Mac Pro 2008 Not Turning On: Power Supply Problems

Apple Mac Pro 2008

Just an aside, my trusty Mac Pro 2008 tower started behaving erratically a few weeks ago. Basically it wouldn’t power on, instead it would emit two faint relay type clicks a few seconds after pressing the power button. Leaving it unplugged overnight would occasionally result in it being boot-able the next morning.

Now I’ve been through a few spare parts on this particular computer – in particular graphics cards (it’s on its third). The overnight powerdown fix pointed me towards SMC problems, but replacing the motherboard battery didn’t resolve anything. Which lead me to the PSU. I tried using compressed air to blow the dust out of it in case it was some kind of thermal issue to no avail.

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River's Edge title

River’s Edge (1986) – iTunes HD Review

More car business in River's Edge in 1986

More car business in River’s Edge in 1986

River’s Edge is a 1986 crime drama, staring Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck and Dennis Hopper and is available on iTunes in HD. It was directed by Tim Hunter, who has had a prolific television career with spanning dozens of cult television shows including: Hannibal, Dexter, Mad Men, Deadwood, Homicide: Life on the Street, Eerie Indiana and Twin Peaks. It was written by Highly rated by critics, and a modest success at the box office, the film is unavailable on Blu-ray, so I thought I’d have a look at the iTunes version to see if it worth your time.

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Better Closed Caption Decoding in Python

I’ve just pushed out an improved version of my Closed Caption decoder to GitHub. In addition to decoding closed captions to SRT or SCC formats, it includes the following improvements:

  • XDS packet decoding
  • Improved handling of noisy and non-standard video
  • More complete handling of esoteric characters
  • Much easy to use in embedded projects due to separation into core library
  • A few performance improvements
  • Pre-built command line version for windows (PyInstaller generated)

The software is entirely public domain – so feel free to use it in your own projects.

You’ll still need FFMpeg installed – but effortless static builds for windows can be found here. I’ll try and get an OSX binary built in the next few days.

I’d still like to move the project further forwards still – but I really need ‘real-world’ closed-caption samples to make it happen. If you are interested in decoding closed captions, and would like to see this tool improved, please reach out to me: we may be able to help each other.