LinuxMCE Forums
General => Users => Topic started by: golgoj4 on January 06, 2013, 05:26:22 am
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The time is coming for the 11th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE for the initiated). And now, you are initiated, arent you? :) Sorry, too much Batman.
SCALE 11X will be held Feb. 22-24, 2013, at the Hilton Los Angeles
Airport hotel. For more information, visit
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org
Anyways, as usual, I will be there representing the LinuxMCE project and I am letting whoever is interested know. Will else be attending? We need people to man the booth mainly so why not come hang out?
I have most of the hardware needed, and what I dont have will be acquired in short order. But I need people. Its a rough 2 days being there from show open to close, so the more people the better.
I will most likely be getting a room at the Hilton because I dont feel like driving back and forth, and a local chillout spot is nice. If anyone else is interested, im sure we could figure something out. If anyone cant make it but would like to donate towards covering the cost of a room, by all means please contact possy.
Thats about it.
good day.
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Speaking of possy: In case anyone want to donate towards getting me to the expo, I'd very much appreciate it. The cheapest flight HAM->LAX->HAM I could find was around 600EUR.
We did setup a donate button on the main page two-three years ago. iirc we have received donations of around 40USD...
It seems people really like the free as in beer approach.
Still, this is now the perfect opportunity for everyone who is glad the LinuxMCE exists to chime in and donate. hari is controlling the donations. So GO and donate via PayPal, so golgoj4 doesn't have to bear all the costs, and I can assist golgoj4 in not needing to bear all work at the booth. I personally invested over a grand in 2008 to attend the Berlin LinuxTag which has been a great success. Money is tighter these days, so I won't be able to attend SCALE if it is not for people donating.
Thanks.
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Donation sent :-)
btw, the paypal page is in german, even though I view it from the UK. I wonder if there is a way to make it more ... international somehow? Show english for english speaking peeps.
I can see that being a little off putting.
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Thanks for the donations. atm we can give golgoj4 the room for a single night.
Come on, fellas. Say Thank you with your money.
Thanks for listening.
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Donation sent :) Not much, but i hope it helps. :)
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Thanks for the donations. atm we can give golgoj4 the room for a single night.
Come on, fellas. Say Thank you with your money.
Thanks for listening.
Donation gone - Now he can get something to eat too :)
-Coley.
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Every little bit helps. Just remember, even though we don't pay anything for the booth space, there are a lot of expenses (monetary and energy wise) during SCALE. IF we do get enough money for golgoj4's hotel room that's great. If we get the money for my flight, even better, as it will lessen the load on golgoj4. Whoever is at SCALE will still go away with a bill to pay. But that's okay.
Again, thanks for the donations so far, and please, keep them coming.
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As a long time user i thought i would show my thanks also so donation sent. Love the system having had a core running now for several years. Thanks to all for the hard work put in by the few for the many to enjoy and use. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I travel frequently - which means I have lots of travel points. I will 'pay' for 2 nights at the Hilton LAX for golgoj4. I do need some details though but I will see him on the IRC....
I am also trying to get there myself to help out but not sure if I can yet.
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Techstyle,
nice idea.
Keep the donations coming. We still have a way to go, 10EUR, 20EUR, 50EUR, 99EUR everything helps.
Thank you.
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Golgoj4's room is booked
Now lets work on Posde's flight - we are already half way there - keep the donations coming in!!
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A little something from me.
Spread the word guys, and keep up the good work.
Thanks,
ted
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February is approaching and I hope that Posde can go to the Linux Expo.
So I've made a second donation and have doubling my first amount! ;-)
Thank's to all the team for the work you do.
Philippe
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Still a way to have enough donations, but I booked the flight now anyway, to make sure it doesn't get even more expensive.
So, keep the donations coming, even little ones help.
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Possy - any chance of a ticker or set of milestones for the donations?
-Coley
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There is no automatic way afaict from within PayPal to do something like that. The last number I got from hari was 300EUR plus 500NOK of donations.
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posde,
Just gave 150 EUR. Let me know if you fall short.
Have fun!
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Thank you SBCC for your very generous donations.
And thanks to all the others that helped so far. According to hari, the total number of donations so far since donations are possible have risen to 652EUR.
It is currently being debated whether or not most if not all of that money should go towards SCALE, or if part of the donations should be spread among all the devs.
Maybe the donors that have not explicitly stated what there money should be used for, want to leave a note here to define what they want to happen with the money.
And all the others, there is still time to chime in. We are still a bit short for SCALE, and every donation counts.
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Sent another 100 euros. I don't mind where it goes.
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how are the funds doing? is more needed?
-Coley.
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donations are always welcome.
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How did this go?
Who got to attend?
Was there much interest shown?
-Coley.
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SCALE went well. Lots of people interested, as usual. Possy, Golgoj4, and I had a great time.
Basically, we took a very different tact when it came to marketing information, this time.
Instead of mowing down dead trees to turn into sheets of paper for our handouts, we managed to get a scanner from the SCALE people, and scanned each interested person's badge. I received a CSV file containing all that data, to send off one email message, which contained:
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Hello,
It's been a week since I saw you at SCALE, and now I finally have some time to put together the Welcome Packet that I promised you.
LinuxMCE is a comprehensive Smart Home platform, unifying:
* Lighting Control
* Media Control/Storage/Playback
* Climate Control
* A Security System
* And a Telecom system
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Contacting Us
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All in the same system, and all pieces are able to talk to each other, and interact with one another.
We have a website, here: http://www.linuxmce.org/
You can download the software here: http://linuxmce.iptp.org/release/LinuxMCE-1004-final.iso
We have forums here, full of energetic people willing to help everyone set up their systems, and to help people develop new devices and support for the system, here: http://forum.linuxmce.org/
And we also have not one, but two IRC Channels:
irc://irc.freenode.net/#linuxmce -- #linuxmce, which is the main users channel, and
irc://irc.freenode.net/#linuxmce-devel -- #linuxmce-devel, which is the developer channel.
You can get IRC clients for various systems, such as:
X-Chat, for Linux: http://xchat.org/
mIRC, for Windows: http://www.mirc.com/
Colloquy, for Mac: http://colloquy.info/
Feel free to stop by, I am called TSCHAK in IRC.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Tips to Consider When Building A LinuxMCE System
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* BE PATIENT. This system has a lot of moving parts, it will take time for you to reach your goal, be patient, and persistent, and you will succeed.
* USE TWO NETWORK CARDS IN THE CORE. One External, one Internal. Connect the External to your Internet, connect the Internal to your internal network switch.
* USE NVIDIA GRAPHICS CARD FOR MEDIA DIRECTORS/OR HYBRID. Use a recent model NVIDIA graphics card,
* USE THE WIKI. The Wiki is an extensive clearing house of information gathered from all of us using LinuxMCE. Use this information. If you have better information, add to it, make it better.
* USE THE IRC. We are constantly on it, and are the best bet if you want help immediately. If we are there, and we are available, we will help.
* OPTIMIZE YOUR NETWORK INTERCONNECT. LinuxMCE is an I/O bound application, the better your network is optimized, the better it will run overall. Use Jumbo packets, use good switches, use good cable (Cat-5E, Cat-6A,Cat-7), and use gigabit ethernet. Minimize the number of devices on WIFI.
* USE RS232 or ETHERNET for connecting and talking to your Audio/Video equipment, if possible. If not, use a USB UIRT for IR transmission, and use Xantech 286-D emitters for greater reliability of transmitting IR signals.
-------------------------------------------
Types of Systems you can build
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* Core
You need one of these systems in every LinuxMCE system. Stuff this in the closet, connect it to your router, and to your internal network switch.
2GB RAM minimum
2 Network Cards
250G disk space, minimum
If you want media on the core, hard drives for your media.
* Media Directors
You need at least one of these, to show media on a TV. For simpler setups, both the Core and the Media director can be combined into what we call a Hybrid machine.
2GB RAM minimum
1 Network card
NVIDIA graphics card
For RS232 controlled AV devices, a usb to RS232 adaptor for each one.
For Infra-Red devices, use a USB-UIRT (http://www.usbuirt.com/)
For hybrid machines, you will also need the items specified in the Core machine, namely at least one hard drive, and two network cards.
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Orbiters
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Orbiter is a piece of software providing house-wide remote control, for LinuxMCE. Orbiters can run on the following platforms:
* Windows
* Linux
* Android
* iOS
* Symbian phones (s60 v2/v3)
* J2ME phones
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Videos
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Here are LOTS of videos, showing the capabilities of LinuxMCE:
* A demonstration video, we made several years ago, showing an overview of LinuxMCE and its capabilities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7JDX2R_uDc
* Here are two videos, showing the phone system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNaWUM4bX3I -- Part 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dUE9_s6EnI -- Part 2/2
* Showing the SqueezeBox and Follow Me via orbiters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ufVBOf1ir8
* various videos showing the Game Player, which allows you to play video games from retro game systems via emulation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0lMzPRNksA <-- scrolling through NES ROMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDQ92d9nktQ <-- Famicom Disk System support
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XMjWrJpEEw <-- Game Player bookmarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVGyzCIT8SE <-- 16-bit game system support (Genesis/TG16)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfn70fkLnU <-- Apple // Support
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADe4OhVthds <-- Multi-Room Game Player part 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpZQ0vABSyU <-- Multi-Room Game Player part 2/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH4LsBUM5k0 <-- Game Player Recording Functionality
Thanks for reading. This is all I will explicitly send you, and you are not part of a mailing list, nor part of any marketing campaign. We are not a company, and we are not trying to shill a product. We're just a bunch of very passionate enthusiasts who are trying to make the smart home platform to end all smart home platforms, and this requires a community, which requires people like you, and me to participate for the benefit of everyone.
See you there!
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Well done, guys. Great punt Tschak- that's a darned useful summary for newbies. A nice default welcome pack/summary to send people who're curious.
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Glad that some of the devs had an opportunity to attend. Among the interested that requested information, were any capable coders/programmers?
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nope, unfortunately.
-Thom
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At least nobody came forward and said: 'Hi, I am great developer, and would love to invest my time for the benefit of LinuxMCE"
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Are you doing a booth at this year's SCALE?