How to set the screen resolution to 1280 × 1024 or higher for Ubuntu on Microsoft Virtual PC 2004

Note: This assumes you are using the X.org server

After installing the Virtual PC screen will be garbled. The first step is to open the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in the text editor of your choice (for example, nano) with root access, so that you can lower the colour depth to 16-bit, as 24-bit is unsupported. 

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down to the line DefaultDepth 24. Change this to read DefaultDepth 16.

The next step is to set the resolution of your choice and change the driver to vesa. If you only need resolutions below 1280 × 1024 you do not need to perform this step.

Scroll down to the line Driver "s3". Change this to read Driver "vesa".

Below this you will see a set of lists of resolutions. Scroll to the list for the colour depth you are using (e.g. 16-bit) and add the resolution you want to use onto this list.

How to edit the MythTV database manually

The instructions on this page show you how to manually edit the 'mythconverg' SQL database used by MythTV. Be careful! If the database is corrupted, you may have to delete it or reinstall the MythTV backend.

It is assumed that the database is called mythconverg, is password protected and can be edited by a root user.

Start the client

To login to the database type the following:

mysql -u root -p mythconverg

The password for the database will then be requested.

Listing tables

The database stores information in tables. These contains fields and records - the fields are like columns in the table and the records are rows. (In fact, this is how the tables are rendered to the user.)

show tables;

Showing the channels list

To display the list of channels, and their associated information, type:

select * from channel;

Selecting and updating records

To filter the list, you can specify a criterion that displayed channels must meet. For example, to show the channel with a channel ID of 1003, type:

select * from channel where chanid=1003;

To change the value of a field in a set of records, use the update command as follows. This example sets the xmltvid to south-east.bbc1.bbc.co.uk for the entry (or entries) with chanid 1001.

update channel set xmltvid=south-east.bbc1.bbc.co.uk where chanid=1001;

Deleting records

To delete rows from the table, use the following command:

delete from channel where xmltvid=south-east.bbc1.bbc.co.uk;

Importing and exporting the database

These commands can be used to backup and restore a table. (Please note, the mysql-dump command can be used to backup the entire database. See the MythTV on Ubuntu article. 

select * into outfile '/tmp/channelsBackup' from channel;
load data infile '/tmp/channelsBackup' into table channel;

How to view recordings from MythTV on a Windows machine

The open source projects on this page are in active development, so these details may have changed since the time of writing.

Watching recorded programmes, scheduling recordings and viewing listings

Application Listings Downloading of MythTV encoded files Streaming of MythTV encoded files Streaming of Live TV Scheduling Detailed backend status Comments
WinMyth - Windows application. Requires DSMyth codecs. Yes No Yes, in encoded format Yes, in encoded format Yes No Still very early in development. Written using Microsoft .NET (C# and Managed C++). At the time of writing there are problems with UK TV listings. (The application can't convert dates like '0000-00-00 00:00:00' to the System.DateTime structure in C#.)
MythWeb - PHP web application Yes Yes No No Yes, implements most features of the Myth Frontend UI Yes Excellent web user interface - quicker to use than the Linux native Myth Frontend.
MythWeb with MythStreamTV - PHP web application and VideoLAN streaming Yes Yes Yes, in encoding formats from VideoLAN Yes: Start recording manually and stream the resulting file as it records Yes Yes Configured by the MythStreamTV script. Requires compilation of VideoLAN and FFMpeg
Use Samba to download files directly and play using DSMyth codecs and a compatible player, or Media Player Classic (DSMyth not required) No Yes, using Windows file sharing Yes: encoded files are sent gradually to Media Player Classic or another compatible player. No - DSMyth supports 'mythlivetv://' but no applications appear to support this currently. No No Using Media Player Classic is a good solution, but files cannot be opened directly from MythWeb as 'myth://' URIs are not supported (even with DSMyth). It is difficult to select files manually from 'My Network Places' because they are numbered. However, DSMyth can provide information on the files in their property pages by querying the Myth TV database.

Using MythWeb with MythStreamTV is likely to be the only practical way to watch recordings over the Internet. MythStreamTV is installed by a script which requires ffmpeg (a set of video and audio codecs) and Video LAN (an extremely useful program for transcoding, streaming and watching media), compiled from source, to transcode recorded programmes in real time and stream them over a network to any application which has the necessary codecs and supports 'mms://' or 'http://' video and audio streaming (e.g. VideoLAN, Windows Media Player, etc.).

Watching Live TV in the MythTV encoded format is more difficult. A media player is required which updates its position for the end of the file as the file is written to. A possible solution is to play directly from the MythTV ringbuffer, but the player needs to load from the start of the file when it reaches the end.

Black square cursor on CorelDRAW

This problem is caused by McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0. Patches 9 and above should correct the problem. (If you cannot easily obtain the patch from your systems administrator, you should be able to find it using Google.)

How to speed up startup on Windows XP

Startup on Windows XP should take less than 30 seconds. If it is taking longer, try following these steps.

  1. Eliminate the possibility of a virus or spyware. Make sure you have a spyware checker installed, e.g. Lavasoft Ad-Aware.

  2. Uninstall any superfluous drivers or applications that are likely to run at startup. Use Add/Remove programs and the msconfig utility (Start | Run... | msconfig) to disable programs you don't want to run at startup.

  3. Disable any unused network adapters in the network connections page.

  4. In the Device Manager (Start | Control Panel | Performance and Maintainance | System | Hardware | Device Manager) make sure that there are no icons with question marks; these indicate devices which Windows has trouble starting. Either install the correct drivers for these devices, check their settings, or disable them completely.

  5. Use the application bootvis by Microsoft. This is no longer supported, but a Google search should find it. Run it first with the Trace and drivers setting and then, after your computer has rebooted, with the optimize setting. Microsoft claims that Windows XP automatically optimizes startup, but this application lets you see what applications are taking a long time to start up.

  6. In bootvis, if you see long periods where your computer appears to be doing nothing, try unplugging any USB devices. Then use msconfig (see above) to disable the Plug and Play service and possibly the Windows Image Acquisition service. Try removing any removable hardware (such as PCI cards) to see if this makes any difference.

Google searches will help you find more information on any of these steps once you have established the source of the problem.