Intel Nuc is a great Media Center Computer

Intel NUC Kit D34010WYK The Ultimate Media Center Device

Specifications:

• i3 Haswell Processor
• Intel HD 4400 GPU
• Micro HDMI
• 15W peak power usage

 What is required to get it working:

• TV or Monitor with HDMI
•  Laptop Ram
• Mini PCI express slot for a SSD based storage 

Total Cost:

• NUC - $300
• Ram 4GB - $60
• 256GB Corsair SSD - $150
• Total:
• ~$550 + TV/Monitor

Essentially the processor is an Ultrabook processor in a different form factor. So you get the performance of an Ultrabook, but for much much cheaper.

The Intel 4400 HD GPU is capable of playing most games on low-medium settings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysDgUdQLvUk



So after setting up Netflix, ftp server, VLC media player, windows file sharing, snes/n64 emulator. You get a complete media center that is capable of playing movies, games, music off of a local network, while also being capable of playing most games on low-medium settings.

One big bonus for using such a power efficient device is that the peak power usage is 15W and standby is around 2-5W, so your electric bill will not go up by much -- even if you keep the device on all of the time.

Amazon Kindle 3.3 Sound Output FFMPEG

The following command is great for creating sound files for the Kindle:
ffmpeg -i 8bp027-04-nullsleep-playful_panda.mp3 -ar 8000 -ac 1 -acodec pcm_u8 panda.wav

Play the sound with the following:
aplay /tmp/panda.wav
 

Compiling Linux kindle 2.6.26-rt-lab126 armv6l for Kindle 3

Device Supported

These instructions are specifically for the Kindle 3, the kernel version on the original device must be exactly: Linux kindle 2.6.26-rt-lab126 after the 3.3 firmware update from Amazon.

ARM x64 Cross Compile Toolchain

I found and extracted the arm-2008q3 code sorcery tool-chain. (This one is older and most certainly compatible with the kernel verison)

Linux Kernel Source

Get and Extract the linux-2.6.26-lab126.tar.bz2  from Amazon sources (under Kindle 3) Kindle_src_3.3_611680021.tar.gz

Apply kindle-3.3-kernel-buildfix.patch

patch -p1 < ./kindle-3.3-kernel-buildfix.patch

Generate .config file

make imx35_luigi_defconfig

Modify the following config setting to the following

CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE=""

Setup Build ENV

export ARCH=arm
export CROSS_COMPILE=/home/thomas/workspace/arm-2008q3/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-

Build Script

#!/bin/sh
echo "=============Making make"
make

echo "=============Making uImage"
make uImage

echo "=============Making modules"
make modules

echo "=============Making modules tar at linux-2.6.26-rt-lab126.tar.gz"
make targz-pkg

echo "=============Making modules.dep"
depmod -ae -F System.map -b tar-install -r 2.6.26-rt-lab126 -n > modules.dep

# replace /kernel with /lib/modules/2.6.26-rt-lab126/kernel/
echo "=============Applying /kernel directory remapping"
perl -pi -e 's/kernel\//\/lib\/modules\/2.6.26-rt-lab126\/kernel\//g' modules.dep

echo "=============Outputing uImage, modules.dep and tared modules into ./export directory"
mkdir ./export
cp arch/arm/boot/uImage ./export/.
cp modules.dep ./export/.
cp linux-2.6.26-rt-lab126.tar.gz ./export/. 

Flashing Kernel on Kindle

SCP the ./export folder contents to /tmp/. on your kindle
Extract linux-2.6.26-rt-lab126.tar.gz to /lib/modules
Extract modules.dep to /lib/modules/2.6.26-rt-lab126

chmod 644 /lib/modules/2.6.26-rt-lab126/modules.dep
/test/flashtools/luigi/update /tmp/uImage

How to Setup Perforce Merge p4merge with git in OSX

1. Download P4V.dmg (Perforce Client)

2. Copy the p4merge.app to your /Applications directory

3. Then run the following commands:

git config --global merge.tool p4merge
git config --global mergetool.p4merge.path /Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/Resources/launchp4merge