Could not read DVD. This may be because the DVD is encrypted and a DVD decryption library is not installed.

Thankfully a quick Google search turned up a post on the Ubuntu forums with my fix.

I am going to post it here for my own reference just in case I need to re-install Ubuntu again.

32bit

wget -c http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/free/libd/libdvdcss/libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu4_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu4_i386.deb


64bit

wget -c http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/free/libd/libdvdcss/libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu4_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.9-2medibuntu4_amd64.deb

Hopefully this can help someone else. I am now happily watching DVD’s on my laptop again. Thanks to the help on the Ubuntu forums.

I have a 16GB SD card in my Milestone but I was not using all of it so I thought if I could move apps to my SD card that would sure help in making the phone useful again. I looked at upgrading to Froyo but my phone is rooted and besides the move to SD card feature the downgrade in performance that might come with the upgrade was not something I wanted. So I went looking for an app that could help me move apps to my SD card and free up some space.

After searching and trying a few apps I came across the Link2SD app. It required taking my 16GB SD card out and re-partitioning it with an extra partition for Link2SD to use but that seemed like a minor inconvenience so I took the card out, made a backup copy of everything on the card and proceeded to re-partition my SD card with two primary partitions. One 15GB for my information and a 1GB primary partition for Link2SD to use. After the partitions were formatted (I used FAT32 if you want to know), I copied all my data back to the 15GB partition and inserted my SD card back in my Milestone and booted it up.

Once my phone booted up I installed Link2SD from the Market and grated it root permissions. It was a pretty simple to start moving the apps to my new SD card partition. I did only a few apps to see how well it worked. It has been over week now and I have been happily adding apps back to my phone that I had removed, like Angry Birds, Google SkyMap and a few others. It has been great to be able to have some room to install new apps on my phone again.

If you don’t have Froyo on your Android phone but are rooted you might want to take a look at Link2SD. It has been a great app to add to my Milestone and has given me a reason to not upgrade quite yet to the next Nexus phone (even if I really want one). I am sure if I hold out long enough the next Nexus phone will be even better.

I enjoy a good round of Angry Birds, but since it is close to Halloween I thought I would share a game I have been enjoying called Stupid Zombies. Nothing like shooting some zombies to help waste some time and clear ones mind.

If you are looking for a new game to try out after you finish getting all those green pigs try out Stupid Zombies. It can be a lot of fun.

It is available in the Android Market here.

Some screenshots

The promo video from YouTube.

Size – It is bigger than my phone but not as big as the iPad. Sure the larger screen on the iPad looks nice but I can hold the Galaxy Tab easily in one hand and not worry about dropping it.

Wifi – I do not understand why Apple insists that you copy data onto their devices by connecting them to a computer. Honestly, it is stupid. Thanks to ES File Manager I can easily copy content from my computers over wifi.

Google – I use GMail, Calendar, Contacts, GTalk, Maps from Google and the tight integration of Google  products and services on Android really makes this a no brainer. It all just works together.

Flash – Like it or not Flash is a part of a lot of websites and with the Galaxy Tab I do not miss anything. I would not be sad if Flash died on the web but the reality is for now it is apart of it.

Bluetooth Keyboard – I recently picked up a Bluetooth Keyboard and Leather case and it has been a great addition with my Tab. It essentially turns my tablet into a netbook so I can write longer emails, blog posts etc. It has been great.

While the Samsung Galaxy Tab might already be out of date compared to some of the new tablets coming out it is an excellent device.

First impressions were good. The device is small but the touch screen makes it easy to navigate around. My seven year old son even had no problems finding his way around on the little touch screen. Unfortunately my good first impression of the Apple iPod Nano did not last long.

I don’t use iTunes, I had hoped to die before ever having to use iTunes. I have my music collection all nicely sorted and managed on my Ubuntu desktop. I have regularly loaded my kids other MP3 players with music by simply hooking the devices up to my desktop and copying over the folders they wanted. It is simple, takes roughly 30 seconds and they are off listening to their new music. Not going to happen with the new iPod Nano.

Hooking it up to my Ubuntu desktop I was able to see the device but I quickly learned that the newest iPod Nano is not supported by my favourite music manager on Linux. Apparently the iPod Nano does not actually scan its internal storage for music but has some kind of database that needs to be updated and it can only be done at the moment by iTunes. Can you hear me swearing yet? Trust me I was.

I can live with the fact that I have to connect the device to a computer to copy music and photos on to it, but being forced to use iTunes was almost to much. I love my son, however, who decided this new device was now his, so I booted up my Windows virtual machine, downloaded iTunes and began the installation. After over an hour it had finally finished installing and scanning all the music and I was able to copy music on to the iPod. That went fairly smoothly. iTunes is a bloated piece of crap but at least it worked. I was able to get the few kids albums he wanted onto the device and some photos.

I gave it to my son and he gladly went off and listened to some music. A little while later he came back to me and asked how he could watch the latest movie I had loaded onto his other MP3 player on the new one. I told him he couldn’t because it could not play videos. He then decided I could have the iPod Nano back and went and watched the movie on his older $25.00 MP3 player.

If you use iTunes to manage your music I guess using an iPod is not a large step. If you happen to already have your music collection organizied the way you like it and have no need to ever use iTunes never buy an iPod Nano. I have since loaded it with all the music the kids like and keep it in the car to hook up to the car stereo. This way I don’t have to put more music on it very often.

It is unfortunate that Apple feels they have to lock people into using iTunes to be able to do something as simple as putting music on a simple MP3 player. A task that should have taken me 30 seconds to do with a $25.00 MP3 player took me close to 2 hours initially with the iPod Nano.

Using the iPod Nano made me appreciate wirelessly connecting my Android devices to my network and loading music. It is so much easier and better than how Apple does it. Do iPhones have to connect to a computer to load music? If they do, what a waste of time.

I would never have bought it but winning it was nice and it confirmed to me why I never bought any kind of iPod in the past.

Thanks Google, so let me guess my birthday present is in the mail right?

The Good
Streaming! – Finally a streaming movie service in Canada. It is ridiculous that there are still services and DVD rental places moving plastic disks around. This is the way movies and TV on demand should be delivered! If the movie studios want to reduce piracy they need to make it easier to watch their content. Netflix provides an easy to use, instant streaming service. Before Netflix in Canada the next closest way to do this was to torrent the same content.

Wii, PS3 Support, Netflix Enabled Devices – There are lots of Netflix enabled devices available and most probably support Netflix Canada. We have a Wii and just got the disc the other day to use Netflix on the device. It is easy to use. While those that love their high quality 1080p HDTV might laugh at the quality the Wii puts out, it is decent enough to watch.

Windows and Mac support – Instant streaming to a Windows or Mac computer is simple. For those people that already have a media computer hooked up to their TV this will be the best way to watch Netflix.

The Bad
Microsoft Silverlight! I am sure Netflix has a good reason for this, and it probably has everything to do with DRM. Honestly though, Microsoft Silverlight SUCKS! My one Windows computer that is in our kitchen for everyone to use just chokes and dies when I try to play Netflix on it. The machine is not that old, and does most things fine, but Silverlight causes it to crash and become unresponsive 98% of the time.

Windows and Mac Instant Streaming Only – Linux does not get instant streaming and probably has everything to do with DRM. This is an inconvenience but it will stop me from watching TV and movies at my desk.

No Android app – This is not surprising since Linux is not supported. Would be nice to have with the Samsung Galaxy Tab coming soon, and me thinking of getting one.

Selection – Their movie and TV selection is not full of all the latest and greatest. If you need to see the latest DVD release the day it comes out, then Netflix is probably not for you. But then again none of the DVD by mail services are really for you.

Affiliate Program – I have heard good things about the Netflix affiliate program, even though it is part of the Google Affiliate network. I wanted to join, but was turned down. I guess I do not get enough traffic. Just wanted to mention it since it just kind of ticked me off that they turned me down.

The Ugly
DRM – This is probably why there is no Linux support. Also the reason I cannot use my WD TV HD Live to stream Netflix. There is a WD TV HD Live Plus that does support Netflix, but from what I have heard so far Netflix Canada is still not actually supported. I will put up with this kind of DRM more than if I was buying a disc simply because the service offers unlimited streaming.

Overall
Netflix will not be for everyone, but it is a great service for those that want quick and easy access to TV and movies. Anyone that has ever gone to the video store with kids should get this service. No more screaming and arguing about what to rent, or maybe that is just me and my kids. The Netflix instant streaming is perfect for me and our family. While we stopped going to the video store when I signed up with Zip.ca, now with Netflix I no longer need to find movies to have queued to mail to us. I just browse and click. As their selection improves this will be the only way to rent movies soon.

If the movie studios are smart (and I doubt that some are) they need to realize that their DVD sales will never go back up to where they were and they need to get on Netflix instant streaming. The cost of Netflix is low and the fact that you can watch it instantly is better than downloading a movie (not that I have ever done that). If there is a movie or TV show that I really must have I will still go and buy a plastic disc of it, but I would much prefer a digital copy that I can just play.

The price of $7.99 in Canada for instant, unlimited streaming is nothing and it is faster and cheaper than the local video store. Not to mention you never have to worry about returning a movie or going out in -30 Celsius. If you add it all up it is probably the greenest way to watch a movie, but that is a whole other post. Enough writing, I am off to go watch another movie on my Wii.

While the media player has a couple of USB ports to plug USB drives into the unit the real selling point for me was the wired network port. A wireless network adapter would have been great, but running a network cable into the family room was not a big deal and it means a faster connection. Once the unit was plugged into the network and my a/v receiver I was quickly able to browse my network.

Using the media player has been easy. It has played every media format I have tried to play on it so far. Everything from Xvid Avi files, 3gp video files recorded from my phone, to complete .iso backup files of our DVD’s. Streaming the data from my desktop has been no problem. No lag, jerkiness or delay. Most of my music is either MP3 or Ogg format and both have played flawlessly. Photos have been great to browse through. No problems looking through them at all.

I have only really tried the YouTube feature of the media player. It plays the content well enough, but finding the content on YouTube takes some patience to enter a search term since you only have a simple remote control to enter characters with. I have not tried option to browse Flickr photos yet. Pandora and the other Internet radio options are not really possible here in Canada.

If you are looking for a media player take a look at the Western Digital HD Live Media Player. I am very please with it and can see getting a lot of use from it. I got mine on sale from Memory Express with free shipping. That saved me around $10.00 in shipping. Not bad considering it was also the best priced at $119.00. The fact that it showed up on my doorstep the next day was a real bonus. If Memory Express does not have it on sale anymore you can also find it at TigerDirect.

There are many good file managers available for Android but they all lacked the essential feature to be able to connect to a network share. The best app I found was ES File Manager. Not only can you use it to manage files on the local SD card but it can connect to Windows/Samba shares and FTP servers. This was exactly what I was looking for. Now I can simply connect to my main desktop Samba share and copy the files I want on my phone easily. No need to connect the phone via USB cable. This also makes it easy to copy and move photos and video off the phone to my main desktop. The only thing that would make it easier is if Dropbox finally got their Android app finished so I could just sync those files. Until then ES File Manager makes it easy to do.

Check out the official ES File Manager website for more details. Great app for those that want to browse local network file shares. Not sure why people use the other file managers.