05/06/06
I recently became a member of emusic.com. Emusic.com is a music site when you can download legal copies of mp3's for many artists. I recently came across the site when looking for mp3's for a CD that my brother had been unsucessful in buying. Though many people attempt to rationalize downloading mp3's as not hurting the artists but just screwing the rich record companies let's face it, downloading mp3's is stealing music. If you feel guilty about it emusic.com will help you aswage your guilt. For $9.99 a month you can download up to 40 songs from a wide collection of artists. The site tends to favour independant bands so if you like these artists this is the site for you. Here is a list of artists I found on emusic.com that I like and have become part of my collection.
On her album " href="http://http//www.emusic.com/artist/11570/11570108.html">Nancy White sings a scathing commentary on the bane of independant musicicans, well inentioned copying of their music by their fans. The song is called And I Copied It. You can hear a 30 second sample by clicking on the title of the song.I am also currently in the middle of a 60 day trial subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimted. It's an OK service but I have some issues with it that will probably mean I won't continue to use it when the trila subscription runs out. The biggest problem I have is that it can't bu used on Linux. This means that I can't use it on the computer I use the most. The other problem I have is that I keep running across albums that are shown in the service but aren't available either for streaming or for purchase. Perhaps there is a way to set filters on the search but I haven't found it. Another problem is no Ipod support. Cnet.com has a more extensive review here.
If you decide after reading this that you want you become a member of Emusic.com please let me know, I get 50 free downloads if I refer you but to do that you have to follow a special link I email you. If you are a Linux user you wil want to get Emusic/J, an open source download manager for emusic.com, emusic's linux download manger is buggy and no longer supported. Now it's time for me to finish downloading my 40 songs for this month.
This David Copperfield parody is my favorite Google video for this week.
05/01/06
Saturday we all went out to plant trees in a quarry. The weather was much nicer than last weekend when I was out camping with the Explorers (a local version of the Scouts). Friday night I hiked into camp after everyone had already went to sleep. I didn't want to disturb my tepee mates so I set up my sleeping bag under the kitchen tarp. When I went to bed I had my sleeping bag half unzipped, by the morning it was zipped all the way up and I had put on my hat. The rain started in the middle of the night and continued all day Saturday and into Sunday morning.
Sunday morning I was listening to The Sunday Edition on CBC. You never know what you are going to hear on The Sunday Edition. This week Michael Enright interviewed Dr. Paul Ewald. Dr. Ewald believes that infections are responsible for many cancers, and other diseases that at this point are blamed on genetic predisposition and environmental factors. He also thinks that there is almost no risk of the flu pandemic everyone is so worried about. Remember the swine flue scare of 1976? Interesting stuff, you can listen to what he has to say by clicking here.
I gave away my turntable today. It's been sitting in my basement since I moved here almost five years ago. I remember it sitting on top of the TV stand gathering dust for a number of years at our old house before I disconnected it to make room for some extra video tapes. I can't remember when I used it last, it's probably been 10 years at least. I was quite surprised when one of the guys at work said he bought a vinyl record, I figured he would give it a good home, evidently he wants to use it so he can scratch his vinyl. I didn't know you could still buy vinyl. I waved goodbye to the pops and clicks of vinyl records when I bought my first CD 20 years ago. Now I just have to let go of the vinyl.
04/29/06
Before I start let me make it perfectly clear, I love Linux but it can be so infuriating at times.
We use Linux at Interactive Sports Technologies and it has proven to be rock solid and reliable and we have have no problem with the Soundblaster audio drivers that we use in our flagship product. We have introduced Linux to our digital media guys and they love it too but they had one problem, the audio didn't work on the Dell machines with the built in sound chip installed in the motherboard. All the drivers loaded OK but no sound came out and when I tried to open the mixer I received an unhelpful error message.
Warning Linux Geek section begins!!! Reading this section may make your eyes glaze over. Scroll down to skip over.
Off to the internet I went to search for information on what to do to resolve it. I didn't find the smoking gun but I did garner enough clues that it might be kernel related so I decided to update the kernel to the lastest revision. Rebooted with the new kernel and X whined, complained and barfed when it started evetually started up with the generic SVGA driver. I had forgotten the Nvidia drivers needed to be reinstalled because they were compiled against the kernel. Sigh. Then realized that I couldn't reinstall the Nvidia drivers because I hadn't installed the kernel source. Double Sigh. Downloaded and installed the kernel source, reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, got X up and running as before, popped a CD in the drive, Gnome CD player automatically started and ..... no sound. Checked with a test sound, everthing sounded OK. Remembered that in the past I had used alsaplayer because the CD player to sound card audio connection wouldn't work.
Even though ALSA drivers and tools are installed, alsaplayer isn't included in the distro. Choices, download, compile or install alsaplayer or find a precompiled binary for my distro. Decided to go the precompiled route so I ran a quick Google search and found that the Dries RPM repository had what I needed. So I updated yum.conf, got it to fetch alsaplayer and the dependant packages I needed but they wouldn't install because I had forgotten to import the GPG key for Dries. Sigh. Off to the Dries website again, get the key install it, install alsaplayer, pop in the CD and ....... success! Stop alsaplayer, push the eject button so I can eject the CD and go home and ....... nothing. CD drawer stays firmly closed. No disk icon on the desktop for me to right click on the eject the disk. Run the disk management tool, it tells me there are mounted filesystems I can unmount. Open a shell prompt, try to unmount the cdrom, mount tells me the filesystem isn't in fstab.
Off to Google again, find out about the eject command. Try it, cryptic error message. Su to root, try eject command again, CD drawer opens. Mutter to myself, what kind of an OS lets me put a CD in the drive but won't let me take it out? A little more Google research and I find out about PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules). Fiddle with /etc/security/console.perms, add the user into the disk group, think it worked on one machine but doesn't seem to work on another. Finally lose patience, set the sticky bit on the eject program and call it a day.
Linux Geek section ends
Like I said at the beginning I love Linux but some days it can be like the old dog who sits beside your easy chair who you reach down to pet every so often. The one day you reach down to pet him and he bites you.
I know what you are going to say, I should have used another distro, there is a much easier way to do what I did..... My main point is that it really shouldn't be this hard. Many people would have reached either for the screwdriver or the Windows CD.
BTW the picture above is from Lazy Daisy Log, I've asked her for permission to use it I hope she says yes.
04/23/06
I just discovered Google video and here are some videos that I thought were neat.
Check it out yourself at http://video.google.com/
If you find one you like add a link to it below.
While you are at it check out the Brokeback Mountain parody in 30 seconds with bunnies .
04/19/06
A bit late but today's entry is about Easter.
On Easter Sunday I got up at 5:45 so that I could attend the CBC's Easter Sunrise Gospel chorale concert that was held at CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto. I made it downtown by 6.45, availed myself of some of the free coffee, juice and muffins and headed in to find a seat in the Barbara Frum atrium. The nice thing about going to a live radio concert is that you know it will start on time. By the time I got there most of the seating on the main floor was taken but since none of my family had decided to join me I managed to find a seat and sit down near the back of the room.
The four choirs which performed were the Nathanial Dett Chorale, Sharon Riley and Faith Chorale, Spirit of Joy and the Toronto Mass Choir. The choirs sang both together and seperately, the audince got to sing along on a few numbers too. The complete concert program can be seen at http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/CHORAL_CONCERT/20060416.shtml .
At the end of the concert they announced that selected audience members who found a post card taped to the underside of their chairs had won a CD. The couple who sat beside me found a card but for some unstated reason decided to give it to me. The woman said that it was because I sang so heartily during the sing along portion of the program. I wished them both a Happy Easter and headed off to get my CD from the CBC girl in the red T-shirt. The concert started at 7 a.m. so it could be broadcast live the the east coast, so I got to catch part of the second half of it as I drove back home to attend the Easter breakfast at my church.
Though at times when the band was accomapnying the choirs it could be difficult to understand exactly what they were saying what I heard in the car didn't match the emotional impact of being there. It was worth getting up early for.
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