If you have a fast connection, I'd say head over there RIGHT NOW. Jamendo. The interface is nice, and there is a lot of legal free music, most of it under Creative Commons licenses. Awesome… albums and albums of free music. Good stuff there, too.
This was one of the items on the list I linked to not too long ago, just so you know.
I was checking out this blog. It belongs to StormEffect, one of the users on NBR (Notebookreview.com forums). On it I found a couple things that looked really interesting, so I thought I'd link them here. As far as the oil-filled computer goes, you can see for yourself that there is a measure of doubt about it from the comments below the article. However, if you go to the actual website, you can find hard facts--bench marks and the like. Anyways, looks interesting. And the possibilities...aquarium computers? =]
Oh, and the Cooliris. I only just got it installed, so I can't comment too extensively on it's stability and productivity, but it sure seems fast and pretty slick. One thing I like about it, if I'm getting this right, is that it allows you to view the full image when you click on one from the wall, without actually following the link as in Google search. Anyways, it seems like it could be useful.
So, that's it for now. Merry Christmas!
For my birthday, I just received a Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Digital ELPH. I must say, my parents did an excellent job in picking this camera out. I, of course, wanted to get some perspective on it, so I found this article from PCMAG.com. Turns out it was their Editor's Choice! For a point-and-shoot, I like the variety of settings available, such as exposure, shutter speed, and ISO speed. It's pretty loaded. And it's a looker, too, with sleek, brushed metal lines. Oh, and a nifty little feature. When you rotate the camera around, the display on the nice, big screen rotates to fit your perspective! Anyways, it'll be nice to have some digitial uploadability, as much as I like learning how to use my oldschool 35mm Canon. I can't wait to put it to use!
I don't remember why, but a while ago I ran into and read this blog post from late last year (I suppose I could probably dig through my Google Web History…) about the origin of the word "woot," aptly named The Real History and Origin of Woot and w00t. The post is long by itself, casting away various theories of origin and giving its blessing to the 1993-dance-catch-phrase theory, but the comments are much longer. Like a big long argument. Hummm. Some interesting stuff, but not without less polite interruptions.
I actually first heard the word from a guy who used to go to our school (he was in high school, I'm thinking, and I probably in junior-high). I just thought he made it up at first. We picked it up at school, and I saw it online later on which told me it was something others said, too.
So, where and when did you first hear woot? What does it mean to you? How do you use it?
Maybe.
It's actually become fairly like the OS X dock. The idea is, "why show a button for an app that already has one in Quick Launch?" So Quick Launch is getting consolidated. This is actually a pretty big move, considering how long the taskbar has been relatively the same. And I'm told there will not be an option to go back to the old style. It's a pretty cool idea, but of course it has risks and naysayers. One person pointed out that taking the text off of the title bar could remove a source of information via changing window titles (e.g. a game score or inbox count). Good point. Also, it was asked in the comments, "how do you know what's running and what's not?" Also a very good point. I think if the W7 team can pull off making it concise, clear, and useful, it's worth it (and customers might even like it).
Also interesting: Aero Peek. Move the mouse over a window thumbnail from the taskbar and that window appears and others fade away. Sounds like a cool feature to me. Not actually switching, but you can get a bigger look if you want to.
This post over at the Engineering Windows 7 blog (yup, from the MS team) illustrates and talks about the new taskbar in depth. Definitely worth reading if your interested in that sort of thing.
Edit by Nathaniel, January 08, 2008: It looks like that post was actually a rip, or a repost of this Download Squad post. Or possibly the other way around, but I would guess DLS had it first.
I ran across this list of legal free music a while ago and took a look at it again recently. It has 35 different sources, which sort of seems strange in a world where bootlegging music is just a matter of clicking on that strange looking "u" or that familiar lemon. The ones I've used before on the list are:
They also mention on the page Nine Inch Nails' free release of The Slip. I had actually heard about it before I saw that, but in any case, the music is still available, though a hard copy has been released, I think (or get it anywhere… it's legal to torrent and share it). The nin site has the files in all sorts of formats, and if you're an audio freak, you can always grab the FLAC files and transcode them to whatever you like. My track recommendations are Discipline and Letting You. And, by the way, this is industrial, so if you dislike such heavy music, you'll probably want to skip it.
Finally, I thought I would discuss the YouTube way. You can find a lot… and I mean a lot of music on YouTube. Videos that are just blank or a picture or the like the whole way through just for the sake of the audio track are pretty obviously pirating (albeit low quality pirating) if it's copyrighted. But what about music videos? Is it fair use to upload a self made or mixed video with a copyrighted song? I don't know. How about snagging official music videos made officially available? It's pretty easy to grab the audio with FLV Extract. But is it legal and right? I haven't found out, but it is on my mind (at least in the back of it). Feel free to share anything you know or think about this or any additional legal free music sources.
Digital Photo Design: How to Compose Winning Pictures
Paul Comon
I saw this book earlier this year, I think, reviewed in a photography magazine. The idea of a book just about composition appealed to me. My mom gave me a copy for my birthday in August. I took a while in reading it. The writing style is a little formal, but fortunately it's not hard to digest.
I actually felt like I had become a student of the Paul Comon school after I read it. But, I still certainly realize, like he says in the book, there are no hard and fast rules. Therefore, fear not to read it; you are not required to follow. ;)
That being said, the book is excellent. The principles are well laid out, and I suppose he covers everything in the usual gamut of photographer's composition (though I haven't read very many books on composition…). His approach is generally non-technical; whether you just have your old point and shoot or a brand spanking new DSLR, you can benefit from the reading. Matter of fact, though digital is more powerful in ways, you can still definitely take away stuff from the book if you're using a film camera.
I also like the design of the book (I have the paperback) very well. The pages are quite clean, using color and shapes in a pleasing manner. The font is fitting and pleasant, and the new age lowercase look actually works. Comon is also a very good photographer. His pictures illustrate his points well (and he specifically talks about the pictures; teaching by example, comparison, and your perception). A good chunk of the photos are in black and white, but color pictures are interspersed throughout, and he does have a whole section on "Color & Shades."
Recommended.
This is the rewrite of the review; the first version I put up felt pretty contrived… I disliked it, so I am replacing it with this rewrite/edit. I hope you enjoy it, and apologize for any revulsion caused by the previous version. I felt like I didn't really know *how* to write a book review, so I did some research. This page seems to be a pretty good guide, but my results were meh. And… if you still want to read the old version, I put it up here.
You know what? I don't think rock music is going to die, to fade back to folk and classical… if we still have the skill and complexity of classical music (and the style is still alive… neo-classical, anyone?), we shall still have that of rock.
Viva la rock!
Dare to disagree? Say on.
Just in case anyone's interested, I learned how to run Winamp visualizations in foobar. That was one of the major things I felt was missing in foobar. Simply download the zip file posted here, and follow the readme instructions.
I didn't want to have Winamp installed just for the visualizations, so I ran a quick install, as minimal as possible, and checked to see if the foobar plugin worked. It detected the visualization files in the Winamp install folder.
I then tried moving the plugins folder into the foobar directory, and then uninstalling Winamp, but, although I think there's a way somehow, I couldn't get the foobar plugin to point anywhere other than the Winamp folder, and didn't want to spend any more time on it.
So, I made a folder called 'Winamp' in the Program Files directory, and then just stuck the files straight in there. It still wasn't very happy with that, so I put them back into a directory called 'plugins', as they were orginally. That worked. So then I wanted to make sure I had only the necessary files, so I moved them out of the folder one by one and checked each time to see if all the visualizations were detected. I pared it down to these:
the AVS folder
the Milkdrop2 folder
milk2.ini (this may have been created as soon as I first ran it; not sure)
nscrt.dll
vis_avs.dat
vis_avs.dll
vis_milk2.dll
vis_nsfs.dll
So, that's it! Cool.
-pixelot
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-
A Different Christmas Poem
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Really it's all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my father's before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
" So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."
Matthew sent me an email with this poem. It was requested that it was sent on. I liked it pretty well, so I decided to post it here. It is important to remember those who serve to defend our freedoms.
Also, this was the address at the end of the email:
LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq
So, today I stopped in at J's Place on my Christmas shopping rounds, and vaguely wondered if he had any mics. I was looking for one for my harmonica, as I have a Leem GA410D amp that was given to me, but no mic to go with it. It's just a small guitar amp, but that's perfect for that essential blues harp sound. Also, I had checked at WC Marketplace while shopping there, and saw a few cheap $15 mics, and one nice $188 Shure SM58 Vocal, which is pretty much the standard for vocal mics. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for....I knew what Adam Gussow recommends, but not sure if I could find that kind of mic, especially as he got his a long time ago in some obscure store. Anyways, I was just looking around, and saw this box that said "Shure" on it and "microphone" and had a little picture of a mic, but kind of a strange-looking mic, more like you'd see on an old ham radio or something. I asked the guy if he had any mics, and he said he was out of stock, and asked what I was looking for. But when I mentioned harmonica, he went over and pulled that mic out, and said it was a harmonica mic he'd had around for a few years (the box says 2001 on it). It's a Shure 520DX, also known as the "Green Bullet". If you looked at the picture linked there, you can see why. He told me it listed at $150, but I could have it for $85, which I think is a deal, considering current online prices are a little above that, and no shipping and handling.
When I got home, I plugged it in and tried it out. I was getting some undesirable feedback with sudden attacks on the harp, but it sounded pretty good. Then I looked up the manual online, only to have my mom point out that it probably came with one, which I quickly found in the box. Funny. Anyways, once I followed it's recommendations, I got a better sound. It's pretty sweet. The only thing that I'm not completely happy with is that, with a normal vocal mike, you can use your right hand quite well for vibrato, whereas this is a little bigger around. Oh well. Anyways, it IS pretty much the standard, time-tested favorite for blues harmonica. So, cool.
Also today, the Dell tech came and replaced my motherboard and LCD screen on the good old Vostro 1400. I had called Dell on Monday complaining about some graphics issues. I had initially seen my display divide into little, rectangular pieces, and start rapidly jiggling back and forth, and then go black. I powered it off. I ran it in safe mode, and uninstalled my nVidia drivers, then installed a different version, 180.70, although I see a newer version is now available from LaptopVideo2Go. I had no problems until a couple days later, while sitting in Bucer's in Moscow, ID. My screen did the same trick, except this time in a tasteful shade of pink, broken up with little black strips here and there. I powered off and back on, this time resolved to call Dell as soon as possible. I did so, the representative, after a little troubleshooting, advised that he would send a tech out with a new mobo and screen. In my opinion, they could've just replaced the mobo, or even just the gfx card, although it's kind of better to replace the whole deal in these cases, but I wasn't complaining about the screen, especially since I had a minor scratch on mine. At any rate, out he came. It was the same guy who replaced my mobo last year, when I complained about audio issues often experienced with this line of Vostros and Inspirons. The condition is pretty widespread, and solutions range from DIY frequency adjusters, tape between the wifi card and speaker cables, and installing drivers for different graphics cards. Not to go into the technical details right now, but there's supposed to be some conflict between maybe the wifi and audio, and/or gfx and audio being on the same PCI or something.... (Speaking of which, my new mobo audio sounds just as good, if not better, than previously. Great!)
Anyhow, he disassembled it, replaced the motherboard and screen (giving me an opportunity to clean out some of the dust with compressed air and oil the screen hinges), and reassembled it! Sweetness. And, so far, everything looks wicked awesome.
As a sidenote, I also finally put my MD button to use. I still am afraid to hit it when the laptop is off, for fear it will screw up my boot partitions, but, in Windows, I now have it set to turn off my screen (using Monitoroff, of course). Instructions here. I downloaded the zip file, and just edited the registry entries before incorporating them, and used Monitoroff instead of the other program.
Next on the list? Maybe try out KDE in Ubuntu, perhaps set the MD button to boot Ubuntu per this guide, perhaps buy a 9-cell battery....options, options.
Well, that's it for now!
-pixelot
Update, March 30, 2009: I updated the post to note that the Vista folder is in a bit of a different place. Also, I found out today that version 2 of the plugin was released in January. And I didn't even notice until when investigating the Vista path via my bro on his Vista laptop, I saw the file name and the extension of the plugin was different and that he actually had a Facebook icon in his Picasa. Also, the new version seems to install fine automatically (just a couple of boxes to click through). I did a small test and it seems to work fine using my Picasa 3 installation. The new plugin is for Window/Mac Picasa 2 or 3 (still no Linux, augggg!). The old version of the plugin seems to be working, still, and is still downloadable by the address I specified in the post (as of 03.30.09) so if anybody wants it, get it there; if that link goes dead, I uploaded it here. Oh, and I couldn't say anything about manual installation of either plugin on a Mac... sorry, I don't own one and don't feel like chasing down the correct folder. /end of update
The Picasa Facebook plugin is brilliant. There is a Linux version of Picasa, too, but unfortunately, the plugin only works with the Windows (and now Mac) version.
It downsizes the images in Picasa and uploads them to Facebook, which makes it tons faster. Pretty seamlessly. Which is nice, especially if you're on dial-up. And a great solution for anyone, considering you can't download the full size images off of Facebook anyway (not as far as I know).
I would just link and leave if that was all there was to it. Unfortunately, I had to manually install the plugin. There is a installation button on the Facebook page, but it doesn't work (at least for some people). So, I knocked together a guide in a Facebook note. This is the rewrite. Please note, although I have heard the plugin works with Picasa3, this guide is for Picasa2. It may or may not work for installing it in Picasa3. I don't know. If anyone has info on this, please tell me.
So, if the installation doesn't work automatically for you, follow these instructions. These are for XP, but pretty much the only difference in Vista is that the folder to put it in is different:
C:\Users\[your username here]\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2\buttons\
Notes: if you're not a power user, you probably will want to turn off hidden files. Just follow the same steps you used to turn them on, except this time select Do not show hidden files and folders.
Feel free to ask questions and otherwise comment.
Ok.. I felt compelled this post a while ago, but I didn't get around to it… until now.
I must credit Claus over at GSD for inspiration for this post.
Really, I hadn't seen User Account Control as helpful before, more like annoying. Actually, I have XP, not Vista, but I have had a little experience with it, and my fellow blogger, Matthew, has deigned to turn it off. And said something to the effect of "Vista is okay IF you turn off User Account Control." Alright… that seems quite understandable from what I've heard. UAC seems like a nanny instead of a helpful tool. I actually have experienced something of the sort: the excellent (and free) Comodo Firewall Pro has a sort of anti-malware feature called Defense+. That got pretty annoying… extracting files with 7-Zip and having it scream, freaking about about installing programs, etcetera. So I disabled it (thank goodness for the option).
And now the "But."
But… such tight system control and checks can be helpful if implemented and presented in a efficient, clear, and pleasing manner. Enter Microsoft on Windows 7 and TweakUAC on Vista.
Microsoft has been making changes to UAC from feedback data they've gathered. Evidently, an alarming (to them) amount of people disable it on Vista.
So, it changed my mind about UAC. Bring it on… IF it's done right.
I discovered a new virtual desktop app a while ago… through Grand Stream Dreams, not surprisingly… all the previous ones were rather disappointing after having used Linux multi-desktops. Vista/XP Virtual Desktops is much closer. Still is a little clunky compared to Linux, but it seems significantly better than everything else I've tried. A few of sweet features: a min-toolbar that is somewhat like what you might see in Ubuntu (shows you what desktop you're on and lets you switch desktops), the ability to move windows between desktops (suhhh-weeeetness!!!!), and live desktop previews in Vista using DWM. No 3D cube goodies, but quite functional. I'm reluctant to use it all the time because of it's memory usage, but those of you with and abundance of memory might consider trying it out.
First, a easy way to block ads in Chrome… it's from Lifehacker Australia… I haven't tried it, but it looks like it could be a pretty tight solution and work for other browsers, too, since it uses a local proxy. [link]
And second, Chrome themes seem to be broken now… with an update to Chrome… not sure when this exactly happened, but it did. Likely enough some themes have been updated, but not you won't put a hole through your monitor when Chrome keeps crashing when you use a custom theme.
…for now, that is. My previous posts were: DRM CD's are uncool, More on the DRM CD case, the great DRM aha!
On October 7th, I followed the instructions posted at the CDFreaks Club to remove Macrovision CDS-300 drivers. This consists of finding the file sdcplh.sys on your Windows partition/drive, deleting it, and restarting Windows. Boom. It worked. Marvelously. I also decided to disable Autorun on my optical drive, but it turns out that for all my knowledge, I didn't know how. Lol. Annoyances.org readily gave the solution. Like many things in Windows, it was in the Registry, but TweakUI handled it easily. So anyway, I could rip tracks fine now, no scrambled audio effect. Great! I tested it out by ripping the first and last tracks. No problems detected, MP3's played fine. I'm pretty sure this only affects Windows, so if you use Mac or Linux, rest easy. It seems kind of stupid for me to get suckered in like that. Oh well, now I know.
So, here's a step by step on how to get rid of the CDS-300 protection (How do you know it's CDS-300? There is a folder named CDS300 on the disc. Simple as that):
Thanks to CDFreaks (hyqwn) and Alex Halderman and Edward Felten.
And if you ever insert that CD into a Windows computer again, I recommend holding down Shift whilst you do (i.e. press down before you put the disc in, let up a few seconds after the CD tray has closed or, in the case of a slot loader, you've inserted the disc) so that the program will not Autorun.
Also of note, there is an Uninstall.exe on the disc. I'm not sure if this would actually remove the driver (sdcplh.sys), but it does at least set the "agreement" status on the disc's autorunning up to "not agreed."
Here are some pics… before and after removing sdcplh.sys
successful ripping!
There are also two other protections schemes I found out about during my research, MediaMax and XCP. I actually thought I had XCP on my CD, but it turned out to be Macrovision's CDS-300. So, I actually learned a fair bit about XCP and MediaMax. Much information can be found in Alex Halderman and Edward Felten's whitepaper. XCP, which only works on Windows, installs a rootkit on your system, which malware can and has taken advantage of. MediaMax, which works on Window and Mac (though the Mac version actually requires the user to start the installer), if Autorun is enabled (and it is by default), actually does automatically install software on your computer without notifying or asking you. Furthermore, MediaMax also opens up a security hole, as described in the whitepaper.
I've never actually encountered XCP (though I thought I had), but I'll list some instructions that I think would work to get rid of it, based on information I've gleaned from the internet. I am told that if the disc uses XCP protection, you'll see a file on it called VERSION.DAT (you might just see VERSION, depending on your Windows settings)
Thanks to Black and White Incorporated for the information.
The other big CD protection software is MediaMax. Halderman and Felten kindly explained how to remove the Windows version.
In the future, always hold down the Shift key like I described earlier, if you put the disc in a Windows computer, because the software on the disc WILL install stuff without your consent. Unless you have Autorun turned off.
Regarding the Mac OS X version of MediaMax: I don't know too much about it, but I did find out that OS X does have an autorun feature (called 'autostart', I am told) that can start the process, but it still needs your permission to install the software. Don't give it that permission. Deny and rip away! If you do install it… I'm afraid I don't know how to remove it. Good luck if you try, and please share any findings with the community.
Well, that's it for now. Hope you have fun avoiding DRM.
Alright, I know. I opened a can of worms just by saying that. But I'm prepared to put them on the hook.
I wanted to blog about this a while back. In fact, what started it all was me asking (or was it telling) a friend (OK… an internet friend) was cussing on IM. And he said 'why?' So that got me Googling on it, which dug up… previous cans of worms. Specifically, some of the stuff I turned up, for reference:
Grudem and Piper on Profanity :: :: A Reformed, Christian Blog
constantly..in need of grace...: Glorious Biblical Profanity
Profanity and Christianity « JP’s Mind
And that post, by the way, was when I ran into JP's Mind, in case you ever noticed the link to it on the blog.
So, the argument rages on.
"Swearing is wrong."
"It's the only way I can adequately express myself."
"Hey, even Paul used profanity."
Each argument, each opinion, we could follow on a network of its own, but this is what I have to say. It's not about walking the line. Something I have learned is that righteousness isn't a line; it's a direction. That being said, we would want to be walking in righteousness. Which brings us back to the question, does profanity belong on the road of righteousness?
I see this is going to get a little more involved…
First, we have to know what profanity is. The Encarta® World English Dictionary (eh, it's on my laptop) defines the verb transitive as "to treat something sacred with disrespect." Using God's name as a swear word would fall under this description, I think. The other word that comes to my mind is obscenity. And what is an obscenity? Merely something that you are not supposed to see. So when we make things that should not be seen visible, it's an obscenity. What's not supposed to be seen? Check the Bible for answers on that one. One other angle we might hit on is the word cursing. Wishing or commanding something bad on someone. Really, we can't do that except what we ourselves would do or influence others to do. Still, I don't have as good a handle on this one. In the back of my mind, it seems I remember someone saying when we curse, it does have an effect. Maybe I should ask around.
Anyway, neither profaning things nor making visible that which should not be sounds like something Christians should be doing. When it comes down to that, it's easy. The answer is, it's wrong.
Really, the whole thing revolves around three things in my opinion: the dynamic nature of language, the intent of the heart, and stumbling blocks.
So, we should first realize the dynamic nature of language. Some of the things we say today that don't seem offensive at all might have been highly offensive 200 years ago. Language changes. Definitions change. Keep that in mind. But also keep in mind, God was holy 200 years ago, and he still is. Respect his name. Also, what was obscene 200 years ago is still obscene today, though our culture seeks to define it as acceptable.
Secondly, the intent of the heart; it can be good or evil. If you say "son of mutton chop" but mean "son of a ***" in your heart, that's wrong. That's not to say we can't express anger. I was reading something in my Googling that said it well (indirect quote, click for original): 'When I say "Damn!" after hitting my thumb with a hammer, it doesn't mean I'm calling down eternal damnation on the hammer. It means "ouch!"' In that situation, the intent of the heart isn't cursing somebody, it's saying "I hurt!" Or "I'm annoyed!" On a personal level, this seems agreeable, but I think it could be a stumbling block, and people could also get the wrong idea if you're saying "Oh ***!" every time something irks you.
Back to the stumbling block. I think a person can be a stumbling block in two ways: by doing something that is definitely Biblically wrong (which might encourage others to do the same, both those who know it to be against God's law and those who don't), and by doing something that would violate the conscience of a brother or sister in Christ (in their presence, or such), e.g., Delbert believes it's wrong to eat hamburgers, and Bob walks into the break room with a quarter pounder, plops down beside him, and starts chomping away (to take it a little further… Bob: "Oh, hey, Delbert, man, you gotta try this. Oh, yeah, I know you don't believe in hamburgers, but one little bite won't hurt. C'mon man, yur missin' out!").
Alright, I think I've gotten my thoughts expressed. I welcome yours.
Unlocker (Windows) - Ever have a flash drive or such that Windows just doesn't want to Safely Remove? Fire up this baby and see what's holding on to it. I think if it's explorer.exe, it should be safe to Unlock it or just yank out the drive, as long as you know you aren't transferring data to or from it, or moving files around on it. Otherwise, assuming you aren't doing data work like I just mentioned see what else is tying up your device (backup managers, mp3 player managers, and so on…). Can also help you out the same way if you have a file you want to work with, but you get a message something else is using it. I'm not sure, but I think it might even help you get past an Access Denied (you'd probably have to be an administrator). Brilliant little tool.
ExifTool (Windows/Mac/Linux under Perl) - this one is a command line tool for dealing with metadata. I found this tool in a search for something to edit the date taken on digital photos, because sometimes one forgets to reset their camera clock. *Ahem* Certainly not me. Never. Anyway, to fix my mistake, I mean such a mistake, this will do the trick (though I haven't actually put it to use yet). Now, I know all you out there are shivering in fear of using a command line tool on your beautiful photos. Well, make backups of them before you start anyway, but there are some GUI's to make things so much safer and more comfortable.
ExifToolGUI - Windows (tested on XP SP2). Lot's of nice GUI options for accessing the awesome power of ExifTool. You'll need to download ExifTool separately.
Mac users, you can check out the "Related Utilities" section on the ExifTool homepage.
Linux users, stop being a weenie and use the command line. Heh.
PDFCreator (Windows) - It installs as a printer on your system and allows you to make PDF files from any app that can print to it. Pretty nifty. Now I can make PDF's from WordPerfect 8 (yep, that's what I use, for real).
Hope this brightens your day at least a little bit.
Just a few things about Ubuntu in the last couple days that might be helpful.
1. If compiz crashes on you, simply type compiz in the terminal to restart it.
2. sudo apt-get upgrade is useful to update all your packages. (tx Thomas from NBR)
3. Ctrl+L opens an "Open Location" dialogue.
4. If your volume doesn't get as loud as you think it should, double-click on the volume icon in the panel and make sure that everything is all the way up. (tx Calvin from NBR)
5. Here and here are a couple of really awesome GDM (login) themes.
I congratulate president elect Obama on his success.
I also say to the conservatives: don't freak out. Especially not right now. We have over two months until Obama takes office, and when that time arrives, still don't freak out. Just obey your leaders and work with President Obama, and appreciate his service. And pray for him a TON. Dead serious. The Bible says to pray for your leaders, and we can especially pray for his protection. He has indeed achieved the status of being the first black person to take this office. And I might add with such overwhelming approval. I am proud that America can overcome racism in such a big way. It's radical application of overcoming evil with good.
Regarding the two months: Barack Obama has already started the transition process to the position, and we should be ready, too. One of the things that I am most troubled about is Obama's wish to make his first act as president the signing of the Freedom of Choice Act.
This will be a huge step in favor of abortion, and that's not good at all. Let us pray that such a thing will not come to pass. Let us pray hard in this time of transition, both for our new president and his policies and for our current president, who has endured great unpopularity for his consistency with what he believes and who must tie up loose ends and finish his job in a two months, that to him, may seem altogether too short.
According to what I am hearing on Twitter election, McCain has called Obama to concede and congratulate. Well, here we go. About to get a huge dose of what we deserve.
Not the actual official results, but CNN has a pretty cool page for keeping track… this is the presidential page, with all it's sweet Flash glory. I recommend you go check it out and keep it up in your browser.
The day is almost upon us. And then we find out what direction we have chosen to take… what is in out hearts will be reflected upon our ballots.
Well, of course, a substantial amount of us have already voted. But anyway, yeah, tomorrow is the day… the showdown. I plan to listen to the radio (KMBI/NPR Spokane) and be online to monitor the results live and hot!
I've been thinking of you, Matthew… lol!
Ok, so it's an xkcd comic series… pretty funny.
Or you could just go to part one and hit the 
button.
Recommend checking out this Mozilla Minefield alpha. It's fast. Download link here. Cheers!
I got my Sansa fixed up on Sunday. What was happening is that only the ring would light up when I turned the thing on and I had to "reset" (really a forced power off, it seems) to get it off. I was advised to drain the battery, charge it, and then see what happened. I did, and same result. Some more talk online informed me that the daughter card may have come loose. Over the span of two days I got it all the way open (part of this took over two hours on IRC and a video from someone on there… how nice of them), disconnected the daughter card for sure, and reconnected it. I plugged my Sansa in on USB and the wheel came on but it seems the player turned off. I put the battery back in and tried again, this time presented with a blessed SanDisk logo. Whoooo-hooo!
I had intended to start hacking my Sansa after the warranty had expired, but I figured that I might as well start then since I had been poking around on the insides of the thing. I downloaded the alternative mp3 player firmware Rockbox and installed it on my Sansa (it keeps the original firmware on, too). And, wow, Rockbox blows the original firmware away in most areas. Very very customizable and supports plugins, which you can use even while you're playing music. These plugins fall under the categories of Applications, Demos, and Games. And yes, you can even play Doom.
One could say a lot about this election. I'll try to keep my thoughts concise, but we'll see what comes.
First of all, one thing we can certainly be sure of in America is there is a reason why this place is so messed up: we reap what we sow and we sowed sin. And now we have a mess. Go figure.
The other thing we can be sure of: we can should repent, and there's no time like now (alright, well… earlier, actually).
But these issues do have realities, specifics and not just generals; meaning there are certain problems.
On the presidential candidates--
Neither Obama nor McCain are, in my opinion, an ideal person to be leading our nation. I would vote for McCain if I could, but I don't think he's perfect. His healthcare plan is expensive enough, I'd say. And his mortgage idea is also another staggering amount, following up on the recent corporate bailout. And frankly, we deserve someone like Obama, but I pray that God will be gracious to us.
Barack Obama is in fact, the most liberal senator in our nation at this time. This is based on his voting record, I would believe, but I'm not sure. In any case, even if he was the most perfect candidate in every other way, I cannot support a man who condones the murder of our unborn. It's murder, plain and simple, and I don't support those who support murder. His other policies aren't that great either; his healthcare keeps with the socialistic trend the US has been seeing. I have to give a McCain a point here… well, at least a partial point; his healthcare plan is more market based, which is good, because the government shouldn't really be involved in healthcare at all… so let's wean the American people off of it. On the other hand, though, McCain want to give tax cuts so people can buy their own insurance. Good or bad? It's not direct healthcare, but I don't know, their might be rules on what you could do with the money you save… I really don't know.
The US and world economies, healthcare, and environmental issues certainly might be hot button right now, but they are not the only issues (and I got issues with those issues anyway.. lolz). Some of the more important things to me right now, though, are easing off with governmental control, a huge reality check on environmental issues (as in, stop the idiocy, please!), and big black and white sin issues like abortion and homosexuality. A candidate who will state his intentions, hold a Biblical and conservative view, have some backbone, and not cave in to political and public pressure is one that would get my vote. And the presidential candidate that fits this description is not Barack Obama. But it's not John McCain either. Still, it's ignoring our duty to not vote and not take a stand. My ballot would have a bubble next to John McCain not because he's perfect, but because he best represents my beliefs as a Christian.
I urge the people of America to vote according to their convictions, not their feelings.
In the tradition of Grand Stream Dreams, I bring you our very first Linkfest.
Boston.com - World Series game could be delayed for Obama pitch - You might have heard that Barack Oboma had purchased an half hour time slot on at least some networks to promote his cause. Clever of him. But possibly delay the World Series? It's only by a few minutes, I know, and I'm not a big baseball fan… but still, let's hope people get mad at him for this…
Fox News - Obama Ads Invade Video Games - Obama billboards show up in Burnout Paradise on Xbox Live… hmmm… ok… I didn't know their were ads, but hey, I suppose if they pay for them… but a little weird anyway.
Newsweek - Who Are the 10% Who Think U.S. on Right Track? - A viewpoint on who actually thinks things are good. Meh. Not extrememly persuasive.
Schlissel's blog - Some of My Best Friends Are Sarah Palin - A good post about Sarah standing on what she believes and representing us as Christians… and being us.
LA Times - Greenspace blog - Bottled water not so pure - Really? I would have never guessed…
PC World - Microsoft Sues DHL After Train Dumps 21,600 Xboxes - Ummm… ouch? Not good, DHL.
Ars Technia - Revenues rise as Google says hard times will drive business - Woot for Google! They seem to be doing pretty good as the world economy melts down… that's my kind of company. Kinda like our local banks: they are still going strong since they've invested wisely (read: with discretion… *cough* Citibank et all *cough*).
MercuryNews.com - Q&A with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla - Pretty good interview. Nothing ugly. Lilly thinks Chrome isn't exactly competition… it's just Google helping Mozilla out with their mission: making the web a better place. I like that Firefox slogan, by the way: "Take back the Web." Pretty sick. Anyway, also some stuff on Firefox Mobile, of which alpha versions are coming soon.
Sioux City Journal.com - Senator's lawsuit against God is tossed out - This feels like it should be on the Drudge Report, but, LOL, what were you thinking?
redemption in a blog - Optimize Firefox’s memory usage by tweaking session preferences - If you're a heavy heavy tab user in Firefox, you might take a look at this if things have been slowing down.
Matasano Chargen - Detecting Anonymizing Proxies - An interesting blog post on detecting the use of a proxy server. Technical and hopefully helpful illustrations. A good read. Edit, October 24, 2008: The link is still 404, but I looked up the Google cache. No pictures, I'm afraid, but it's better than nothing.
I got up around 5:00 AM today… it felt like the middle of the night. We left around 5:30, bound for the city of Fruitland, Idaho, which is quite close to Ontario, Oregon. I think we got there at about 11-something, our time. Fruitland and Ontario are in the Mountain Time Zone, which is an our ahead of us.
After a relatively brief wait in the front room, I went back into a room and got asked some of the usual questions (allegories, prescriptions). I got x-rayed too… kind of interesting, I stood sort of under/inside the machine, bit down on this thing, put my hands onto a couple of bars, and closed my eyes. The machine, scanned around my head to get a complete view of my teeth. You could see the wisdom teeth pretty well in the print, and you could see my eye sockets, too. A little creepy…
After that, Doctor Hillam came in and had a consultation with me and the parents. He told us what to expect after the surgery, what I could eat, what to do, and what not to do. He said it was the perfect time to get them out, and I agree. It's a four day weekend, which means time to recover and do homework, and I still live at home, which means people to take care of me. =^)
Anyway, after the consultation, I went to the lavatory, and then went to the surgery room. The nurse, or assistant, or whatever she was, who was in there, hooked me up with some monitors: blood pressure, heart, and some sensor that went on my finger which I do no know the purpose of. Mom suggests that it may have been a blood sugar monitor.
The doc came in and I got hooked up with an IV. Either before or after that, I don't remember which, they gave me oxygen through the nose. I think my vision might have started to go a little weird after they started pumping the sedative… but I don't remember. In fact, it was sort of dreamy after that… and then I slowly woke up in the recovery room. I was a bit dizzy, and my vision a little messed up. After a while, I pulled on my sweater, and a while after that, I walked out to the car with Mom. I think I looked OK compared to some poor girl who walked out shortly after we arrived in Fruitland.
Anyway, I'm on Vicoprofen right now, have an icepack strapped to my head (check out the Facebook pics, LOL), will be taking antobiotics, and doing mouthwash.
I personally am not not a huge fan of Firefox 3's default theme, at least not on XP. There are, of course, tons of themes out there, and quite a few now available for Firefox 3.
Winstripe Modern does an excellent job of giving the Firefox 1.5 look. Quite classy. Available for Linux and Windows. One or both might work for Mac, but I don't know.
[Update: July 3, 2009: I have updated to Firefox 3.5. Winstripe Modern is not compatible, and the author states he has no intention of updating it. It might work with a hack, I don't know and I don't want to try. Because I found something I like better: Winestripe RealFox, rarin' and ready to go with Firefox 3.5. Rock on classiness!]
[Update: July 5, 2009: Unfortunately, Winestripe RealFox is Windows only at the moment. However, the developer said on Mozilla Add-Ons that he is working on making it work for Linux, which is good news. In the meantime, here are some 3.0-up alternative Winestripe type themes to pick through. Good luck.]
[Update: September 2, 2009: Wanting a bit more modern functionality with the classic look, I've now switched to StrataStripeStripe, which I like a lot. It's marked as experimental at the moment, and I really don't know what OS compatibility is like right now, except that there was a report in the reviews from the ninth of last month that it didn't work in Vista. Hope it works for you if you like it and cheers!]
Firefox 2 also had a theme that was, in my opinion, better than Firefox 3. Firefox 2, the theme, reloaded has resurrected the theme. It's not perfect, though. One of it's most glaring shortcomings is that checkmarks do not display. So, am I working offline? I can't tell, unless I actually try to navigate to some pages. Arg. Also, somehow it doesn't seem as tight as the original theme. It could just be from views of Matthew's eye-candied Firefox 2 theme (he used an extension for it… I don't remember what it was called, though), since I had been using a Firefox 3 Beta for a while before 3.0. But I did use Fx 2 for a while after I reinstalled Windows in June… hmmm. Whatever. Theme appears to be for all OS's.
Simple Green was a theme I used back in my Firefox 2 days… It looks like the Netscape Navigator 8 theme. I checked today, and yes, there is a version available for Firefox 3. Sweet!
In case you haven't heard about it yet, Google has released a searchable index of the web in 2001. In other words, it's like searching Google in 2001. And you can view the old pages from archive.org Internet Archive. Gnarly.
Why am I getting nowhere on my case?
It's CDS, not XCP.
Let me elaborate.
My Switchfoot CD is protected with Cactus Data Shield, not Extended Copy Protection.
Now how did that happen…? I see that the Wikipedia article on the album mentions that some copies of the album were protected by Cactus. Ok. Why didn't I figure this out sooner?
A Google search led me to this page, which mentioned CDS-300, which struck a familar note with me from browsing the CD. Aha.
Alright. Hopefully I should be able to fix it with this new knowledge, and some helpful info from that page. And then I'll post on what happens, some summary information on this stuff, and info on how to avoid or fix the situation.
If you use Vista with Aero enabled, this one's for you. Using the Glasser extension and some Stylish styles, you can get an effect much like IE 7 with Aero. It looks good, too. Maybe better than IE 7.
Sigh. The royalty rates didn't go up, and Apple keeps on selling the tunes.
Other news: Nintendo shows off the DSi. It launches in Japan on the first. Hmmm… it has a web browser… this should be interesting.
And… watch the VP debate if you can. We don't have live TV, so it's a no go for me, but if you do, hit the tube tonight.
This is pretty rad… live updates from Twitter users, and you can filter by candidate and VP. It's like a stream of politics. [link]
I read a really great white paper on Thursday on this issue from a couple guys at Princeton University, J. Alex Halderman and Edward W. Felten. Excellent work. They seriously tore apart this stuff, and they know what they're talking about. I found it with a Google search, but it was on copyright.gov, and don't ask me what it was doing there. I found a link to it on Wikipedia that was hosted at Princeton: here. And here is the original link I found.
The story goes that Mark Russovich first discovered this, or at least was the first to make it public, when RootkitRevealer turned up evidence of a rootkit. He eventually tracked it back to a protection technology on CD's, which reminded him of a CD he had recently bought that was copy-protected.
If you do accept the license agreement on the program that autoruns, something called active protection software will installed on your system, and a rootkit installed to attempt prevention of defeating the system. The whitepaper goes into detail in this, but it is very well written and clearly worded, so worry not. And, back to the CD, what also autoruns when you insert the CD (of course assuming AutoRun is enabled) is a executable named go.exe (though I have not been able to detect it so far) which is passive protection software.
Since Microsoft added this rootkit to their definitions in the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and I downloaded the September version, and it supposedly runs automatically after downloading, the rootkit should be taken care of. And, assuming everything is the same as mentioned in the whitepaper, it seems to be upon testing. What I did was to prefix the name of a text file with "$sys$" (no quotes). If the rootkit was in effect, that file should have disappeared, as mentioned by Mark Russovich in his blog post. And it didn't. Hmmm. But, much to my chagrin, the rogue drivers that the active protection software put on my system seem to still be in effect, though I cannot find them. Arg. I ran a Symantec tool that would take care of the rootkit, but the tool didn't find it, which confirmed that it wasn't there. The drivers still seem to be having the scrambled-audio effect on protected discs. Or at least this one.
One idea that I have is that I could have a new version of XCP. That would be extremely uncool.
Also something I read; there is evidence that the makers of XCP stole parts of open-source software and illegally put it in the XCP software.
So, this is really getting to be a nasty business. I'll make at least one more post on this.
Not too long ago, I got my Switchfoot CD, Nothing is Sound. It was all good, until I noticed the CD case said that the content was protected. Ummm… hmmm. That made me think of DRM. I popped the disc into my laptop, and sure enough, a program autoran… a nice and shiny Flash app that would let me listen to the CD, burn copies (limited copies, of course), or rip the music to my hard drive. I ended up ripping it. Took long enough. Once it was finally done, it was easy enough to launch Winamp and play the tracks. And the catch? They were in restricted Windows Media Audio format, or WMA DRM. Ok, so that works… I can listen to it, and the MP3 player I had ordered supports WMA DRM. Even so, I found the DRM annoying, especially since I didn't know about it when I ordered the album… and the app would rip the music at a maximum level of 192 Kbps, which is OK, but not the best possible quality.
Time to experiment. And… Winamp won't play the disc as a music CD. The audio files couldn't be found from Explorer. I had heard of DRM being removable, so I looked around online. OK, it could be done, but the programs were not free, and according to a blog post I found, doing it that way is illegal. Supposedly there is a analog loophole as mentioned in the post, but I didn't go that way… I think my sound card might not even support it anyway.
I stuck the thing in my old CD player and hit play. And it played. Ok, so the standard music CD data was there. I booted Ubuntu to see what I could do from there. Sweet! I could access the music data from there. Turns out it had both music and data on it, something I believe is called a multi-mode disc.
OK, so simple enough. Rip the CD to FLAC from Ubuntu, encode into MP3 in Windows, using BonkEnc. Easy as pie… almost. Everything was good, except for the fact that a few minutes of garbage sound were getting tacked onto the last track. The CD played just fine in Ubuntu, but for some reason or another, there was a problem ripping the last track.
I ended up using BonkEnc to transcode the last track to WAV, and then fired up Audacity for a little down and dirty editing. I could get the exact length of the ripped WMA using Winamp, and so I planned to trim the file down to that length. Except, Audacity doesn't seem to have any jump to time function. Arg. I hit Google looking for a plugin or some sort of solution, but didn't turn up anything.
So, I had to do it the hard way: zoom waaaay in. I found the time, put the marker there, highlighted back, and trimmed. Saved the WAV, transcoded back into FLAC. Woot. Transcode into MP3, and it's ready for my MP3 player.
It took long enough, but I got a set of unrestricted FLAC files. Later I read that the band wasn't exactly happy about the copy protection Sparrow Records put on their album. They even posted a workaround online, but Sony took it down, and I haven't found out what it is. I did found out on Wikipedia that this stuff is called Extended Copy Protection. And it's evil… but more on that later… it got enough publicity in 2005 anyway.
Mirror: (direct download, by Zonator.com): a tool for Google Chrome, although it seems to work for Firefox and Internet Explorer, too. What it consists of is an always-on-top box that you can drag links and tabs from Firefox onto and it will open them with your program of choice. From the readme: "While using Chrome, Google's new browser, we found that a lot of sites sites don't work, due to missing plugins for the new platform." OK, and you can open them in another browser with Mirror. Handy. Maybe.
CrossOver Chromium: Can't wait to try Chrome on Mac or Linux? Wine makes it possible. Check it out.
Chrome themes: Hack your Chrome! Also, check out this blog post for instructions on installing the themes.
Cheers!
Yes, despite being sick, I shall put up some posts. =)
I recently tried out the Avant Browser again. It is actually a shell to Internet Explorer, something I already knew, but a very impressive shell at that. The interface seem fairly cluttered, but it is brimming with features. Useful features, at that. Some of them are: mouse gestures, an ad blocker (which seems to have a preloaded list! woot!), add-ons and IE add-ons support, and an online browser data storage service (Bookmarks, RSS Feeds, AutoFills). Also interesting and kind of cool is the ability to display multiple web pages at once; in windows inside the browser, really. I remember someone saying a browser that could display multiple pages at once would win them over. Well, there you go. Pretty easy, too, just cascade or tile horizontally or vertically.
The reason I uninstalled it again this time (though I reinstalled it to write this)? It kept setting IE as my default browser. But it doesn't seem to be doing that now… hmmm.
I have blown my nose what seems to be a numberless amount of times today (depleting the school tissue supply a bit) and sneezed enough times to expect to have to go chasing after my head the next time. I hate having a cold.
I could say it's not as bad as the post title sounds... but... well... it is. I don't claim to be an expert, in fact Matthew took Economics class in high school, whereas I haven't, but in any case, the US economy is starting to bend, or rather snap, under the load of debt. This debt has been blamed on people not being able to pay back housing loans, and lending companies going broke because of it. Lehmanns went bust, but the US government bailed out AIG out with a $85 million loan, I think. They've also bailed out a bunch of other companies, too... to be honest, I'm not quite sure what's happening right now, but I do know huge package (like $700 billion) to support the companies that are going broke is being hashed out in the government.
Sorry.... this post is a little scrambled... but oh well, maybe I can write more and better later... feel free to help out, Matthew. :p
Edit by Nathaniel; December 11, 2008: I found out this is pirated. Phooey. So... link removed and you can buy it here in hard copy, PDF, or both.
Check this [link removed] out if you want an in-depth explanation of TCP/IP.
Edit by Nathaniel; September 23: Just warning you, this is a 12.7 megabyte PDF, so if you have a slow internet connection like me... now you know. Ta!
Google's released the first beta of their browser, Chrome, on September 2. Of course, it might be in beta for years, but anyway... the browser's features and some of what's under the hood were known the day before from a comic that was leaked onto the internet. The comic has since been released by Google. Google then released the browser a day early.
I got this camera at a yard sale in Moscow, ID for $15. It's a Canon Rebel EOS Ti 35mm. Here is the camera, and the User Manual, which was nice since it didn't come with the camera. I don't mind that it's not digital, and it is quite nice, so I'm looking forward to experimenting! =)
Art: Check this, this, this, and this out. Karmann Ghias are so photogenic. =)
Theology: If you ever find yourself saying, "I'm bored," (I never do, but I've heard some people say it) you should read through this. It will challenge your thoughts.
Tech: This is pretty funny for those of you Linux nerds.
Politics: We're doomed. America is doomed. Waaauuuuggghhhhhhh.
Hmmm, so I got the template uploaded yesterday. It was working, but then suddenly the images were not loading. Lo and behold, it turned out that the Google Pages site where the images were hosted (aborregate.googlepages.com) had hit the bandwidth limit. Fortuneately, data was loading again that night, so I snagged the images. Except for one I didn't know about, a bullet that evidently was referenced in the template but wasn't in use on the blog at the moment.
So today I uploaded the images for our template, Subtlebeauty, to ImageShack and edited the template to point to those images. Everything seems to be working. Wootness.
If you want to use this template (but then you would look like us :p), here are the image links, hosted at ImageShack. I also listed files hosted on the Google Pages site, but use the ImageShack files, because you may experience bandwidth limitation issues with the Google Pages site. ImageShack files on the left.
subtlebullet.gif (Google Pages)
subtlebg.gif (Google Pages)
subtleheader.gif (Google Pages)
subtledate.gif (Google Pages)
Ok... there. Second post. Phew.
