Music from a series of unfortunate events · Friday October 27, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: fun, funny, musicI heard a cut of this on Bob Boilen’s NPR program. While totally depressing its also amazing funny. Now I wonder why people enjoy depressing things – Tragic Treasury
Firefox 2.0 is wicked fast · Thursday October 26, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: browser, firefox, webIt was a nice surprise this afternoon when I got around to updating my trusty old 1.5 Firefox to the new 2.0. Normally I don’t get excited about these things but 2.0 is just wicked fast compared to 1. on my Mac laptop. They’ve improved the window dressing and it looks much cleaner.
Before this I was using Safari most of the time. There were three things I really liked about Safari over Firefox 1.5.
- Propeller, Shift, H takes me to my home page
- The built in RSS reader
- It started up really fast.
Humm, I think I’ll change my default browser setting. It feels good to be use Open Source Software for browsing the web.
XAMMP for Mac OS X · Wednesday April 19, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: code, php, review, sqlite, xammpRecently I needed a more up to date version of Apache/PHP on my Mac. Specifically I wanted to be able to switch easily between PHP4 and PHP5 as well as have SQLite access in PHP4. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of a custom compile or step on the default Apache/PHP installation with Mac OS X 10.4. In trying verious things I came across XAMMP for Mac OS X. It is an easy install, includes a script for easily reconfiguring between PHP4 and PHP5 and includes SQLite compiled in with PHP4.
I made a few changes to localize the /Applications/xammp/etc/httpd.conf file to my specific machine. I added support $HOME/Sites and pointed DocumentRoot to /Library/WebServer/Documents/ rather then the default /Applications/xammp/htdocs.
For beta software it has been very effective for me. I will probably use this environment while I move Phiz from PHP4 to PHP5 and develop Phizzy. Now if mod_python was compiled in by default …
Prent Rogers is up to cool things again · Monday April 10, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: microtonal, music, podcast, prentPrent has updated his podcast and it has some really nice pieces. I need to figure out how to mutate my toolset to allow for microtonal composition … The collection of “Prent Rodgers – Make Microtonal Music Day 2006 – Part 1” is very cool. Once again I am reminded of his good advice for listen to something new and compose a little each day!
Nojoqui Falls · Monday January 23, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: california, nojoqui, roadside, travelI’ve pasted the off ramp on Hwy 101 for Nojoqui Falls Park in Santa Barbara County so many times that I can’t count. Finally this weekend I took the turn and was pleasantly rewarded for the change in travel path. The road turns south and pass a farm and bridge before running into Alisal Rd. You can only make a left onto Alisal road and as you head for the Park you transition from pastoral farms to oak forested road. Nojoqui Falls Park is has a lower pick nick and parking area and narrows as you make your way to the Falls proper. It is a beautiful setting for and afternoon gather, a dog walk or just sitting reading as well as the path to the Falls which is a short easy walk under dry conditions.
The Falls proper are a growing water. Rather then water cutting deeper over time into the sandstone, the natural mineral sediment adds to the falls building them outward in much the same fashion as the formation of stalactites or stalagmites in caves. The Fall is about a 160 feet drop in a small cozy canyon surrounded with California Laurel and Ferns. A good place to recoup from the fast pace of the 101 Freeway.
Andy West on Bass and Programming · Wednesday January 4, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: bass, musicO’Reilly Digital Media is running an article/interview with Andy West, from the Dixie Dregs, about his transition from Musician to Programmer/Musician. Nice read and incouraging to see a fellow base player find a balance between Job and creative needs. Checkout it out
Adrian Belew - Side One, Side Two · Tuesday January 3, 2006 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: music, reviewSide One and Side Two are the first two parts of a three CD project that Adrian Belew as released in 2005. The third, Side Three, is scheduled for release in February 2006.
The albums are signature Belew drawing from the Crimson power trio tradition. While Crimson power trio may be a departure point stylistically, the composition are painted with both a broader and lighter pallet. The departure point certainly isn’t the ending point. In general on both albums Mr. Belew is drawing from a larger pallet. Exploring the volume of sound from the trio configuration in Studio and the possibilities presented in looping both the guitar as well has percussion and back ground textures. The lyrics on both albums tend to be sparse. While occasionally dark there is still a suggestion possibility in them. The possibility is at times even hopeful. Stylistically the lyrics are like splashes of verbal color against the textures created with the current line up in both CDs.
I’m looking forward to February and the release of Side Three.
See Adrian’s website for more info on both Albums.
Side One
titles
- Ampersand
- Writing On The Wall
- Madness
- Beat Box Guitar
- Under The Radar
- Walk Around The World
- Pause
Side Two
titles
- Dead Dog On Asphalt
- I Wish I Knew
- Face to Face
- Asleep
- Sex Nerve
- Then What
- Quicksand
- I Know Now
- Happiness
- Sunlight
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Lastfm, feeds and home page integration · Monday December 19, 2005 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: muses, music, reviewshort review
I played with Lastfm (Audioscrobbler) a while back. I liked it be it was buggy and often slow in updating my stats so turned off the plugin. Day before yesterday they sent me an email encouraging me to give it a try again. It definitely has improved and I might very well “upgrade” my subscription if it improves the feed performance on stats integrated into my home page. It is much easier to navigate. Tags are definitely an improvement since I last use it. folksonomies are very helpful dealing with Music. Really are the academic taxonomies what every folks refer to things as. Very cool.
There are something things I’d like to see though. This is something I see as a problem with other systems too. I have my own blog, I don’t want another one. It’d be nice if you could choose between lastfm’s blog and an external one, even if the external one only feeds in content via RSS or Atom. This would help in spreading traffic and allow the lastfm site to have tentacles into more places. Just a thought. Service integration I think is an important topic since we now have so many interesting things we could integrate.
feed issues for home page integration
I like the idea of pulling feed content for use in a home page. It lets you present diverse dynamic content in a manageable fashion. The down side is that your load times are now dependent on external servers and net traffic delays to the external sites. This is really noticeable with my flickr badge and was the reason I didn’t directly link my recently played list from lastfm. It just makes the page load too slowly.
I think will likely have to implement a caching scheme for that content. Not sure how long the caches should be valid for though. Not that I have a high traffic site …
Textpattern and tagged content · Monday December 12, 2005 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: code, plugin, review, textpatternJust installed Ran Aroussi’s Tag plugin for Textpattern. Its a really nice way to traverse and organize content. Somethings that would be handy. Right now the tag field appears under Advanced options, I’d rather it appear over by my category list. It’d also be nice to be able to select articles from the last and batch tag things. I’m not familiar enough with Textpattern yet to know how to do this.
Inkxpotter - Strange Music in Small Doses · Wednesday December 7, 2005 by R. S. Doiel
Tagged: music, podcast, reviewI’ve been listening to podcasts for a while. Long enough to have forgotten when I started listening to them. Most the podcasts I listen are music related and one of my favorites is the Inkxpotter. He consistently presents interesting and provocative music. While I may not always like what he’s played I have found I’ve been glad that I heard it. His choice of a three composition format is an excellent vehicle for introducing new music and groups. He occasionally slips in one of his own works and they rarely disappoint. Check it out the podcast at discoveringsound.com