h4x the planet!

I have my iPhone plugged into the A5 using the Audi AMI function but it seems that the between the mighty Apple and Audi none of them thought of normalising the audio tracks.  The result being bleeding ears as the audio levels jump from a low to high track!

No problem to fix tho if your using Linux, literally 5 commands ( 4 if you don’t want to screen it ):

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user@host:~$ apt-cache search mp3 | grep volume
normalize-audio - adjusts the volume of WAV, MP3 and OGG files to a standard volume level
user@host:~$ sudo apt-get install normalize-audio
[sudo] password for user:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
....snip....
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
user@host:~$ normalize-audio --help
Usage: normalize-audio [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Normalize volume of multiple audio files
....snip....
Report bugs to chrisvaill@gmail.com.
user@host:~$ screen -S mp3_normal
user@host:~$ find /media/storage/music/ -iname \*.mp3  -exec  normalize-audio {} \;
Computing levels...
 Chocolate.mp3      99% done, ETA 00:00:00 (batch  99% done, ETA 00:00:00)
Applying adjustment of -4.82dB to /media/storage/music/Snow Patrol/Final Straw/Chocolate.mp3...
find: ânormalize-audioâ terminated by signal 11ch   0% done, ETA 00:00:00)
Computing levels...
 Tiny Little Fract  99% done, ETA 00:00:00 (batch  99% done, ETA 00:00:00)
Applying adjustment of -5.55dB to /media/storage/music/Snow Patrol/Final Straw/Tiny Little Fractures.mp3...
find: ânormalize-audioâ terminated by signal 11ch   0% done, ETA 00:00:00)
Computing levels...
 Gleaming Auction.  61% done, ETA 00:00:02 (batch  61% done, ETA 00:00:02)
[ctrl+a+d]
user@host:~$ echo $profit

Job done!

I’ve updated my previous script that allows users to stream media to an iPhone running vlc4iPhone!

The new version allows the user to move up and down the dir structure as well as a few tweaks.

  VLC video Streamer for IPhone V2 (3.5 KiB, 599 hits)

Some Images:

Overall view:

Sub Folders:

File being Streamed:

I’ve released my php script that can be used to stream a video to an iPhone that is running vlc4iphone. Basically the script lists all the files in a directory and creates thumbnails for each. The user can then browse to the page on the iPhone select a video and begin streaming or start a random stream. Once started point vlc towards the host ip and job done. A http vlc control interface is also running on 8080.

The script was intended for my own use and it’s still a bit rough around the edges and uses some wired code!

The page is designed to run on a unix box as a few bash scripts are called but the readme file details everything.

The rar file containing all you need is in the download section and here’s some screenshots!

Enjoy!!!!!

I’ve been told that since a young age I’ve always been taking stuff apart, tho I don’t I think I ever put anything back together!!!

I’ve found this fascination with taking stuff apart has creeped over to my techy side too, not so much taking stuff apart but re flashing software/firmware on devices.

A good example of this is my shiny XDA Stellar from O2 (HTC Kaiser in its original form). HTC manufacture this device and create their own soft/firmware and then release the devices to the telephone companies. It’s at this point the telephone operators perform the equivalent of computer rape on the devices and load heavily customised software often restricting functionality and the option of updates. As new software is released from HTC it is only when O2 customised the updated software would a user be able to upgrade, this happens about once a blue moon!

There is a way a way to combat this and return the device to the original vendor set-up. If you have a HTC device a good source of information is the XDA Developers forum, Linky! The forum contains a wealth of information and allows the user to flash their device to the vendors original software or a cooked ROM. The cooked ROMs are modified versions of the original software that include applications and customisations.

I was having a total pain trying to pair my phone with my laptop over blue tooth or even send files from my old N95 or laptop to the XDA. After 1223 soft resets and 124 hard resets I decided the O2 soft/firmware was at fault!! Sure enough when I loaded the original, non operator tampered software the bluetooth worked a treat!

Of course moving your device away from the operator software and flashing it is a HUGE void of your warranty so if your going to do it you wont be able to have your phone repaired under warranty and you do run the risk of bricking your device (so don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Nino

Ive been playing around with virtualbox recently and found it to be 100 times better than VMware.

Once nice feature is being able to share a folder from the host OS to the guest OS. To do this you tell virtualbox what folder your want to share and in the guest OS network mount the drive.

To make life a bit easier i’ve created a small app that will help with mounting and un-mounting drives

Picies
Mounting a folder:

Listing mounted drives:

Mounted drive in background:

I have uploaded the application to the downloads section Linky!