Archive for October, 2009
New Verizon Android Phone
Posted by jdodson in free software, tech on October 29, 2009
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/motorola-droid-initial-impressions-20091028/
Its a matter of time really.
New Ubuntu(Its Been Six Months)
Posted by jdodson in free software, tech on October 29, 2009
New Ubuntu released. I won’t get into the name or numbers because I find they don’t matter to me that much anymore. Its just the latest version of Ubuntu. Kind of like the latest version of Saw. No idea what number it is, its just there and they keep coming every 6 months.
One feature of this release kind of surprised me though. They are now moving to ext4 by default. That prob means that ext4 is in the main kernel(which I missed the news of and is more noteworthy to me than a new version of Ubuntu). Thing is, even if its in the main kernel I still prob wouldn’t use it yet. I know ext4 is a incremental file system built on ext3 which does make me less nervous than using something like btrfs(which looks hell of amazingly cool) on release day. However, I am still a bit leary that its as bulletproof as ext3. Perhaps its just a “mind thing.” Ive been using ext3 since… Well since I switched from ext2 and its been a fine file system. I have absolutely no complaints. Then again I am not doing replicated data storage over a network on multiple arrays of servers. Id prob use something else for that.
Anyways… new Saw… new Ubuntu… Ext4 by default. If it were me, I wouldn’t switch so soon.
**UPDATE**
I Finally Have The Magic Beans!
I love music. I love ripping my lovely music as digital so I can listen to it on my computer, cell phone and mp3 player. I rip to 320k mp3 because I want to hear all the song bits I can on a myriad of devices. Thus far MP3 is the most supported audio format possible followed by WAV and AAC. Since with WAV you get lossless audio BUT lose tags, I go with MP3 at 320k. If you lose bits at 320k I bet I would not really notice anyway.
I use grip to make MP3′s as grip uses the always amazing and fun LAME to encode the music. Now grip does a fine job and the audio files it produces are very nice quality.
For instance using Banshee I could rip a 3 minute song at 192k and it came out to 8.!. Using grip and LAME at 320k I can rip a 6 minute song at 8.1M. Why? Because of LAME presets and taking a bit longer in time to make a smaller file but at a higher rate. Think a better math problem and because of that, it takes longer to run.
All should be fine in the world, but its not. Transferring the mp3′s to my iPhone work ok. Sound great. Transferring them to my Verizon phone works fine. Cowan mp3 player? Check. iTunes? Yep. Rhythmbox? Yes.
My Sony car mp3 player that reads USB drives and mp3 cds? Umm well the songs play fine but the songs are out of order. This has bugged me for quite a long time as I had no idea why this was the case.
At first I thought it was the USB filesystem, perhaps its messed up. That wasn’t it. Then I noticed some albums being in order and some not. Albums I got off Amazon listed fine, newly ripped ones didn’t. I had no idea what it was until I noticed the filenames grip was saving the mp3 files with.
Amazon, iTunes and most rip a album like this:
01 – Sunshine of You Love.mp3
02 – Do The Bartman.mp3
03 – Chocolate Rain.mp3
04 – She Bangs.mp3
By default grip does this:
sunshine_of_your_love.mp3
do_the_bartman.mp3
Quite some time ago I added the track number so MOST non playlist mp3 players could read the songs in order so grip would do this:
01-sunshine_of_your_love.mp3
02-do_the_bartman.mp3
However, on my Sony that doesn’t put the songs in order. Doing the “iTunes” formatting does though and it took me long enough to figure out.
Some of you might be wondering why I just don’t use iTunes to rip the music and fiddle with grip. Good question. I ripped some albums as 320k mp3 in iTunes. It only saved the tag info at the latest mp3 tag format. Which meant that most of mp3 stuff(older stuff, non iPods) didn’t know what the title was or album from the latest id3 formating. When I rip in grip I encode the file with id3 v EARLIEST – 2.whatever. This is for all my hardware to work right. Now I also have to make the files the right magic name too. Else its out of order albums and that isn’t quite right.
To make the filenames work right in grip do this:
1) Config/Encode/Encoder -> Encoder lame -> encoder command line “-h -V 0 –vbr-new –preset insane %w %m” encode file format: “%t – %n.%x”
2) Config/Misc Check “do not lowercase filenames” and “do not change spaces to underscores”
BAM. Nice fidelity and it will work on iPods and a range of other gear.
Now if it would just embed the album art…
Apoligize To Amazon
Posted by jdodson in informative, tech on October 27, 2009
I wanted to apoligize to Amazon. The other day I said Amazon retailers that sell used CD’s charge $3.99 for shipping. Its actually $2.99. They haven’t demanded an apology yet but I bet its coming.
Inviting the World To Your Parties
Posted by jdodson in Uncategorized, tech, work on October 26, 2009
Been working quite a bit lately. Been enjoying my work quite a bit lately. Its fun to use something and not only have people use it but use it myself.
dotcal.com needed an invitation system so I built one. I built it into our calendar but I learned a few things from other systems that I took along for the ride. For instance I learned from Google Calendar what I don’t want to do. Currently in Google Calendar if you invite someone to an event nothing tells the person that the event was added to their calendar, it simply was just added silently. I talked to a guy from Google Calendar at the last CalConnect and he said this is a feature. I think this is a bad one as I don’t want events added to my calendar without me knowing about it.
So when we send someone an invitation we actually send an invitation. YOU say if you are going or not and YOU say if your not. It also has the added benefit of letting you know the event is going to happen. I think this is the correct behavior.
dotcal++
An other feature I like is a “Evite” system for invitations. Evite allows anyone to create an account and send invitations to anyone with a email address. Some modern calendar programs don’t allow this as you are REQUIRED to send invitations to people with accounts on the system. dotcal doesn’t require you to send a invitation to ONLY people in our system. I mean how cool would it be for me to send a invitation to a event to someone and I had to rope them into getting a dotcal account. It would suck.
So dotcal not only tells you about a event invitation but it also sends out a invitation evite style allowing the recipient to be whomever they want to. I also added some features I havent seen anywhere else.
Evite sends out a invitation and you can say if you are going or not but it doesn’t allow you to… lets say a week before your Halloween party to send invitations to everyone that hasn’t responded yet. At least if it does, I didn’t see the feature.
dotcal allows three ways to send invitations:
- To everyone on the invites list
- To everyone who hasn’t responded yet
- To everyone you just added to the list
The default is everyone you just added to the list. This is by far the less annoying to the user receiving the invitation.
I have put much love into this system and think its a pretty good one. We have Google Maps integration so the location of the event is easily mappable. You can put a URL in the invitation as well. As the event organizer you can return to a special page to see everyones responses. Invitees can make a note for the event organizer public or private. We support most HTML in the invitation so you can make it pretty.
If you like what you hear, head over to dotcal to check it out. We also do a slew of other things, but ill save that for a future blog post.
The United States Of Moral Outrage!
Posted by jdodson in Uncategorized on October 26, 2009
How many times have you heard a political argument end with one or both sides demanding an apology. It seems like the hottest political trend right now. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. When one side gets an apology demand they spin it off as a waste of time. In political circles I view the fake moral outrage and demand of an apology as a total farce. I am somewhat of the mind that politicians are a bit more tough skinned than the “drop of a hat reactionary” mantle they often espouse. They like to milk the situation though, I suits their agenda.
Id come up with political examples from Repubs or Dems but this post isn’t about that really. Its about it coming from a source I never would have envisioned.
Recently its come out that Guantanamo Bay has used music from Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails to torture inmates. Of course, if you understand these bands… well they are pissed because their music is against this sort of thing. Its like using Sunday Bloody Sunday to march to war or something. Anyways, the artists in question want it to stop of course and Liz Cheneys group “Keep America Safe” made the outrageous comments that their protest is “pathetic,” “laughable,” and that “heavy metal bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine” lack any “moral authority on national security issues.”
Huh. Well, you know id like to know how you think they are morally bankrupt beyond the fact they don’t agree with your policies. I bet morality in this sense is a pretty rigid definition that is focused on the “Keep America Safe” agenda front, but beyond that its kind of a silly comment. Silly because they don’t understand what Rage or NiN’s music is really about at all. Kind of funny in a way. It would be like saying “I don’t get how Weird Al can comment on humor, he is not an authority.” If you didn’t understand his music that statement would make total sense and often ignorance does in fact win out. Kind of like here.
So beyond this being another example of politico ignorance the guys over at the ninhotline seemed to take it personally. This morning I saw this:
“If you are as outraged by these comments as we are, then we encourage you to get in touch with “Keep America Safe” and demand a public apology by Liz Cheney to Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, and all the other “immoral” musicians they’ve insulted.”
So I totally get that “Keep America Safe” were completely off base here and smarmy in only the way politcal groups can be but why do you need them to apologize? If they do they will be giving you moral authority so I can say I see no way in which they will do that. Having Gitmo NOT use your songs can be challenged in court. You can actually try and win that one. Id go there instead of demanding an apology, but that would just be me. I would respond to the “Keep America Safe” group though.
I think NiN and Rage are plenty moral. I think their fans are plenty moral. In fact, I am one such fan that has a “moral compass” but how would I respond to the “Keep America Safe” organization? Well by using the same art they crapped all over.
Dear Keep America Safe,
hey pig
yeah you
hey pig piggy pig pig pig
all of my fears came true
black and blue and broken bones you left me here I’m all alone
my little piggy needed something new
nothing can stop me now
I don’t care anymore
nothing can stop me now
I just don’t care
hey pig
nothing’s turning out the way I planned
hey pig there’s a lot of things I hoped you could help me understand
what am I supposed to do I lost my shit because of you
nothing can stop me now
I don’t care anymore
nothing can stop me now
I just don’t care
nothing can stop me now
you don’t need me anymore
Regards,
Morally Bankrupt Listener
Dear Keep America Safe,
The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists
And march around
Just don’t take what you need
I’ll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or I’ll drag you to your grave
I’m deep inside your children
They’ll betray you in my name
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
The lie is my expense
The scope of my desire
The party blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agent of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
For it’s the end of history
It’s caged and frozen still
There is no other pill to take
So swallow the one
That made you ill
The Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agent of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
To Sleep now in the fire
Regards,
Mr “I Have No Authority Therefore No Opinion Because I Am Not You” Citizen
Again I am not saying people shouldnt have room to be upset. I am not saying people shouldnt demand things, feel free its your right. I wouldn’t though, it just seems off to me somehow. I would respond though because we are free to. Its one of the perks of being who we are as humans and free.
Kind Of A New Old Thing
About 3 months ago I was walking to work and I saw an old 4 disc changing CD/Tape deck boom box sitting out on the curb as garbage. It looked like it was in great condition and I decided to pick it up. Its sitting in my office hooked up to the computer as speakers and also use it to listen to the radio and the wife uses it to listen to CDs when she is in the office.
Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of NiN’s Pretty Hate Machine and I decided to ring in the occasion with listening to it on CD. Since that was pretty cool I decided to listen to a album on CD each day for the rest of the week. Today I am listening to Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream. I am on track 11 now. Ill try to keep to the 90′s theme.
When I make a Amazon order I like to purchase a few used CDs. I bought 5 recently. The CD’s are usually under a dollar to buy and the shipping costs $3.99. Kind of a scam in a way as they make back some money on shipping costs, but its a pretty good deal as I know of no place you can get lossless music for $5. Lossless music that you actually have a physical copy of with album art. I usually just rip the album as 320k and listen to it that way but doing the CD thing has been fun.
Bach, Bernstein & Beethoven
Posted by jdodson in life, offhandstrangity on October 18, 2009
Tonight I went to the Bach, Bernstein & Beethoven concert in Portland with a friend Rob. The concert was incredible. We both had a really good time and chatted in some length afterward about the music and how rad it was(after the concert and during intermission). Though, it wasn’t all strings and mind blowing notes…
One thing I find is that it seems and perhaps this is only a Portland thing, but more often than id like when I am totally engrossed in some piece of art in shared setting(movie, symphony) people feel like it is a good setting for a chat. Or put another way, people seem to think its completely fine to talk during a movie or symphony.
*sigh*
I don’t go to the symphony or a movie because I want to like going, I go because I love it. I held my breath a few times during tonights symphony so I could catch all the notes that were played. I am not the kind of person that goes to movies or the symphony because I want to like it, I go because I love it. I don’t really understand why people think the Schnitz or a Regal Cinema is their chat zone though.
And yes, I am that guy that will ask you to stop. One time I turned to people talking and laughing during District 9 and I said “are you going to talk the whole time.” The guy turned to me and simply said “yes.” They talked less, but continued.
Just like tonights amazing symphonic performance District 9 sucked me in too. As with amazing pieces of art…. Well they are engrossing and I am taken in by that. Peoples chat sessions bring me out of that zone that I love being in…. I guess its the fascinating art zone or all encompassing creative pull or whatever. Whatever the words, its awesome and it sucks when rude people bring you out of it.
I think those kinds of people should like plop in a DVD and chat it up in their own living rooms. Put on OPB and watch the symphony and say stuff like “I WONDER WHAT THE STORY OF THIS SONG IS!” or things like “IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS SONG IS A CONVERSATION!” or the always amazing people that, like tonight, love pointing out what everyone is already noticing, like “HEY THAT GUY TURNED THE PAGE FOR THE PIANIST!”
Ummmm, yeah and everyone saw it too, thanks for the commentary Ebert you really make this symphony worth listening too…. OK so yeah, no.
So I turned my head and said “Can you please not talk, thank you.” They looked at me like I was the Anti Christ…. And I guess I am the prince of darkness, the prince of darkness that enjoys the art in question minus the inane commentary.
Then again, I do love Mystery Science Theatre 3000. But there is a time and a place for that. And that time and place is in my living room.
After intermission Rob and I moved to the front because there were vacant seats. It was awesome as the respectful silence of the people around us was complimentary to the music.
Whoa, Racism is Dead?
Posted by jdodson in informative, life, twitter post on October 14, 2009
This post is going to have nothing to do with the title.
Do you read blogs that start out as self aware? What I mean is I often refer to this blog and the fact that I am posting. Also I tend to be “blogware” which means I tend to blog from the perspective that I blog or post from the perspective of posting. Does that ruin things for you? I am not sure I would change things if it did but I have been thinking about it some. I haven’t been thinking about it that much, but when I blog I do.
More of that blogware sort of thing happening. Perhaps I am violating the blog 5th wall or something. Or perhaps its just mostly online lame to admit you blog when you blog. Blogging being a dying art even now. Even now. Or at least that’s what I heard on some blog somewhere. I forget where I was sort of put out the site wasn’t blogware so I stopped reading it.
Obviously this post is going nowhere, but since I have text in the buffer I will click send after creating useless post tags and categorizing this post. As if that stuff mattered. In reality it doesn’t but it makes web 2.0 so happy they could tweet about drinking tea.
Finally Back
Posted by jdodson in life, video games on October 12, 2009
Ive been away the last few weeks. First week I was working from Montana while the wife and I were with her family celebrating her Grandmothers 80th. The next week I was in California at Apple for CalConnect. It was great having a nice low key weekend to round up all teh busy.
I purchased a used copy of Dungeon Siege Legends of Aranna when I got back. Played through that some yesterday and boy is my left click tired! Seems like all hack and slash games rely on the left click, but then again, Dungeon Siege isn’t quite as bad as Diablo. Both are good don’t get me wrong.
Or you could get me wrong because I think both are good.