Chad Klassen

So setting up transmission on a headless server might be desired. The easiest way to get going is to

sudo apt-get install transmission-cli

Then:

sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon

This will automatically add the transmission bit torrent client to the init scripts so it runs at boot.

Next you need to edit the settings file located at:
/etc/transmission-daemon and its settings.json. I change the RPC-whitelist and put in a new password. Once transmission-daemon reloads it will encrypt the password again. So then run:

sudo service transmission-daemon restart

to apply the new configuration.

I’ve found myself needing a PS3 Media Server headless configuration and found a pretty good tutorial on how to do such on Ubuntu 10.04. Can be found here:

 http://irrationale.com/2010/06/30/ps3-media-server-on-ubuntu-10-04/

However I did find that I needed to modify his configuration slightly to suit my needs towards subtitled anime that I watch. I had an issue with how the text was being transcoded onto the video.

thumbnails = true
thumbnail_seek_pos = 300
mencoder_ass = false
folders = /path/to/folder
hide_videosettings = true
hide_enginenames = true
audiochannels = 2
mencoder_noass_outline = 6
mencoder_noass_blur = 0
mencoder_vobsub_subtitle_quality = 4

Also if you are interested in running PS3 media server on a headless machine you may access the GUI by SSH’ing into the box with the -X flag flipped to allow X11 forwarding

ssh -X server-IP

Like many other people who own a Mac and have recently upgraded to OS X Lion I too was confused and appalled by what Apple made a default setting for their newest operating system. Natural scrolling is probably one of the biggest criticisms about the newly released operating system, besides perhaps the App store download to upgrade.

Appalled was the correct term for my reaction during the first run through, I could not get my head around reversed scrolling. Those of you who are familiar with First person shooters will understand that reversing the Y coordinate direction can greatly affect performance during a game. That is until a taste is acquired for it, then it does seem natural.

I’m not really writing to offer an opinion about which direction is better, I’m sure people will be arguing this issue for years to come. Typically for those who don’t like it will be disabling by going to System Preferences -> Track pad and then unchecking the natural scroll option. I offer an alternative to enabling/disabling through the Terminal with the following command:

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool false

Course just change the false to true to enable it again. This may be a good alternative to quickly switch between the two settings especially while using Synergy and reverse scrolling is enabled on the host computer. At least thats what I’ll use it for.