Rory's Internets Audio Blog

Multiple "Legacy" DVI Displays with new Macbook Pro via Thunderbolt?

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:45:00 +0000

There's incredibly little info out there about anyone connecting multiple "old" (non-Thunderbolt) displays to a new macbook pro (equipped with a Thunderbolt port). I've even been corresponding with some hardware manufacturers and even they are not sure.

I need to re-create this scenario, but with thunderbolt crap I guess. Here's some crude ASCII art illustrating a possible (the most likely?) scenario.

macbook pro 
(is also display 4)
        |
        |
   (thunderbolt)
        |
        |
        V
 2-port Thunderbolt 
   to PCIe adapter ---> (daisy-chain, thunderbolt-to-dvi) --> display 3
  with 2-head card
  |            |
  |            |
(dvi)        (dvi)
  |            |
  |            |
  V            V
display 1   display 2

Rory's Top 10 Stoner Metal Hits!

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:28:00 +0000

Satan gets blazed

I don't smoke the greenery, worship satan, slay dragons, or get off on metal music in general. But boy do I love me some bone-crunching, massively overdriven, visceral stoner rock jams.

Holy Mountain - Sleep
Bedouin's Vigil - Om
10,000 Years - High on Fire
Vinum Sabbathi - Electric Wizard
Night Goat and/or The Bit - The Melvins
Off Off Broadway - Big Business
Home - The God Machine (Bonus vid! Dude goes ballistic on his guitar at the Reading Fest)
From Beyond - Sleep
Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Get No Toys (When You Pay the Money) - Karp

Listen to them all on this YouTube playlist.

Note: You'll notice a strong Sleep and Sleep-derivative-band slant to this list. This is because nobody does stoner rock better than those guys.

Note 2: Ever wonder where that sound clip preceding Electric Wizard's "Vinum Sabbathi" comes from? The one that goes "When you get into one of these groups, there's only a couple ways you can get out. One, is death. The other is...mental institutions"...

It's Police Chief Dale Griffis of Tiffin, Ohio. What, is Tiffin some sort of Satanism hostspot? Anyway, the clip is from this early (possibly mid) 80s 20/20 story, entitled "The Devil Worshippers". Which is totally awesome.

Workaround for Snow Leopard (10.6) issue with osascript command

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:17:00 +0000

If you see this bizarre error when using the osascript command:

2011-02-01 14:11:28.727 osascript[11990:903] Error loading /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types:  dlopen(/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types, 262): no suitable image found.  Did find:
        /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: no matching architecture in universal wrapper

it apparently has to do with the mixing of 32 and 64-bit architectures. I don't know what the real fix is, but the workaround is to force osascript to use 32-bit like this:

arch -i386 /usr/bin/osascript -e '[your applescript]'

Reflections on the Kodak PlaySport Zx3 HD Waterproof Video Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:44:00 +0000

I've been using the Kodak Playsport video camera for about a year, for recording my fun kayak fishing videos which nobody really watches but me :) Helps me re-live the thrilling moments of big hookups!

I give the Playsport one thumb up, and the other thumb sort of halfway up...like, imagine my thumb even with the horizon. It's durable, records fairly good quality video, has decent battery life, and is great value for the price ($119 at the time of writing). True to it's name, it actually is built for sports use. It does, however, have some small drawbacks which have frustrated me at times. But again, given the price, I shouldn't have a complaint in the world!

Design

I really like the shape and layout of the device. The vertical orientation of the camera fits well in your hand and makes it easy to operate with one hand, which is important for action video. Oftentimes you don't have both hands free to fiddle with a device. This is an advantage over the compact horizontal layout of a traditional digital camera (somewhat competitive with this device because many now do video, and also, the PlaySport takes stills), which are really designed for two-hand usage. The sides and back of the PlaySport have a tacky rubber coating which helps with grip when the device is wet - nice when you're out on the water. This rubber coating also helps absorb shocks if the camera is dropped.

The PlaySport is very easy to operate. Just hit the power button on the side, and then the giant button in the middle to start/stop recording. The display is big and bright and has very impressive color and definition. There are just a few other simple, pretty self-explanatory buttons, "playback", "settings" and "delete". You can zoom in an out using the arrow buttons surrounding the main start/stop button. I applaud the simplicity!

One of the best things about this camera is its durability. I've had it in some rough situations, and have pretty much smacked the crap out of it. And it takes it like a champ! Saltwater is brutual, but I've had zero issues with the PlaySport and corrosion. Granted, I do give it a cursory rinse-off almost always after each use (it's very nice to be able to rinse off your camera and not worry about ruining it). But even when I haven't, it's just fine.

Video and Audio

Kodak says the PlaySport HD. I am not exactly sure what qualifies as "HD" (certain number of pixels maybe? widescreen?), but I will say that picture quality is surprisingly good for a small, cheap handheld device. It doesn't handle extremely contrast-y situations that well - for example, a frame with both sun and shade in it - but that's to be expected from a camera at this price point. Only thing you really have to watch out for is back-lit situations. When the sun is behind you, you're just a dark silhouette. But this is a general photography issue, not really an issue with the PlaySport itself. The camera does not do well in low-light situations. But around sunset, this can actually be an advantage. Those lower-light images are very rich and saturated. But at night (like around streetlights)...no way.

The audio is one of the camera's weaknesses. It's passable at best. It's WAY too wind noise-prone. Even the smallest breeze sounds like a hurricane in the recording. I've been meaning to see if I can affix a small windscreen over the mic to try to reduce this. Since I yakfish in windy places, I actually came up with another solution. I got a cheapo lapel mic with a foam windscreen at radio shack, plugged it into an mp3 recorder, and just let it roll the entire time (doesn't need a battery change). This creates a good-sounding, wind-free audio track. Now you can clearly hear me shout "FISH ON"! There's an extra layer of complexity having to sync the audio and video tracks in the editing software, but if you clap a few times when you start a new video clip (after, say, a battery change) it's relatively easy Just sync the external audio track to the on-camera audio track in the timeline, then mute the on-camera track.

In non-windy situations, the mic is fine. But even then the audio seems a little distant.

Memory

The PlaySport comes with 128MB internal memory - only enough for about 20 minutes of recording. Get a SD or SDHC card (preferably the latter). I got a cheap 32BG SDHC card and can get about 8h45m of recording time. More than enough for the average day on the water. One thing I noticed is that the PlaySport breaks up long video files into 3.67GB chunks, I am not sure if that's a limitation of the camera, the SDHC card or the .MOV format it records with. This is not a huge deal though, because the files end up getting chopped up during editing anyway.

Battery Life

The camera comes with one Kodak KLIC-7004 lithium ion battery. At full charge (assuming at least an 8GB SD card), the battery will last for approximately 1h40m. This is a pretty decent amount of time for users like me, who keep the camera rolling to capture action that could happen at any time. But to capture a full day of fishing I need several batteries. Problem! The manufacturer's KLIC-7004 batteries are about $30 a pop, which is darn pricey. So I ended up getting a whole bunch
of these aftermarket KLIC-7004 Li-ion batteries for cheap and they work just as well as the Kodak ones. And wow, the price sure is right. While you're there, pick up one of the KLIC-7004 wall chargers for virtually nothing, the PlaySport does not come with one (charges only with camera cord).

So I keep five or six fully-charged batteries in a small, watertight case near where the camera is mounted on my kayak. A nice feature of the PlaySport is that it makes an audible beep when the battery is about to die. When I hear that, I know to switch out the battery. VERY handy, because you want that camera rolling as much as possible. This has happened when I've had a fish on...but what can ya do. The PlaySport also has a small red light near the lens the blinks on and off when the camera is recording. It's good to check every now and then just to make sure you're rolling, because if you're in a noisy environment you may not hear the "low battery" beep.

Mounting and Usage

I mount the PlaySport on my kayak with an XShot telescoping mount with kayak adapter. This allows me to set the camera to record, extend the mount out as far as it can go, and then push it down towards the front of the boat (pointing back at me...what can I say, I'm a narcissist). This way, I get video of the fish fight and (hopefully) the landing. I also generally use video stills as pictures rather than stopping the recording and taking a still shot with the remote. It's nice to just be able to "set it and forget it", concentrate on fishing, and be confident that your fight to the death with a massive lunker will be caught on video.

This isn't a review of the XShot mount, but I'll throw my 2 cents in about it...it's a very nice idea, but not great quality, and definitely not good value. The cost of the XShot with the kayak adapter is about $56 which is WAY too high. There's alot of metal so it's prone to saltwater corrosion and the telescoping part gets gummed up pretty easily. You have to take extra special care of it after each use, which is a pain. The mount itself (part that joins to the camera) is the standard screw-in type, and it almost immediately stripped out the threads on the PlaySport (I am not sure if this is a Kodak quality issue or an XShot, but I am guessing the latter). So I've had to zip-tie the camera to the mount. It works, I just can't use the mount for any other camera - or use the camera without the mount - without having to cut the zip-ties. And the whole setup is less portable with the camera always attached to it. Lame, but it gets the job done. If anyone out there has a better boat camera mount solution than the XShot, let me know!

When I hear the "low battery" beep, I lean forward, loosen the kayak ball-mount at the base of the XShot (just a little), swing the telecoping arm around towards me (while still attached to the ball so it doesn't drop in the water), switch out the battery, hit record, swing it back, and tighten the mount. Takes about 30 seconds.

Remote

There is an optional remote control available for the PlaySport. I do use this from time to time. It allows you to start and stop the recording without having to handle the camera. But even better, you can use it to snap the shutter for still pictures. For a fisherman, this is by far it's biggest advantage. There is one huge disadvantage though...you cannot use the remote to control the power. The camera will power off after a few minutes of inactivity (recording is considered activity). But you can't use the remote to power it back on! You actually have to stop what you're doing, and power it up on the device itself. A real pain if the camera is on a mount far from you. I really, really wish they could fix this. If you can power up a TV with a remote, the technology obviously exists!

Idiosyncracies

I do have some small beefs with the camera. One is that the display doesn't auto-dim after x number of minutes when recording. Think how much longer the battery would last! Perhaps 3 hours or more. Obviously this camera lends itself to use during sports (thus the name), so many people, like me, want to keep the video rolling for hours. I DO NOT NEED the display on all the time, especially if there's a way to "wake" it with a button click. Seems like it'd be easy to do, perhaps even in a firmware update. Make screen-dimming after x minutes or "never" an option in the configuration!

Also, sometimes when the battery is about to run out it doesn't leave enough juice to complete the writing of the current .MOV file, and the file gets corrupted. Same with when it runs out of memory -- it doesn't leave just a smidgeon of space to complete the writing of the file. Goodbye awesome fish video! Again it seems that a simple firmware fix could remedy this. What I've learned to do is to stop the camera after catching a big fish, and then start it again - bit of a pain, but this way I am sure my big fish video file gets saved. It is possible that using a faster SDHC card could fix the problem (particularly the low battery problem), but we're talking about bucks for those things. I'm less affected by the out-of-memory issue since I got the 32GB SDHC card. Though I keep an 8GB one handy just in case.

Couple other small things. It would be good if the camera mount threads were metal rather than plastic. It would be harder to strip out metal. Also, a small flash would be nice. Then you would be able to use it as an all-in-one picture and video device. It pretty much is already, except you can't take pictures in low-light situations. And again, it would be nice to be able to power the camera on with the remote.

Finally, after using it for several months I did notice a problem with the camera shutting off when it was bumped. After hours of frustration, I finally figured it out. It turned out that the spring-loaded contacts inside the battery compartment were losing their springy-ness. So the battery wasn't sitting solidly inside the compartment. When the camera was bumped, the battery would come off the contacts and the camera would lose power. I fixed this by rolling up a small piece of duct tape and cutting it to the length of the edge of the battery. I then stuck it to the inside of the battery door. It has the effect of keeping the battery sitting snugly inside the compartment and always on the contacts. When I open the compartment, the duct tape sticks to the inside of the door so I don't have to replace it every time I replace the battery.

Summary

There is actually nothing quite like the Kodak PlaySport (waterproof, shockproof video camera) at this price point. The Fuji XP10 (Z33WP) and the Panasonic Lumix DSC-TM2 both do video, but are geared toward still photos. JVC and GE both have sports video cameras that are shaped similarly to the PlaySport, but the battery is molded into the case. How stupid is that! There's also the GoPro, which appears to be a very good camera, but costs more. In sum, the PlaySport is a very good camera for the price...foibles and all.

Since I'm usually out there on the water alone, having this camera has allowed me to share my fishing experiences with friends and fellow kayak fisherman, as well as for me to re-live the adrenaline-coursing thrills of reeling in big fish! I certainly enjoy watching other people's fishing videos, and wish my yakfishing friends would make more. Maybe they will after reading this!

Final Cut Express Import/Export settings for getting Kodak Playsport Videos onto YouTube (mac howto)

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:01:00 +0000

If you have ever used Final Cut Express (FCE), and are not already familiar with video editing software, you know that there's nothing "Express" about it. It's basically just a slightly less feature-rich version of Final Cut Pro. I'm not sure who the target audience is for FCE, because it ain't newbies! NOTE: Pro editors will probably have a more efficient way of doing this...but that's not what I am, and that info is nowhere that I can find on the internets.

Anyway, after alot of trial an error, I figured out a decent process for getting videos from my Kodak Playsport camera, into FCE, editing them, and then exporting for YouTube.

For max expediency, scrub your raw footage with Quicktime. Create a folder of small clips you want to edit in FCE. Otherwise the next step (conversion) will take many hours. Use Quicktime's "Trim" function.
You have to convert your Quicktime files to something FCE can use without having to render. Super lame. So, get MPEG Streamclip. It's free. Open that, hit Command-B (Batch list) and drag the clips you want to convert into that window. Choose "Export to Quicktime" on the next dialog box, choose a destination folder for your converted clips in the next dialog...then in the final window use these settings: Compression: DV/DVCPRO - NTSC, Quality: 100%, un-check "Interlaced Scaling" and leave everything else the way it is. Click "To Batch" and then click "go" in the batch window. This takes a long time. If I have alot of long clips I just let it run overnight.
Create a new FCE project, and add your clips to the project. Do the editing on them. You shouldn't need to render.
When you're all done editing, go File->Export->Using QuickTime Conversion.
Click "Options" in the file dialog box.
In the "Movie Settings" dialog, click "Settings" and use these settings: Compression Type: H.264, Quality: Best. Leave everything else.
In the "Size" dialog, use "Custom", enter "960 x 720" (can also try 1280x960) and leave everything else.
In the "Movie Settings" dialog, leave everything else, and go ahead and export

That's going to produce a file that should be good to go for YouTube. I do not know why it doesn't fill the whole screen. I'd love to know.

Final note: if you also use the Fuji Z33WP or XP10 in video mode and mix in footage in with the playsport, you have to crop the fuji stuff. In the "Motion" tab of the viewer, expand "Crop" and add a value of 1.5 for left and right, and a value of 12.5 for top and bottom.

Update: this is very helpful

Comcast SUCKS! Sucks, Sucks, Sucks...

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:24:00 +0000

I am visiting my parents in Florida for Christmas. They, like millions of people in America, suffer under the oppressive thumb of the giant cable-and-internet monopoly known as Comcast. I have disliked Comcast for years for their ambilavent attitude about service and support, but this experience broke me. I wanted to post this on the internet just to have it out there. Rather than typing it all out, I'll just give you the Instant Message chat transcript where I tell the story to my friend.

I implore you...IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE - DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH COMCAST!

2:08:10 PM rory: we should dump comcast
2:08:12 PM friend: sounds like Comcast pissed you off?
2:08:21 PM rory: they outright lie to their customers
2:08:42 PM friend: what happened?
2:09:02 PM rory: our internet was out all day the other day.  I suspected it was may have been due to high winds (even tho i think cables are buried), but I gave it time
2:09:31 PM rory: finally contacted them in the evening...oh yes, there's an outage in your area, but it's showing here they are 98.9% complete fixing it.
2:09:41 PM rory: Please be patient for 24-48 hours.
2:09:44 PM friend: haha
2:09:49 PM friend: 24-48 hours
2:09:50 PM rory: what?? 98% complete??
2:09:56 PM rory: but ok, i'll check in the am
2:10:17 PM rory: am comes, still no internet.  contact them again...we're not showing a record of any outage in your area
2:10:24 PM rory: for [CENSORED]'S sake!
2:10:56 PM rory: they determine it's the cable modem.  so i take it to the damn office and wait in the [CENSORED]ing line to get it replaced.
2:11:07 PM rory: get back, set it up, activate it
2:11:34 PM rory: all i get when I try to connect is redirected to a comcast.net page "OOPS - your activation is not complete"
2:11:38 PM friend: haha
2:11:45 PM friend: jeeez
2:12:20 PM rory: call them again.  the idiot woman goes thru all this same bs they do every time someone calls.  finally she says, "sounds like a software problem on your computer"
2:12:39 PM rory: I say, "well, it's the same on both the pc and mac". 
2:12:48 PM rory: she says, then they are both broken
2:12:58 PM rory: that I need to contact microsoft
2:13:18 PM friend: oh my god
2:13:20 PM rory: I was LIVID
2:13:23 PM friend: i bet 
2:13:36 PM rory: I flew off the handle.  my mom had to come take the phone from me.
2:14:01 PM friend: haha
2:14:10 PM rory: so i said, no way.  no [CENSORED]ing way are we doing business with them anymore
2:14:21 PM rory: I will do whatever it takes to switch to verizon.
2:14:34 PM friend: so did they eventually get it working at your parents' place?
2:14:37 PM rory: which is a FAR better service
2:14:45 PM rory: well...
2:14:47 PM friend: or you switched already
2:14:54 PM rory: they're coming saturday
2:15:04 PM friend: they have cable?
2:15:07 PM rory: but I can't tether til then
2:15:08 PM rory: yeah
2:15:22 PM rory: so I contacted comcast again today
2:15:51 PM rory: on the "live chat", so they couldn't [CENSORED]ing say it was a problem with the computer
2:16:10 PM rory: because if i'm [CENSORED]ing chatting with you over the internet, then the [CENSORED]ing computer works
2:16:37 PM rory: anyway, the dude in india finally got it to work
2:16:44 PM friend: did he say what the problem was?
2:17:10 PM rory: he didn't know, he just "sent a new signal" to the modem a couple times and it started working
2:17:18 PM friend: sounds fishy
2:17:30 PM rory: the whole [CENSORED] company is fishy
2:17:39 PM friend: yeah, i've never liked them
2:17:40 PM rory: they have been doing this to people for years
2:17:43 PM rory: years and years

Adjust volume on an entire mp3 collection with mp3gain/aacgain

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:45:00 +0000

This command will adjust the audio so that the gain is roughly the same on an entire mp3 music collection. In other words, makes it so the output volume on different tracks is the same to your ears. It is assuming you have mp3gain/aacgain installed.

You'd have to be feeling pretty gamey to do this. Having said that, the risk is fairly low since no actual changes are being made to the mp3 itself, just the metadata (it's reversible).

find . -name *mp3 -exec mp3gain -a -k {} \;

Rory's all-time top 10 dance songs

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Daft Punk - "One More Time"
Sugarbabes' version of Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" set to Gary Numan's "Are Friends Electric?"

Rory's all-time top 10 classic punk songs

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:01:00 +0000

Stiff Little Fingers - Suspect Device
Gimme Gimme Gimme (Version 1) - Black Flag
Breaking Free - Gorilla Biscuits
Hate Breeders - The Misfits
Summer Romance - New Bomb Turks
Slash Your Face - Dogs
No Time - The Saints
Rise Above - Black Flag
Lexicon Devil - The Germs
Riot Squad - Cock Sparrer

Connecting multiple external monitors to a Macbook Pro

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:34:00 +0000

Are four high-resolution, independently-managed monitors possible with a Macbook Pro? Yes. Excessive? mmhmm. Awesome? You bet!
Stop laughing at my ancient keyboard and yes, I am watching "The Hangover".

I've been using a Macbook Pro (MBP) for three years now and still love it. I've made a few upgrades to it that have brought it more or less up to date: maxed out the RAM at 3GB, swapped out the drive with a 250GB solid state drive, and attached a 24" LCD monitor to the DVI out interface.

But one thing I did miss from my desktop days was being able to connect multiple external monitors to the computer using a dual-head video card or multiple dual-head video cards. That extra desktop space really helps with productivity. I suppose that begs the question...why not just get a Mac desktop? Travel.

Until relatively recently, MBP multi-monitor the options were surprisingly limited and/or prohibitively expensive, despite the fact that the MBP has an ExpressCard34 slot that seemed ideal for the purpose. But, the problem has finally been solved...and I've even tried a couple of these solutions. Here they are:

1. Crappy

I was excited when the Tritton SEE2 Xtreme became available. At under $100 it appeared that it would affordably allow me to connect an additional 24" LCD monitor to my Macbook Pro. And that it does, but not very well. My spirits sank as soon as I plugged this thing in and started dragging windows into it. It behaved as if I was connected to it over VNC. Anything moving lags considerably, and it has to "refresh" new windows really pretty much like VNC does. It's particularly incompatible with Thunderbird - when trying to highlight text to copy/paste, the cursor disappears!! And video...don't even think about it.

In its defense, the 1920x1200 screen resolution of my monitor was alot for that little device to handle (though it DOES say it's supported). So much so that it would even black out for a few seconds roughly every hour or so, almost like it was being overloaded or something. Very annoying. Please do not waste your money on this (but if you want mine, I'll sell it to you cheap).

There are other USB DVI solutions out there like VillageTronic's ViBook and Kensington's Dual Monitor Adapter. I can't imagine they are any better though, I don't think USB is a robust enough interface to handle hi-res video properly.

2. Decent (I guess...haven't actually tried this one)

This one's been around the longest, relatively speaking. Matrox offers DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go devices which do just as the names imply...allow you to connect two or three external monitors to a computer (doesn't need to be a Macbook, but that'll work). At the time of writing, the DualHead2Go Digital Edition, which is the one you'd want with a MBP, is around $200.

It doesn't use USB or ExpressCard interfaces, it actually takes the DVI out signal and splits it into two or three. In effect, what that does is make your external monitors one HUGE monitor in the eyes of the OS. Now, you could look at this as an advantage or a disadvantage. Some people love it. I personally think it's a dealbreaker. You can't have your external monitor be your primary monitor unless you want the dock stretched all the way across two or three monitors. You also have to use matched monitors because the colors and resolutions can't be independently managed in the OS. Sorry - no thank you!

3. The BEST

After exhaustive research I concluded that the only way to go would be a solution that used the ExpressCard34 interface natively (i.e. no adapter necessary). There are a few of these.

There's the Digital Tiger's SideCar which is about $1,500. Ixnay on that one. Not even sure OS X is supported. Then there's the Magma ExpressBox1 which will set you back about $725. Nope! Then, there's the one I actually ended up getting...

The ViDock 2 Mac Box with a Sapphire 2600XT dual head video card installed. A well done piece of machinery.

The VillageTronic ViDock 2 Mac Box is the only affordable solution out there that does what I want...allow me to attach two external monitors, manage them as separate displays in OS X, support 1920x1200 resolution, and run high-performance apps like video with no lag. Warning: this solution is somewhat DIY.

The box itself cost $200 and is just that...a box with a cable coming out of it. At the business end of the cable is the "magic", an ExpressCard34 interface card. Inside the box is a PCI express slot. It's meant to take a Mac Pro ATI 2600XT Video Card, which is conveniently discontinued! So, one must be acquired off of eBay. There are also a few aftermarket manufacturers that sell new ones, but you have to be very careful about the dimensions of it. The ViDock 2 is meant to take this card specifically, which is 256mb. I got the Sapphire 512mb card because that's how I roll, but you can get a used ATI 2600XT 256mb card for about $100. So, total cost is going to be about $300 to get this thing going. Well worth the cost relative to the productivity gain of having multiple high-performance monitors.

Once you have the box and the card, it's relatively easy. if you've ever installed a PCI card into a desktop the process is essentially the same...few screws, that's it really. Plug the box's external power in, plug each monitor's DVI cable into the box, then the ExpressCard into the MBP. One thing about the ViDock is that it's not a hot-swappable solution, so be sure you shut down before plugging in the ExpressCard. Once you boot up, you'll see all your displays in System Preferences...no extra software needed!

There's a couple more wrinkles you should be aware of. First, this solution will only work with generations 2 and 4 of the MBP. To find your generation, pull down the Apple menu in the very top-left of your screen. Select "About this Mac", then the "More info..." button. That opens System Profiler. Under "Hardware Overview" look for "Model Identifier". It should say something like "MacBookPro2,2". The generation number is on the right side of the comma.

Why only generations 2 and 4? I got in touch with Josh at VillageTronic, a small shop out of Witchita, and he helped me a great deal with my questions. Apparently in generation 3, resources were "taken away" from the ExpressCard34 slot so that it is not usable to interface with a dual-head video card. The put those resources back in generation 4, but took them away again in generation 5. And if I am correct, the 15" version of the generation 5 MBPs doesn't even have an ExpressCard34 slot, only the 17". So that's definitely something to be aware of.

Here's the second, possibly deal-breaking wrinkle...the ViDock 2 Mac Box may no longer be available. At the time of writing, I could not find the item on the Harmonic Inversion (VillageTronic's store) site. I don't know why this is. It's possible they discontinued it because there's no future for it, I suppose that the likliest reason. When talking to Josh a while back he tried to steer me towards the cheaper ViBook Plus, but when I said I'd tried USB solutions and they were too slow he agreed I needed the ViDock 2 Mac Box. That seems to indicate they were planning on discontinuing it.

You could contact VillageTronic and they may be able to scare one up for you (I am pretty sure they are machining these things themselves, not getting them from China). It's also possible that the ViDock 2 Box will work just as well, but this is unverified. If you are a real nerd, you could even try to build your own.

But trust me...if you can get a hold of one of these, it's well worth it. Since there are two heads on the video card, one DVI interface on the MBP itself, and of course the MBPs built-in display, you could conceivably run up to FOUR high-resolution, high-performance displays from your MBP. Life changing! OK, that may be overdoing it a bit...

A pocket audio guide to Peter Matthiessen, E.J. Watson and "Shadow Country"

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:57:00 +0000

(click here to skip down to the audio section)

"I don't go looking for trouble...but when trouble comes to me, why, I take care of it."

Sounds like something Clint Eastwood would say in a spaghetti western. Instead, it was uttered by an even more mysterious and enigmatic bad-ass named E.J. Watson, the real-life main character of Peter Matthiessen's epic book entitled "Shadow Country - A New Rendering of the Watson Legend". It truly is the Great American Novel. It consumes you, makes you want to know more...stays with you long after you've finished reading it.

A rare photo of E.J. Watson himself,
from the PBS documentary "No Boundaries"

E.J. Watson so fascinated Matthiessen that he devoted 30 years (more than a third of his life) to researching, writing, and imagining the Watson character and the myth that surrounded him. Originally, Matthiessen published the story as three separate books, dubbed "The Watson Trilogy" in the 90s. But he was never quite satisfied with it, so he took 10 years to completely re-write it, and published "Shadow Country" in 2008. The book is classified as a work of fiction, but as Matthiessen says, "it's the closest to the truth that anybody's ever come." Unconcerned with plot, Matthiessen kills Watson off in the first few pages of the book, and spends the remainder of the 900-some pages discovering just who this E.J. Watson guy is. Ultimately Matthiessen wanted to answer the very first question he ever had about Watson...why a large group of Watson's neighbors — who admitted they genuinely liked and admired him — felt they needed to kill him with a barrage of bullets. Thirty-three bullets to be exact, not counting buckshot...and the ones that missed.

E.J. Watson's various monikers speak to his diverse personality. His given name was Edgar Artemis Watson, born 1855 in Edgefield County, South Carolina (which Matthiessen claims is the most violent county in American history) where he grew up under the thumb of an abusive, drunken father. Fleeing his father, Watson left home early and bounced between North Florida and the "Nations" of Oklahoma. He developed a reputation as a killer when he was tried (but acquitted) in Oklahoma for the murder of the female outlaw Belle Starr. He later escaped from jail, and likely a lynching, where he was being held on suspicion of horse theivery — a crime considered worse than murder in those days. He fled to the primitive, sparsely-populated wilderness of southwest Florida known as 10,000 Islands, where he changed his name to E.J. ("Jack") Watson, ostensibly to seperate himself from his past. 10,000 Islands (now part of the Florida Everglades National Park) was a haven for outsiders, deserters and men on the run from the law. It was truly a frontier land, even well into the 20th century. A character in the book calls 10,000 Islands "the ass end of hell." Even today, the Florida Everglades and the adjacent 10,000 Islands and Big Cypress is the largest roadless area in the lower 48.

In Southwest Florida, Watson painstakingly hacked out a 40-acre sugarcane farm from the dense mangrove and shell soil, and built a very successful cane syrup business from scratch. His sugarcane farming methods are believed to be the foundation of Florida's large sugarcane industry today. In this frontier land, where he became known as "Planter Watson", he changed his reputation from that of an outlaw to one of a hard-working, entreprenurial businessman who was well-liked and well-respected among his neighbors, associates and, uh...quite a few women. He had three wives (not all at the same time), and a number of other mistresses. He was ruggedly handsome, intelligent (known for quoting Shakespeare), had an affable personality, was very generous, could tell a great story, and had a real sense of humor. People just plain liked him.

The house at Chatham Bend, where bad, bad things happened. The Watson Place - the only house ever built in the Everglades - ultimately burned down in the mid-1940s. It is rumored that the National Park Service itself torched it. Photo from the book "Totch: A Life in the Everglades".

But Watson still had a dark side. He was a heavy drinker with an explosive temper, and considering he was unusually tall, unusually strong and had icy cold blue eyes...he seems like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to mess with. As one character describes him, "He looked like God, and he looked like Satan and he looked like Uncle Sam...all three at once!" He always dressed well, even when he was at work in the fields. Kept a pistol in his pocket at all times and was known to be a deadeye shot with any firearm. Legend has it Watson killed dozens of people who crossed him, though Matthiessen (who's obviously done by far the most exhaustive research on Watson) isn't so generous. He says, "I couldn't seperate him from about seven [killings]". One legend is of the "Watson Payday" where he employed folks — usually loners and drifters — for an entire season of cane growing, and after the harvest when they went to get paid they got killed instead. Not quite the reward they'd hoped for! It was through rumors like this that he earned his most infamous nickname, "Bloody Watson." In one interview, Matthiessen relates how when researching Watson, he came across a family in New York (need to verify) who used to tell their children "now you get to bed, or Mr. Watson's gonna git ya!" Nice parents. But it speaks to the power of the mythical "Bloody Watson"...he became the quintessential boogyman. He was both good and evil, charismatic and dangerous. I can see why Matthiessen would want to solve the enigma of the Watson character. When asked how Matthiessen filled in the gaps of what was known about Watson, he says "I put myself in him." So what we get is a synthesis of the real person of Watson, with elements of the author himself.

The other important character in "Shadow Country" is the land itself. Two common threads in all of Matthiessen's books (not that I've read them all, this is just what he says) are "marginalized people, places and creatures" and "the frayed relationship humans and nature." While not terribly hospitable to people (except the natives), the Everglades hosted a rich and diverse ecosystem of birds, fish, reptiles and other wildlife, and Calusa (now extinct), Seminole and Mikasuki indians who had been there for thousands of years. But commercial fishing and hunting wreaked havoc on the land, and the federal government itself nearly destroyed it entirely by undertaking a massive wetland drainage program in the late 1800s. Three bloody Seminole Wars were fought there between the natives and the US Army, though the indians were never actually subverted. Matthiessen's descriptions of the land and it's trials are a major element in the book, and are in fact a metaphor for the checkered past of the United States as a whole. His alchemy with words sets a sense of place in my mind like no other book has ever done.

The approximate location of Watson's cane farm, Chatham Bend
(click to view in larger map)

For his massive 30-year undertaking, Matthiessen won the 2008 National Book Award. It was his second National Book Award — his first was for "The Snow Leopard" in 1978. He is one of the few authors to win the award for both fiction and non-fiction books.

Similar to Matthiessen's obsession with the character of Watson, I'm fascinated with Matthiessen himself. I find Matthiessen's story every bit as intriguing as Watson's.

Matthiessen developed his love for nature and wild animals at an early age, having grown up in rural Connecticut (as a child he kept a den of copperhead snakes as pets). He and his brother roamed the Connecticut backcountry hiking, fishing and birding. For school, he boarded and later went to Yale where he presumably cut his chops as a writer. Matthiessen then went on to serve in the Navy in WWII. Afterwards — and this is where it gets interesting — he was recruited by the CIA and sent to Paris to spy on what the CIA deemed to be Communist threats. As cover he began the famous literary magazine, "The Paris Review" with his childhood friend George Plimpton. As cover! Matthiessen calls his 2-year stint with the CIA "the only adventure I've ever regretted." He very obviously does not like to talk about it. He says he quit because he found himself more in line with those who he was trying to spy on than his employers.

He later became a commercial fisherman, then a charter boat captain, and also tried to make a living as a fiction writer. But, by this time he was married with kids and was having a hard time paying the bills. He soon discovered that non-fiction was the way to go for making money. He got hooked up with an editor at the New Yorker who liked his work, and that launched his writing career in earnest.

In total, Matthiessen's written 30-plus books, both fiction and non-fiction. Although he is most well-known for his non-fiction (i.e. "The Snow Leopard"), he is very clear that his heart is in fiction writing. He says he did non-fiction "to pay the bills" and doesn't like writing it because, "you're stuck with the facts...or should be, anyway." His books are usually well-received critically, though he's had only two New York Times bestsellers in his career, "Far Tortuga" and "Killing Mister Watson" (the first book of the "Watson Trilogy").

Not unlike his buddy E.J. Watson, Matthiessen is nothing if not diverse himself. In addition to a successful writing career, Matthiessen is also well-known as an explorer, a political activist, environmentalist, an expert birder, and a Zen Rōshi. His spiritual path that led to Zen Buddhism began in the 60s, when he and his then-wife (who later died of cancer) were heavily into experimental drugs, particularly LSD. To this day he claims that if properly prepared, LSD can offer deep insight into one's mind (he does not still use LSD). Searching for non-checmically-induced methods to achieve altered states of consciousness, he and his wife eventually discovered Zen Buddhism in the 70s, which he still practices and teaches today.

Quick Addendum: More Everglades Reading

Totch: A Life in the Everglades: Essential Everglades reading.

I recently came across a book called "Totch: A Life in the Everglades" which I highly recommend after you've finished reading Shadow Country and/or The Watson Trilogy. It's an autobiography of a gentleman called Loren "Totch" Brown, who was born Chokoloskee, FL in 1920, and spent his life in the 10,000 islands. The book provides additional context about the region, and corroborates alot of the facts in Matthiessen's Watson writings. He personally knew several characters in the book like Luscious Watson, The Smallwoods...Watson's good friend C.G. McKinney was his grandfather. He even lived at the Watson Place on Chatham Bend for a while during the Great Depression. He can attest to the blood stains in the house. Totch himself could easily had been a character in Shadow Country if he'd have been born earlier. He was a farmer, fisherman, gator poacher and drug runner. He was a real Florida outlaw, and has the stories to prove it.

Audio of Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen

I've found the best way to get into the mind of Peter Matthiessen is to listen to him talk. Preferably, on my iPod. So, for myself, and any other Matthiessen fans who'd like to partake, I've compiled a complete set of Peter Matthiessen interview/lecture/monologue mp3s for your iPod listening pleasure. Many of these were ripped from video (with WireTap), and in those cases I included the link to the video in case you want to watch that as well, which you should.

Listening to Matthiessen speak is a unique experience. At 82 years of age, he has a deep, wise, gravelly voice...you can almost hear the Zen within it. Some of the topics covered in the interviews are repetitive, he appears to have had "talking points" when making the media rounds promoting his books (mostly "Shadow Country"). However, there are distinct nuggets of goodness in each and every one. No interview is exactly the same as another. If you listen to all of these, you'll end up feeling like you know him pretty well.

As serene as he comes across, an interesting thing I discovered is that he is also somewhat of a crank (his words). He is an exceedingly private person. Dislikes it when people recognize him in public and hates it when devotees of his writing visit his house. Virtually nothing is known about his Tanzanian-born second wife, and he rarely mentions her in interviews. When sitting on planes, the first thing he does is give his seat-mate a icy cold look as if to say "I am not chatty." He also says being a Zen Rōshi does not preclude him from feeling rage about what he perceives as injustices. He speaks quite strongly against George Bush, Big Oil, the FBI (who actually sued him) and various other people or organizations that antagonize the causes he's invested himself in.

The files are in the order of the most recent first. I've included a brief synopsis of the forum and topic for each mp3 below. I also bolded the ones I think are of particular interest. Enjoy the words of one of America's most gifted and prolific living authors!

Forum :	WPSU Conversations at Penn State - Author's Reflections
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	56:16
Air Date:	Thursday, January 21, 2010
Description :	This one's interesting because it doesn't talk much about Shadow Country. He talks about his life and the highlights include his 2-year stint as a spy for the CIA, his LSD usage with his first wife, and his path to Zen.

Forum :	2008 National Book Awards
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	10:32
Air Date:	February 2, 2009
Description :	Gail Godwin presents the 2008 National Book Award in Fiction to Peter Matthiessen, for "Shadow Country." Eric Bogosian introduces Godwin.

Forum :	PBS NewsHour's "Art Beat" segment
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	14:12
Air Date:	December 31, 2008
Description :	Jeffery Brown interviews Matthiessen, mostly about Shadow Country. Matthiessen also reads from his book. I included both segments in the audio.

Forum :	Salt Lake City Public Library
Media :	Article \| MP3 (right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as"
Stream :
Length :	1:43:41
Air Date:	November 13, 2008
Description :	Peter Matthiessen and photographer Subhankar Banerjee talk about their collaboration on the Arctic. Unless you're REALLY into the arctic, skip right to Matthiessen, who comes in at 38:10. Skip to 51:00 if you want to get right to the "Shadow Country" material. A very good segment because he reads quite a bit from the book, it's interesting to hear him speaking the character's parts in the southern vernacular.

Forum :	KUER RadioWest (NPR)
Media :	Article \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	52:02
Air Date:	November 12, 2008
Description :	Doug Fabrizio talks with Peter Matthiessen about "revealing the world through words"

Forum :	WBUR's "On Point" (NPR)
Media :	MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	45:18
Air Date:	Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Description :	Tom Ashbrook talks with Peter Matthiessen about "The Snow Leopard", Zen and environmental issues. Very little about Watson. Has a nice call-in portion except for the first call, she's a fruitcake.

Forum :	Leonard Lopate Show WNYC (NPR)
Media :	Article \| MP3 (right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as"
Stream :
Length :	21:34
Air Date:	Monday, June 09, 2008
Description :	Leonard Lopate interviews Peter Matthiessen mostly about Shadow Country. A great place to start if you haven't read it yet.

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	22:04
Air Date:	May 27, 2008
Description :	Charlie Rose interviews Peter Matthiessen about Shadow Country. He is quite obviously irritated at Charlie's questioning about his experience as a spy for the CIA.

Forum :	The Free Library of Philadelphia
Media :	Article \| MP3 (right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as"
Stream :
Length :	58:29
Air Date:	April 17, 2008
Description :	Perhaps the best interview with Matthiessen I could find. He's has a good rapport with the interviewer, also an author. He wanders quite a bit in his answers, it's interesting to see where his mind takes him. Nice Q&A bit with the audience at the end.

Forum :	Writer's Symposium by the Sea
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	Dean Nelson interview's Peter Matthiessen at a writer's forum. This one is distinct from the others because he tells personal stories I've heard nowhere else. He talks about nearly getting killed in the Sudan, encountering old men in the swamp backcountry, and there's an allusion to when he came across a dead guy in an alley when he was a young man. He is actaully quite jovial.
Air Date:	April 1, 2005
Description :	28:45

Forum :	"Web Exclusive" on Orion Magazine Website
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	13:36
Air Date:	September 1, 2004
Description :	Sort of a monologue about Politics and the Environment, Globalization, Resources, and Ethics and Corporate Profits and Common Sense. Not terribly interesting (to me, anyway), but does give some insight into his political views.

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	18:33
Air Date:	December 9, 2003
Description :	Discussion with Matthiessen, about his book "At The End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica". Tells Rose that his favorite book to date is "Far Tortuga" but hints that it might be replaced by the book he's working on (which will become "Shadow Country")

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	16:43
Air Date:	March 21, 2002
Description :	Interview about his book "Birds of Heaven" about Cranes. Bet you didn't know there's a Crane sanctuary in the DMZ between North and South Korea. Not a terribly interesting interview otherwise, though he does talk a bit about Antarctica.

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (to download, right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as")
Stream :
Length :	10:19
Air Date:	April 26, 2000
Description :	From Charlie Rose site: "Peter Matthiessen, nature writer and co-founder of "The Paris Review", discusses his book "Tigers in the Snow", which explores the efforts being made to save the species and contemplates the impact of their majesty and grace on our collective imagination."

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as"
Stream :
Length :	15:55
Air Date:	June 3, 1999
Description :	Charlie Rose interviews Peter Matthiessen about "Bone by Bone". Interesting because even though Bone by Bone had just been released, he hyas already resolved to synthesize the "Watson Trilogy" into one book. He tosses out "The Labyrinth" as a speculative title (refernce to the everglades). He also discusses EJ Watson in depth, the Columbine shootings, and the dark side of humanity. Good interview.

Forum :	The Charlie Rose Show
Media :	Video \| MP3 (right-click and choose "save as" or "save target as"
Stream :
Length :	23:10
Air Date:	November 26, 1997
Description :	A great interview because of its age, done at the time the second book of the Watson Trilogy, "Lost Man's River" was released.

Top 10 OS X tools & utilities I couldn't live without

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:28:00 +0000

These are either free, cheap, or not super cheap but worth every penny. All of these have made my life easier. I often wonder how I got by before I discovered each one of these. This is not a paid advertisement! (free ones are noted with an asterisk *, though donating to the developers is a nice idea!)

Quicksilver * - It's hard to define Quicksilver because it does so many things. Basically, you can configure it to perform tasks on your Mac with keystrokes. Launch apps (obviosuly), but also launch searches on commonly-used websites, do math, pause iTunes, add an event to your calendar, etc. It's magic. I couldn't live without it. Seriously.
SubEthaEdit - This is the greatest text editor I've ever found - and I've tried alot. It's fast and simple, yet has all the functions you'd ever need. I have it open all the time to use as my scratch pad, do regex on data, or convert characters or line endings. I don't do much actual coding in it, for that I use Eclipse, You certainly could, as it has syntax highlighting for all big languages.
WireTap Studio - This is my go-to app for almost all audio work. It's primary function is to rip audio from any source (mac audio, or from any app specifically), but it has a great audio editor built in. It's not as functional as Audacity's but it's so much easier to use. OK, it's no Logic Studio but sometimes you just need a fast, quick and dirty audio editor.
Default Folder X - OS X's built-in file system navigation is decent, but leaves something to be desired. If you open/close/save lots of files each day like I do, this app is incredible. It integrates seamlessly into the OS.
SuperDuper! - I'm a backup freak (learned the hard way), and this app makes it a cinch. There's no backup scenario that SuperDuper! can't handle. It's saved my ass several times and besides that, it makes transitioning to new hardware a breeze.
iTerm * - Best terminal app I've ever used. Tabbed terminals, and so much more.
X11 * - This little piece of genius is actually part of the OS X distribution (optional install, Xcode tools). The wonder of it is, it allows you to run graphical *NIX applications (like GnuCash) natively. OS X is itself a UNIX distribution, after all. Of course, you'll also need a slick package manager like MacPorts or Fink to install your apps (I've used them both and they are both pretty nice).
VLC * - Plays pretty much any media file that's playable. Soooooo much better than Quicktime. Even comparing it to Quicktime is insulting to VLC, because it does so much more. There are so many neat, tweakable functions I continue to discover. And it's a joy.
Disk Inventory X * - I am also a disk cleanup freak. When your hard drive is full, or approaching full, sometimes it's hard to see where huge chunks of data are located in the filesystem. This lays it all out for you visually so you can go in and delete, delete, delete.
Reggy * - Super handy little regular expression tester.

The three things I would need to actually get work done on the iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:27:00 +0000

I love my iPhone, it has freed me quite a bit from my desktop computer. But there are many instances that I am out, and I am unable to complete simple work tasks on the iPhone because multiple applications are needed. The hardware and OS tools that a computer has available to allow you to synthesize your workspace to get tasks done, are just not available on the iPhone...even though all the apps I need are. It's not a huge deal, but I think the barriers to actually being able to get work done are small(ish). I've narrowed it down to these three simple things:

An External Keyboard - The touchscreen keyboard just isn't workable for alot of typing. I'd love something external that either folds up, or is very small and can "cradle" the iPhone. Keyboard shortcuts (like Command-C, Command-V) would need to be incorporated into the OS.
A Pointer (Mouse/Clickable Trackpad) - This is in conjunction to, or perhaps even part of the keyboard. This would allow for much easier editing of text, and easier highlighting of text for copy/paste. The copy/paste function on the iPhone now is OK, but very cumbersome.
Multiple Applications Open/Fast Application Switching - Right now iPhone seems to have limited support for multiple apps to be open. For example, you can listen to music while using Safari. I'd love if you could open as many as 4 applications at a time, and have a keyboard (see #1) shortcut to switch quickly between them. If I could have Mail, Safari, a simple text editor and TouchTerm open all at once, switch between them easily, and cut/copy/paste text between them, I'd be in heaven.

Of course, these three things are all dependent on one another. And the big issue here would be RAM. Supporting external hardware and multiple running applications would really slow the iPhone down. However, I think the gain in productivity would be worth the cost of the slowdown.

Record an early broadcast of "This American Life" to listen to at your leisure

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:48:00 +0000

If you're like me, you don't like to be tied to your local NPR station's schedule for "This American Life" each weekend, and you don't want to wait until Sunday for the This American Life podcast to become available.

Solution! Time-shift an early broadcast of This American Life on the internet. That way, it's available for you to listen to when it's convenient for you. For me that's usually on my iPod, on my Saturday run.

The earliest reliable and listenable stream I've found is on WUIS in Springfield, IL. It airs on Friday evening at 7pm Central time. They provide a quite listenable 56k stream at this URL:

http://war.str3am.com:7780/wuis.mp3

It's great for me because I am on the west coast, so it comes on at 5pm my time and is available at 6pm. There are earlier internet broadcasts of This American Life on east coast NPR stations, but I have found their streams to be too low-quality or unreliable.

If you know of an earlier broacast that's of decent quality, let me know in the comments. Whatever stream you use, be sure to donate to the station to compensate for the bandwidth. And of course, donate to This American Life!

Applescript to apply mp3gain to iTunes playlists from the Script Menu

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:46:00 +0000

First off, if you use iTunes "Sound Check" and like it you may not need this. I disabled it because with iTunes 9, because I had alot of problems importing large mp3 files. It would often hang when determing the mp3's volume. Also, I was never able to tell the difference one way or the other. Playlists with songs from different albums still sounded un-even when Sound Check was enabled. If you love Sound Check and don't have any problems with it, this tip is not for you.

There are a couple other options for "normalizing" MP3 volume on OS X. One is iVolume which I've never tried. I read good things about it...but it costs money. Another is what I am going to focus on here: MacMP3Gain which is a port of the open source command-line program mp3gain for OS X (they also added a GUI).

mp3gain does more than just normalization, it does analysis to determine how quiet or loud an mp3 will sound to the human ear. If you really want to get technical, mp3gain does its analysis based on the Replay Gain algorithm. mp3gain applies lossless adjustment - it does not re-encode the mp3. However, MacMP3Gain offers this caveat about mp3gain, "MacMP3Gain modifies MP3 and unprotected AAC files with no provision provided to undo the changes." I haven't had any trouble after using extensively.

The MacMP3Gain application does have a GUI, which allows you to process by folder or by iTunes playlist. However, in the spirit of efficiency, I wanted a way to be able to normalize playlists right from iTunes. So I wrote this script which can be run right from the iTunes script menu. The other advantages of this script vs. the MacMP3Gain GUI is that it gives you a proper progress bar (important because it can take a long time to process), and it shows you the output when its done (so you can see exactly what changes were made to each file).

Prerequisites

MacMP3Gain - Install MacMP3Gain on your Mac. To use this applescript, you'll need to create a symlink from the command-line binary to somewhere in your path. This can be done with this command:

sudo ln -s /Applications/MacMP3Gain.app/Contents/Resources/aacgain /usr/bin/mp3gain

You can now use mp3gain on the command line. For a complete list of switches, open up Terminal and type:

mp3gain -?

mp3gain is also available via MacPorts, if you use that. Though at the time of writing, the newest version was 1.7.0 while the version rolled into the Intel MacMP3Gain is 1.8.0. To install via ports do this:

sudo port install aacgain
sudo ln -s /opt/local/bin/aacgain /usr/bin/mp3gain

Note: if you don't want to use any symlinks then just update the "mp3gain" reference in the applescript to point to the full path of your installed aacgain program.

BP Progress Bar - mp3gain takes roughly 30 seconds to process each mp3. Therefore, it can take a while to process an entire playlist. So, I've configured this script with a handy progress indicator. Applescript has no "native" progress indicator method, but you can access an external app to do this for you. Download BP Progress Bar (download link), unzip it and mount the disk image. Then, copy the app "BP Progress Bar" to your "Applications" folder, and the "BP Progress Bar Controller.scpt" to your Scripts folder /Users/YOU/Library/Scripts/ (create if it doesn't exist) and you're all good to go!

Please Note: The first time you run this script, you might get the rainbow wheel for 10-20 seconds, and you'll probably get the "BP Progress Bar was downloaded from the internet" security warning. Both of these things happen only the first time.

Now, copy the script below to Script Editor, and save it as "normalize_playlist.scpt" in your iTunes scripts directory /Users/YOU/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ (create if it doesn't exist). This will allow you to run it from the iTunes script menu like below:

Upon launch, you're prompted to enter a playlist to normalize.

As long as you enter a good one, you should see a progress bar come up.

Upon completion you can view the log, which is written to /tmp/mp3gain_output.log.

Enjoy!

(* 

Normalize Playlist

Accepts an itunes playlist as text input,
and normalizes all mp3 files on the playlist
with mp3gain -r (mp3gain itself decides how 
best to normalize).

Prerequisities:

* mp3gain on command-line
* http://homepage.mac.com/beryrinaldo/AudioTron/MacMP3Gain/
* BP Progress Bar
* http://scriptbuilders.net/files/bpprogressbar1.0.html

*)

--Ask the use for the playlist
set myList to the text returned of (display dialog "Enter playlist to normalize " default answer "")

--exit if they didn't enter anyting
if the myList is "" then
 display dialog "No playlist entered" giving up after 2
 return
end if

--make sure itunes is running
--SHOULD BE if it's run from the itunes script menu
--but it could be executed directly
set itunesOK to my itunes_is_running()
if itunesOK is false then
 tell application "iTunes"
  activate
 end tell
end if

tell application "iTunes"
 set oldfi to fixed indexing
 set fixed indexing to true
 
 --see if the playlist exists
 if exists user playlist myList then
  --do nothing for now
 else
  --show error if the playlist doesn't exist
  display dialog "Playlist does not exist" giving up after 2
  return
 end if
 set currentList to playlist myList
 
 --initialize progress bar
 set ProgressBar to load script alias (((path to scripts folder) as text) & "BP Progress Bar Controller.scpt")
 set myTitle to "Normalizing " & myList & " - may take several minutes"
 tell ProgressBar to initialize(myTitle) -- title of progress bar
 -- Start of Script to use ProgressBar Controller
 tell ProgressBar
  barberPole(true)
  setStatusTop to "Initializing Volume Adjustment"
  setStatusBottom to ""
 end tell
 
 --get the number of items on the playlist
 set eop to index of last track of currentList
 
 -- Stop the barber pole, set up for the progress bar
 tell ProgressBar
  barberPole(false)
  setMax to eop -- to match the items to be processed below
  setStatusTop to "Examining playlist"
 end tell
 
 --add a little progress so it doesn't start at 0
 tell ProgressBar to increase by 1
 
 with timeout of 10800 seconds --avoid "event timed out" error
  
  --delete the logfile if it already exists
  do shell script "if [ -e /tmp/mp3gain_output.log ]; then rm -f /tmp/mp3gain_output.log; fi;"
  
  repeat with i from 1 to eop
   
   --write current track to log
   do shell script "echo \"------------ Track " & i & " of " & eop & " ------------\" >> /tmp/mp3gain_output.log"
   
   --get the mac path to the mp3 file, name of the track, and extension
   set i_location to (get location of track i of currentList)
   set i_name to (get name of track i of currentList)
   set theFileInfo to info for i_location
   set ext to name extension of theFileInfo as string
   
   --only do this if it's an mp3
   if ext is "mp3" then
    
    --convert mac path to POSIX path, quote it so we
    --can use it on the cmd line
    set mypath to POSIX path of i_location
    set posixpath to quoted form of mypath
    
    --create our command
    --mp3gain is CPU-intensive, so pass thru nice
    --write output of mp3gain to log
    --this will allow us to report on what changes were made
    set myCmd to "nice mp3gain -r -k -c -q " & posixpath & " >> /tmp/mp3gain_output.log"
    
    --update progress window with status
    tell ProgressBar
     setStatusTop to "Processing file " & i & " of " & eop & " : " & i_name
     setStatusBottom to "Full path: " & mypath
    end tell
    
    --execute the shell command
    do shell script myCmd
   else
    --if track is not an mp3, don't process it
    do shell script "echo \"Track " & posixpath & "is not an mp3...not processing\" >> /tmp/mp3gain_output.log"
    
   end if --end if for is an mp3
   
   tell ProgressBar to increase by 1
   
  end repeat
 end timeout
 
 set fixed indexing to oldfi
end tell

tell ProgressBar to quit

--tell them we're done and ask if they want to see log
set seeLog to (display dialog ¬
 "Done. Would you like to see the log? " with title ¬
 "Normalization Complete" buttons {"Yes", "No"} ¬
 default button "Yes")
set button_name to button returned of seeLog
if button_name is "Yes" then
 --open log in textedit
 tell application "TextEdit"
  activate
  open "/tmp/mp3gain_output.log"
 end tell
end if

--be nice and clean up
do shell script "if [ -e /tmp/mp3gain_output.log ]; then rm -f /tmp/mp3gain_output.log; fi;"

return

--subroutine checks if itunes is running
on itunes_is_running()
 tell application "System Events" to return (exists process "iTunes")
end itunes_is_running

Honky Tonk Christmas - Pinto Bennett - Lyrics and Chords

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:06:00 +0000

One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs.


                                     F
Merry Christmas darlin'.  I see I've won the football pool.

C                                         G
I'll buy everyone a drink....that doesn't drool.

C
Then double mine, and triple that!

    F                        C
And maybe I'll believe, it's really great to be here

                G         C             G climb to C         
...with all you drunks on Christmas Eve.

C                                        F
BUT...I hung up my Christmas sock, and I sang a Christmas chant

      C                               G                 climb to C
asked Santa for a college girl, and a liver transplant

C                                            F
But the wind still blows in Wyomin', and ol' Sam still smells like beer...

     C                 G               C      G climb to C  
I'll have a Honky Tonk Christmas, this year.  (I'll have a...)


[chorus]

C           F               C             C                                 G       climb to C
Hon-ky Tonk Christmas, this yeeeeeeeear.  Hit every bar with parkin' in the rear.

C                                  F
And go home with a six pack, and a bottle of good cheer...
           
           C          G               C       G climb to C
and have a honky tonk Christmas, this year.

[break - chorus chords]
C F C C G C F C G C G climb to C

C                          F                 C
The sun sun shines thru my room, and o'er my word.

C                             G       climb to C
My chronometer, reads January third.

   C          F             C                 F
My honky tonk Christmas has passed, and now I fear...

            C          G          C      G climb to C  
I'll have a honky tonk year, this year.  (I'll have a...)

[chorus]

C           F               C             C                                 G        climb to C
Hon-ky Tonk Christmas, this yeeeeeeeear.  Hit every bar with parkin' in the rear.

C                                  F
And go home with a six pack, and a bottle of good cheer...
           
           C          G               C       G to C finish
and have a honky tonk Christmas, this year.

Thank you, thank you thank you, lovers of fine and classical music!

My experience with a Dell Mini 10v and Snow Leopard

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:13:00 +0000

I work on a MacBook Pro 2.33ghz laptop with 3G of RAM and it has suited me fine for almost three years now. The only thing that worries me is that if I lost it, it was stolen or it just plain died, I'd be S.O.L. I'd have no way to get work done until I get a new computer set up. But I didn't want to plunk down the however many thousands for another mac just for peace of mind. Enter the netbook.

When I discovered that OS X could be installed on one of the more popular netbooks, the Dell Mini, I immediately bought the 10v. The Dell Mini is one of the few PCs out there that OS X can be installed on almost without fail, and with all the functions and devices working. And the best thing about them, they start at $250.

When I got it though, I was disappointed. The whole thing is just cheap...cheap, cheap, cheap. You truly do get what you pay for. And yes I DO realize I didn't pay much. The keyboard is tiny, the trackpad is awful and the worst part is, the max screen res is 1024x600. At best, this thing is a toy. The saving grace is that it has 3 USB ports and VGA out, so you can hook up an external keyboard, mouse and monitor and it becomes somewhat usable. So ultimately, even though I feel this computer is not really viable on its own...it does suit my purpose for it as my backup computer.

Upgrading the Hardware

The 10v comes with a 1.6ghz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and either a small solid state drive or a 160GB 5400 RPM SATA drive. I opted for the latter, because the SSD drives were just too small. I should have gone with an SSD drive anyway, as I later decided that a 5400rpm drive was going to be too slow. So I bought a Hitachi 360GB 7200rpm OEM drive. I also bought a cheap 2GB stick of RAM. I wanted to make this thing as fast as possible despite its diminutive size.

Before doing any OS installation, I set out to replace the RAM and HD. Dell didn't make it easy to replace the RAM. Its buried inside, underneath the motherboard. You basically have to disassemble the entire computer to replace it. Fortunately, I found the video below. The guy did a very nice job...without his help I never would haven gotten it done.

Downgrading the BIOS

For some reason, the BIOS that ships with the 10v (A06) will not support(/allow?) OS X to be installed, so I had to downgrade the BIOS to A04. I followed this guide and was able to accomplish that without too much difficulty (you need access to a windows computer, I used winXP/Parallels on my mac, and a thumb drive). NOTE: when downloading the BIOS from the Dell site, be sure you get the one that says "DOS version".

Installing Snow Leopard

To do this, I followed these instructions precisely. It is the best guide on the internet for installing Snow Leopard on a 10v I could find. The only problems I encountered were that the computer would hang on the "Dell Inspiron" bootup screen for a long time (5 min) and then finally boot...until I realized that for some reason it doesn't like my external DVD-R drive. So, I unplugged that at boot-time and it boots fine. (The DVD drive works fine when I plug it in after the computer boots).

Software Installation

Once you're in the OS, software installs like it normally would. There were only two issues I have come across:

Virtual Machines

Out of the 3 main virtual machine software providers (Parallels, VirtualBox, VMware), only VMware's "Fusion Desktop for Mac" will work. They all install OK, but VirtualBox is incredibly unstable, and Parallels just shows an error message to the effect of "You can't use this version of the application Parallels Desktop with this verson of Mac OS X". I saw some posts that seemed to say that it's because the hardware doesn't support "virtualization" and that Parallels 3.0 works. I tried that, and it didn't (same error). Why VMware works and the others don't? I have no idea, but it's OK with me. I very rarely use windows anyway.

Macports/X11

The other problem I had was that some Macports software would not install. This is more of a Snow Leopard issue than a 10v issue though. Specifically, mplayer would not install via macports. However, I found this very nice GUI version of mplayer for Snow Leopard which has the command-line version rolled into it. Just create a symlink to it like this:

sudo ln -s /Applications/MPlayer\ OSX\ Extended.app/Contents/Resources/External_Binaries/mplayer.app/Contents/MacOS/mplayer /usr/bin/mplayer

UPDATE: as of 11/5/09 Macports mplayer is not supported in Snow Leopard, but mplayer-devel is. My first try at installing it failed, but I tried the following today and it compiled, installed and works:

sudo port -v install mplayer-devel +binary_codecs +dts +dv +x264 +faac -glx +theora +twolame +xvid

The other issue I had was with gnucash, which depends on the gnome libraries and X11 (X11 is in the "Optional Installs - Developer Tools" on the Snow Leopard DVD). It compiled and installed fine, but wouldn't run. It just kept spitting this error out:

Dynamic session lookup supported but failed: launchd did not provide a socket path, verify that org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist is loaded!

The fix is to first make sure dbus is installed. Then run this command as the user who is running the X11 app:

launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist

~~Bad, bad, really bad news...~~

If this rumor is true then I will forever be stuck with 10.6.1, which isn't good. Pretty lame, in fact.

UPDATE: Some very well-mannered gentlemen on the forums at the myDellMini site kindly let me know that the rumor may not be true.

Pros & Cons / Final thoughts

The good...

Quite portable
Cheap
Reasonably powerful given its size and price
VGA out, 3 USB ports
Long battery life, 6-cell battery available with 7+ hours reported
Works flawlessly with Snow Leopard - everything supported!

The bad...

1024 X 600 max screen resolution. Nuts.
Display has a blue-ish cast
Trackpad is so poor it's un-usable
Keyboard is compacted, issues typing on it
No hardware virtualization
~~Further OS updates will be impossible~~
Very difficult to upgrade hard drive and memory
No holes for the VGA cable to screw into, keeps falling out

This is a fun little project, but in light of the fact you have to use an external keyboard/mouse/display to operate this thing (making its portability basically obsolete), ~~and the fact that I probably won't be able to upgrade the OS ever again~~...if I could do it again I'd probably build a cheap hackintosh desktop box with a processor that will definitely continue to be supported - like a core 2 duo. It should cost about the same amount of money - ok, maybe a little more, but not nearly as much as a new mac - and would be a much faster computer.

...I find it somewhat ironic that Dell, notorious for making laptops too large, is now the leading manufacturer of the netbook, a laptop that's way too small. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION!!

Use Perl and Expect to auto-connect, and maintain connection, to a proxy

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

There are a number of reason to use a proxy, security and privacy being the two biggest for me. I use Cotse.net and am very happy with it. There is one downside to Cotse (and alot of similar services I suppose) is that you must manually connect to the proxy server, using something like SSH Tunnel Manager. Kind of a pain.

So I wrote a script that manages the connection using perl and expect. It runs as a cronjob to always make sure you're connected to the proxy when an internet connection is available.

Installation

Step 1: Install the Expect.pm perl module. As root, type this:
```
# perl -MCPAN -e 'install Expect'
```

Step 2: Edit this script and put in your /Users/user/bin/ directory as "proxy.pl".

# check if we are connected to the proxy.  If not, connect.
my $pid = &checkAlive($command);
if (!$pid) {

 # check if we even have internet before trying to connect to proxy
 my $result = &checkInternet($ext_host,$timeout);
 if ($result > 0) {
  print "Not connected. Connecting to $command\n";
  &connect($password,$command,$timeout);
 } else {
  print "No internet available.\n";
 }
 
} else {
 # we do have internet, and are connected toi proxy.
 print "connected to $command\n";
}

sub connect {
 # connect to the proxy and login using expect
 
 my ($password,$command,$timeout) = @_;
 
 # Create the Expect object
 my $exp = Expect->spawn($command) or die "Cannot spawn ssh command\n";
 $exp->expect($timeout,
  ["Password Authentication"],
  ["Are you sure you want to continue connecting", sub {my $self = shift; $self->send("yes\n");}]
  );
 # answer the password
 $exp->expect($timeout,
  [ qr/Password:/ => sub { my $exp = shift; $exp->send("$password\n"); exp_continue; } ],
  [ qr/Password:/ => sub { my $exp = shift; $exp->send("$password\n"); } ], 
  );
 # wait forever for nothing...basically, stay connected
 $exp->expect(undef);
 
} # end sub connect

sub checkInternet {
 # check if the internet is up by pinging external host
 # sends back packets received, so if the return val
 # is > 0 then we have internet

 my ($host,$timeout) = @_;
 my $packets = 0;
 
 my $pingcmd = "/sbin/ping -q -t $timeout -c 1 $ext_host";
 #print "checking for running program with $pingcmd\n";
 my @raw = `$pingcmd`;
 chomp(@raw);
 foreach my $line (@raw) {
  if ($line =~ /([0-9]{0,2}) packets received/) {
   $packets = $1;
  }
 } # end foreach
 return ($packets);
 
} # end sub checkInternet

sub checkAlive {
 # gets the PID of the process that matches a SINGLE criteria 

 my ($text) = shift;
 my $return_pid = "";
 
 my $pidgetter = "/bin/ps ax -o pid,command | grep '$text' | grep -v 'grep' | grep -v 'sh -c'";
 #print "checking for running program with $pidgetter\n";
 my @raw_pids = `$pidgetter`;
 chomp(@raw_pids);
 
 foreach my $raw_pid (@raw_pids) {
  $raw_pid =~ s/^\s+//;
  $raw_pid =~ /^(\d+)\s/;
  $raw_pid = $1;
  my $pid = stripNonNumber($raw_pid);
  my $exists = kill("0",$pid);
  if ($exists) {
   my $message = "checking for any program operating on $text. I found one with pid ${pid}. ";
   $return_pid = $pid
  }
 } # end foreach
 
 return ($return_pid);

} # end sub checkAlive

sub stripNonNumber {

 my($text) = shift;
 $text =~ s/([^0-9])//g;
 return ($text);

} # end sub strip non number

Then type this:

cd ~/bin ; chmod 755 proxy.pl;

Step 3: Add to cron. Type
```
crontab -e
```
. Add this line (you will need to edit where it says "user"):
```
* * * * * /Users/user/bin/proxy.pl  > /dev/null 2>&1
```

Use Thunderbird Extension "Send Later" (or "at") to email requests to time-shifted programs

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:58:00 +0000

OK, here's a tip you're unlikely to use. See if you fit these criteria...

You time-shift internet radio programs.
You sometimes want to communicate with the host/dj. For example, to make a music request
The program has a non-show-specific email address. For example, dj *at* kexp.org (for making requests to the current DJ).
You use Mozilla Thunderbird as your e-mail client.
You leave your computer on all the time, with your e-mail client open.

...still with me? I've got a solution for you! There's a great extension for Thunderbird called "Send Later".

Basically, it allows you to schedule emails to send at precise date/time. Here's what you do:

Right-click this link and "Save link as" and save it to your desktop.
In Tunderbird, go Tools -> Add-ons and click the "Install..." button. Choose the .xpi file you saved to your desktop. You will need to re-start Thunderbird.
Once installed, compose your e-mail message as you would any e-mail. Instead of sending, choose File -> Send Later. That will bring up this dialog:
Schedule your send using the date/time menus at the top. Then click "Send Later at specified time". I'd disregard all other options.

Then, listen to your time-shifted program for your request! If you need to edit the e-mail before the schedule send time, look for it in your "Drafts" folder. Just remember to choose File -> Send Later again instead of clicking "send". WARNING as of Send Later version 1.2.0.0 there is a strange, annoying bug that affects replying to or forwarding messages that have large attachments. Took me ages to figure out that the Send Later extension was causing it. Not a deal-breaker, but the following option may be better...

OR, be an ultra-nerd and use the "at" command...

For those nerdily inured to Mac OS X's UNIX features, you can accomplish the same feat as outlined above using "at".

First, you need to enable the

atrun

utility. It runs commands scheduled with

at

, but is disabled by default.

su

to root and run this command:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.atrun.plist

And if you haven't configured postfix to send outgoing mails, you'll need to do that. Check out this great tip on how to set up postfix to relay through GMail.

Alright, so to schedule an email to be sent, open up a terminal and first type the date/time (in POSIX format) you want it to be sent like this:

$ at -t 200910112232

You will then enter input mode. Enter your commands here like this:

mail -s "Music Request" [ENTER TO EMAIL HERE]
Dear DJ,
Last night you saved my life.  Can you
please play, "Crazy Horses" by The
Osmonds?  Thanks so much!
Love,
Me

Then hit enter once (blank line), then CTRL-d to exit input mode. Your mail is now scheduled! To see scheduled jobs, enter the 'atq' command.

Recording "The Moth Radio Hour" Pilot Episodes

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:13:00 +0000

As you know, "The Moth" is a jammin' sweet podcast. It's bringing back the lost art of storytelling. The only downside is that the podcasts are not that frequent. For high-volume podcast listeners like myself, it leaves you wanting more. Enter The Moth Radio Hour! An hour of well-curated stories selected from their years of archives. It's currently in "pilot" mode, being tested on some of the larger Public Radio Stations around the country:

WNYC - New York City
WBUR and WGBH - Boston
WAMU - Washington, DC
KUOW - Seattle
WBEZ - Chicago
KUT - Austin, Texas

Great! So just look at the program listings for those stations and set your favorite time-shifting program to record. Only problems are the a) it's a pilot so it may not be in that spot forever (or at all) and b) you've missed the first several episodes.

Though it's not podcasted (yet), there is a way to listen to the first several episodes of TMRH. See http://www.prx.org/the-moth. There are flash players embedded under each episode summary, allowing you to stream the audio right from the site.

The downside here is that you can only listen from your computer. However, there are a couple methods you can employ to "rip" the stream to mp3, so you can take it with you.

Method One: WireTap

WireTap is the preferred method because it has the most flexibility...it's basically built for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, it does cost (but in my opinion, is worth it). See this article on how to set up a recording session with Wiretap.

Method Two: Soundflower and Audacity

This one's a little more complex, and you will hear the audio playing as it's recorded (WireTap allows you to mute the source playing the stream, so you can still use your speakers to listen to music or whatever). So you'd either have to mute your speakers, or record when you're not at the computer. The upside, is that the tools are free: audacity and soundflower.

Rather than try to explain it all myself, see this article on how to set it up.

Both methods require you to manually press "record" on the recorder (WireTap or Audacity) and then "play" on the TMRH episode flash player. When it's done (53 minutes later), you press stop on your recorder and then save as an MP3 and voila! You have your TMRH "podcast".

For super-geeks, you can also play the stream from VLC. I tried, and failed, to get mplayer to load it from the command line (my preferred method of recording). But VLC will do. The links to the media for the first several TMRH episodes are:

http://themothopen.prx.org.s3.amazonaws.com/MothHour1_broadcast.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=11RCNQMECKHP4QK3CP02%26Expires=1406388439%26Signature=aSiteObGTnrY3LEGp3He8pPxBGI%3D
http://themothopen.prx.org.s3.amazonaws.com/MothHour2_broadcast.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=11RCNQMECKHP4QK3CP02%26Expires=1406388420%26Signature=lTdGgKFB/8UiHGtEpyO6IgBnUYk%3D
http://themothopen.prx.org.s3.amazonaws.com/MothHour3Final_broadcast.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=11RCNQMECKHP4QK3CP02%26Expires=1406999085%26Signature=fewikyPmyfjs8sAnUiveUA1qfrs%3D
http://themothopen.prx.org.s3.amazonaws.com/MothFinalHour4_broadcast.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=11RCNQMECKHP4QK3CP02%26Expires=1406388475%26Signature=fLqPoe5HUIn5mCBwsGvfAhQ30Gw%3D
http://themothopen.prx.org.s3.amazonaws.com/MothFinalHour5a_broadcast.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=11RCNQMECKHP4QK3CP02%26Expires=1406388977%26Signature=J7W1JthdNyNK7ZRKQQlbT3wdDTs%3D

Open VLC, press "play" to get a prompt for a MRL and enter one of the URLs above. When you play the episode you will get errors. Dismiss them and hit play again and the episode will start playing. Record or listen. Enjoy!

Applescript to add selected tracks to a playlist

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:11:00 +0000

I created this because I am clumsy with the pointer. After selecting a large number of tracks in iTunes with command-click I inevitably accidentally click and lose my selections. With this, I just hit a hotkey and get prompted for the playlist I want to add the selections to. If the list doesn't exist, it will be created.

This is just one more way OF MANY to add tracks to a playlist. I am a huge efficiency guy, so I set this script to be run with a Quicksilver keyboard hotkey trigger.

Here's the script:

--make sure itunes is running
set itunesOK to my itunes_is_running()
set myMessage to ""

if itunesOK then
 tell application "iTunes"
  
  -- if no tracks selected, exit with message
  if selection is {} then
   set myMessage to "No tracks selected"
   set myReturn to my growlMessage(myMessage)
   return
  end if
  
  --display prompt for playlist
  set myList to the text returned of (display dialog "Enter playlist to add selected tracks to" default answer "")
  
  --exit if they didn't enter anyting
  if the myList is "" then return
  
  set oldfi to fixed indexing
  set fixed indexing to true
  set newCount to 0
  set existsCount to 0
  set deadCount to 0
  
  --see if the playlist exists
  if exists user playlist myList then
   --do nothing for now
  else
   make new user playlist with properties {name:myList}
  end if
  set currentList to playlist myList
  
  --see if the track exists on the playlist
  set currentIDs to {}
  try
   if exists (track 1 of currentList) then -- if there are some tracks - at least one -- get their ids
    copy (get database ID of every track of currentList) to currentIDs -- list
   end if
  on error errText number errnum
   if errText does not contain "Invalid index." then
    error errstr number errnum
   end if
  end try
  
  --loop thru the selected tracks
  set sel to selection
  repeat with aTrack in sel
   set thisTrack to (get location of aTrack)
   set dbid to (get database ID of aTrack)
   try
    --add the track to playlist or show error
    if currentIDs does not contain dbid then -- if id not already present add the track
     add thisTrack to currentList
     set newCount to newCount + 1
    else
     set existsCount to existsCount + 1
    end if
   on error
    set deadCount to deadCount + 1
   end try
  end repeat
  
  
  set myMessage to "Added " & newCount & " track(s) to " & myList & "."
  if existsCount > 0 then
   set myMessage to myMessage & " There were " & existsCount & " selected track(s) already on it. "
  end if
  if deadCount > 0 then
   set myMessage to myMessage & " There were " & deadCount & " selected track(s) that were not added due to error. "
  end if
  set myReturn to my growlMessage(myMessage)
  
  set fixed indexing to oldfi
 end tell
else
 --itunes not running, quit
 set myMessage to "iTunes is not running"
 set myReturn to my growlMessage(myMessage)
 return
end if

--subroutine showing messages in growl (preferably)
--and if no growl, default dialog with timeout
to growlMessage(myMessage)
 --show our output message
 -- Check if Growl is running:
 set isRunning to my growl_is_running()
 
 --Only display growl notifications if Growl is running:
 if isRunning = true then
  
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
   -- Make a list of all notification types:
   set the allNotificationsList to ¬
    {"Notification 1", "Notification 2"}
   
   -- Make a list of the default enabled notifications:
   set the enabledNotificationsList to ¬
    {"Notification 1"}
   
   -- Register the script with Growl
   -- using either "icon of application"
   -- or "icon of file":
   register as application ¬
    "add_selected_to_playlist" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
    default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
    icon of application "Script Editor"
   
   -- Send a notification:
   notify with name "Notification 1" title "Track add output" description myMessage application name "add_selected_to_playlist"
  end tell
 else
  tell currentApp
   activate
   display dialog myMessage giving up after 1
  end tell
 end if
end growlMessage

--sub checks if growl is running
on growl_is_running()
 tell application "System Events" to return (exists process "GrowlHelperApp")
end growl_is_running

--checks if itunes is running
on itunes_is_running()
 tell application "System Events" to return (exists process "iTunes")
end itunes_is_running

Name the file "add_selected_to_playlist.scpt" and save as a "Script" in /Users/YOU/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ and it will be available from the iTunes "Script" (script icon in the menu bar) pull-down menu.

Applescript to add 1 to play count of selected tracks

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:11:00 +0000

This script solves an issue related to recorded radio programs and iTunes Smart Playlists. Let's say for example you ripped an episode of "Crap from the Past", and you've set up these episodes to be automatically be added to a Smart Playlist called "programs". This Smart Playlist has a rule to exclude programs with a play count of "1" or greater (i.e. programs you've already listened to), to keep the list clean.

BUT...you don't like this particular episode. Maybe Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber chose a theme like "Charity Songs from the 80s" or something...and you don't want it appearing in your Smart Playlist. Podcasts have a handy right-click option of "Mark as Not New" which solves the issue, but regular tracks do not. This script forces the play count to 1 so that it can be excluded from your Smart Playlist. Niche issue, I know, but a real concern for me!

Doug at Doug's Appplescripts for iTunes has already addressed this issue with the very nice "Add or Subtract Play Count", which is great...but it prompts you for a number. Since I'm all into efficiency and I only ever need to increase the play count by 1, I've hacked the script so that there is no prompt. I've also added error/success output with Growl because it's less obtrusive.

set myMessage to ""
tell application "iTunes"
 
 -- if no tracks selected, exit with message
 if selection is {} then
  set myMessage to "No tracks selected"
  set myReturn to my growlMessage(myMessage)
 else
  --loop thru selected tracks and add 1 to their play count
  set sel to selection
  repeat with aTrack in sel
   -- skip tracks without played count property
   if aTrack's class is file track or aTrack's class is URL track then
    tell aTrack
     set curPlayCount to (get played count)
     set played count to curPlayCount + 1
    end tell
   end if
  end repeat
  
  --success message
  set myMessage to "Added 1 to play count of selected tracks"
  set myReturn to my growlMessage(myMessage)
 end if
 
end tell

--subroutine showing messages in growl (preferably)
to growlMessage(myMessage)
 --show our output message
 -- Check if Growl is running:
 set isRunning to my growl_is_running()
 
 --Only display growl notifications if Growl is running:
 if isRunning = true then
  
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
   -- Make a list of all notification types:
   set the allNotificationsList to ¬
    {"Notification 1", "Notification 2"}
   
   -- Make a list of the default enabled notifications:
   set the enabledNotificationsList to ¬
    {"Notification 1"}
   
   -- Register the script with Growl
   -- using either "icon of application"
   -- or "icon of file":
   register as application ¬
    "add_play_count" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
    default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
    icon of application "Script Editor"
   
   -- Send a notification:
   notify with name "Notification 1" title "Add Play Count Message" description myMessage application name "add_play_count"
  end tell
 else
  tell currentApp
   activate
   display dialog myMessage giving up after 1
  end tell
 end if
end growlMessage

--sub checks if growl is running
on growl_is_running()
 tell application "System Events" to return (exists process "GrowlHelperApp")
end growl_is_running

Name the file "add_play_count.scpt" and save as a "Script" in /Users/YOU/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ and it will be available from the iTunes "Script" (script icon in the menu bar) pull-down menu. I use this often, so I set up a Quicksilver keyboard hotkey trigger for it. Enjoy!

Apple and Amazon Demonstrate Device Douche-baggery

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:04:00 +0000

Apple lays the smackdown on some of their own customers

The recent upgrade for iTunes contains a "feature" which basically locks out the Palm Pre. Before, the Pre would show up as an iPod in iTunes, allowing Pre users to sync it with their music an podcast libraries. This was a big selling point for the Pre.

I am not a Pre user, but I think this is a real dick move on Apple's part. People who use the Pre with iTunes, are at some level, customers of Apple. They are likely mac users...and even if they are not, they are at least using iTunes and therefore likely using it to purchase music. Basically, they are pissing off their own customers. Never a good strategy.

I'd be willing to bet that many people who purchased the Pre did so because they are stuck in egregiously long contracts with Sprint. Otherwise, they'd be iPhone users. If I was in this boat, and Apple pulled these kind of shenanigans, I'd be totally turned off to the idea of ever switching to the iPhone when my Sprint contract expired. Who wants to support a company who treats their customers like this?

That Apple would take such a drastic, dick measure indicates to me that they think the Palm Pre is a real threat to their smartphone business. They are scared of it, and have reacted out of fear. If I was them I'd a have stuck with their general, conceited, "you can't be serious" attitude towards competition. They should feel confident that their product is superior to any other smartphone, which it is. By taking such drastic action against the Pre, they have legitimized the Pre as a competitor in the mind of the marketplace.

Competition is good. It breeds innovation and keeps prices in check. The way to gain the competitive edge is not to take rash, semi-monopolistic measures against competitors, but to beat them fair and square with a quality product. I think Apple needs to hear it from customers, whether they use the Pre or not, that we don't appreciate this Microsoft-like behavior.

Apparently, Palm released an update to their software which once again allows it to sync with iTunes. It remains to be seen how Apple will react to this.

Link: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/palm-pre-update-syncs-with-itunes-again/

Amazon, like a thief in the night

In a somewhat ironic move, Amazon took the unprecedented step of remotely deleting some of George Orwell's books from all Amazon Kindle devices of customers who had paid for them. Apparently, they were added to the Amazon store by a source who did not have the rights to them.

Sure, Amazon did refund the customer's money, but there are two very disturbing elements to this story. First, the privacy issue. Most customers were unaware that Amazon had the right and the means to remotely delete content from the Kindle. This is an invasion of privacy and it raises questions as to what else Amazon is doing remotely. Recording customer behavior? Monitoring other content users put on their Kindle?

Amazon swears up and down they will never do this again. But I think there needs to be independent action (seems like a great case for the EFF). There should be updates to the contract between manufacturer and the user, and updates to the software that will prevent any access to the device that the user does not explicitly authorize.

The other issue is, why is Amazon not vetting the content they are selling in their store? The issue here is between this "unauthorized" source and Amazon. The customers are unwitting participants in this dilemma, and end up getting the raw end of the deal. Amazon should pursue and work out the issue with the source.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

"Smarter" iTunes Smart Playlists for podcasts

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:28:00 +0000

iTunes Smart Playlists are a great way to auto-populate playlists that you listen to often. I listen to alot of podcasts, so I created a "programs" playlist that is populated by podcasts I subscribe to, as they become available. Of course, Smart Playlists are not just for podcasts, but I'll use podcasts for illustration's sake in this how-to.

As neat as they are, Smart Playlists do have one major limitation, there is no way to mix boolean "AND" and "OR" expressions. To illustrate, let's say I wanted to create a Smart Playlist containing the "Marketplace" and/or "Planet Money" podcast, but only ones added in the last two days (new episodes). Simple concept, but it's actually not possible with a single Smart Playlist. See below:

If I chose the match "all" following rules option, I would get a list with no podcasts on it (because there are no podcasts that are labeled both "Marketplace" and "Planet Money"). If I choose the "any" matching method, I would get the podcasts I desire, but I'd also get every other podcast that's arrived in the last two days (because of the third rule). Not quite what I'm looking for.

The good news is that there is a solution. One of the rules you can select basically says "...and is on the playlist x". That's the key! So, we can create a playlist-of-playlists, or nest "member" playlists, containing rules specific to each podcast, to get what we want on a single playlist. This helps us achieve the mixing of boolean AND and OR expressions that a straight Smart Playlist can't do.

Step 1: Create a new playlist folder in iTunes. We'll call it "nested" for purposes of illustration. Creating a folder is not absolutely necessary, but since these playlists aren't going to be directly accessed, I like to keep them contained for housekeeping reasons (you can collapse it to save space).

Step 2: Create individual member Smart Playlists within the "nested" folder. Each playlist should contain the specific rules you want for each individual podcast you want on your master playlist. For example, one playlist for new "Marketplace" episodes within the last two days, and another for new "Planet Money" episodes within the last two days. (Note: There are a variety of ways to match a podcast - by Album is what I use because it's consistent). Be sure to match by "all following rules" on your member playlist. Also, if you're making a playlist of podcasts, be sure to add a rule, "Play Count is 0" to exclude podcasts you've already listened to. Don't do this if your playlist is of music.

Step 3: Create a "master" Smart Playlist that will contain our nested member playlists. First, click away from the "nested" folder (click on Library->Music) so we can create a top-level iTunes Smart Playlist (we don't want this one inside the "nested" folder). In the Smart Playlist dialog box, make sure to select "any" as the matching method (very important), and add one rule for each member playlist you created. In this example the first rule is "Playlist contains Marketplace" and second is "Playlist is NPR: Planet Money". When you click "OK" you can name the playlist whatever you wish. I'll call it "Awesome Business Podcasts".

And voila! There's our incredible new complex-rules Smart Playlist. New "Marketplace" or "Planet Money" episodes will automatically arrive and old or previously-listened shows will automatically drop off.

Gettin' Tricky

There's about a bazillion different things you can do with Smart Playlists, and even more when you create complex Smart Playlists like we did above.

But one problem I ran into even with these "smarter" Smart Playlists is how to handle when, for example, I want to make a "finance" playlist all new Planet Money and Marketplace episodes (like the example above), but also a handful of select finance programs (podcasted or not) from the past.

Easy enough! Just create a nested member playlist called "Manually-Managed" (note: this is a regular playlist, not a smart playlist) and added my desired past episodes to that. I then include that "Manually-Managed" playlist on my master playlist. Here's a snot of my master podcast playlist, along with the nested member playlists that make it up:

You can add unlimited nested "member" playlists to a "master" playlist. I've heard some grumbling that it sucks up computer resources to do this, but that is not my experience.

One neat thing to note about Smart Playlists is that you can manually re-order them. So if I wanted to listen to Marketplace first, I just drag it to the top. If you are going to use this playlist on an iPod or iPhone, be sure to set it to sync whenever you plug it back into the computer. That way it will update your library with the play count (and therefore update the Smart Playlist).

Here are some links detailing other great Smart Playlists you can try:

Top 10 "This American Life" episodes

noreply@blogger.com (Rory) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:36:00 +0000

The greatest radio show (and podcast) ever. Possibly the best show ever, in any media. I look forward to every episode, and get seriously bummed out when it's a re-run. In case you're interested, here's my top 10 favorite episodes. I've listened to each of these multiple times, and will continue to!

#355 The Giant Pool of Money - Definitely the best explanation of what went wrong with the US (and world) economy, and is referred to as such by other media and even politicians. I believe this is their most popular show to date (even topping "Squirrel Cop"). This episode was so well-received it spawned a delightful new show, NPR's "Planet Money" which podcasts thrice weekly. There were a few great sequels to this episode. If you group them together you have just about the best layman's-terms synopsis of the financial meltdown put together so far. They are: #365 Another Frightening Show About the Economy, #375 Bad Bank, #377 Scenes from a Recession and #382 The Watchmen.
#304 Heretics - Great story about how this minister, Carlton Pearson, decided one day that hell was a human creation, a method of controlling people. And he wasn't going to believe in it anymore.
#168 The Fix Is In - Classic episode about how a clown of a middle manager exposed the biggest price-fixing scheme in history. Looks like this is coming out in movie form, as a comedy: The Informant!
#261 The Sanctity of Marriage - Helped to put me off the idea of marriage altogether (ok...I'm just chicken). The opening bit with John Gottman is a must-hear. For more from the guy, there's also this great podcast, and this one.
#179 Cicero - The story of Cicero, IL...probably the most corrupt city in America!
#254 Teenage Embed, Part Two - A young Afghan-American goes to Afghanistan with a tape recorder, and records events as they unfold. His father has returned to Afghanistan to serve in the newly-formed government. It's a follow-up to the original episode #230 Come Back To Afghanistan, which was also very good.
#290 Godless America - This is on here strictly for the Julia Sweeney segment. She tells the story of how she fell away from Catholicism. Hilarious.
#127 Pimp Anthropology - If you ever wanted to know how pimps work...
#220 Testosterone - Dedicated to the chemical which is the essence of male-ness.
#84 Harold - Being from Chicago, I love the Chicago stories. This whole show was dedicated to the story of Harold Washington, the first black mayor of a major American city. Fascinating guy.