benjarvis.org

Elisa 0.5.1 Is Out!

Our fantastic friends at the Elisa project have reached the 0.5.1 version mark. The media center is offically released, but the deb packages for Debian and Ubuntu have yet to hit the repos. As soon as they are put up I’ll be updating my media server.

In the meantime you can read my previous review here.

I’ll have a full review once I get it installed. The Windows binaries are up here. If you have a Windows PC you can try out 0.5 before it’s released on Linux. Remember, as with all pieces of software, it runs a little hinky on Windows.

Update!: There are finally some Ubuntu/Debian packages available.

To update Elisa on Ubuntu and Debian add this repo to your apt-get sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/elisa-developers/ubuntu hardy main

And then run:

sudo apt-get update

And finally:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Posted in Linux, Tech | No Comments »

How to Minimize Your Windows Usage.

I’ve been dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows XP since December 3rd of last year and I’ve come to use Windows less and less. My long term goal is to use Linux full time and ditch Windows altogether, but there are still a few pieces of software that don’t run natively on Linux, won’t run properly under WINE, or are unique enough to not be replaced by an alternative application. Eventually, all the Windows programs I use will be replaced or ported. Until then I’ve tried to eliminate all the possible reasons to use my Windows partition. If I’m booted in to Windows its for a few specific purposes.

If you’d like to ditch Windows, here is the plan I followed.

1. First identify the Windows programs that you use on a daily basis. Include the smaller tools and the more rare utilities. Catalog every Windows program you even remotely use. Don’t forget video and audio converters, games, and proprietary file format viewers. Leave no stone unturned, as they say. The object is to find out just how addicted to Windows you are.

2. Next compile a list of all the hardware you use. This list should include scanners, audio interfaces, remote controls, and MP3 players. Hardware support has come a long way in Linux, but since the majority of hardware vendors only officially write drivers for Windows, Linux hardware support tends to lag a bit. Hopefully, you don’t use anything that is so exotic or new as to be unsupported, but if you do then maybe you can eventually replace it with Linux compatible gear. In the future you can research what hardware runs well on Linux before you buy it. If you buy your gear in a shop, be sure to ask if it is Linux compatible. If you did your research then you probably already know the answer, but it’s good practice to make hardware shops aware of Linux. When you get the hardware working, call the shop and tell them that it works so they can tell their customers in the future.

Now that you have a complete list of all the hardware and software reasons you use Windows, you have a clear picture of how much you depend on Papa Microsoft. Hopefully you are a casual addict. But I know some people may be deeply entrenched and it might not be possible to lower their Windows usage to under 50% or so. For these people the the advantages and power of Linux might not be so apparent while in the Microsoft mindset.

4. This next bit gets a little tricky. You need to find ways to do as many of the tasks that you do in Windows but using Linux instead. For many programs this is simple. Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, VLC, Skype, and many other open source applications have Linux native versions. In these five applications alone, you have what I consider the best in web browsing, email, office productivity, media player, and VOIP telephony software. If you use these programs, you already have Linux solutions for most of your daily tasks. You can even try them in Windows first to see if they are suitable replacements.

Next, you can consult this page to find alternative programs to the ones you use in Windows. This is just a matter of trial and error. Keep the Windows program installed, but install the Linux alternative in your Linux distro and give it a spin. If you don’t like it, trash it and try another one. You may find (as I did) that the Linux alternative is better than the Windows application. If after trying all the alternatives you find that none of them suit your needs, you have a (hopefully short) list of programs you can’t live with out. For these stubborn apps, you can try WINE.

WINE is a Windows compatibility layer. This allows you to run some Windows programs in Linux. You can check the program’s compatibility with WINE here. The site is based on the experiences users have with installing and operating various Windows applications under Linux. Don’t take their word for it, try it yourself. There are special versions of WINE, called CrossoverOffice and Cedega, that help you easliy install office apps and games. They both use WINE, so you can theoretically do it yourself, but sometimes it’s just easier to use one of them.

If you can’t replace your favorite Windows app or run it under WINE, then you have no choice but to boot into Windows or if you are feeling adventurous, run them under a virtualizer like VMWare or Parallels. I’m not familiar with virtualizers, but many people love them. It’s not a bad option for people with high-end hardware. If you are lucky, then your final list of Windows-only apps is much smaller than your original list. This means you can spend more time in Linux and less time being frustrated by Windows. :)

My list of Windows programs is small:

- Ableton Live 7  (Nothing can replace this yet and the latency is too long under WINE)
- VST Instruments  (DLL files that are used by Ableton Live)
- iTunes (I may move back to Rockbox now that Banshee works better)
- World of Warcraft (My video card is too weak to run it in Linux)
- Various Emulators (Once I get my Xbox 360 controller to work under Ubuntu, I will be migrating these)
- Magic the Gathering (It has issues under WINE, but I barely even play)

Hope this helps you. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

Posted in Linux, Tech | No Comments »

I Believe You Have My Stapler.

Yesterday afternoon when we came home from comic shopping, we found that someone had parked in the space in front of our apartment. Since the apartments are one story and there is only a porch between the parking spot and my front door, it feels pretty invasive to have a mysterious Ford Explorer occupying the parking space directly in front of my dwelling.

As of this morning it’s still there. I put a note on it politely asking them to not park in my space. If it is still there when I get home from work, I am going to knock on doors until I find the owner. If the owner isn’t here, I’m contacting the apartment management to have it towed.

EDIT: I came home to find a different car in my spot, a van actually, but the note I left was responded to and stuck to my door. Apparently, the owner of the Ford is my new neighbor and my Escort was parked in their spot. Fair enough. So I moved my Escort and my van. After a few hours, they moved their van and I eventually moved my van back to my spot. I have yet to see this new neighbor, but there is proof they exist and they can be reasoned with. I think we can overcome the initial setbacks.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment »

I Love Shadowpact.

In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I love Shadowpact. I’ve been reading it non-stop and it just keeps getting cooler.

Shadowpact follows a team of magically powered superheroes and their adventures in the D.C. Universe. They generally fight obscure magic users and gods that threaten the Earth, but their exploits always seem to go unnoticed. The team is made up of Blue Devil, Enchantress, Nightmaster, Nightshade, Ragman, and (my favorite) Detective Chimp. The group was formed to defeat the Spectre when he went on a rampage to destroy all magic in the universe. Little did the team realize that what seemed like a spur of the moment decision was actually fated. It is told that there have been many magical groups through history all calling themselves Shadowpact. In every incarnation the group has championed lost causes and was doomed to fail.

The team dynamic is really interesting and they tend to solve mysteries and problems with the same kind of logic that the reader himself might use. Its refreshing to read a comic where I never have to ask “why don’t they just use that attack they used on that other demon?” because they always mention it before I do. Detective Chimp has some of the best lines. When someone calls him Bobo in reference to his circus days, he replies “You can call me Detective Chimp; Bobo was my slave name”.

The whole run is only 25 comics, so its pretty easy to catch up and the story is a real page turner. Issues 1-19 have been collected in 3 trades. Check it out!

EDIT: I guess this is it. I’m so sad! But if these are the only 25 issues of Shadowpact, then I’m fine with that. They ended it well and the series is an instant classic. DC’s Reign in Hell mini-series will feature Shadowpact characters, so maybe there will be a second volume after that. I’m not holding my breath.

Posted in Comics | No Comments »

The X-Men and Shadowpact Have Arrived.

I won a few eBay auctions recently and they finally arrived! I got 37 various issues of X-Men Vol.2 and the complete run of Shadowpact 1-25. Altogether I spent $50.80 for 62 comics. That’s about $0.81 per issue. Not too shabby. The best part is that these comics are in very fine/near mint condition. They all look pretty much like I pulled them off of a shelf today. I’m very impressed. It took me a while to put all those issues in bags and boards, but I did it and now I need another long box to hold all my comics.

My re-embracing of comics presents a new problem. Where am I going to put all these comics? This leads me to the closet reorganization project that I wanna do. I think the whole thing starts with metal racks. This will give me a lot more vertical space and they don’t cost a whole lot. Then I can use the half-size boxes for storage and get plastic Tupperware type boxes for all the junk and crap that is precariously stacked against the closet walls. While half-size boxes are more convenient for shelves than long boxes, its still sort of not ideal. I found another option called “Volstor” that might be cool too. Check it out: http://www.volstor.com/products.html

Volstor is like a cross between a binder and a box that you can put on your shelf. It holds 15 bagged and boarded comics, but stores on a regular book shelf. That holds a full year of an ongoing comic or a short run of a finished comic. They also have those nice plastic pockets like on a standard school binder that you can put your own art or label sheets in to display the title. I like the concept, but it seems impractical for large collections and I don’t know how much they cost so it could get a little expensive.

Okay, time to go read some comics.

Posted in Comics | 1 Comment »

A Return to Single Issues.

Everyone knows I’ve always been into comics. My love affair started when I was a child, but it wasn’t until I discovered Usagi Yojimbo and TMNT in fifth grade that I started spending my own money on new comic issues. Like many children, my allowance was based on how many chores I performed each week. My parents had a weekly table that listed all the chores and my theoretical maximum allowance (I think it was $7). For every chore I missed, I would lose a few cents. I tried to get them all done, but inevitably I came out closer to $5 than $7 and that meant that comics were a luxury that I could only barely afford. But I did the best I could and I collected all the way up to high school.

I gave up comic collecting for two reasons. Primarily, I lost interest in superhero comics. This isn’t very surprising as the ’90s were a dreary time for comics. Everything became so extreme and gimmicky. The other reason is that I discovered the joy of making music and I needed every dollar for gear. Comics sort of floated in the back of my mind, but I didn’t spend any money on them.

Then sometime in 2004 or so I discovered Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. All the series were relatively new and I could easily keep up with the continuity. I still didn’t have cash to spend on comics, but by then I was using bittorrent and I found the DCP comic scans. My appetite for comics became voracious. As time went on I started buying trades of the Ultimate X-Men comics and then the Fantastic Four. But via DCP, I was already dipping into the original Marvel titles and even some DC. The addiction deepened.

The final straw was last year (I think). My friend Shad (from LiveJournal) sent us a box with an instant collection of comics. It had 52, Batman, Superman, X-Men, and many others. Many I’d never heard of. I had gotten used to reading comics on my PC (which I still do), but I totally forgot what it was like to hold and read single issues in your hands. I missed the little obsessive pleasure of putting a crisp new comic in a bag and board. I found myself thinking about the joy my old comic collection brought me and I realized that I was finally in an economic position that a weekly trip to the comic shop was no big financial burden. So I picked up the latest arcs for my favorite titles and I haven’t looked back.

Trades are nice. They look nice on the shelf and are easy to loan to friends. But I don’t like waiting for them. If you want to read a recent arc, you usually have to wait few months after the last issue is printed and even then you have to avoid comic sites and podcasts unless you want to have the stories spoiled for you. I love the Wednesday trip to the comic shop  to pick up the next issues in the various titles I’m collecting. I’m only following 5 or 6 comics right now and that breaks down to less than $10 a week. I usually spend more than that on burritos! I’ve also found that comics go for pennies on ebay. I recently picked up a complete run of Shadowpact and 36 issues of X-Men Vol. 2 for under $30.

If you haven’t been to a comic shop in a while I suggest you do. It’s a great time to be a comic fan.

Posted in Life | 2 Comments »

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Recently I read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and loved it.

Marcus Yallow decides to ditch school with his friends to play an alternate reality game called “Harajuku Fun Madness”. After dodging RFID security, gait recognition systems, and school hall monitors they close in on the ARG’s latest clue. That very moment two Al Queda bombs detonate and destroy the nearby East Bay bridge. Over 4,000 people are killed. In the confusion immediately following the explosion, Marcus and his friends are taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security. What follows is a horror story of privacy and human rights violations, political paranoia, and espionage.

Little Brother reads like a Tom Clancy novel as told by William Gibson. It features cutting edge technology and techniques with a smart-ass sense of humor. Doctorow has a way of making the present feel like the future. There are so many moments in this book where I got to thinking seriously about my privacy. We put so much information about ourselves in to various systems and its just waiting to be collected into a complete profile. I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone, but when you stop to think about it in reference to what could be done with your info it can be terrifying.

You can download it from here: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

If you love it (like I do), buy a hard copy.

In other news, it’s fucking hot. It was 111 degrees today and the A/C in my van has quit working. Unfortunately, my van’s A/C is used the R12 refrigerant. Its hard to get except by mail order and even then there is no guarantee that it will work. I might take it to the shop, but so far I’m told they want $150 just to test the system. Damn! My Escort has working A/C but its not insured, it’s out of gas, and the battery needs to be recharged. It’s not a lot of work, but its enough. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted in Books, Life, Reviews | No Comments »

Work. Plan. Sleep. Fuck Around. Sleep. Work.

I am so frustrated. I can’t seem to get anything done these days. While its unreasonable to expect to get much of anything done on a workday afternoon, it would still be nice to accomplish something.

On any given workday morning I get up at 6:30 and get to work by 7:30. A feeling of motivation and drive fills me as I toil at my work day tasks. As I do this I listen to podcasts and music. I write down ideas for things I want to do and chores that need to get done. I work until 4:00 PM and go home. Most days I get home, make dinner, eat dinner, and doze off for anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Any remaining time in the evening or night is spent fucking around on the Internet or reading comics. I may also play warcraft or watch TV, but usually I just surf and read. Whatever goals I set for myself that day usually get put off and my energy level is so low that even when I feel the drive, I can’t sustain the activity. Weekends, are more productive, but they’re my weekends, that is when I should have fun not worry about chores and goals.

I really want to cut down on the messing around during the weekdays so that I can enjoy my weekends, but I find that I just don’t have the energy. My latest attempt at weight loss (I’m back on Hoodia and wow does that work) hopefully will capture back some of that energy. But I think the biggest gain will come from sleeping  a full 8 hours per night. But it has to be consistent. You can’t expect energy gains if you sleep 8 hours one night, 5 hours the next and 7 hours the night after that. If I have the energy to accomplish my goals, then it just comes down to willpower. Not always my strongest point, but there are tricks to improving your will power and I would rather just have to deal with that alone.

You don’t get a lot of time on a weekday. You only have 24 hours. 8 hours are spent sleeping and 8 more are spend at work. So on the surface you’d think you have 8 hours of free time each workday, but that isn’t true. There are tons of moments where you are losing time and don’t realize it. My “8 hour” workday is actually 10 hours. I’m up at 6:30 and my free time doesn’t start until 4:30 when I get home. I can’t count 4:30-5:00 as free time because it is usually spent getting my shoes off, going to the bathroom, saying hello to the cat and all the “decompressing” stuff we do when we get home. You turn around and a half hour is gone. I’m pretty sure that I can reclaim this time if I immediately change into workout clothes and go for a walk or run. However, I bet that after the exercise I will still burn up a half an hour like before, only later in the evening.

So lets see, the mythical 8 hours of free time has been cut down to 5.5 hours. If I cook an easy dinner, like a microwave diet dinner, I can cook and eat it within 30 minutes. More realistically, I take an hour for cooking and eating. So 5.5 hours is now 4.5 hours. Its safe to say that random daily tasks like brushing my teeth, bathroom breaks, and feeding the cat will eat up that extra half an hour. So 4 hours. That’s all I get. You can do alot in 4 hours, but you have to hustle and things like watching TV and playing games will chew it up like a wood chipper. The trick is to set small realistic goals for each day and follow through on it. I got it all figured out, huh? But yeah, it takes energy and will power. These are the last missing puzzle pieces. I’m not defeated, but damn is it frustrating.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I saw the new Indiana Jones flick yesterday and I must say I LOVED it. For most of the film I was totally in the zone. You know the zone, that awesome feeling where you lose track of time and you forget that you’re in a theater. Theaters tend to make me anxious and often I’m checking my watch the see how much time is left. Even when I’ve watched some of my favorite films in the theater, I get ready to leave before its over. All those people making  little noises in the dark. Its usually enough to keep me from even going to the theater. Not so with Crystal Skull. I was in the zone and even when I wasn’t I was totally interested in the film’s details.

I’m disappointed that most of the comments on the IMDB entry are really negative, but hey that’s their problem. It’s got to be Lucas. People hate him. They have expectations that will never be met because they’re basing them on childhood experiences with jaded adult skepticism. If you approach it like a 10 year old, you will have a much better experience. I know that the 10 year olds in the audience sure loved it. Spielberg and Lucas still have the magic.

Posted in Film, Reviews | No Comments »

Nine Inch Nails Release “The Slip”…for Free.

Today my personal hero Trent Reznor released ANOTHER downloadable album called The Slip. This album is different from the Ghosts album as it is available for free.

Yup, Trent says:

“as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.”

“the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

we encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”

Thank YOU Trent! Nine Inch Nails made a killing on Ghosts so I guess this is a nice way to say thanks for supporting his efforts to redesign the music industry. If you would like a copy, visit theslip.nin.com and sign up. You can even send invites to 3 of your friends. My favorite part? The Slip is available in FLAC.

Posted in Music | 1 Comment »