January 2008 Archives
I spent a bit of time researching how to do this - there just had to be a way. It turns out that TiVo Desktop plays nicely with LAME and will transcode on the fly. This is, of course, a bit more lossy than it could be, but I'm ripping discs into 190kbps AAC files and they sound fine to me.
First I found this hint that taught me about LAME, but all I heard was static. So I dug and then I found a posting here outlining a fix. I tried it and it absolutely worked. So you don't have to sift through the postings, I will copy the post here for you.
gerickson posted:
Thanks to everyone here who helped me figure out my AAC -> static issue running on a Mac Pro w/ Mac OS X 10.4.8 and TiVo Desktop 1.9.3 (008).I tweaked the recipe slightly and installed the following script in "/Library/Application Support/TiVo/lame" since SoundConvert checks there first:
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/lame -x $*However, in the process of doing this, I noticed that TiVo Desktop leaves around zombie processes when you skip AAC tracks. I did a 'ps -jx' and noticed tens to hundreds of sleeping 'SoundConvert' and 'lame' processes.
Has anyone modified the above script/wrapper to reap any such zombies before exec'ing the next iteration of 'lame' on the "current" track?
I have not tried to solve the zombie process problem. I left it in for full disclosure and all.
This post is mostly for me to find later when I inevitably screw around, break this, and wonder how I got it working in the first place.
The internet is a big cloud in every network diagram I have ever seen, but the concept of little clouds never really occurred to me until recently. In the big cloud that is the internet there are a whole lot of rain drops, lightning bolts, and some golf ball sized hail stones that leave holes in my monitor (my cyber windshield).
But in my own little cloud there is peace and harmony. My bookmarks play well with each other and are sorted. My mail is all in its own folders. My calendar is sorted by what kind of event I'm looking at. All of my information is being jammed into its own neat little category.
But this is not how my brain works. My brain is a form of organized chaos. One idea bounces off another which triggers another. Like rain drops in a cloud. Hah! I stuck with the metaphor! Take that, doubters and naysayers!
Okay, I'll get serious.
The point is that my world is not black and white and neither should the way I handle the information that makes it revolve be. To that end, I think that tags are a great tool. Putting tags on everything makes them searchable. They may live in folders like "work" and "home," but they also have little words attached like "humor" or "television" or "perl" or "email" or who knows what else. Any word that comes to mind when I create or save a piece of information becomes a tag, and I can then go back and search through my own little cloud. And a proper search, too. Programatic, not reading through each folder wondering, "did I file this article under architecture or business?" It just is.
I think that bookmarks are a good place to start with this, and I think a good way to handle that is to keep it all both online and locally. This means that wherever I am I can reach into my cloud and fetch what I'm looking for. To that end, it's time to start looking at my options: Del.icio.us, Magnolia, and Google bookmarks. I have not looked closely enough to make a decision, but I can say this much - important factors are integration with my browser(s), privacy control, and ability to share what I've found with the world.
Let's see where this goes.
Analysis: What the MacBook Air is and what it isn't - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): ""
I liked this article.
One of my goals in the new year has been to get back to my shutterbug self and take and share more photos. To that end, I have decided to try to start moblogging a bit. The idea is that I see something, I snap a shot of it with the camera on my phone, and I can upload it to Flickr right then and there.
Since I use Nokia phones I have a few options. There's an article I read about some of these options but I apparently neglected to bookmark it. Oops. But I do know the two major options. The first is called ShoZu. It's a site dedicated to this sort of thing with a client for several phones. It's also a middle man, meaning the client uploads photos to ShoZu's server and then they upload to Flickr or any number of other sites. I must admit I don't like this, but the other option is not an option for me.
Nokia's N series phones have the ability to share photos online, and Nokia and Flickr have teamed up to add a configuration for those phones to upload to Flickr. Check that out here. This looks like the clear winner of the two with much better options. For example, ShoZu can tag but cannot put things into sets. But I do not carry an N series phone today, so this isn't going to be it for me unless / until I switch.
So that's the run down. In the mean time, I'll hopefully be uploading more photos as time goes on.
Sometimes I come across something that is just flat out genius and I marvel at how simple that thing is. Rewind, for example, to a trip to the Summer Shack a few months back. One of the people I was with ordered lobster and naturally was given a lobster bib. This bib, unlike any other I had seen before, had a little pouch on the bottom. Such a simple little thing, but so brilliant. Other lobster bibs protect the shirt and sully the pants. Not this one.
Today I was reading a magazine and I came across this.
"... once you recognize who you are and what you do best, you're free to surround yourself with people who are not you and who have different skills. This eases the pressure on you to do it all and simplifies life."
To quote Popeye the sailor man, well blow me down! Those two sentences can be life changing if they are realized. It's such a simple concept, but it's not the culture bred in the world. It's about true team work through different strengths and mutual support, not competition. It's a utopian environment where people thrive off their environment, a positive influence, rather than competition with their team mates and trying to outdo each other, a negative influence in my book. It breeds trust and faith in your team mates, and rather than forcing things to get done it allows them to.
Just. Plain. Brilliant.
Happy new year, readers. Today is the first day of a new month and a new year. For me that means a few things. In the computer world, it means another set of archives go to disk to gather dust. Major email backups happen, which makes me grateful for Mail.app's new mailbox archiving functionality.
This is also where we all make our resolutions, if you will. Mine? I have a few I can share with you, my readers.
1. Maintain that work - life balance I've worked very hard to create. Remember what I say, kids: work to live, don't live to work. This isn't license to blow off the job by any stretch. Just find that balance.
2. Start moblogging pictures regularly. Just because they're not the most incredible shots in the world doesn't minimize them, nor does the fact that my phone's camera isn't the end all and be all of digital photography. Trust me, it'll be fun. For me. Anyhow, I'll probably use my flickr photostream for this. The badge is on this blog, but I'm not sure if I'll actually post the full sized photos here. We'll see.
3. Though there is still some mental debate about this, it is entirely possible that I will be once again picking up a musical instrument. How much success there will be I can't say, but it still might happen. And hopefully if I wind up failing it'll be fun on the way.