In a relationship far far away...

Hello, friends!

It's been a while. I should mention, although it's obvious, that I can't really honor the update schedule I had mentioned. I'll update whenever I can...
If you have a problem with that then talk to my lawyer, haha.  No, I'm actually sorry I can't update more often, but I don't have a lot of free time.

Anyway, here's the update!

My girlfriend and I enjoy reading. We enjoy reading a lot. In fact, when we first started to chat books was the main thing we talked about! One thing about long distance relationships is that we can still enjoy books together. We recommend books to each other and after we have both read them we discuss them. Kind of like a book club, but more personal.

Now, we kind of went beyond that. Since my girlfriend and I really really enjoy the classics, we tend to visit the Gutenberg project a lot. For those that don't know it, the Gutenberg project is a digital library full of books that have entered the public domain. The books are free, which in this case means that you don't need to pay anything and it also means that you can pass the books around, make adaptations, translations, etc. without having to ask for permission. I am not a copyright lawyer, so you'd have to check what the public domain laws are in your jurisdiction.

I also used to visit Librivox. That site has the goal of making voice recordings of classics in the public domain (so it's kind of like an audio Gutenberg project). Librivox gave me the idea of recording short stories for my girlfriend: she can enjoy the stories and listening to my voice at the same time. She also does the same for me now. We also write original short stories for each other sometimes.

Listening to the sweet voice of my girlfriend reading a story for me is something I enjoy very much. If you like reading and you are in a long distance relationship, you should try it.

I'll be mentioning other activities that can be done to make a long distance relationship get a little closer. Things that my girlfriend and I like doing. If you have some activity that you'd like to mention, please do it in the comments.

Streaming with VLC

Hello, friends!

Since I got a comment asking how to stream with VLC, I'm taking a break from the relationship posts to write a tutorial on how to do that.

First step, install VLC if it's not installed. Second, open VLC.

This is what VLC looks like when you open it.

 Then you click on Media menu and you pick Streaming.

This is the streaming dialog.

Once the streaming dialog opens up, you have to click on the Capture Device tab. There, you have to complete the Video device name option with your webcam. I don't know how this is on Windows, but on GNU/Linux I put the default webcam device which is /dev/video0. You can always stream a file if you want.
 

Pick your webcam to stream.

 Then you click on the Stream button a the bottom. That opens up a few options for you to configure. The source is already done for you and the type in GNU/Linux would be v4l or v4l2. So we go to the Destinations option instead.

I leave this as is.

In the destinations, I click on "Display locally" so I can see myself while streaming and then I pick HTTP in the combo selector. Then I click Add.

Where do you want to stream to?

Here I pick the port and the path. You could call the path /stream.mkv or /stream.asf depending on the type of container you pick (more of that on the next step). The port should be a port that you can open on your router (8080 is the default).

Pick a port and a Path.

 Once that's done, you have to pick the Transcoding options. There are some profiles already prepared, but you can create your own.

If you decide to create your own you have to name your profile and pick a container (VLC calls it "Encapsulation"). I use an mkv container but do check what works for you.

Pick your container.

For codec I pick V8, but again, pick what you like the most. You can also pick the size of the streaming and the FPS. Depending on your bandwidth you want the size and the FPS to be higher or lower. Just play with the settings and see what works for you and the person receiving the streaming.

Pick your codec.

Then you can save your new Profile for streaming if you decided to create one. After that's done, click on the Stream button once again and your camera should turn on and you should be able to see what your camera is showing. To let the other person see your streaming you provide them with a URL like this: http://YourIP:ThePort/StreamPath.container. For example: http://127.0.0.1:8080/stream.mkv (127.0.0.1 is localhost, obviously). To find out your IP use ipconfig in a Windows terminal or ifconfig in a GNU/Linux or OSX terminal.

That's it. Let me know if you try it and it doesn't work for you or if you have any doubts or suggestions. If you try it and it works for you, I'd also like to hear it!

PS: There's a poll on the right of this blog. Vote on it if you haven't yet!