Posted by Ub3rG33k on May 8, 2010 in
Apple,
Microsoft,
Tech 
If you are anything like me (and god help you if you are 
), and use the internet as a PVR, then this software will be a god send to you.
I’ve just recently ordered a Mac Mini to replace my last remaining Windows machine, and thought I’d better check if I could still do what I do now.
Currently my Dell machine, sits in the corner, and is used as my media server, my iTunes server and my torrent machine. Currently I have uTorrent installed, which downloads each episode using the RSS Feed option. Each of the RSS feeds points to a particular RSS feed for my favourite TV program from eztv, and once a new episode is detected, it’s downloaded.
Once the episodes are downloaded, these get copied to a shared location on my NAS Box, which I can then stream to my PS3′s or Xbox using PS3 Media Server.
I did a little googling last night, and even though there is a Mac version of uTorrent, it’s still in beta, and missing a lot of the functions that the Windows version has, eg the RSS downloader.
After a little more googling, I found a tidy little piece of freeware software called ted (Television Episode Downloader). Essentially it has a list of all the TV episodes that you can select from, and when a new episode appears, it will download the torrent file, and open this with your default torrent client.
Ok, this that fixes the missing functionality of uTorrent, however the software is a lot smarter that the RSS Downloader function in uTorrent, as once you’ve added your favourite shows, you can choose to start from the next available episode, the previous episode, or even download every episode. You then have the option to select “HD Only”, which will only download episodes with the tag of HD or 720.
The interface will also show you the name of the next episode, and when it’s going to be aired.
The good thing about this software is that is available free of charge on Mac, Windows and Linux, and only requires that you have a torrent client installed (I highly recommend uTorrent, Mac and Windows clients available).
Now some people may have a problem with downloading episodes from the internet, I however don’t mind, as I tend to buy the boxsets once they are available. Also this is little different to using BBC iPlayer, or Sky Anytime.
Anyway, let me know your thoughts, and enjoy
Tags: anything, client, dell machine, Download, downloader, episode, eztv, favourite, favourite tv, feed, feed option, functionality, God, HD, help, internet, lot, mac, Mac Mini, mac version, mac windows, machine, media server, option, PS3, pvr, RSS, server, Sky Anytime, software, TED, television episode, Torrent, torrent client, tv episodes, tv program, utorrent, version, windows, windows machine, windows version, xbox
Posted by Ub3rG33k on Oct 30, 2009 in
PC Gaming,
PS3,
XBOX 360 I like most of you, use twitter, facebook and occasionally pop on to myspace to see how many bands want to be my friends.
Anyway, on the 4th of October, through total fluke read through a twitter conversation, and noticed a load of twitter entries from @squ1r3ll, with updates on his gaming status….linking to a site called raptr.com.
Being a bit of a gamer I’ve tried for months to get my gamertags, achievement, out to my friends and virtual friends, but the only way I’ve found to do this is manually.
I tried a number of facebook apps, and had varied success, they would either change my status to “Darren is playing…..” after a couple of hours of gaming, or just not bother at all. The achievements would post to my feed, however this was a manual process, I belevie the app is called “Xbox 360 Live GamerCard”.
Anyway, raptr.com, what is it…well let me tell you, it’s fantastic, and what I’ve been looking for, for ages. You sign up (using Facebook connect if you like) and add your gamer profiles, eg Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Warcraft, etc etc, what it then does is monitors and reports on your gaming activities, eg which game your playing, on which platform, and records how long, and any achievement you may get.
Xbox live is monitored through the feed that Microsoft so kindly provide, and updates almost in real time (can be a 5/10 min delay), PSN tracking is currently broken due to Sony putting a restriction on their data. Everything else is tracked by the client.
The client is a custom messenger type client that can also run your msn, gtalk, aim, yahoo, xfire and icq, however this is the key to tracking the stats on your PC/Mac. On initial install it will scan your hard drive for games, and add them to your collection (both on the client, and on the website), any new games installed it will pick them up and also add to your collection.
When your ready to play a game, just start as normal and this will change your messenger stats to “Darren is playing xxxxxxx”, as it does with your online raptr status too, and logs the time played. When finished, it calculates the time you were playing and adds this to your tally on the website.
With the site you also get the option of a couple of signatures with varied information, all updating in real time, varying from currently playing to, the last/most played with you longest played 6 games.
Once you start to build up your friends, it will give you a ranking out of your current friend on a particular game (bases on the number of achievements you have), you can also compare achievements on a game with upto 3 friends at a time.
Finally one very cool feature of Raptr, is that when you get an achievement, it will tell you what percentage of Raptr users who have that game, have gained that achievement, giving you an idea of how hard it was.
The only downside with Raptr, is that it is unable to check your PSN stats, now this is through no fault of their own, it just seems Sony is being a little protective about their data. You can update your playing time, but this is manual, hopefully some day in the future, they will allow this.
From googling the PSN issue, I stumbled on a number of other social networking for gamer sites, GamerDNA, Playfire and Giantbomb.
I haven’t used any of the sites as much as I’ve used Raptr, however they all seem to be kinda tracking my stats.
GamerDNA, does seem to track PSN stats, and pull through the trophies, but there seems to be around a 2 day delay
Playfire, Love the layout, but again doesn’t pull through the PSN stats/trophies, doesn’t track time, and also about a day behind.
GiantBomb, I only signed up for this last night, but it’s already tracking my Steam, Warcraft and XBL, but again, no PSN.
All in all, it’s good to more and more of these sites popping up, I remember the day when gaming was deemed as geeky, however seems every man and his dog is doing it now, and it’s now socially accepted.
Personal recommendation, give Raptr.com a try, it just works and if you do, feel free to add me as a friend
My ID’s for the sites are as follows
Raptr
GamerDNA
Playfire
Giantbomb
and no, Raptr isn’t broken, I’ve actually spent that much time playing Borderlands
Tags: achievement, apps, client, com, couple, Darren, day, facebook, fluke, game, gamer, gamer profiles, GamerDNA, gaming, gaming activities, Giantbomb, hard drive, mac, Microsoft, monitors, msn, new games, number, pc mac, Playfire, psn, raptr, real time, restriction, site, sony, status, steam, time, twitter, virtual friends, xbox, xbox 360, xbox live, xfire
Posted by Ub3rG33k on Jan 15, 2009 in
Tech 
I’ve added to my toy collection, I’ve bought (as the title would suggest) a new NAS Drive.
I’ve has for the pass couple of years a 500Gb Western Digital MyBookWorld, which as ….well ok, well, slow, unstable, and over heats all the time.
I had quite a manual process to back this up too, I had to keep a machine on all the time, to run a scheduled task, to sync all the contents on the NAS drive to an external 500Gb hard drive, this was effective, however kind of overkill for a simple backup solution.
btw, the reason I’m so paranoid about backup, is a new firmware came out for the NAS drive, so I thought “OOOO, possible speed increase”, so upgraded, and it fell over Grrrrrr !, you can only imagine the paid and suffering I went though to a retrieve the content from the drive, the rebuild the linux partitions….not something I really want go through again.
Anyway, back to the Acer NAS drive, this drive is quick !, and I mean really quick !! (ok, getting around 18Mb /sec transfer speed, so about 3 times faster that the MyBookWorld)
It’s got an Itunes and Media server which supports Vob files (a god send for me streaming HD content to my PS3.
Currently running in Raid 5 (as raid 10 (0+1) isn’t available, so getting high read speeds, ok’ish write speeds, and 1.5TB of parity backup storage
It does come with Wireless access too, however this is switched off as it’s connected to my Gigabit network.
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4 x Serial ATA Hard Drives |
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10/100/1000 Ethernet, auto MDI/MDIX |
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MP3, WAV/PCM, WMA, AC3/AAC, OGG, AIF/AIFF |
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VOB, AVI, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMV9 |
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19 V 150 W external power adapter |
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Tags: 500gb hard drive, acer, aspire, AVI, backup, backup solution, backup storage, client, content, digital, disk, drive, gigabit, gigabit network, hard, hard disk drive, itunes, Linux, Mac OS, media server, MPEG, mybookworld, nas, Network, parity, power, Raid, raid 10, raid 5, raid level, serial ata hard drives, server, SMB, speed, speed increase, support, technical specifications, time, toy collection, transfer speed, vob, vob files, Western, western digital, windows, wireless access, X
Dimensions
