ChortleVision

BBC news had an article today and of note was

Other new features include a new internet speed diagnostics page, the full release of the new BBC iPlayer Desktop, and a cross-platform manager that will allow Windows, Mac, and Linux users to download BBC programmes, including those in HD.

The bbc allowing linux users to DOWNLOAD things in HD, never, this could not be true? well apparently it is, you’ll need to goto the iplayer labs and enable the iplayer labs features if you havn’t, then you’ll be given a download button on all iplayer shows, which will install the iplayer desktop (and adobe air if you don’t have it) then continue to download your tv episode. well done the bbc.

It is not however, the fastest thing in the world by my count, see screenie - also Im not sure if its DRM’ed yet, but i would go ahead and assume it is. maybe you can download and keep for as long as you want, but it’ll be tied to the iplayer desktop application i bet.

---

Update: it downloads to ~/VIdeos/BBC iPlayer/ and its stored as .mp4. - The files are mpeg4 or wmv but they both contain encrtyped data, they will expire after a certain date, its stupid and i shall be uninstalling. The downloader doesn’t work anyway, it cuts out and goes into ‘paused’ mode every few minutes, if i could download any of these files before they expired because of the DRM maybe THEN it would be useful, as of now, it is not.

I would like to take five minutes to talk to you all about this:

Its called ‘Thinking putty‘ and you can get it at the ubuntu shop. I only actually picked some up because I was getting some other nice gear (nice bag to hold my laptop and some nice t-shirts). But it has taken over my life, if i am sitting and working, then take a break for only ten seconds my hands instinctively reach over for the stuff and start forming it into the strangest shapes, maybe even start ripping at it or pulling it apart to create ubuntu spaghetti, who knows? All i do know is that ubuntu thinking putty does not help you think at all, before you know it the ‘five minute break’ you had set aside to think about how to implement something has been lost inside the squishyness of the devil putty. Stay away from this one!

Well okay, its not really.. but sort of. For those not in the know, in jaunty the update-notification daemon no longer provides you with a little icon in your notification area to tell you you have updates, its annoying, its really annoying. I barely ever remember to update because of it, so i wrote a small python script to put a little notification icon up there when i have new updates and thought i would share it with the rest of the world.

if you want to use this, you will want to put it in a file called update_notifier.py and make it executionable. then stick it in ~/bin (or wherever you want really). I also added it to my list of startup programs running the following command:

nice -n20 /home/gord/bin/update_notfier.py

the reason for the nice -n20 is that checking the entire repository for new packages (does not download new package lists, just checks your current ones via python-apt) can eat up cpu power, nice just makes sure it won’t get in your way hopefully. - it runs once every 24 hours (my update mechanism only gets new info once every 24 hours, no point i doing more surely?)

here come the code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
#       update_notfier.py
#
#       Copyright 2009 Gordon Allott
#
#       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#       it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#       the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
#       (at your option) any later version.
#
#       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#       but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#       GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#       along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
#       Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
#       MA 02110-1301, USA.

import pygtk
import gtk, gobject
import apt
import os, sys
import subprocess

class AptNotifier(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.icon = gtk.StatusIcon()
        self.icon.set_from_stock(gtk.STOCK_INFO)
        self.icon.connect('activate', self.icon_activate)
        self.icon.set_visible(False)
        self.refresh()

    def icon_activate(self, icon):
        subprocess.Popen('update-manager')

    def check_new(self):
        cache = apt.Cache()
        cache.upgrade(True)
        if len(cache.getChanges()) > 0:
            # we have changes if we get here, return True
            return True

        return False

    def display_icon(self):
        self.icon.set_visible(True)

    def destroy_icon(self):
        self.icon.set_visible(False)

    def refresh(self):
        """ checks for new update items """
        if self.check_new():
            self.display_icon()

        else:
            self.destroy_icon()

        return True # we return true to make the timeout repeat

    def run(self):
        gobject.timeout_add(60*60*24*1000, self.refresh)
        gtk.main()

def main():
    notifier = AptNotifier()
    notifier.run()
    return 0

if __name__ == '__main__': main()