MediaPortal 1.11.0 Final is out !

I have been a user of MediaPortal for a number of years now and I am happy that I made the switch from Windows Media Center. As much as I loved WMC, I started getting frustrated having to manually configuring EPG and guide data for my DVB-S2 satellite cards.

When I discovered the Custom Data Grabber plugin from DJBlu that just pulls all the guide data and channel line-ups from Sky automatically (saving me hours!) I was hooked on MP!

This new release has an improved TV experience that will display things like audio channels, bitrate, etc.

G... read more

It seemed crazy to me that the original code would generate a feed every time you accessed the page, generating lots of unnecessary database class. I have updated my code so that when I add a post it will replace a static blog.xml file.

So if you have subscribed to my RSS feed, please refresh your reader by re-pointing to digitalgeek.me/blog.php or digitalgeek.me/blog.xml.

I have also improved the site indexing files. This is using pretty much the same code to create a sitemap.xml. I hope this will help getting my pages listed on Google... read more

Continuing from my previous post regarding the dynamic backgrounds and colours. Starting from version 39 of Chrome on Android (Lollipop) you can also set the toolbar colour. It's easy too. You just need to add a meta tag for theme-color in the head. So now if you're on Android hopefully your toolbar should be not the boring grey. Head over to the htmlrocks.com website for more details.

http://updates.html5rocks.com/2014/11/Support-for-theme-color-in-Chrome-39-for-Android

#coding

I have finally ordered the Perspex bezel and marquee for the arcade machine. So while I wait for them to arrive, I thought it would be a good time to talk about the software that I am using for my arcade machine.

My original plan was to use the fantastic HyperSpin frontend. If you have not heard of it, I would highly recommend you check it out here - http://www.hyperspin-fe.com

I have spent a fair bit of time downloading and configuring this frontend for MAME and various old game consoles. It has been running really quite well on my main computer. However when I copied the files... read more

As much as I originally liked the green circuit board background, after a few months I think it's time for a change. Well, more like some variety. I have updated the site so that the background and highlighted colour is dynamically selected by a pool of images I have set. This is done via php, overriding the stylesheets.

Images are from places I have visited. Don't worry the circuit board is still there too. I'm sure you would miss it :) There is also a new section on the sidebar that tells you a little about the background. I hope you like it.

#coding

The monitor arrived and I'm pleased to say it fitted perfectly. Next step was to paint the cabinet before fitting buttons etc.

For painting, I used a wood primer then a black gloss, applied with a mini gloss roller. I am fairly pleased with the result. However the paint was a single coat gloss, so went on a little thick. I think a liquid gloss may have given a smoother result. But still, I'm pleased with the outcome.

Keeping my costs down, I had an old arcade joystick that I made many years ago. This allowed ... read more

RSS feed has now been created.

This is generated via php pulling the blog entries off the database in real time. I should really look at caching this. Maybe a project for another time. RSS feed is added to the header so should get picked up automatically by your rss reader pointing to this page.

#coding

Ever since we fitted the new kitchen I had planned to fit a touch screen that would run a software remote to control lights, heating, etc. Over a year ago I picked up a Acer Iconia W500 tablet from ebay. This has been upgraded to Windows 8.1 and runs the HouseBot software remote, plus many other touch friendly apps that I think will be useful in the kitchen.

The tablet has been sitting under my desk as one of the many to-do project. The plan is to flush mount it in my boiler cupboard door. Before I could do this, I needed to get a custom bezel cut to fit around the hole, that also needs to be cut. Over Christmas I finally go... read more

Managed to get to post number 12 and no paging! Currently it only returns the top 10 rows from the database. Maybe I never expected to have over 10 posts! :)

There will now be an 'Older entries' link at the bottom of the page. This has been accomplished by returning 11 rows from the database. Row 11 does not display the article, but instead generates the 'Older entries' button passing the id in the querystring. When the page is reloaded it will only return posts equal or less than the id querystring. Give it a try!

#coding

Now that I have restyled the site for mobiles. It has made me reassess my html. I really should be using html5.

So the last few evenings I have been replacing many of my divs with the new header, nav, article, time, etc. There is a great article here - http://fortuito.us/diveintohtml5/

Don't expect anything to change. Most of the new tags are for accessibility, so that screen readers can manage the site better.

These changes do bring some backward compatibility issues with ie8. ... read more