Firefox Multi Account Containers and Equivalents [2]

OK I have managed to simplify this from yesterday.

I now expect to have just single user profile in FF and do the following:

• Window 1 will be the one on the main screen of my PC and it will be the one that mainly I am using MACs. The MACs will be geared around Google, Wordpress and Disqus which are the multiple accounts I mostly have.
• Window 2 will be on the second display and it will use MACs specific to NZ Rail Maps. Currently I use Opera to access this stuff but I need to use FF for this.
• Both Window 1 and Window 2 are Firefox Developer Edition (aka Firefox Quantum).
• Window 3 is specific to certain accounts and purposes and won't need to have the MAC extension installed. It will maintain separation by using the standard version of Firefox which has its own separate user profile from FFQ.

So that makes it relatively easy to set up the MACs and use them in FFQ. I want to use Firefox for everything now especially what I used to use Chrome for in the past and also Opera. Both are still installed but won't need to be used.

Computing resources optimisation [2F]: Managing Disk Space Usage

The completion of this computer upgrade project is close to finished. I do have to complete mounting the fourth computer, which is inching along at a glacial pace at the moment, and various small tasks. One of the important ones is that mainpc's disks which have a total capacity of 1.8 TiB or 2 TB are nearly full. The main increase in capacity use is to do with mapping. This is to some extent the Maps folder and to a lesser extent Oracle virtual machines that have been used to run different software versions. Each time I download more aerial photography for maps it takes up additional space. I am satisfied the usage is appropriate so I now have to look at whether other resources can be released to make more space for various uses.

In the past I did look at moving some stuff like photos or other media to mediapc. I am not sure this is going to be easy or actually possible because right now mediapc's disks are nearly full and there doesn't seem to be an easy way of freeing up capacity. It will probably be a case of cleaning up a few folders here and there on mainpc especially where duplicated on mediapc. The Downloads and DownloadArchive folders on mainpc together total more than 300 GB and I think working through them regardless of how tedious or slow it is, is going to be worthwhile. At the very least there are large volumes of LDS downloads that can be cleaned up. It shouldn't be too hard to free up at least 100 GB relatively quickly and take some of the pressure off the fact I only have 132 GB free at the moment.

serverpc is the other major disk space gobbler with for the most part the aerial mosaics using nearly half of the total disk. With more and more mosaics being put together as the maps progress, I have to take a hard look at whether I need to keep so many files. Cleaning up downloads will also yeild space savings on that computer. With it now having 32 GB of RAM there is less demand for swap space in the past and it does have the SSD available for swap, but still it is currently down to less than 100 GB free space available. It is actually so simple and quick to make mosaics that I don't really need to keep the last three files of each one and possibly I can cut back to just the most recent file.

Cleaning all these up will also speed up backups. With mediapc becoming the backup host, I have to get it set up to run some backups which are very overdue of late.

Well as it turned out  I was able to free up 400 GB on mainpc with only a little effort and easily get that on serverpc as well but it will soon be gobbled up with more mosaics so I will have to get creative with deciding how many mosaic files I need to keep on serverpc. The backups are underway again but I am only keeping one generation of backup for serverpc and two each of the other two computers, it can be slow as a full backup can take more than a day which is why I have a dedicated computer, in this case mediapc, which is running the backup while I can keep using the other computers that are being backed up as normal. Once mediapc has finished doing the backup of mainpc it will be reinstalled with Debian 9.6 with KDE on top as I only need one computer running XFCE and that will be playerpc. In the process mediapc gets its swap put back onto using all the SSD space as there have been issues that it can't hibernate at the moment and it needs to have that swap available if it is doing big tasks with only 8 GB of RAM. I am meanwhile pushing along finishing the installation of playerpc under the desk.

Firefox Multi Account Containers and Equivalents

Since these days I now use Firefox as my main browser (partly to give the finger to Google for the data thieving Chrome browser), I need to have a look at how to access all my Gmail accounts in the same browser without having to log in and out of whichever account I am using at a particular time. The same goes for, say, Wordpress (I now have four Wordpress blogs and each has a different account associated with it), Instagram and some other services. At the moment one workaround is to use several different browsers at the same time. For example I can use Firefox Developer, regular Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

Mozilla provide the Multi Account Containers extension to help you set up the capability to handle multiples of the same website account (for example, Google accounts) in the same browser window. You can set up a container group (for example Home, Work) and then add individual tabs to that group. Each group can operate independently of each other.

As good as this is, I am still considering an alternative of setting up multiple Firefox user profiles and starting a different Firefox session on a different user profile. This would still require the container groups to be used, but each group type would be unique to that user profile and there would probably only need to be one container group type per user profile.

I have been thinking about this for months (MACs have been available for a while and were first installed on Firefox some time ago for me) but now perhaps is the time I will start testing in earnest to see if I can make these ideas work.

The multi window thing addresses mainly that I don't want a lot of tabs open in a window as would be the case with MACs all opening in one window. Being able to label the window and/or colour its title bar independently of other windows would also be a help. However, it could just be a lot simpler to classify everything using the MAC container categories sufficiently descriptively bridging what the different accounts are used for. I may still keep Firefox standard and Developer both in use with MACs.

Raspberry Pi [4]: Raspberry Pi vs Chromecast

I last wrote about my Raspberry Pi back in July, and since then it hasn't been used. I decided against using it to play videos because it had some trouble playing some of the ones in my collection. At this point I went back to playback from a computer, and subsequently pc4 was used for this role.

I am taking another look at the Pi as a media player for small group settings where you just need something that is small, compact, easy to carry around and quick to set up. At this point I am also making a comparison with a Chromecast.

Here is a quick comparison between the Pi and the Chromecast.

	Raspberry Pi 3 Model B	Chromecast 2016
Description	Single board computer	Streaming media player
SOC / CPU	Broadcom BCM2837 SOC, 1.2 GHz quad ARM Cortex-A53 processors	Marvell Armada 1500 Mini Plus 88DE3006 SoC, 1.2GHz dual ARM Cortex-A7 processors.
GPU	Broadcom VideoCore IV	?
RAM	1GB LPDDR2 (900 MHz)	512MB
Networking	10/100 Ethernet, 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless	802.11 ac (2.4GHz/5GHz)
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1 Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy	N/A
Storage	microSD	256MB flash, app based cloud
Ports	HDMI, 3.5mm analogue audio-video jack, 4× USB 2.0, Ethernet, Camera Serial Interface (CSI), Display Serial Interface (DSI)	Fixed HDMI cable 0.1 m
Power	microUSB type B	microUSB type B
Operating System	Raspbian (Debian derivative) plus most Debian packages for ARM architecture	Unknown proprietary
Core Accessories	Optional case, optional power supply	Included power supply

The Raspberry Pi has a higher hardware spec overall. The Cortex A-53 quad processor is more powerful than the A-7 dual processor in the Chromecast; it is 64 bit capable (compared to 32 bit in the Chromecast). Power requirement for the Pi is greater if it needs to supply connected USB devices. The Pi's wifi only supports 2.4 GHz; the Chromecast is both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz capable. The Pi can run ordinary Linux software and can store data on the microSD card and/or external USB devices; a Chromecast user does not have direct access to the small amount of internal flash storage and can only access cloud storage via apps. The Pi is a physically larger device, mainly due to the space taken up by the USB and network sockets attached to the board. If those sockets and the GPIO socket were taken off the board it would only be slightly larger than a Chromecast. The Pi can be booted off any available OS; the project homepage supplies Raspbian and also links to 3rd party OSs, including Windows 10 IOT.

I have both of these devices and have evaluated their performance for playing back videos. The Chromecast's main limitation is that it can only playback content via a compatible app. If you want to play your own videos they have to be on Google Drive or some other storage and there has to be a cast-enabled app that can play them. So far, while Google Photos was able to play my sample video clip, the video stuttered and there was no sound being played back. I now need to do some more research to discover if there are other apps available that may have better video performance and be able to play sound. The Chromecast uses your phone as a remote control for media playback, which is convenient since you don't need a multimedia keyboard. It is only possible to play back the audio via the HDMI connector to the TV; if your TV does not have HDMI audio capability or you need to connect an external audio device, you will need to purchase an HDMI splitter which costs itself more than a Chromecast. Setting up the Chromecast is easy. Plug in the HDMI cord to a socket on the TV and connect the power cable. Install the Google Home app on your phone, and it has some way of finding the Chromecast. Set up the Chromecast to connect to your wireless network and then add it in Google Home, and you're all set to go. In my case the Chromecast needed to download and install an update from Google, which happened automatically and seamlessly.

The Raspberry Pi can play back anything you want directly through its single HDMI output. There may be some issues with audio playback through the HDMI socket (due to general issues along this line in Debian) in which case the analogue audio/video socket is also available to connect to speakers. This is also an option if you don't want to use your TV's speakers. By default you would need to connect a multimedia keyboard to the Pi to control it. There are apps available for Android that can remote control various aspects of the Pi and eliminate the requirement for a keyboard. The Pi takes a lot more setup work than a Chromecast. Best outcome will be if you install one of the specialised Kodi-based distros for the Pi - either OSMC or LibreElec are choices. I have been testing both. My first attempt, with Raspbian, failed as I could not get any sound at playback. Once you have the image it has to be flashed onto the microSD card and then inserted into the Pi before turning it on. OSMC was able to play all my test videos with sound in the Kodi interface it provides. The sound came out of the HDMI and I haven't checked if there are any settings to split it to the analogue output socket.

My next steps in testing the Pi are to try out LibreElec as an alternative to OSMC to see if there is any real difference, and to see if a remote control app can be used on my phone instead of a keyboard. This is a much better option for a small media player. Another option is to fit a touchscreen to the Pi, as the board is designed to support one and they can be purchased. But I will leave that option and focus on the phone one. Next steps with the Chromecast are to try out some third party video apps and see if they can play back better than Google Photos.

OpenSong, Video editing, Computing resources optimisation [2E]

OpenSong is a FOSS open source worship presentation package that is produced for Linux, Windows and macOS platforms. It was first released quite a few years ago, and is a bit out of date, with presumably no regular maintenance at present. Obviously my interest will stem from it being both FOSS and Linux capable.

I have installed OpenSong on mediapc for testing and it appears to work well. I need to dig into its capabilities to see if it is capable of handling my particular requirement for adding lyrics to worship videos, initially with the two-step process I outlined in my last post.

I am also interested in developing a one step capability in OpenSong and contributing this to the OpenSong community. Essentially this will be over time the following capabilities:

• Playback a video
• Project lyrics over the video
• Record the transition steps with their timing
• Be able to automatically play back the video with the transition steps with timings.

I have discovered that OpenSong is developed under the Xojo IDE which being an object oriented BASIC is an ideal development language for me to get involved with. I have downloaded Xojo, which is free to download, develop and test, but requires the purchase of a license for distribution. Xojo being commercially developed and supported is ideal as well, IMO. It is interesting that Xojo is also able to build for Raspberry Pi which is something I will be interested in testing. Xojo itself will be installed on serverpc which doesn't have much software installed on it and is ideal for resources. 

mediapc has been upgraded with a new GA-B250M-D3H motherboard so that it can handle video production and playback better and it now has memory increased to 8 GB. It still has the same 1 TB disks and I have to clean them up to make enough space for everything I am looking to do with it. It has been mounted on a new steel shelf under the desk on the opposite side of the desk from where the same chassis was previously used for serverpc. Moving the chassis allows the leads to reach the screens which are on that side of the desk and also means it can be permanently mounted because of the sliding cover on the chassis on the left side.

I am currently working on a new cabinet to house playerpc and the scanner which will be under the desk on the left hand side. This will be similar to the old cabinet which was on the right except one side of it will be a steel shelf mounted flat against the side of the desk to which the playerpc chassis is bolted, so the chassis will be attached to the desk like all the others. The chassis which is a smaller version of the Inwin ones the other three PCs use, will be on its side just as before, this is the only way of giving internal access, and the scanner shelf will be right above it, with the shelf removed when needed to access the inside of the computer chassis. playerpc has now got the H110M-S2H board in it with 8 GB of RAM, which gives it better playback capability than in its previous configuration. The videos are synced off mediapc currently using grsync manually run.

Free Linux video editors [2]

I have written a few times about video editing, in May this year I talked about a few free packages I had tried out that didn't work.

As mediapc now has more memory and a better hardware spec, I am planning to install Blender, Handbrake, Lightworks and ShotCut on it and see if those packages will work better than some of the ones I have tried in the past.

Mostly video editing is of worship videos, and I am gearing up to superimpose lyrics onto some clips so that they can be used in small group settings with playback on a TV. To do this I have worked out the easiest way is to make a powerpoint which shows one line at a time with multiple screens and play back the video on one computer and on the other computer have the powerpoint going with stepping through in time to the worship video and have a screen recorder recording the area of the screen where the words are displayed. Then overlaying the lyrics video onto the original with a video editor. This is a lot easier than putting the lyrics one step at a time into a video editor as a text overlay with all the fiddling around to get the timing exactly right which I think would take a lot longer to do. (But maybe I am wrong about that)

Of course worship presentation software can also do this, but you need extra hardware to capture the video on the same computer, and the software also costs a lot of money. 

It may be there is another way of doing what I am trying to do, so I will look into these options more over the holiday break and see what I can find out.

Ubuntu Touch may step in where Firefox OS finished....maybe?

We certainly have a strong case for an alternative to Android because we should get a choice to be free of Google's massive data collection infrastructure that is tracking everything we do and everywhere we go with our phones. Revelations for example that Android 8 screen scrapes every app in the system are mind boggling. I have by choice switched my PCs to Firefox Aurora as the main browser and regular Firefox as a secondary, dropping Chrome for nearly everything, but I still use a lot of Google accounts on my computers. On the Android platform the scope is there for a much more universal collection of data by Google even as the European Union looks at more stringent penalties and regulations to force Google to cut back the scope of its data mining.

Ubuntu Touch is these days more of a community effort compared to when it was officially funded by Canonical. Firefox OS looked good for a while and it's a shame it was dropped. UT does look like it is gaining ground but of course is limited by the degree to which it can be adapted to a very large number of different hardware specifications. So far not many pieces of hardware are supported.

Or of course one can go back to the "dumb" or feature phone I guess....

Computing resources optimisation [2D]

I am going ahead with this so I have been busy over the last few days installing and removing things around the place. To date I have installed the old mediapc chassis with a new board, CPU and RAM, GA-B250M-D3H with Kaby Lake Pentium G4560, and moving all three disks across from serverpc. It was a pleasant surprise for it to boot straight up especially as turning off UEFI is still possible even in these relatively new boards (although this model is about 2 years old and in fact is end of line).

The next to be treated will be mediapc going in serverpc's old chassis with another new board and CPU as above and reusing some of serverpc's RAM and keeping the mediapc disks.

The board from serverpc will be going into playerpc with some of its original RAM and keeping its existing disks. The chassis will be modified to allow it to be bolted in place like the others except sideways to the wall of the desk a distance off the floor for ventilation and a means of supporting the scanner sliding shelf to be arranged.

I was able to get wholesale pricing on everything which meant I was able to accomplish a lot more than I had expected for the same money so the result is the best outcome and better than I was originally planning as it's been possible to upgrade all three of the PCs apart from mainpc which is still pretty good even although it is about four years old and in fact, now the oldest.

So to recap we now have a H97 Haswell Pentium G, a H110 Skylake Pentium G and two B250 Kaby Lake Pentium Gs. Why take the Kaby Lake boards and CPUs when Coffee Lake is available? Coffee Lake Pentium G and Celeron CPUs are in very short supply worldwide and therefore the Coffee Lake board would have had to be fitted with a Core i3 CPU. These are basically double the price of a Pentium G although the performance is somewhat higher, it could not be justified for the extra money. 

It is interesting Kaby Lake Pentium Gs have two cores and four threads, whereas that Haswell that I have would only have two cores and two threads. So the Kaby Lake Pentium G is basically specced about where a Core i3 was a few years ago. However the graphics performance has been downgraded somewhat in the Pentium G, certainly a lower processing frequency. In my case the amount of times you would see the CPU maxed out is rare so the higher cost simply can't be justified in any way. 

All of the systems are now using Intel graphics in Linux. The Ivy Bridge system used to have a NVidia two head card made by Gigabyte which cost only $50 and provided for two digital displays as the board only had a VGA and DVI output and only supported one display onboard from memory. This system was the last one on my desk using a non Gigabyte board, back when I was still buying Intel made boards. Apparently Intel doesn't make desktop boards any more. This board CPU and RAM are now looking for a new home around here but I have plenty of spare chassis it could go in. The NVidia cards were OK until nouveaux drivers started causing problems of various sorts and because Intel stuff is better supported and on all the boards can drive two or three displays it suits my setup to go onto Intel although Google Earth still seems to have an issue with mainpc's particular onboard graphics.