Wed, 23 Nov 2005
Cheap commercial product uses ext3 filesystem and writes about it!
posted at: 19:53 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 07 Nov 2005
Offline Portable Encrypted Filesystems, Part 1
- load cryptoloop kernel module
- decrypt filesystem against loopback driver
- enter password
- mount loopback filesystem
- use filesystem
- unmount filesystem
- encrypt filesystem by disabling loopback driver
posted at: 12:48 | path: /privacy | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 02 Nov 2005
I got a 1 gig USB flash drive called the Cruzer Micro, manufactured by Sandisk. It's extremely tiny, about 2 inches long by 1/4 inch thick and it has some pretty impressive read/write benchmarks with the default vfat filesystem: Write 200M filereal 0m23.748s
user 0m0.009s
sys 0m1.158s
Read 200M file
real 0m18.151s
user 0m0.035s
sys 0m1.594s
Unfortunately, it has the same write limitations as Compact Flash.
posted at: 16:06 | path: /media | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 01 Nov 2005
ultram repentant by Clyde Phelps <DiannaChampagnevolterra@mercurylofts.net>. Composed Tue Oct 25 02:36:16 2005 rack you togs me, prefatory . clapboard you creedal me, muck turnkey mylar . unruly you pneumonia me, satyr gibbous . author you diluent me, begging . eugene +you carryover me, heliotrope subsidiary countdown wheelchair .posted at: 00:38 | path: /spam | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 24 Oct 2005
FCC trys to order all VoIP systems to comply with wiretaps
The whole concept of a wiretap when dealing with voice over IP networks is ridiculous. It's incredibly difficult and could potentially involve hundreds of variable situations. Compare this to tapping a traditional analog pair from your local CLEC, which simply involves finding the demarc and touching a speaker with two wires on the end to the pair, and you will begin to see the gravity of this mandate.
So the FCC thought it would be a cool thing to try and order every single VoIP company and non-profit institution with existing VoIP infrastructure to comply with some abstract concept like "let us listen to your phone calls in the name of freedom."
posted at: 12:54 | path: /power | permanent link to this entry
Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Tyondai Braxton Played at Tonic
Tyondai is my favorite living composer and performer. He makes very well orchestrated pieces right before your eyes with a guitar, his voice and a rather complicated matrix of looping samplers and effect boxes. Mike Burke, part of JMZ records, the small record imprint that pressed his first solo CD described his performance by telling me "he becomes this cybernetic organism."
Ty played at Tonic on the 21st of October 2005. I recorded it. He asked me to only place part of the show here. The segments are in ogg/vorbis format, to further confuse you so you'll buy the record when it comes out.
First seven minutes
Last 6 minutes
For all the geeks reading this, I recorded it with a
Sony ECMZS90 stereo condensor
microphone attached to an iRiver
ihp-140 portable harddisk
player/recorder. The source format was wav, which I moved to FLAC and finally
to vorbis.
posted at: 23:40 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 18 Oct 2005
Why I didn't get the 2005 Eyebeam Open Labs residency
- Ben Engebreth comes to Eyebeam from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech where he worked on trajectory optimization for spacecraft.
- Limor Fried is a recent graduate of the MIT Media Lab where she earned a Masters of Engineering in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.
- James Powderly has a master degree from NYU's ITP program and comes to Eyebeam from Honeybee Robotics, where he has worked as a director of technology development, applications engineer and lab foreman since 2002.
- Evan Roth is a recent MFA graduate from the Design Technology department at Parsons where he was his class valedictorian.
posted at: 01:56 | path: /art | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 17 Oct 2005
Installing the Adobe SVG viewer with Debian stable
/usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref/debian.js.
If you only have Firefox installed and not Mozilla and the default kernel for
sarge, it appears that this plugin doesn't work at all. Or maybe it's the
nvidia graphics driver. Who knows. Fuck closed source binaries for Linux.
The above instructions are dependent on some Debian packages, most
notably, libfreetype6, libttf2 and ttf-freefont. In proper Debian syntax
apt-get install libfreetype6 libttf2 ttf-freefont. The last package gives you
some default TT fonts to work with. You can see all the fonts available with
apt-cache search ttf-
That's it. Go here to test your
plugin installation after restarting your browser.posted at: 21:46 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 13 Oct 2005
Free pizza is something which benefits humanity
posted at: 00:07 | path: /brooklyn | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 12 Oct 2005
An Internet Radio Stream Directory
apt-get install streamtuner
alsaplayer-gtk. You won't be sorry. Start stream tuner from your Gnome
menu (or any other way you please) and open the preferences. Enter
alsaplayer -E %q in the "listen to m3u" and "listen to stream"
Application settings. Now browse your streams. Then go to the "Local" section
and point it to the music on your hard disk. Yeah. Fresh. Like iTunes but not
sucking so hard or, like, sold out n'shit.posted at: 23:59 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 03 Oct 2005
Simple, CD quality live recording from any JACK application.
posted at: 17:15 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry
Sat, 17 Sep 2005
Generate A Playlist from All Media On A Web Page
posted at: 22:08 | path: /scripts | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 05 Sep 2005
weary not chant some inflate ! brainchild some ruffle but cuttlebone andoasis
try blandish , aware and doze it's bail a turbidity see swan it's approval
on venerate try rod see inspect , shaw on willful.
posted at: 04:38 | path: /spam | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 08 Aug 2005
This weekend was my first Prometheus Radio Project barnraising. It was for Valley Free Radio in Florance, Massachusettes. It was awesome. We used a directioinal WiFi antenna to link the studio to the transmitter over about a mile. I'll write more later...posted at: 12:42 | path: /radio | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 02 Aug 2005
Me and You and Everyone We Know...amazing. Here's the quote that inspired the above ruler of the "best emoticon ever" contest.I'll poop into your butthole and then you'll poop it back into my butthole and we'll keep doing it back and forth with the same poop. Forever.
posted at: 00:51 | path: /movies | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 01 Aug 2005
Configuring the Jack Audio Connection Kit with Debian Sarge (stable)
Hardware
- Debian GNU/Linux.
- A Pentium compatible PC, the faster the better. Pentium IIs will probably suck and at worst be completely non-functional. Apple hardware may not work at all.
- A Linux compatible sound card. This means many cards but excluding all firewire devices. USB sound cards are spotty too, although I have got an Emagic A26 to work with a laptop.
- Speakers.
Software
The Debian packaging system makes getting a Jack system up and running quite simple when compared to other distributions. We begin with installing your operating system and setting up the sound card.- Download Debian (Sarge) CD #1 or the netinst minimal CD if you also have a fast Internet connection. Install with a 2.6 kernel by giving the 'linux26' option at the boot prompt
- Follow the menus and reboot when prompted. When you are done with the questions after reboot, open a shell and
type this:
apt-get install alsa-base alsa-utils discover1. Then runalsaconf. It will ask you some questions, reset your sound drivers and edit some configuration files. After this you should be able to hear sound. Try playing an internet radio stream or a sound file. If it still doesn't work, reboot. I know it sucks but sometimes it's simpler than troubleshooting. - Once you have ALSA drivers loaded, you need to compile the realtime-lsm kernel module to get good audio
performance. Debian makes this exceptionally simple. First, check if you have some development tools installed with
apt-get install g++ make build-essential module-assistant. Now you have to install your kernel headers. At this point you can get away with nothing more thanapt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.8-2. Now you have to download the source code for the realtime driver.apt-get install realtime-lsm-source realtime-lsm. - Now that you have all the software, let's build it. Start with
cd /usr/src; m-a prepare, followed bym-a build realtime-lsm. It should finish without error and you should find a file called realtime-lsm-module-2.6.8-2_0.1.1-6+10.00.Custom_i386.deb or something similar. Install it withdpkg -i realtime-lsm-module-2.6.8-2_0.1.1-6+10.00.Custom_i386.deb. - Congradulation. Your realtime driver is installed. Now you have to load it into your running kernel. Do this
invoke-rc.d realtime start. You shouldn't see any error messages. To confirm that the driver is loaded, typedmesgand you should see a line likeRealtime LSM initialized (group 29, mlock=1). If not, something is wrong. Read the errors to diagnose your problem. - Lastly, we install JACK.
apt-get install jackd qjackctl. Qjackctl is a graphical utility for managing your audio system. Highly recommended. - Start qjackctl and click the "start" button. If it says it started you are good to go. If not it should tell you why.
posted at: 13:36 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry
Sun, 31 Jul 2005
Some open source streaming tools and information which may be hard to find
- I'll have a .deb for Darkice with mp3 support available here.
- Here's a link to Auppix, a Linux distribution for radio and sound which runs from a CD-R
- The August Sound Coalition is maintating a collectively edited document on constructing a Hybrid Radio station
posted at: 13:23 | path: /media | permanent link to this entry
Fri, 29 Jul 2005
Water. Written by Polly Jean Harvey
walking on
water
for years
taking it into my head
living by the right lines
reading what the very man said
water
walking on
water
neighing on eleven years
taking it into my head
mary mary drop me softly
i've been reading what your very man said
neighing on eleven years
taking it into my head
leave my clothes on the beach
i'm walking down into the sea
prove it to me
now the water to my ankles
now the water to my knees
think of him all waxy wings
melted down into the sea
mary mary what your man said
is washing in all over my head
mary mary hold on tightly
over water under the sea
Listen to the song.
posted at: 10:15 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 19 Jul 2005
I installed Mediawiki today. It's...different.
posted at: 00:19 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 13 Jun 2005
The Best Shell Command Line of My Life
not-faith:~# locate fuck | grep painposted at: 00:37 | path: /goofy | permanent link to this entry
Fri, 03 Jun 2005
It must be hard to maintain accuracy of consistancy of informationwhen you're a public figure
posted at: 00:00 | path: /power | permanent link to this entry
Sun, 22 May 2005
Removing Plesk from Hostcentric Self Managed Hosting
- Apache (the HTTP server)
- MySQL (the SQL database server)
- qmail (the MTA)
- BIND (the DNS system)
- Pro-FTPD (the FTP daemon [WTF, FTP?! who uses this anymore?])
- GNU Mailman (Mailing list manager)
rpm -qa | grep psa. This will show you all the RPM packages which have been taken over. Kind of a lot. qmail, the MTA has to go. As does the courier imapd and popd daemons. There's a bunch of stuff in /etc/xinetd.d/ that's Plesk-ified. If this isn't a production server it's safe to disable this for now.
I'm going to take this time, before you start hacking to emphasize DO NOT DO THIS ON A PRODUCTION SERVER! and of course the obligitory BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE PROCEEDING!. Like the Debian GNU/Linux login message, this mini-howto comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.. I hope I have made this clear enough...let's proceed.
If you have already picked around the Plesk GUI, you might have noticed some weirdnesses with how they define "domains" and "users". I still don't understand most of it but here's the gist. An "FTP User" is someone added to /etc/passwd with a shell of /bin/false and their web root is their home directory. A "Web User" is someone. I have no fucking idea. A "SSH User" Or remote login whatever, is someone who is also added to /etc/passwd with a shell of /bin/bash.
Outside of /usr/local/psa the second most dominated location is /etc/httpd. This is where all the Apache configs reside. While Plesk hasn't modified the Apache binary, they have ruled the config file structure and made it almost impossible to allow you to edit the file by hand. Double plus ungood. Another caveate, which was pretty amusing in retrospect (although not during the 8 fucking hours I spent figuring it out and fixing it) is that Plesk uses suexec for CGIs. RTFM if you don't know what it is. These Hostcentric servers haven't modified the Apache binary so it's using /var/www as it's suexec document root (the default). Amusingly enough, Plesk is using a different document root, making it impossible to execute certian types of CGI programs. It requires recompiling Apache to change this variable and it's doesn't stick across upgrades. Great! suexec is great if you have a huge shared hosting business but anyone spending $59.99 a month for a server isn't doing that. And if you are, you're retarded, you will lose. Moral of the story, don't use suexec.
There's really no simple way around the Apache config part. You have to open up the files in a text editor and delete all the <VirtualHost> definitions you didn't create yourself. The ones you did, you have to save and then modify for your new configuration. This took me tons of trial and error.
DNS is a tricky problem. Most people don't fully understand DNS or just don't have to think about it that much and don't care. Don't worry, I was one of them too and it took me a weekend to get it. Now I do and it's very simple. BIND is overly complicated. djbdns is not. Which one do you think Plesk uses? Why BIND, of course. This is actually kind of unexpected considering they are already using some DJB software, namely qmail. Whatever...If you are already publishing some domains from this box, you aren't fully screwed but it's going to be kind of difficult. You'll have to shut down your DNS server while you transition to djbdns. Fortunately, Mr. Bernstein provides good documentation on transitioning from BIND to djbdns. Read it, do it, it'll work. This is a simple one to get out of the way and it'll last for the life of the server. Make sure you remove named from the system's boot order so it doesn't turn itself on across reboots. Once you have a stable tinydns/dnscache system you can uninstall BIND.
The last part of Plesk terribleness is MySQL. Fortunately it didn't do anything that bad to MySQL except use it for lots of state information and some user databases. If you already depend on databases created by the GUI, dump them out of MySQL just to be safe.
Now you should have a very good idea of the depth of this project. The icing on the cake is that Hostcentric's agreement forbids you to update the OS. Fedora Core 1 is quite old. The whole point of open source software is the freedom to update. My better judgement tells me the lawyers who wrote this agreement have never used a computer for anything more than typing email and surfing pr0n on the web so I can safely ignore them. Our business and theirs do not overlap. No probs. The first concrete step to a Plesk free life is installing APT, the Advanced Packaging Tool, created by the wonderful Debian GNU/Linux project and updating your RPM database.
After installing APT, follow the instructions and choose a mirror close to you. Run apt-get update and make sure it runs without errors. Then run apt-get dist-upgrade and see how horribly out of date your OS is. Scary, isn't it? Please say no to all of these upgrades, since one of them might be a kernel upgrade and you'll have to reboot. What you can do now, it run /etc/init.d/psa stop, which will shut down Plesk, whatever that means. Now you are safe to refer to the output of that rpm -qa | grep psa command and remove and replace the programs. I chose postfix to replace qmail-psa. Everything else I just replaced with their Fedora supplied counterparts. Once all the *-psa packages are removed, run chkconfig --list and make sure the services you want are in the list and set to on for levels 2, 3, 4 and 5. If they are, run apt-get dist-upgrade and say yes. You might get some GPG verification errors, which I couldn't get around even though I imported the public key from the Fedora project. I had to edit /etc/apt/apt.conf to disable GPG checking to get the upgrade to complete without errors.
You probably have a new kernel which you should reboot into. This is a pretty critical step, so make sure your bootloader is properly configured. My server was using grub. Verify that /boot/grub/menu.lst is pointing to the current kernel and that the kernel exists at that location. Make sure the default is to boot into that kernel. If you are using lilo, the same should apply. I'm scared of lilo so I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader if you are using that bootloader.
The final step is rebooting. But wait! There's one last bit of sneakiness I got bit by. Run this ls -l /sbin/reboot. Depending on your system, you might notice that it's linked to /sbin/halt ! This means if you type reboot it'll actually shut down the system! Fuck! You can be safe and issue a shutdown -r now command to properly reboot. If something goes wrong and the system doesn't come back online, you'll have to submit a reboot request to Hostcentric. They were actually pretty good at doing this, with a turn around of about 20 to 30 minutes for me and in both cases their reboot worked where mine didn't.
When your new system is rebooted and running, make sure the services you want are running with netstat -ltunp and if they aren't, start them with the redhat-centric service whatever start. If it comes up, use chkconfig to add it to the boot order for runlevels 2, 3, 4 and 5. To be safe you might want to do one last reboot to make sure everything you need comes up automatically. If it does, congratulations! You have a brand new Plesk free Fedora server. Stay tuned for a howto for upgrading to Fedora Core 2.posted at: 18:09 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 16 May 2005
Critical Mass Radio Network mixer
apt-get install pd-externals.posted at: 23:39 | path: /puredata | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 12 May 2005
Installing Debian Sarge on a 4801 with a serial console
posted at: 23:09 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Sun, 17 Apr 2005
particle/wave is over. Three notable things stand out. First is the product from the transmitter building workshop. It's a functioning FM transmitter we built by hand on a 3 x 2 inch board. It is 0.15 watts and has a range of about 25 feet. I have the specs so getting American parts (the parts we used were German) shouldn't be hard. Then I can start teaching others how to build them. Next is a piece of software called User Radio, which in it's current form is a collection of pieces that allow one to upload audio in many file formats, or a stream from the Internet into an online mixer. Users then can fade channels in and out. It works really well and the guy who made it is very helpful. It got me thinking that it (or something like it) can be used for our monthly CMRN broadcasts. The third is really a combination of all the performances. The opening night party had a this telephone installation in the dining room. Each telephone was wired directly to a big speaker, which were in turn wired to a computer processing any sound that went into the telephone to delay and loop. It was one of the most fun installations I've seen and everyone loved it. Then there was a performance with these tiny machines transmitting and sequencing and feeding back into themselves over radio frequencies. The noises were very sophosticated for such a simple configuration. I'm really into these euro art festivals. All the people I talk to say there are many of them all over the continent. It's so much better than anything I've been to in the states, which I realize is a totally cliche thing to say but still true.posted at: 14:16 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 14 Apr 2005
Not much on these pages in the last month. After losing my job, freaking out, getting another job which is far more interesting and preparing to take my first trip to Europe, I've been more than distracted. When I was 16 years old I discovered the music of Aphex Twin. At the time I hadn't heard anything like it, nor did a lot of other people I knew. It totally changed the way I started listening to music, and consequently making it. Being an urban kid stuck between suburban parents one of my wild fantasies was when I got older I would go to England on tour with my own music, befriend Mr. Twin and everything would live happily ever after. I would only go to Europe under these conditions. Any other way would be terribly boring since I would just be a tourist. It's been 11 years since then. I'm writing this in a hotel room in Helsinki, Finland at five in the morning because the time travel has made me sleepless at opposite hours. I'm participating in a electronic arts festival called Pixel Ache, at the contemporary art museum in Helsinki called Kiasma. A sub genre of the festival is a workshop group operating under the title Particle/Wave, and is a group of about 30 of us who are working with Hybrid Radio, which is any way to transmit or broadcast audio to a location, not only via popular ways like FM. This obviously involves The Internet, which is what interested me. This is the first place I will present Auppix to others and put it into practice. In order to do this right, I have to have the language down. How is Auppix different than the three other big LiveCD distributions? There's Dynabolic, Knoppix and a lesser known project called DiMuDi, which actually got government funding. Auppix is different because in addition to a set of tools to produce art, it also is art itself. The group we have working on it are more interested in audio and visual art than hacking. The graphical interface is just as important as the software tools on the disc. The writing on theory of transmission art provides information of equal value as the documentation to how to create a stream. My vision for Auppix is that it will be the first Linux distribution which is generic enough to be used by others to express their individual voice yet is specific enough that it can be identified as a work in it's self. Apple has successfully done this with OS X to a point. Their goals are obviously different than ours but the comitment to having one's digital tools be aesthetically pleasing are the same. Unfortunately, because my the jetlag, I slept through all of the activities and performances on the first day except for the orientation, which was fine. I'll have more to write about as the week goes on. Here's a photo from the flight across the Atlantic ocean
posted at: 13:01 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 15 Mar 2005
There is a band named The Internet
posted at: 17:56 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 10 Mar 2005
A graphical interface for Ices, an Internet radio encoder
posted at: 16:09 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 09 Mar 2005
I got a good lesson in programming 101 today. I applied for a job at a place which has a rather large commercial site that transacts exchanges of money between third parties. Like PayPal but more specialized. They were (I say were cause I'm sure I didn't get the job) looking for a standard database + php + css programmer. Instead of the usual interview where I'm talking a lot, they gave me a test. I don't think I passed the test. For posterity, here are the questions: First they wanted me to write some CSS from memory for a two column layout. The leftmost column was about 75% of the total width. It was obviously a trick question but the answer they were looking for was to make the top level div be relatively positioned, while the containing divs were absolutely positioned within. This assured that the rightmost column would never fall below the leftmost. The second was a textbook example of a SQL multiple join. I had read the linked article one week prior but because I have never used this process I failed this question miserably. They were understanding and told me that they got the question from a test for a DBA position where 9 out of 10 applicants got it wrong. Joins are cool because they create a temporary table for the sole purpose of joining information from the main table. It is clean because it bypasses the need for any clever glue scripting and handles all the data within the database, which is where it should be. The third was some object oriented PHP code which created a class and two member functions. I had to tell them the number the final function call returned. On the surface it looked like they were just adding some numbers but in reality they were calling the function within the function definition. They wanted to see if I could eyeball recursion. I couldn't but of course I saw it after they explained it to me. All in all it was a good assessment of my real programming skills. I clearly understood all of the concepts they asked of me, I have read about them a lot and probably used them once or twice. Unfortunately I don't program code below a user interface that much so I couldn't deliver what they wanted, which was someone who could eyeball simple CSS, SQL and PHP and explain what it's doing right off the bat with no reference. The positive thing I did get out of the interview was I felt confident explaining my process and getting answers from those who are more experienced than me. It's only a matter of time before I am the one who gets the answers right regardless of their pedagogical nature.posted at: 02:28 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 28 Feb 2005
Transforming an old PC into a commercial-grade firewall/router/VPN appliance.
posted at: 01:34 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Fri, 25 Feb 2005
It pretty sucks. Really, it's so hard each time I sit down and think "alright, this is the time I'm going to get the Zaurus to work" I just end up with a small headache from tracking so many back and forth email list conversations on the same subject. So for the record: There is no simple and fast way to syncronize callendar and addressboox data between Opie 1.0 and KDE 3.3 Here is the closest thing I could find. Even that requires breaking the package manager and installing a .deb with some aggressive switches. On the upside, I'm realling liking the KDE PIM stuff. Their little summary view is rad and similar to Evolution's and Outlook's. The Zaurus is also very cool standing on it's own. I updated to Openzaurus 3.5.1. Getting network connectivity between the USB cradle and Debian wasn't hard at all.posted at: 18:17 | path: /pda | permanent link to this entry
Sat, 19 Feb 2005
Revolutionary Movements -- Part Two
posted at: 03:02 | path: /war | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 16 Feb 2005
I want to become part of the revolutionary movement!
posted at: 02:00 | path: /power | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 09 Feb 2005
Converting xmms playlists to iRiver iHP series format
todos which is available in Debian under the name
sysutils.
This program is short, poorly documented and probably won't work unless you
tweak it for your system. YMMV.posted at: 00:11 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 03 Feb 2005
Authenticating Samba as a trusted host to Active Directory
posted at: 15:49 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
Tue, 01 Feb 2005
I think the most intense thing ever is acting out the entire production of Dogville whilst listening to Motherfucker (Redeemer) - Part 1 by Godspeed You Black Emperor.posted at: 12:18 | path: /theory | permanent link to this entry
Mon, 31 Jan 2005
How to buy music in the post-CD era
- CD copy protection which actually damages the disk to prevent you from playing it in an unknown percentage of CD players and CD/DVD-ROM drives. It also prevents you from ripping it to a portable.
- A greedy music industry that is suing it's own customers as well as innocent bystanders.
- A once progressive computer company that took a desperate risk and made a fortune by limiting the rights of it's users, requiring them to go out of their way to use the music they have bought.
- The same once progressive computer company selling music online that is encumbered with restrictive digital right's management that makes it harder to make a mixtape from than a bunch of vinyl LPs. Unfortunately it appears all their effort was in vain but it inconviences their users once again because they need to use a different player application to bypass the DRM.
- Search for the record you are looking for on Amazon.
- Then use the RIAA Radar to determine if that artist's distributor is a mamber. They have a neato little popup utility that makes it quick and easy to get results from Amazon's item page.
- If the title failed, open an account on All of mp3 and download the title from the Russians. It's currently 2 cents per megabyte downloaded. They are borderline legal, using legal loopholes to offer cheap music from major lables.
- If your RIAA Radar search passed, the artist you are looking for is cool and has a cool distributor who respects musicians. First try and go to your local music store and pick up the CD. It's good to support your local music store.
- If you don't happen to live in a fancy urban area with a good local record store, go directly to the distributor's web site. Most have a way to order the CD/LP online.
- If that fails, buy the CD from Amazon if it's available.
posted at: 17:12 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Fri, 28 Jan 2005
Tomorrow I'm going to pay my first month's rent for the studio. It is a total shit hole that only recently got electricity, which was a big step forward. Before it even begins to be functional I will have to take a shop vaccuum to the entire space and put blankest on the windows to keep the cold air out. It has been consistantly about 20 degrees F out side and it's not much different inside the space. Other than that it's a perfectly wonderful place. It really shines in the summer. 800 square feet of wide open space in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors. Perfect. I've been telling all my friends about it and they all want to use it once it's running. The catch about this particular studio is that it will be a hybrid analog and digital studio. While this isn't a very novel idea, using only Free Software for the production is a novel idea. The primary hard disk recorder will be Ardour and the MIDI sequencer will be Rosegarden.posted at: 20:05 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 27 Jan 2005
My day job is at a company that occationally has meetings with Big Clients™.
posted at: 09:27 | path: /power | permanent link to this entry
Sun, 23 Jan 2005
Steps to help free software use
Depend on Free Software for daily computer use
The only way you are going to walk the walk is if you become a user. Gradually began replacing your warez'd copies of commercial software with Free Software. The next step is crucial to this.Stop complaining about differences
Linux is not Windows, GNU is not UNIX, The Gimp is not Photoshop, Macromedia will never be interested in Free Software! Get over it. If you feel strongly enough about some special feature of a commercial package, write to the company and ask them to consider releasing their source code so the community can improve it.Become part of the community
Accept that you are joining a worldwide community and include yourself in it. Some examples:- Join the mailing lists of certian software you like
- Spend time on IRC. irc.freenode.net is a server with thousands of channels all dedicated to various Open Source and Free Software projects.
- Learn to identify bugs and learn how to use your distribution's bug reporting system. If your distribution doesn't have a bug reporting system, find another distribution.
Be humble.
The Free Software community has an incredibly deep history. If you realize you probably don't know everything about it and that you will be learning new things at a very fast pace things will go easier.posted at: 20:40 | path: /theory | permanent link to this entry
Thu, 20 Jan 2005
I thought of this after a rather emotional conflict with a radio group I'm involved with.
posted at: 02:28 | path: /theory | permanent link to this entry
Wed, 12 Jan 2005
Installing, Xfree86, Gnome and nvidia drivers with Debian testing
Xfree86
$ apt-get install x-window-system When configuring do not choose the kernel's framebuffer driver. We'll be installing our video driver later. Make sure you know your monitor's limits. Two ways to do this are to write down your settings from Windows or boot from a Knoppix CD-R and look at /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. Follow the configuration questions and cross your fingers. If you got it right, you should be able to type startx and get a mouse pointer and grey background. Press crtl + alt + backspace to exit it and proceed to the next step. If you get errors, read them! and try again. Repeat to yourself, "if at first I don't succeed, try, try again."The Gnome Desktop
$ apt-get install gnome gdm Install the Gnome meta package and the display manager. Gdm, the display manager, gives you a really pretty graphical login manager on par with M$ and Apple's. Gdm might start automatically. If it doesn't you can start it with a /etc/init.d/gdm start. Play around with Gnome a bit and configure it to your liking. I happen to be partial to the theme named Amaranth and the simple graphical display manager login screen.Nvidia hardware accellerated drivers
This one takes a few more steps. If you do them all right it should take about 20 minutes total. Be sure to add the contrib and non-free sections to /etc/apt/sources.list- Update your kernel if you already haven't. Debian has lots of kernels for lots of different CPUs. Use one. If you don't know how many are available, search through the list with the Synaptic Package Manager in the System Tools menu. Use kernel as the keyword.
- Install the kernel headers with apt-get install kernel-headers-version where version is the same as above.
- Reboot into the new kernel
- Install the nvidia kernel source package with apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source
- set these variables by typing
export KSRC=/usr/src/kernel-headers-version
export KSRC=/usr/src/kernel-headers-version
Again, replacing "version" with your kernel version - Unzip the Nvidia source with cd /usr/src
tar -zxvf nvidia-source. That's not the exact name but it'll be obvious. - Make the kernel package with /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/debian/rules binary_modules
- Install nvidia-kernel-common with apt-get install nvidia-kernel-common
- Install the nvidia kernel module debian package with dpkg -i /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel-some-big-version.deb or something like that
- Install the Xfree GLX driver with apt-get install nvidia-glx
- Edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 be removing Load "GLcore" and Load "dri". Double check Load "glx" is included. Search for Driver "nv" and change it to Driver "nvidia". Restart Gdm by typing ctrl + alt + F1, log in as root then /etc/init.d/gdm restart and you should now have fat 3D accelleration. When you log back into X, type glxgears and if the FPS value is in the thousands you should be good to go.
- Finally, add the word nvidia to the bottom of /etc/modules to force the nvidia driver to load at boot time.
posted at: 01:48 | path: /hacking | permanent link to this entry
