Linda's Lunacy Thursday's Giveaways

I love entering giveaways, and have even won a few things. I really love hosting giveaways on Linda's Lunacy. It's so much fun to give stuff away!

So I thought I'd start a giveaway linky to make it easier to find lots of giveaways.




<a href="http://www.lindaslunacy.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5076399356_61a6ac4b87_t.jpg" alt="Linda's Lunacy" width="150" height="150"/></a>

The posting of my button is not required, but help in spreading the word that Linda's Lunacy has a giveaway linky is greatly appreciated! So thank you!

Adding your giveaway to Linda's Lunacy Thursday's Giveaways is very easy! Just use this format, please.

Blog name - name of item being given away - ending date

See? Easy!

Please, only link family friendly giveaways. My kids read here, and anything not family friendly, will be promptly deleted. Sorry, but it's for my kids. :)

Have fun, and I hope you win something!

Wordless Wednesday - The Teddy Edition

No Teddy Bears were harmed in the taking of this picture.  :)

For more pictures, visit Wordless Wednesday,
Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom ,
Say "Cheese" at It's a Blog Party
A Beautiful Mess,
Live and Love Outloud,
Attic Girl
Shibley Smiles
Angelica's Awesome Adventures
The Florida Hogans
The Life of Rylie & Bryce, too
Mama to 4 Blessings
Wordy or Not So Wordy Wednesday

30 Day Giving Challenge

For the month of November I'm participating in the 30 Day Giving Challenge.

I participated last year, as well. However, due to being sick, I was unable to give something on all 30 days.

This year, I'm hoping and praying to complete the challenge.

Our family works in a clothes ministry at our church. We take the donated clothes, sort them, put them out in the Outreach Center for people to come in and get for free. We also fill up our church's fellowship hall with clothes every couple of months, and have the public come in and get clothes for free. We advertise this in the local papers and on local radio, so we usually have a pretty good turn out. We are having another giveaway this Saturday.

Here are a few pictures that I posted back in March of the fellowship hall full of clothes.

All that takes our family quite a bit of time. So that's how a lot of the days for this challenge will be spent.

Of course, I will be doing other things as well.

For example, yesterday on Day 1, I gave away the chocolate covered cherries that my husband brought me to someone that was having a hard time and needed some cheering up. And no, I didn't give them to myself. lol

Giving doesn't always involve money.

It's the giving of yourself that makes the biggest difference. So some days of the challenge will be giving of myself and my time to others.


There's still plenty of time to join, visit the 30 Day Giving Challenge

My Monthly Lists

Last week, I shared my Weekly Lists, and before that, my Daily Lists. This week, it's on to the monthly lists. If the daily work is done regularly, the weeklies are pretty easy to do, and they go fast. And if the weekly work is done regularly, the monthly work is pretty easy to do.

Is everything on the list done? Not always. Some months, I even skip tasks. *gasp* I try and make a note if I skip something, so I make sure and get it done the next month.

My lists are a tool to help me take care of my home, not something that has to be followed no matter what. I have learned to not be so hard on myself when it comes to my lists. See, I'm a perfectionist, and can have a hard time with not doing everything perfectly.  I've learned, (and am still learning) to put people before the lists. While still getting to the lists. :)

Here are my monthly cleaning lists.

Schoolroom
clean rug
cob web duty
cull bookshelves
rearrange tops of shelves,cabinets
dust above shelves, put everything where it goes
find things we don't use anymore to give away
clean light fixtures


Master Bedroom
clean out dresser drawers
cob web duty
clean closet shelves
wash shower walls
clean carpet
clean light fixtures
declutter
turn mattress
mop bathroom
wash rugs

Living / Dining Room
clean light fixtures, ceiling fan
cob web duty
clean carpets
wipe down doors, light switches
move furniture and vacuum under

Kitchen
wipe down laundry room door, inside and out
straighten drawers/ cabinets
clean light fixtures
cob web duty
dust above cabinets
wash rugs
wipe step stool
clean off top of fridge
clean oven
move stove and fridge, clean under

The kids do their own bedrooms and bathroom. Their lists are similar to mine.

Next week, I'll share how I came up with my lists.


For more homemaking ideas, visit
Homemaker Monday
Tackle it Tuesday
Homemaking Link-up at Raising Homemakers
Works For Me Wednesday

Some news!

Hi there,

It has been quite a long time since the last blog update, so let's catch up! Development has been slow last months, and if you are a regular PS3 user of the streaming, transcoding and/or remuxing features, the 1.10.5 build is still a good candidate to experiment the ps3's media capabilities, despite some shortcomings (audio/video compatibility detection based on extensions, slow media library for those using it, etc.)

However interesting features are on their way with newer beta versions (currently experimented in the forum if you feel adventurous) such as:

- Better media parsing, thanks to mediainfo.sf.net: This allows for faster browsing, accurate format detection and automatic launch of the transcoder if required (still not 100% perfect, but closer than ever :p)
- Other media renderers support, such as connected TVs. It's a work in progress, so not everything works out of the box. Sony Bravia models are the best supported right now.
- Proper video remuxing, and DTS support for DVD ISOs.
- Many fixes, feature requests, etc.

A stable and proper version will come in the following weeks, stay tuned !

1.10.5

Hi everyone,

a new minor release is out, with only bugfixes. Not much to add, except sorry for those who met the following bugs :p

PS3 Media Server v1.10.5 for Windows/Linux/OSX

Changelog:

- Fixes:

Regression in FLAC playback
Fixed subtitles font detection on Windows
Flaw in the transcode/remux buffer, in some cases, the video stopped after a few minutes
Cache bug when streaming web medias
Duplicate items issue on Linux
Upnp alive message sent sooner at the start of the server

v1.10.1

Hi everyone,

some time has passed since the last version, so here's a major one ! Hopefully, it offers some interesting features to all ps3 owners running on Windows or Linux, like the DTS streaming support (no need anymore to encode in AC3 or PCM if you have a DTS compatible receiver), an improved Mencoder engine with automatic decision between muxing (aka no video encoding) and full video transcoding. About the DTS feature, make sure to read carefully the message box who will appear if you enable this option. Also, the automatic muxing option is enabled by default, to offer the best video quality when this is possible (if the video track is compatible and no subtitles are involved). Keep in mind that it's a new feature, so if anything bad happens, you can disable it in the mencoder configuration panel (or in the #Video Settings# virtual menu on XMB). There's other things to try, check the changelog !

PS3 Media Server v1.10.1 for Windows/Linux - v1.10 for OSX

the 1.10.1 version fixed a last minute bug, not related to OSX

Here's the changelog:

- Changes / Features : Windows/Linux

DTS / DTS-HD core audio tracks are now streamable without reencoding (DVD ISOs not supported yet)
New Option: unification of Mencoder/tsMuxer engines, including:
. Automatic choice between H264 muxing or transcoding, based on AVC Level 4.1 compatibility and subtitles configuration
. Remux on the fly any H264 content from MOV, MP4, and AVI containers (ex: Apple HD Trailers)
. This option is enabled by default and can be disabled via the #Video Settings# virtual menu if anything goes wrong
TS/M2TS support improvement
2 channels downmixing support with PCM conversion

- Changes / Features : All Platforms

XBox 360 unofficial support (Pictures/Music/Videos : WMV8/WMA2 transcoding)
Mencoder archive handling (no seeking support)
Simplified copy (always available, no more option), and much faster with remuxed videos
Alternate subtitles directory
Multi language external subtitles support
Alternate cover art folder and <video>.jpg additional support (along existing <video>.<ext>.cover.jpg)
Automatic album art download from amazon or discogs
Option to display more recents file first in a directory
Ability to generate video thumbnails with Mplayer
New translations: Romanian (thanks to Marinescu Alexandru Cezar), Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese (thanks to KK Tong)
Updated translations: Finnish, German, Greek, Icelandic, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish


- Fixes

Reworked RSS parsing (youtube playlists)
Reworked Audio/Subtitles tracks handling
Better stability in LPCM and DTS handling
Fixed LPCM channel ordering
Wrong font detection on some systems: subtitles weren't loaded
Fixed tsMuxer crash at the end of file
Modified UPNP discovery