Published on Thursday 18th January 2007 .
I upgraded a couple of things on the blog today. The first one was upgrading to WordPress 2.0.7. This latest release fixes a few security flaws, and it is expected to be the last release before 2.1. WordPress 2.1 is scheduled to be released before the end of the month, so it won’t be long before I upgrade again. When 2.1 is finally released, I will also be upgrading the rest of the ask-mark.com blogs.
The second upgrade was to my theme. I upgraded to K2 0.9.1. The beta release of K2 that I was running before was pretty good, but the latest release has some cool options that were not available in the beta. A couple of the features are much better implemented in this version, like the live search (it finally works for me), the rolling archives and the customization. I will be adding this theme to the ask-mark.com blogs when I upgrade them to 2.1 in the near future.
One other upgrade that was done recently was done in real life, and not online. On Monday, Chris’s dad and I fixed the toilet in the family room’s bathroom! It’s been just over a year since the chain on the flapper broke. After getting a replacement flapper, it initially would not flush properly. It turns out that the style of flapper that we bought needed to be cut to install correctly. After figuring that out (who would have thought directions would help?) we found that the top valve was leaking. So after another trip to Ace Hardware, we replaced the top valve. Now it still leaks, but I have to go to Ace a third time to get gaskets. Fixing a toilet sucks.
Published on Sunday 31st December 2006 .
I’ve been testing Windows Vista for work since we got our MSDN key a few weeks ago. So far, the RTM version of Vista seems more stable, and much less annoying, than the release candidates. I still have one big problem: iTunes still has problems.
This is the same problem I wrote about in September. My problem is that iTunes will fail to redraw itself properly after a few minutes of use. For instance, when I was browsing around my music library to make my Life Soundtrack, iTunes would just redraw the track lists on top of each other, making the track lists entirely unreadable.
I like to leave iTunes open on my desktop computer so that I can share my library with other computers on my home network. I will usually minimize iTunes to get it out of the way. When I try to restore the iTunes window, iTunes is as the active application, but the window will never appear. Sometimes iTunes will accept keyboard commands, so I can close it using Alt + F4 or Alt + F, X. At other times I need to use Task Manager to close iTunes. It appears that the application is otherwise running properly, as I can play tracks from my shared library even when I can’t get iTunes to show up on my desktop.
I am not sure if the source of the problem is Apple’s inability properly program for Vista, or if Aero has problems drawing the iTunes interface, or if my video card is an issue. I even wonder if the Cover Flow feature is at all to blame, since it significantly increases the graphics requirements of iTunes. Whatever the problem is, I hope it gets resolved soon. Vista will soon be the default operating system installed on new computers, and iTunes will surely be installed to support the many iPods in the market.
Published on Thursday 2nd November 2006 .
So, I was about to go to bed around 10, but I thought I would see just how easy it was to create a ringtone out of an mp3. I found a tutorial for doing so in Linux, and I was able to easily adapt the instructions for Windows. I used Audacity to trim the mp3s and save them as wav files. Then I used LAME to convert them to the proper quality mp3 files.
FYI: For a RAZR v3, you will need mp3s encoded at 44.1kHz and 64kbps. The tutorials I saw suggest keeping your ringtones at 200kB or less, but I was able to get away with ringtones that were more than twice as large.
After I did the trimming and conversions, I copied them to my phone via Bluetooth. You have to copy the mp3s to the audio folder on the phone. You won’t be able to transfer files to your RAZR with USB, because that only gives you the option to use your RAZR as a modem. It appears Bluetooth is the easiest way to transfer files to a RAZR v3 from a computer.
I bet you’re wondering what songs I made into ringtones. I started off with Ice Ice Baby. Then I went a little more current with I Write Sins Not Tragedies. While looking for Cake’s version of Mahna Mahna, I decided to also make a ringtone out of Short Skirt, Long Jacket. Then I took clips from Seasons of Love and Imagine for Chris. And I finished off my play time with a SexyBack ringtone. I’m not quite as cool as Hersch is with the inline multimedia. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll post the ringtones under a password protected post for the inner circle to utilize. I don’t know if the ringtones are short enough to be legal for free distribution here.
Update: As it happens, both Wired and Lifehacker have tutorials on using Audacity to make ringtones. I’d re-invent the where here, but the beauty of the web is that I don’t have to 
* That was easy® is a registered trademark of Staples, Inc. Get yourself an Easy Button, also available in Spanish.
Published on Wednesday 1st November 2006 .
Google Browser Sync is a Firefox extension that allows you to synchronize your saved passwords, cookies, bookmarks and other settings between various computers, all running Firefox with the Browser Sync extension installed. You can even synchronize the opened tabs and windows from one session to another, and from one computer to another.
I admit to being a little skeptical at first, thinking that this might be too much information to hand over to Google. I still wonder just how much of my information should be going to Google, but that is an issue I will have to deal with as problems arise. The extension works rather well, although I have noticed that I am sometimes missing bookmarks when synchronizing between browsers. The phantom bookmarks do not appear on one computer, while they do on another. It’s bizarre.
So, if you’re like me and you jump between several different computers, and perhaps also like me you use several different operating systems, Browser Sync may be your answer to managing all of your Firefox information.
Published on Tuesday 17th October 2006 .
It’s been a little while. Don’t expect this post to be of much substance, despite the length of time since my last meaningful post. I’ve been really busy lately, so I’ll try to make this like one of those annoying "streaming consciousness" posts Hersch puts up, but a little less smushed and a little more listy:
- Doug Baker, 1980-2006
- Steve and Beth Tymonko, October 14, 2006.
- Hersch is making the most out of CA.
- Meetings prevent me from working on things.
- Bears win! 6-0!
- Heroes and Studio 60 are both quite good ways to spend Monday evenings.
- 1 vs. 100 is much better than that piece of junk Deal or No Deal.
- I still like Project Runway. Thanks, Lynn!
- Campaign ads are getting really obnoxious as of late. And quit calling me to tell me to vote early; I’ll vote whenever the hell I feel like it.
- The house is a mess.
- A little more about Google Reader.
Published on Tuesday 10th October 2006 .
Besides playing with iTunes, I have also been playing with the DivX Player on Windows Vista. One of the most annoying things about using the DivX Player on Vista RC1 is that the window flickers while playing a video. The video will appear just fine, but the UI will flicker around the video. The controls of the UI still work just fine, but you have to keep track of them as they flicker on and off.
The only solution I have found, and it is more of a workaround than a solution, is to turn off Aero and use the Windows Classic GUI. This will turn off all of the eye candy, drawing windows in the dull and drab gray with blue title bars and *gasp* normal window control buttons. With the classic GUI, the DivX Player operates normally. I am waiting to see if this workaround also fixes my UI problems with iTunes.
Update: The latest versions of the DivX Player do not suffer from the abovementioned GUI issues. Vista automatically removes transparency from my Desktop when I open the DivX Player.
Published on Thursday 28th September 2006 .
When I first used Google Reader, I thought it was great that there was finally a web-based RSS reader. Unfortunately, I soon found that this was one thing that Google Labs made that I really didn’t like. Some layout choices, as well as some overdone AJAX just did not sit well with me. I also hated that I could not mark an entire feed as read. I felt like the simple RSS scroller that came with Desktop Sidebar was a much easier to use aggregator.
But that appears to have changed. Google is transitioning Reader into a better web application. I like the lack of "flashy" AJAX animations. The simple no-nonsense design is appealing. When I use an RSS aggregator, I just want to read my news, mark off items that have been read, and keep track of particular items of interest with short notes or flags. So far, the new Google Reader provides me with just that. I’m excited to find out what else Google’s engineers have cooking for the Reader.
So, if you haven’t found that perfect RSS reader, or if you’re just curious to see what else is out there, give Google Reader a look. Also, it looks like digg has gone through some changes since I last used it. I found out about Google Reader’s changes from this digg post.
Recent Comments