June 2005 Archives
The MyFi has a "mem" button. Press it and the current artist and song title are recorded in a list. Nice way to capture on the fly a song you want to research later:
Jerry Douglas: We Hide & Seek (Bluegrass Junction)
Skaggs/Carpenter: Blue Night (Bluegrass Junction)
Long Winters: Blue Diamonds (XM Cafe)
Patty Griffin: Mary (Hear Music)
Stevie Wonder: Reggae Woman (Hear Music)
The Old Runined: The Old Ruined (Fine Tuning)
Lee Morgan: The Rumproller (Real Jazz)
Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard TIme : Sweet Home Alabama (Bluegrass Junction)
Alison Krauss: Unionhouse Branch (Bluegrass Junction)
Rick Wakeman: Yes Medley Live (Fine Tuning)
Cat Stevens: Angelsea (The Loft)
Damnwells: Sleepsinging (The Loft)
Aztec Camera: Jump (The Loft)
Rickie Lee Jones: Show Biz Kids (The Loft)
A lengthy article on combatting spam at Acme.com.
Last weekend I moved mac.fiveforks.com off our home iMac (vintage 2004) in the living room to a G3 (vintage 1999.) I got the G3 several months ago for free and, it has been running in test mode without a hitch in my basement. Its name is Wart, Merlin's nickname for the young King Arthur.
Last night I moved Wart downtown to a server closet, so while the older 400 mhz G3 is three times slower than our 1.25 ghz iMac, it has 4 times the speed access to the internet. This is kind of like the tradeoff someone working downtown makes when moving from a bigger house in the suburbs to a smaller house in the city to cut commute times.
This week I was handed a bigger house. A G4 (vintage 2002) which I will swap out with the G3 when I can find the time.
Eventually I'd like to go to an XServe.
Note to self:
The manual address with automatic DHCP mode did not work. George coached me through hand plugging these:
IP 4.21.254.11
Router 4.1.254.1
Netmask 255.255.255.0
DNS 4.21.254.3 4.21.254.4
Network (not needed) 4.21.254.0
Gandalf (who is from a different book) is sitting next to Wart on .10.
mac.fiveforks.com is now running on a different Macintosh. It has moved from our living room to the basement, but that Mac will shortly be moved downtown to live in a data center where it will have much faster access to the internet. (Stuff should come down faster when you visit.)
Call or write if you have any problems posting or commenting. Had to fix UT tonight with one glitch, but I think all is running smoothly.
I want to allow churches (or any group really) to use MovableType for maintaining their websites. This prototype is almost all MovableType postings. Even the photos and side information for the most part are just articles that can be easily edited. Choosing a category like "Main-Side" or "Contact-Top" controls where information will go.
I've always wanted MovableType to have a better editor that worked for Windows or Mac machines. This one will soon work with Safari.
Now standing on a side table in our dining room is a small, iPod-like device that you might not notice except is has a soft, glowing screen. If you look close it says "Frank's Place." At the same time, every radio in the house is now tuned to FM 88.0 playing commercial-free jazz, including Frank Sinatra songs. Our Tivoli Audio radios do an exceptional job at picking up the signal and producing very rich, static-free sound.
The little device is a MyFi and if you look close you can follow a little black wire that goes behind a curtain. On the windowsill behind the curtain is a little black thing a bit larger that a matchbook. It is watching the southern sky and receiving 150+ stations from XM-Radio's satellite.
A thumbwheel on the little device lets me quickly navigate through the channels. Earlier I was accidentally listening to country music because I had chosen "Hank's Place" thinking it was "Frank's Place."
I can press a "2Go" button and the MyFi will record up to 5 hours of music tracks. If I take the MyFi for a walk, ride, or into a basement without a southern exposure, I can replay the last 5 hours of recorded tracks off any of the channels. The rechargeable battery also lasts 5 hours.
* * *
I've always liked the idea renting all of the music vs. buying some of the music. That's one reason I've never gotten an iPod because it depended on me managing my own limited collection of music. I prefer to let someone else manage the collection because it leads to more surprises and greater diversity. I'd also rather listen to speakers than headphones, although the MyFi comes with ear buds. The FM broadcasting feature works amazingly well in the house or car.
This purchase was preceded by several people at work thoroughly enjoying XM-Radio. More recently a few have picked up the MyFi (sort of an iPod fed by satellite.) For several weekends I tried out the 3-day trial service to listen to the 150+ stations over the internet. I really liked the Jazz, Bluegrass, Deep Tracks, and Frank's Place (Sinatra) stations.
When someone at work signed up this week for a buy-one-get-one-free / family plan offer at Best Buy, I looked at it and decided I would sign up, too. Kelly and I picked one up last night on the way to Mom and Dad's. I got home pretty late, but had the thing hooked up and working in about an hour. Signing up for the service took longer than setting up the MyFi, and that was mainly because I took time figuring out a way to avoid the $9.95 registration fee. I ended up doing even better.
Tip 1: Avoid registration fees and get the first three months free by finding a promo code through Google. Search on "XM-Radio promo code." I was able to find one and waive the $9.95 activation fee as well as the first three months of $12.95 fees.
Tip 2: You'll need southern sky exposure for the satellite antenna. The device is quite small and comes with about 20 feet of wire, so you could have the antenna in one room and the MyFi in another.
Tip 3: Buy Tivoli Audio radios. The experience of using multiple radios on multiple floors with the FM broadcast mode (vs hard wiring to a single stereo) would not have been as pleasurable without the Tivoli fine-tuning technology.
While I bought the MyFi to help relieve my long commutes to work, I think I'll end up using the "free" Roady2 XM Radio in the car so that the family can use the MyFi by day. I sent off for the rebate Roady2 in the mail today. Stay tuned.... (ha ha.)
... and also founder of Ave Maria University in Naples, spoke at this year's Eucharistic Congress. He turned away from an ostentatious life after reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I found this article in Fortune which represents most of his speech.
Mom and I were laughing through most of the speech because most of it does not sound like a success story, but just one disaster after another. (Tom tells a good story.)
From: [email protected] (Ted Cashel)
Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 11:10:17 PM US/Eastern
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Fwd: Neat story
Reply-To: [email protected] (Ted Cashin)
Attachments: There is 1 attachment
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[email protected] didn't work so I am trying you here
I got this from a recent Tidbits and it reminded me of your prime number program. This guy has a more complex program (albeit nearly as pointless) but has the background to have tried it on a proud line of mainframes and modern PC's.
Power Macintosh G3: The Cannonball Express
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by Rick Holzgrafe
The Cannonball Express was the fabled train that was so fast it
took three men to say "Here she comes," "Here she is," and "There
she goes." Computers are fast too, although unlike trains, most
aren't self-propelled. What makes a computer fast, and how much
effect does software design have? How much faster are today's
computers than yesterday's? Recently I revisited some of these
questions, beginning with a trip down memory lane.
