Stew Pot (HVD), both were rather polished but eased me back into solo-ing gently.

The final problem of the day (and this climbing trip) was Pork Chop Slab (V2 5c), which felt harder than V2 but that may been because it was raining! Still it was sent with minimal effort and was extremely rewarding.

End

Additional: I'm pretty sure there are lots of problems I've missed off, mainly from the Friday. These include a slab that started on two dodgy pockets followed by a rock over onto sloping holds as well as some more problems to the left of pork chop slab.
If I'd written these down at the time of doing them there'd probably be more information..still at least I've written a (mostly!) complete trip report.

Changing the Grub 1.99 (2) default boot order

As much as I love using Ubuntu, on my desktop PC I find I spend more time in Windows. This is mainly due to computer games and photo software which I have found do not port well onto Linux based systems.

Consequently everytime I reinstall the Ubuntu partition I'm left with the annoying behaviour of Grub making Ubuntu the default boot partition. With older versions of Grub the fix was simple, all you needed to do was edit the menu.lst file and hey presto everything was sorted.

However, the introduction of Grub 2 (or 1.99) from Ubuntu 11.04 onwards eliminated the requirement for menu.lst so I was back where I started. Fortunately Tombuntu has come to my rescue with this handy blog post: http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2011/09/25/how-to-change-boot-order-in-ubuntu-11-04/

This process worked perfectly and now I happily have Windows set as my default boot option.

Photography!

Following an idle chat with a friend whilst climbing we have decided to hold a friend photography competition. Initially the competition was to between Sam and I, however in the spirit of variety being the spice of life we have invited some other people to join.

The rules are as follows:

1. One photo must be uploaded to Flickr by Midnight Sunday.
2. The photo must be in a Project 52 set or obviously titled (e.g 1/52 etc)
3. Only photos shot within the last 2 weeks are eligible
4. No heavy Photoshopping, only minor edits that enhance instead of change a photo (e.g contrast, saturation etc).

I think that's all of the rules! It's nothing to strenuous and so far we've been pretty chilled about when the photos are uploaded.

My set of photos can be viewed here and my current competition can be viewed here and here.

Check the sets each week for the latest photo!