So I've had a karma bonus for a few years now, which means I post at a base score of 2. I just noticed that my last few posts have shown up with a score of 1 (or perhaps this only has just happened, and earlier posts have been revalued down to a base of 1). I am not aware of having done anything to cost me my karma, and my status still shows as "excellent", so I don't know wtf is going on. Also, when I post I still have a "no karma bonus" checkbox.. very mysterious.

I'm posting this just so I can reply to it and see if I can moderate it up (later, when I have mod points), and see if its base score also changes over time.

So, nothing to see here, move along, move along...

(This entry actually describes events that occurred weeks ago; I was lazy and didn't update my journal as new and more fun stuff happened.)

Finally my turbonet card arrived. I followed the network hacking instructions pretty faithfully (I actually did this stuff ages ago, at the same time as installing the operating system onto my new drive) and everything was raring to go on the software side.

To install the card, I cut away (with pocket knife) some of the rubber under the motherboard, and cut away (with hacksaw) the tab covering the hole for the ethernet cable. I plugged in the tivo into the router, powered everything up, and saw that an IP address was allocated via DHCP. I can successfully telnet into the tivo!

Now it's time to do guided setup and install a headend!!! oh boy!

Time to switch to point form mode.

        Start the process of guided setup, answering all the questions, just
        don't let it phone home. Then load the slices, run SetupComplete and
        after about 30 minutes reboot. This should make it happy.

bellini:ether [~]% telnet 192.168.1.104
bash-2.02# cd /var
bash-2.02# mkdir slice
bash-2.02# cd slice
bash-2.02# mkdir packages
bash-2.02#

crap, cannot ftp into tivo -- clearly ftpd is not running.
http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network.html#_Toc43127457

Hey, no, maybe joe and ftpd ARE there, just uninstalled..
bash-2.02# cd /var/hack
bash-2.02# gzip -d joe.tar.gz
bash-2.02# cpio -idu -H tar < joe.tar
499 blocks
bash-2.02# chmod 755 joe
bash-2.02# ./joe foo
YAY!!!

bash-2.02# gzip -d tbin.tar.gz
bash-2.02# cpio -idu -H tar < tbin.tar
5244 blocks
bash-2.02# mv tivo-bin /var/hack/bin
bash-2.02# pwd /var/hack
bash-2.02# cd /var/hack/bin
bash-2.02# pwd /var/hack/bin
bash-2.02# chmod 755 *
bash-2.02# ./ls
arp dd fold ls paste su uname
chgrp depmod gdbserver ls-lR pathchk sum unexpand
chown dir head md5sum pr tac uniq
chroot ed hostname mkfifo rarp tail uptime
cksum egrep id modprobe rmdir tee wc
comm expand join nice sort touch
csplit fgrep kerneld nl split tr
cut fmt logname od strace tty

bash-2.02# mv tivoftpd /var/hack/bin
bash-2.02# cd bin
bash-2.02# chmod 755 tivoftpd
bash-2.02# ./tivoftpd

bellini:tivo [~/tivo-utils]% ftp 192.168.1.104
Connected to 192.168.1.104.
220 You are in TiVo Mode.
220 Login isn't necessary.
220 Please hit ENTER at the login/password prompts.
Name (192.168.1.104:ether):
331 No Auth required for TiVo Mode.
Password:
230 Running in TiVo Mode.
Remote system type is UNIX.
ftp> bye
221 Service closing control connection.

bash-2.02# http_get
  required args missing
Usage: http_get [-sd] -U <url> -D <dest_dir> -T <tcd_id>
                                -C <call_id> [-H <host_ip>] [-P <port>]
                              [-r <rate> -t <timeout>]

bash-2.02# http_get -T 0 -C 0 -D /var/hack -U http://199.240.141.102:80/tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz
bash-2.02# gzip -d tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz
bash-2.02# cpio -H tar -i < tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar
968 blocks
bash-2.02# /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb console
bash-2.02# TiVo Web Project - TCL - v1.9.4
The program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This program is licensed under the GPL.
See the 'copyright' and 'README' files for copyright and credit information.
Loading modules...
index
errNmNameNotFound object not found (errNmNameNotFound)

        while executing
"mfs find $guideindexdir/ChannelTable"
        ("uplevel" body line 2)
        invoked from within
"uplevel $body"
        invoked from within
"transaction {uplevel $body}"
        (procedure "RetryTransaction" line 5)
        invoked from within
"RetryTransaction {
            set channeltablefsid [lindex [mfs find $guideindexdir/ChannelTable] 0]
            set channeltabledata [mfs get $channeltablefsid]..."
        (procedure "init_channelindex" line 58)
        invoked from within
"init_channelindex"
        (file "/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/modules/index.itcl" line 658)
        invoked from within
"source $module "
info
logos
logs
mail
mfsbrowser
phone
resources
Loaded 89 resource definitions
sched
screen
search
theme
ui
errDbNotFound can't open object (errDbNotFound)

        while executing
"db $db open /DataSet/GenreVersion"
        ("uplevel" body line 2)
        invoked from within
"uplevel $body"
        invoked from within
"transaction {uplevel $body}"
        (procedure "RetryTransaction" line 5)
        invoked from within
"RetryTransaction {
                                set dataset [db $db open /DataSet/GenreVersion]
                                set genres [dbobj $dataset gettarget Data]
                }"
        (procedure "GetSAGenres" line 5)
        invoked from within
"GetSAGenres"
        (procedure "init_db" line 71)
        invoked from within
"init_db"
        (file "/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/modules/ui.itcl" line 4025)
        invoked from within
"source $module "
webremote
Accepting Connections

Trying to ftp:
bellini:tivo [~/tivo-utils]% ftp 192.168.1.104
Connected to 192.168.1.104.
220 You are in TiVo Mode.
220 Login isn't necessary.
220 Please hit ENTER at the login/password prompts.
Name (192.168.1.104:ether):
331 No Auth required for TiVo Mode.
Password:
230 Running in TiVo Mode.
Remote system type is UNIX.
ftp> put add-station.tcl
local: add-station.tcl remote: add-station.tcl
500 Syntax error, command unrecognized.
227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,1,104,4,20).
503 Only ASCII and binary modes are supported

Solution: use binary. All tcl files transferred to /var/hack.

SECTION 5 Moving the slices to the TiVo

Until I get the PPP link working (and/or the Turbonet card arrives), all I can do is set up the emulator on the server side.

SECTION 5.2 Using the TiVo emulator
SECTION 5.2.1 Configure Apache Web Server

Apache is already running on my system. However, I did need to tweak httpd.conf a bit to get CGIs to run properly (but this is something I should have done long ago, anyway).

SECTION 5.2.2 Install TiVo Service Emulator Files

% mkdir ~tivo/emulator
% cd ~tivo/emulator
% mkdir tivo-service
% mkdir static
% mkdir static/listings
% mkdir static/Headend
% cd ~tivo/tivo_canada_cvs_files/n4zmz-emu
% cp * ~/emulator
% cd ~/emulator
% mv *{cgi,pm} tivo-service/
% chgrp -R www .
% chmod g+w ~tivo/emulator
% vi ~tivo/emulator/tivo-service/.htaccess

AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html
AddType application/x-httpd-cgi .cgi
Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI Includes Indexes
IndexOptions FancyIndexing ScanHTMLTitles

Add this to httpd.conf:

Alias /tivo-service "/Users/tivo/emulator/tivo-service"
Alias /static "/Users/tivo/emulator/static"
<Directory "/Users/tivo/emulator/tivo-service">
    AllowOverride None
    Options ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

SECTION 5.2.3 Configure TiVo Service Emulator

/usr/bin/perl and /usr/local/bin/perl point to the same binary on my system, so no corrections are needed.

SECTION 5.2.3.1 Service Emulator Configuration File

Bugs:
guide is missing "urlheaddir" and "headenddir" in the example.
explanation is missing "statuslog", "useupload"
explanation is unclear for "guidedir"
explanation does not match that given in readme-djb.txt
install.PL: fix lan.com URLs

[config]
urlbase=http://192.168.1.100:80/
urlslicedir=static/listings/
slicedir=/Documents/Web\ Pages/Documents/static/listings/
urlheaddir=static/Headend/
headenddir=/Documents/Web\ Pages/Documents/static/Headend/
logfile=/Users/tivo/emulator/status.log
debug=1
downloadall=0
### May want to change these
ntpserver=209.244.0.5 209.244.0.6
verbose=1
keepdays=2
maxslicedays=1
# this should change to something else?
uploaddir=/tmp
# uploadlogs
# usemercury
# usekeyserver
# statuslog=/Documents/Web\ Pages/Documents/tivo-service/tivo.log
# useupload=0

##### get this from the System Info screen
[tcd_id]
0020000202CE591=3

[debug]
logfile=/Users/tivo/emulator/debug.log
# guide=none
guide=1,2,3,4,5,6

[slices]
days=7
offset=6
# This is the same as slidedir above
directory=/Users/tivo/emulator/static/listings/
country=na
useimdb=1
imdbdir=/Users/tivo/guidedir/imdb/
# we may want to change this to "parsexml"
guidetype=xmltv
# guidedir=/Users/tivo/guidedir/
guidedir=/Users/tivo/xmltv2tivo/
usegzip=1
headend=BC123176
group=www

SECTION 5.2.4 Test the TiVo Service Emulator

Now it's time to do a test call!

---------

SECTION 5 Moving the slices to the TiVo
SECTION 5.1 FTP slices to TiVo
SECTION 5.1.1 Add slice processing slices to TiVo
SECTION 5.1.2 Upload slices to TiVo
SECTION 5.1.2.1 Initinal TiVo setup
SECTION 5.1.2.2 Load guide slice

Continuing with the tivocanada.com instructions:

SECTION 4 Create the Slice Files
SECTION 4.1 Linux setup
SECTION 4.1.1 Create Headend Slice File

% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% /writeguide BC123176-1.slice
% cd ~tivo/guidedir/slices
% ln -s ~tivo/xmltv2tivo/BC123176-1.slice

SECTION 4.1.2 Create Phone Slice File

% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% vi AC-604-v1.txt

Guide type=3
AreaCode/1/2646837/1 {
  CityPhoneNum: CityPhoneNum/11
  DBAreaCode: {604}
  Subrecord CityPhoneNum/11 {
      City: {Vancouver} PhoneNum: {6045551111
  }
}

% ./writeguide AC-604-v1.slice
% cd ~tivo/config-files
% ln -s ~tivo/xmltv2tivo/AC-604-v1.txt phone.slice
% cd ~tivo/guidedir/slices
% ln -s ~tivo/xmltv2tivo/AC-604-v1.txt

SECTION 4.1.3 Create Guide Data Slice File
SECTION 4.1.3.1 Create Guide Slice Manually

% cd ~tivo/guidedir
% tv_grab_na --days 1 --output ~tivo/guidedir/listings/test.xml
    Grabbed 1998 programs on 66 channels over 1 day(s) in 95 seconds
    not too bad, that's 21.03 programs/sec and 1.44 seconds/www page

It was suggested that I set up tv_imdb, so here we go:

% mkdir imdb
% tv_imdb --imdbdir imdb --prepStage all --download

wget somehow couldn't grab the imdb files,

insert notes about firewall problems here

...so I did it manually from another machine and scp'd them over, and ran:

% tv_imdb --imdbdir imdb --prepStage all
% tv_imdb --imdbdir imdb --output listings/test.imdb.xml listings/test.xml >&! imdb/tv_imdb.log
% ./parsexmlguide.pl --file listings/test.imdb.xml
% ls shows
12313 12314 incomplete
% ./mkslice 12313+1 > ./slices/BC123176_12313-12314.slice
% ls slices
BC123176-1.slice BC123176_12313-12314.slice

SECTION 4.1.3.2 Create Guide Slice Automatically

Postponed until I figure out what to do with apache directories and the emulator.

SECTION 4.1.4 Create Logo Slice File

% wget http://groups.yahoo.com/some/stuff/Logos/LG-merged-v1.slice.gz -O LG-merged-v1.slice.gz

It seems that tivoweb is required before the logos are useful: "Since the "logos" module is how you associate logos with a channel, there is no (easy) way to do this without tivoweb." Clearly someone needs to write a package to associate the logos with the various serverids from the headend/stations files.

SECTION 4.1.5 Create IR Slice File

I'm not using a digital cable box, so there's nothing to do here.

John Warwick was an enormous help to me when I went begging for help trying to find why writeguide crashed (actually the crash was unrelated to the config files being wrong -- see previous entry -- but my config files werereally screwed up, so I needed to address that first anyway).

Contrary to the tivocanada.com guide saying in section 3.1.2 that changes to config.ini were "optional", a LOT of work needs to be done there.

First of all, all channel information should be in config.ini. .xmltv/tv_grab_na.conf will contain the channel lineup according to what xmltv found (when tv_grab_na was configured in 3.1.1). All missing channels need to be filled in with reasonably-accurate data; I used Shaw's online lineup listing, and googled for the right zipcodes and affiliate info. (The tmsids, as the instructions say, need to be fetched from zap2it.com's webpages.) Then, the serverids in config.ini need to match the values in stations.txt-parsexml -- jwarwick also suggested making them all sequential, instead of relying on the "default" values in the big config-channels.ini provided, for easier debugging later.

By this point, mkconfigfiles.pl should run without any troubles, and all the config files should look good.

PS. take careful note of any channels that share the same station identifer (e.g. for me, 26 has both CBNEW and VOICE; 68 is both BCLEG and BNEWS). They cannot have the same serverid - I added 1000 to one of the two stations' serverids in each case.

I have compiled xmltv2tivo/writeguide with symbol information, and attempted to analyze the core file generated (unfortunately it seems to be corrupt somehow; gdb can't do a stack trace). However, ye olde trusty printfs helped me find the location of the bug, and I have created a very small data file which causes the error.

The offensive headend.txt is:

Guide type=3
 
PostalCode/1/2001000/3 {
        Headend: Headend/1/8001000
        PostalCode: {06010}
}

gdb says the bus error occurs in memmove(). The point in writeguide.c where this happens is:
main()
guide_encode()
add_item() (TYPE_STRING case)
push_mem() (about five lines above the break)

--------------

Update:
Darren pointed out that version 1.4 (the latest) of writeguide dumps core for him too, on windows, but 1.3 does not. I checked out 1.3, compiled it (and changed "fname = strndup(p, v1);" to "fname = strdup(p); fname[v1] = '\0';"), and sure enough, writeguide now runs, and creates a headend slice file! yay!!!

Here is the diff between the two versions. I don't understand the reasons for the change, but from the list archives I gather that it had something to do with accented text.

12a13,14
> #include <libxml/encoding.h>
>
36a39,48
> xmlChar* createUTF8(unsigned char* isolat1Str)
> {
> xmlChar* utf8Str = xmlMalloc(2 * strlen(isolat1Str) * sizeof(utf8Str));
> int utf8StrLength;
> int isolat1StrLength = strlen(isolat1Str);
> isolat1ToUTF8(utf8Str, &utf8StrLength, isolat1Str, &isolat1StrLength);
> *(utf8Str + utf8StrLength) = '\0';
> return utf8Str;
> }
>
237a250,251
> xmlChar *utf8p;
> int utf8pLen;
279a294,295
> utf8p = createUTF8(p);
> utf8pLen = strlen(utf8p) - 1;
281,282c297,299
< push_int(v1);
< push_mem(p, v1);
---
> push_int(utf8pLen);
> push_mem(utf8p, utf8pLen);
> xmlFree(utf8p);
284c301,302
< fname = strndup(p, v1);
---
> fname = strdup(p);
> fname[v1] = '\0';

Here is a log of the steps I took, following section 2, 3 and 4 of the tivocanada.com guide.

SECTION 2 Install the Slice Generation Programs
SECTION 2.1 Linux Programs
SECTION 2.1.1 Installing xmltv
SECTION 2.1.1.1 Configure perl

Mostly straight-forward. I originally tried installing perl via fink, but gave up (it was putting modules in strange places and some were failing to compile), and followed Apple's perl5.8.0 install instructions (make sure to "mkdir /usr/local/" first). I needed to install some things manually:

Text::Iconv: the iconv library is needed first. David Wheeler's page explains what to do here.

expat: the expat library is needed for XML. Follow David Wheeler's advice again.

libxml2: download and install from http://xmlsoft.org/downloads.html

GDBM_File: although this is included in the perl5.8.0 distribution, for some reason it doesn't compile and install automatically when you upgrade to 5.8.0. I found it with "locate GDBM_File" in /usr/local/src/perl-5.8.0/ext/, so just went in there and compiled/installed it myself. I also found a few other things in the ext directory that didn't install, so I processed those as well for good measure.
You also need to create a "bin" user and group (the group already exists), and since I was away from my console I couldn't use the Users system preference (not a good idea anyway, as it will create a full-blown user in the /Users directory and other unnecessary things), I ran:

% nireport / /users name uid
% niutil -create / /users/bin
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin uid 7
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin gid 7
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin passwd "*"
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin home /dev/null
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin shell /dev/null
% niutil -createprop / /users/bin realname "System Binaries"

SECTION 2.1.2 Install guidedir

% cd ~
% mkdir guidedir
% cd ~tivo/tivo_canada_cvs_files/guidedir
% cvs update
% cp -rf * ~tivo/guidedir
% cd ~tivo/guidedir
% vi .tivoguiderc (change /home/tivo to /Users/tivo)

SECTION 2.1.3 Install xmltv2tivo

% cd ~
% mkdir xmltv2tivo
% cd ~tivo/tivo_canada_cvs_files/xmltv2tivo
% cvs update
% cp -rf * ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% vi Makefile (edit include path to /usr/local/include)

% make

(got the error "ld: archive: ./iniparser/libiniparser.a has no table of contents, add one with ranlib(1) (can't load from it)
make: *** [xmltv2tivo] Error 1")

% ranlib iniparser/*.a
% make
% mkdir ~tivo/.tivohelper
% mkdir ~tivo/.tivohelper/maps
% cp ~tivo/xmltv2tivo/schema.txt ~tivo/.tivohelper/maps/
% vi ~tivo/.tivohelper/config.ini (add contents from 2.1.3)

% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% mkdir urldata

SECTION 2.1.4 Install headend-utils

% mkdir ~tivo/headend-utils
% cd ~tivo/tivo_canada_cvs_files/headend-utils
% cvs update
% cp -rf * ~tivo/headend-utils

SECTION 3 Create Configuration Files Required for Slice Generation
SECTION 3.1 Linux setup
SECTION 3.1.1 Create tv_grab_na.conf File

% cd ~
% tv_grab_na --configure (will ask questions, or use a pre-existing.xmltv/tv_grab_na.conf)

SECTION 3.1.2 Customize the config.ini file (not optional!!)

% vi ~tivo/headend-utils/config.ini

- add entries for "version", "zipcode", "state", "community", "county" and "headendcode"

SECTION 3.1.3 Create headend.txt & stations.txt Files

% cd headend-utils
% ./mkconfigfiles.pl ~tivo/.xmltv/tv_grab_na.conf

Add missing channel entries to ~tivo/headend-utils/config.ini

% ./mkconfigfiles.pl ~tivo/.xmltv/tv_grab_na.conf
(confirm no missing channels now)

% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% ln -s ~tivo/headend-utils/headend.txt
% ln -s ~tivo/headend-utils/stations.txt-xmltv stations.txt
% cd ~tivo/guidedir
% ln -s ~tivo/headend-utils/stations.txt-parsexml stations.txt

SECTION 4 Create the Slice Files
SECTION 4.1 Linux setup
SECTION 4.1.1 Create Headend Slice File

% cd ~tivo/xmltv2tivo
% ./writeguide < headend.txt > 06010-1.slice

I received the error "Bus error", and was stopped cold! Now what?

System info:
MacOS X 10.2.6

% uname -a
Darwin bellini 6.6 Darwin Kernel Version 6.6: Thu May 1 21:48:54 PDT
2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.34.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc

Step 2 of the tivocanada.com instructions are completed, namely installation of xmltv, guidedir, xmltv2tivo and headend-utils.

The hardest part by far (and only because I seem to make things far more complicated than they need to be -- see previous post re hard drives for another example) was getting the perl modules installed. I installed fink in order to make the perl5.8.0 installation easier, and then had strange compilation problems with some of the modules so decided to entirely back out of fink -- I didn't delete the /sw directory but I did remove all reference to those directories in my .cshrc file, and moved some files from /sw/bin, /sw/include and /sw/lib to /usr/local. It's much easier to just follow the official perl5.8.0 installation instructions on apple's site (5.8.1 will be included with panther expected mid-fall, also). Oh, don't install stuff into /usr -- trust me. It's much easier to let them go into /usr/local. I think when panther comes along I'm going to wipe my OS and do a clean install, and redo all the perl modules stuff all over again. My /usr dir is still all screwed up, with multiple installations of the same thing littered all over the place.

I had difficulties getting XML::Parser installed, due to the expat lib not being present -- google helped here, and downloading/installing expat manually(1.56.6 compiles okay, although there are lots of warnings) solved that problem (or "fink install expat" would also work I guess). However, I still can't get Tk to install, but I don't think it's needed until much later when I want to get into video extraction.

To do:
- step 3 in tivocanada.com (creating headend, slice files etc)
- actually install Tivo software on tivo and power it up, see it work and all that fun stuff
- install shell and other tools on tivo
- figure out how to get the tivo connected to my computer (I still don't have a turbonet card; haven't looked into the serial PPP stuff yet or now to plug the serial cable into the G4).

Okay, so I bought a 80GB hard drive (Maxtor 80.0GB Ultra 133 (7200rpm)), and the plan was to install it into Julian's PC, move the contents of his 30GB drive to it, then format the 30GB drive for the Tivo and install the appropriate OS and software on it.

I had lots of problems.

Windows sucks. Even after cloning the contents (with Maxtor's Maxblast utility) and reinstalling ME onto the 80GB drive, I was experiencing periodic data corruption. (Yes, I checked the jumpers many times. It took me a few days just to get the machine to recognize a second drive, so trust me I got that part down.) :)

Julian freaked out and decided that if there was any chance of losing his data, he didn't want a bigger drive, so couldn't I just use the new drive in the Tivo and leave his 30GB drive alone?

Sure, okay, so I'll have more capacity, but instead I'll have to pay the cost of the drive (instead of him putting it on his academic grant as an upgrade to his computer).

Somewhere along the way, I broke the floppy drive, and some of the tivo tools require floppy boot disks. Okay, I'll have to take the drive somewhere else for those steps.

I created an mfstools 2.0 boot CD for formatting the drive and installing a Phillips HDR112 3.0 image, and then created a Dylan's boot floppy (linux) and a 3.0 TN floppy.

Following along installing perl modules...

% perl -v
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
                LC_ALL = (unset),
                LC_CTYPE = "iso_8859_1",
                LANG = "en"
        are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

This is perl, v5.8.0 built for darwin

My system's /etc/csh.login had this in it (added last year to get locales working on my email system, to which I ssh daily):

setenv LC_CTYPE 'iso_8859_1'
setenv LESSCHARSET latin1

I changed the above to this:

#setenv LC_CTYPE 'iso_8859_1'
setenv LC_ALL C
setenv LESSCHARSET latin1
..and now perl runs without locale warnings.

Running the CPAN module-getter, I found I needed to install ncftpget ('fink install ncftp').

The upgrade installer asked me to install Net::FTP asap, so I did that first (and then CPAN::WAIT).

Net::NNTP also was needed for some of the module installations.

This all took over a day to install.

Today I installed fink, and some fink modules.

I don't know what it is about my system but I always have difficulties installing everything -- nothing works quite as the instructions imply. To properly use fink's "dselect" command tool engine, I needed to "setenv XTERM xterm-color" to solve some terminal problems.

I had a lot of troubles getting vim to install without bringing all of XFree86 with it, but eventually found a way, with "sudo fink install vim", after already having installed various tools like wget-ssl, mutt, and openssl.

Then I needed to do this in order to install some "unstable" modules:

sudo cp /sw/fink/dists/unstable/main/finkinfo/utils/xmltv-0.5.10-3.* /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo/
sudo cp /sw/fink/dists/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/perlmods/xml-twig-pm* /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo/
sudo cp /sw/fink/dists/unstable/main/finkinfo/languages/perl580-5.8.0* /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo/

Then,

fink install perl580

(and wait over an hour)

Then I quit for the night.

To do:
- cpan perl modules.
- more emulator stuff.

Arriving back home, I started doing some of the work needed on the mac to support the Tivo (provide it guide data, and generally do what the Tivo(tm) Mothership would normally do).

Most of this is following directly from the tivocanada.com instructions.

First, I created a new "tivo" user, and used the pretty muscled tivo logo as its icon.

Then I grabbed the CVS files on the command line. The instructions given didn't work for me; I had to make these modifications:

mkdir tivo_canada_cvs_files
cd !:1
cvs -d :pserver:tivocanada@www.tivocanada.com:/usr/local/cvsroot login
(enter password)
cvs -d :pserver:tivocanada@www.tivocanada.com:/usr/local/cvsroot co guidedir
^guidedir^headend-utils
^headend-utils^n4zmz-emu
^n4zmz-emu^xmltv2tivo
^xmltv2tivo^tivo-utils

Then I quit for the night.
To do:
- upgrade OS one more time
- install fink
- install vim,... via fink
- install xmltv and other utils listed in guide
- create channel listing file for my area

After watching ebay sales for a few weeks and getting a feel for what models existed and what the market price was for each, I finally made a purchase (my very first ebay purchase, even):

TIVO CASE HDR212 NO HARD DRIVE MAKE YOUR OWN!

It's being shipped to Seattle as the Canadian shipping rate from this vendor is absolutely horrendous. I'll pick it up next week when I'm down there seeing Parcifal at the Seattle Opera.

It doesn't have a hard drive, so I'll have to get one separately and format it appropriately. Julian and I figured that since he needs a larger drive for his PC anyway, we'll buy him an 80 gig drive and I'll take his old 30 gig drive for the Tivo.

To do:
- get Tivo from Seattle
- buy new drive for Julian
- format drive and put OS on it
- etc etc

I have lusted after the Tivo for quite a while, and always idly thought about getting one, but never thought it was a realistic goal because Tivos have never been available in Canada. Even if I bought one, it would just be a glorified VCR, as there is no guide data available for my channel lineup.

Then one day recently I realized that surely hacks must exist to make Tivos fully functional in Canada. A quick google found me the Tivo Canada Forum, full of yummy information to use! Woo hoo!

Very quickly, a plan materialized.
- I should buy a Tivo.
- I should hack it to use in Canada.

Step one seemed pretty straight-forward: ebay.
Step two was not so easy.

This journal will chronicle my attempts to get a Tivo to work fully.

-------------------------

TO DO:
- buy Tivo
- buy and install network adapter (ethernet card)
- perform guided setup on Tivo
- install/configure server emulation software on mac
- connect Tivo to network.

Okay, here's a test run at making a journal entry, to see how this all works and to experiment with the features. Would anyone actually come here and read this anyways? What can I possibly say in a journal that wouldn't compromise my identity, since for some reason I have decided to try and conceal my real-life minutiae from this venue?

Of course, if anyone really cared, they could track down who I was anyways...
1. I originally posted some comments on articles with the understanding that they would only be linked to the "user info" page for 2 weeks.. after that, one would have to grovel through the archives manually to find my postings. As such, I have revealed a few tidbits about myself here and there, which can probably be pieced together to say something.
2. Duh, I give out my email address here. Anyone with any kind of unix or networking know-how can do some lookups on the various pieces of information revealed there, to find out quite a lot of information.

I'm waiting for the first slashdot reader to telephone me up at home out of the blue just to say "hi - I read one of your comments today". That would be cool. Now, if someone came and physically knocked on my door, that would be a bit scary. But then, many hundreds of slashdot readers live in the same city as I do, so maybe I already know some of you?

blah blah blah. Maybe I should turn this thing into a weblog. Much cooler than that blogger thing...

[Addendum: it seems that I can edit this entry after-the-fact. Now where's the fun in that....]