This Month in Music: October

Here is a long playlist of music I've found, and enjoyed this past October.

If you know my aDrive information, then hop on and check out the tunes section and then look for this month. You can grab either the mix CD of the following tracks, or down all of the albums.

Playlist (Artist - Track title; Album):
Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel; Old Crow Medicine Show
Ben harper - Walk Away;
Devendra Banhart - Lover; Smoker Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
Jason Michael Carroll - I Can Sleep When I'm Dead; Waitin' In The Country
Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body; Plans
Butch Walker - The Weight Of Her; Sycamore Meadows
Snow Patrol - Take Back The CIty; A Hundred Million Sun
x The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?; Singles Going Stead
xAndrew Lipke - Get It Over With; Motherpearl & Dynamite
Elvis Costello - Blame It On Cain; My Aim is True
The Posies - Dream All Day; Frosting On The Beater
Paolo Nutini - New Shoes; These Streets
The Killers - Human; Human
The Cat Empire - Two Shoes; Two Shoes
The Cat Empire - The Car Song; Two Shoes
Sea Wolf - Winter Window;

MGMT - Kids

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours

Lil Wayne - Mrs. Officer

xThe Stereos - I Really Love You

James Otto - Just Got Started Lovin' You

Free4All

and if you really like the music toss a few bucks at the artist or xpn.org I think $5 is a good price for this month in music.

CrossOver

CrossOver is available for free (both their pro version and games version)
http://down.codeweavers.com/

Also I found this nifty site that gives you 50gigs of free storage and no upload-size limit. Sounds down right awesome. Upload is a bit slow, but that is probably because of my internet connection.
ADrive.com

New Ubuntu!

Woo, looks like ubuntu will be releasing a new version of their operating system on the 30th of October 2008. Super excited, and (dare I say) intrepid.



Intro
Windows, and Macintosh are examples of an Operating System (OS). When windows released Vista it was an upgrade from XP. Ubuntu is a free OS, and it is releasing an upgrade as well.
*I use the term upgrade lightly because there are often big changes

Ubuntu releases by Y.MM and Adjective-Animal (the names are given through alpha order, like hurricanes). So to give you some background:
6.10: Edgy Eft
7.04: Feisty Fawn
7.10: Gutsy Gibbon
8.04: Hardy Heron
and now
8.10: Intrepid Ibex

When I install I'll post up notes of instructions on setting up network sharing, watching dvds and all the programs I stumble into and find important. (I'm doing a fresh install, it leaves a nice new car smell on my computer).

Donate Blood!

Save lives, and eat cookies. Personally I'm partial to donating platalets, you can donate every 2weeks and you get to watch a movie while you're there (double rewards too).

Donate Bloode
Donate Platelets
ph#302-737-8400
ph#888-825-6638
*I've always found it easier to call, but to each his own (I know some ppl don't like human interaction).

Stumbling Across the Globe

Here are a list of the places I've traveled:

• Spain
• British Virgin Islands
• S.Korea
• 01/01/07: Thailand
• 01/01/08: Argentina (1m); Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Bari Loche, Cordoba
• //08: Canada (1w); Toronto
• 10/20/08: Canada (1d); Toronto

Importing / Making Audiobooks

*for your iPod

Here are the methods, program and know-how I've amassed.
As you can tell it is to the point. There are two ways of doing this that make sense and are timely (sry Linux, no-go)

iTunes 8+ (XP, MAC)
http://aldoblog.com/2008/09/itunes-8-is-great-for-audiobook-lovers/
You're surprised, I know, I was too. They have made picking out the settings much easier (actually they do it for you and you just select Audiobook). Most importantly it takes all of the tracks from one CD and joines them together. It still lacks the concept that we might want chapter breaks (with pictures!), or that there may be more than one cd to a novel. So you get one big track per CD. Notably though, it remembers where you were in the track, and removes the song/s from your music (so when you shuffle it doesn't play).


Splasm's Audiobookbuilder (MAC only)
http://www.splasm.com/audiobookbuilder/
This is why iTunes should have some kind of third party add-on ability like Firefox. This software looks so easy to use it makes me feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot trying to use iTunes or any other method. Just look at the prett picture below (you can even click the image if you want to view the blog I *borrowed* the image from).



*Heck if I can figure out where chapter breaks fall in, maybe it is on the CD or the case, I usually find them while I'm listening.

My new projector

So I was all set to buy my new optoma ep719 (open box) from Circuit Shitty. Low and behold, they effed up, I shouldn't have been sent to this other store without them first checking on the product. It wasn't there, and if it were it would have been $800(-open box discount) instead of the $700 they told me at the other store, or $600 like I paid for it last time. (long story short about last time, I thought a column on the far left was vertically shifted on high-def display and they wouldn't check it in store. so I returned it and put a voodoo curse on their stock shares)

They did however offer me a different open box projector Optoma HD65 at $720 (more than I wanted to spend, but also $280 off regular price). No re-stocking fee if I return it in 30days, and of course it came with the wrong remote. Well, that's Circuit Shitty for you. Give you a good deal and then poop on your chest when you are trying to figure out why you're new electronics don't work.

On the plus side it has an amazing picture from what I've seen of the VGA (or D-Sub) hook up. The darn thing doesn't have a DVI, but it does have HDMI and Component. So that is kind of goofy, but I can't complain because now I can use the component out from the nice DVD player. I'll just have to buy a converter for my computer's DVI port.

Spec.s
1600 Lumens (not as bright as the other one, but this is for movies not power point presentations)
4000:1 contrast ratio
DLP (because LCD is crap side by side and life length)
16:9 Aspect Ratio

It says it is compatible up to 1080p, but I'm pretty sure it maxes out at 720p. More on resolutions when I actually make sense of them. Wikipedia has a sticky mess of an explanation, that is probably just too in depth for me. What is important to me is the picture they have.

On there you can see the most common LCD screen resolution (1280x1024 or SXGA), how that compares to the native projector resolution (1280x720, also called HD720) and the projector's maximum resolution (1920x1080, also called HD1080, also called freakin' B-U-T-Full).

Along with this one needs to know the capacity of the different ports we have on the back of these dumb machines and cables we use. So here we go:

Cables (maximum resolutions)
Composite: 480i
S-Video : 480p
VGA/D-Sub :
HDMI : 1080p (and up)
Component : 1080p (and up, they don't make tvs better than this yet though)

Sources (maximum output)
DVD Players: 720p (via component)
Blue-Ray Players: 1080p (via hdmi or component)
Computer graphics cards: + (via vga or dvi) (my new Nvidia card can output reaaaly high)

So where are you going to send this
TVs: up to 1080p
Projectors: my Optoma HD65 is a native XXX and max XXX
Monitors: most are set to 1280x1024px
*coming back to this, but I have a busy life ya'know

Web development

Here are a few websites that I have un/officially helped in bringing about.

4 Sweet Feet
Creek Valley Estates

Reinstallation order for computers

This is the order that Dell suggests re/installing crap onto your computer

1. Desktop System Software (DSS) or Notebook System Software (NSS) - A vital utility that provides critical updates and patches for the operating system. If you are reinstalling Windows or updating all drivers, it is important that this software be installed first. Currently, the DSS and NSS are not required for computers with Windows Vista®. This is located under the System and Configuration Utilities Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

2. Chipset - Helps Windows control system board components and controllers. This is located under the Chipset Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

3. Video Adapter - Enhances video performance. This is located under the Video Adapter Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

4. Network Interface Card (NIC) - Enhances the network controller for Internet or network access. This is located under the Network Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

5. Audio Adapter - Enables and enhances the audio controller. This is located under the Audio Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

6. Modem - Allows dial-up capability. This is located under the Communication Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

7. Wireless Network Card - Enables and enhances the wireless network controller. This is located under the Network Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

8. Touchpad, Pointer, Trackstick, Mice, and Keyboards - Enhances the pointing device features. This is located under the Mouse & Keyboards Category on the Drivers and Downloads page.

9. Other Devices

   • Bluetooth® Module located under the Communication Category on the Drivers and Downloads page

   • Dell Wireless Mobile Broadband Cards located under the Communication Category on the Drivers and Downloads page

   • PCMCIA/Smartcard controller located under the Security Category on the Drivers and Downloads page

My computer!

So I built it myself, and here are all of the beautiful spec.s that I would like to remember in case I ever have to reinstall drivers or replace parts.

Parts and components:

• Intel DQ-965GF; 2PCI, 1PCI-Express x1, 1PCI-Express x16, 4 Ram Slots (up to 8Gigs), 6Sata inputs, 1Parallel ATA
  
• Intel Core 2-duo
• 4Gigs of DDR2 Ram
• 320Gigs of space on 1Sata port
• Lightscribe DVD+/- writer on 1Sata port: note that lightscribe is (as of this posting) not supported in Linux, besides that it burns everything I throw at it
  
• Dynex 5in1 card reader
• 400Watt power supply in some case I found for cheap online
• Logitech G7 mouse: note that buttons don't play nice in Linux (more on that later)
  
• Compaq wireless keyboard cat. no. 26-762
• Dell 17" monitor model# E172FP
• and crappy 5.1 surround that dell handed out four years ago with every computer

I hope you are in awe of my super fast computer, I plan on tossing a few more hard drives in there and an nvidia graphics card (just in time for the projector)

My first projector

I've hunted around for a while now, and Optoma's EP719 has beaten the competition. DLP has a longer life, less jogging, and lower price. I know technology has a way of making things obsolete in a few years, but I'm investing in this one. It's stat.s are beautiful and has just what I want as far as inputs are concerned. Word of warning, several sites differ on the actual in/outputs on this bad-boy. What I have listed below is what I've found true for Circuit City. You didn't read that wrong. No-where else sells them, and technically I'm not sure they do since they don't carry them online or at their stores. You actually need to go to their stores and have them order and ship it to you. So hurry before they go bankrupt.

Optoma EP719

• brightness: 2000 ansi lumens
• contrast: 2500:1
• resolution: 1024x768 native
• aspect: 4:3
• 1 VGA in, 1 DVI in, 1 s-video in, 1 VGA out
  
• $600
  

Knife Patterns

Jay Fisher's website offers many many knife patterns. Quite useful for a person following Basta's Instructable on knife making.

I'll add pictures of my own knives-in-progress later.

Thank you!

I'm glad you found something on this site useful enough to want to donate. I hope I can produce more of the same content. Feel free to leave me a comment on this page (if you didn't on add a note to the donate e-mail) and I'll know what I'm doing right.
Sincerely,
Dr.Knoxy