Rick's b.log - 2024/05/10
It is the 8th of September 2024 You are 3.142.156.189, pleased to meet you!

I wrote some of this on Friday but didn't finish as it was such a nice day that I spent a lot of time in my hammock. I finished it on Saturday early afternoon, and have uploaded it as the Friday entry so it doesn't clash with the Song Contest stuff that will be Saturday's thing.

Tea v0.08

The big change in this version is the addition of iCalendar export, which will allow you to export your schedule in order to add it to a third party calendar, such as that provided by Google Calendars, or within iOS (etc). You can choose to have a notification pop up five minutes before the event time. The file should have the extension ics.

Important note: It seems that while it is extremely simple to import your schedule into the Android calendar app, doing so appears to throw away all of the notifications.
In order to import the programmes with notifications, sign into calendar.google.com (if you use Chrome, you'll probably already be signed in...). Switch to the Desktop version of the site (if tapping the link tosses you into the app, long-tap it and open it in a new tab).
On the left side is a menu with a month-view at the top, "My calendars" below it, and "Other calendars" underneath that.
To the right of Other calendars is a plus sign. Tap on the + and a pop-up menu will appear. At the bottom of the menu it will say "Import". Tap on that, and when it comes up with the dialogue, simply choose the file and tap on import to bring your schedule, with the notifications, into your calendar.

Another Touchbox HD3

Minimal packaging.

Connecting it to my monitor did nothing, just a blue screen. This is going to be because my 7" display doesn't support interlaced and it'll likely be defaulting to 1080i.

I briefly thought about getting the CVBS to VGA decoder and hooking it up to the big monitor, but realised that there was a simple solution staring me in the face.

I put the two boxes on top of each other, switched them on, and then pressed the Exit button a bunch of times. Once that was done, I simply pressed Menu and then used the arrows to move around the menus on both boxes at the same time. When I got to the option for the HDMI output resolution, I turned off the old box (so it wouldn't get messed with), switched the HDMI cable, and just pressed Left until I got to 720p. My little monitor will cope with 1080p but it's 1024×600 so there's not really any point in anything over 720p.

Setting up the new receiver.

Afterwards, it was a simple matter of hooking up the harddisc in order to import the settings database that I had saved on the older receiver. Ten seconds later, it was synchronised and set up in exactly the same way as the older receiver. Box receivers are the same - model 441374, hardware version 1.0, firmware 441374H1V14.

I put the new receiver back into its box. I hope it'll be a long while before I need it.

For the song contest, I forgot to get myself an audio lead at the supermarket yesterday. So I found an unused shorter lead (about a metre). I had some four-core orange wire. Not sure where I got it, but it was about three metres long, so I cut the audio lead (with audio phono plugs at each end) in half and soldered the orange wire in between. Now the satellite receiver is hooked to my amplifier so I can listen with the big speakers rather than the monitor. I'm sure that'll make that annoying tick-drum even more annoying.

Anna overheating

The faulty furry thermostat.

Soon another portable?

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