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The Internet

Journal Journal: Bandwidth Is My Heroin

Broadband speed in my happy home is now over 3m down and 400k up. Upgrade from simple cable modem to Home Networking option from the cable company. Replaced my Netgear router/WAP with an integrated modem/switch/WAP. Only issue is that the modem/switch/wap is limited to 5 DHCP addresses. So for now, I am daisy chaining the my Netgear router off one wired port and keeping the horrific number of PCs in the house online (another story in itself) Anyway, I am enjoying the wideband Internet this weekend - the cable co beats the snot out of any DSL offered to consumers in this area.
Businesses

Journal Journal: RANT - Disgruntled?

I am a cog in a wheel of business. Often felt that I had one tooth too many (or short) and after several hundred revolutions of the wheel, things would lock up and need to be gently unwound or ripped apart and put back together to run right.

That slightly off-standard gear was my difference in the work world. People hired by me shared the same blessing (or curse) and there are no problems having tasks completed on time, accurate, and safe. The staff is proud of their accomplishemnts, takes pride in their work and shows respect for their leaders.

The rest of the workplace where workers are treated like preschoolers be dammed - my rules in my nook of the office. My job in leadership is to adapt the rest of the world to my policy, porting other departments' connections to my world, and communicating to the 'outside' what is accomplished.

Why is this a rant? It's getting tough to continue this way. My one odd tooth is wearing down and fitting in more and more. Where I once proudly illustrated the oddball techniques that got work done, legally and without too much effort, I now am surrendering the thought that my kind of leadership will make a difference. While I put my staff at the top of my 'worry list' others put themselves.

People are getting desperate for anything that gets them ahead of anything. Don't they just want to put in their time and make a reasonable living? I do. I don't want to become a grump. I want to be happy.

Any readers know what I'm saying?

"If you liked what you're doing, it wouldn't be work" - James McMurtury
Operating Systems

Journal Journal: Windows MM2 Works - I'm suspicious!

On a whim I recorded some video of a local event on my ancient Sony 8mm camcorder. Got maybe an hour of dancers, crowds and skits.

I wanted to offer a video clip to website visitors at www.feastoflanterns.com, so I started looking for a way to extract some video and offer it to web surfers.

This is starting to sound like a Mac Switch ad - but here is the odd twist: WinXP comes with a free stripped down video editor called Movie Maker. My choices at that point were to dump the video into something like the ATI TV, recording the motion, then find another app to cut and paste something 2mb worth. Before risking the registry to more bilge from bundled softwares, I thought I'd try this MS app.

Plugged the camcorder's analog output to the ATI All In Wonder's inputs. Fired up MM2. Read no instructions. Several choices were offered to capture from - including the ATI. Picked that, chose the highest quality offered to save in and hit play on the Sony. Saw the pics in the preview, rewind and begin capture.

MM2 saved one enormous wmv, then copied the file in chopped up bits. These clips were not only delimited by obvious stop/start points, but also clipped out segments of wild camera sway. I reviewed the clips and dragged the usable ones to a multi-tracked display that let me adjust volume and import an mp3 for one segment.

I was able to add fade in/out, title segments using any font installed, and make rolling credits at the end. The old PIII never flinched, froze or did anything to ruin the project. Only drawback is the wmv format.

It was actually fun. Something's definitely wrong when I discover an existing feature that required no hardware upgrades or needing to redo over and over after every reboot.

Music

Journal Journal: Legit Online Music Still Sucking

Needed to comment on the poor attempts being made to get music swappers [TechTV] to go legit. Found BuyMusic.com today after hearing about it on the electric radio - first off I was at work and tried to check it out while on break aHem! Ratso - could not get past much more than the home page since I did not have WMP9 on the company computer. OK, so email myself a reminder and check it out later.

So I found it - and it purty much looks like it is pushing the same slurm that the record labels have been pushing all along. Iffin you ain't lissenin to rap, you aint got much to buy.

Here's the current want list - I plugged these in and got maybe three hits, several hit-but-no-downloads, and lots of suggestions to download rap.

  • Randy Howard - All-American Redneck
  • Quicksilver Messenger Service - What About Me
  • Allman Brothers Band - Instrumental Illness
  • The Great Pretender - You Can't Get There From Here
  • Graham Hine - Bowery Fantasy - Katie's Gonna Climb My Pole
  • Charlie Tango - He Aint Country
  • Steve Miller Band - Stranger Blues
  • Stephen Bruton - Right On Time
  • Laura Love - Mahbooty
  • Steve Ripley - Gone Away
  • Bill Kirchen - Hot Rod Lincoln
  • Waybacks - Mind Your Own Business
  • Ray Wylie Hubbard - Screw You, We're From Texas
  • Alejandro Escovedo - Put You Down
  • Anders Osborne - Ho Di Ko Di Ya La Ma La
  • Jimmy LaFave - Buffalo Return To The Plains
  • Paul McCartney - Used To Be Bad
  • Charlie Robinson - Desperate Time.mp3
  • Paul Butterfield Blues Band - East-West
  • George Harrison - Any Road

The list is compiled by listening to 'net radio pioneer KPIG radio (via terrestrial signal, lucky me) while at the computer and checking the homepage when I hear a tune I want. Don't want the whole $16.99 CD, just that song. Hope I live to see the day when nearly every recorded song ever made is accessible.

User Journal

Journal Journal: /. posting

hey - love it when the topics justify reading /. at work. ul li /li /ul gotta quit relying on fp to know html.

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