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Posts tagged Music
Things you can do on Linux but not on a Mac or Windows PC
Feb 5th
Was going through this article and found something that really interested me. This is a short list of some of the things that you can do on a Linux machine but not on a PC or Mac.
1. Upgrade to the newest version legally and without paying money
2. Have the latest version of the operating system run faster than the previous version on the same hardware
3. Easily install and run different graphical interfaces if I don’t like the default setup
4. Install twenty programs with one command
5. Have the system automatically update all my installed programs for me.
6. Install the same copy of my OS (Ubuntu) on multiple computers without worrying about license restrictions or activation keys
7. Give away copies of the operating system and other programs that run on it without breaking any laws, governmental or ethical or moral, because it was all intended to be used this way
8. Have full control over my computer hardware and know that there are no secret back doors in my software, put there by malicious software companies or governments
9. Run without using a virus scanner, adware/spyware protection, and not reboot my computer for months, even when I do keep up with all of the latest security updates
10. Run my computer without needing to defragment my hard drive, ever
11. Try out software, decide I don’t like it, uninstall it, and know that it didn’t leave little bits of stuff in a registry that can build up and slow down my machine
12. Make a major mistake that requires a complete reinstallation and be able to do it in less than an hour, because I put all of my data on a separate partition from the operating system and program files
13. Boot into a desktop with flash and effects as cool as Windows Vista on a three year old computer…in less than 40 seconds, including the time it takes me to type my username and password to login
14. Customize anything I want, legally, including my favorite programs. I can even track down the software developers to ask them questions, contribute ideas, and get involved in the actual design/software writing process if I want to
15. Have 4+ word processor windows open working on papers, listen to music, play with flashy desktop effects, have contact with a largely happy community and have firefox, instant messaging, and email clients all open at the same time, without ever having had to beg someone for a code to make my os work, and without the system running so slow it is useless
16. Use the command “dpkg –get-selections > pkg.list” to make a full, detailed list of all software I have installed, backup my /etc and /home directories on a separate partition, and you are able to recover your system any time, easily
17. Run multiple desktops simultaneously, or even allow multiple users to log in and use the computer simultaneously
18. Resize a hard disk partition without having to delete it and without losing the data on it
19. Use the same hardware for more than 5 years before it really needs to be replaced…I have some hardware that is nearly 10 years old, running Linux, and still useful
20. Browse the web while the OS is being installed!
21. Use almost any hardware and have a driver for it included with the operating system…eliminating the need to scour the internet to find the hardware manufacturer’s website to locate one
22. Get the source code for almost anything, including the OS kernel and most of my applications
All excited about my Numark(did not receive yet)
Feb 2nd
Just today I paid off the credit card bill of about 13 grand something tha tI spent towards the Numark total control and DJIO that I shipped to Rachel. She said she is arriving in Hyd on 26th Feb. I just cant wait anymore. I think I will start taking this practise seriously as well. Its better to doing nothing but drinking.
As a band(DTuned) we have stopped jamming. The others dont find time at all although I have all the time. But I will come up with something and record the guitars, bass solos and drums myself. All that Shoheb will have to do then is sing. This way, I am sure we can come up with an mp3 that is worth distributing to people.
Later we can think about composing some more. But as for now, my music is on a low profile. Buying a house if on a higher priority. The next would be getting a job that pays me at least double of what I am getting now from Google(that is what my market value is). My fingers sucked today when I sat down to play. I feel like selling away all my guitars stuff and sticking to serious DJing,. At least I can make some money on the weekends. All the people who have heard me mixing house and electronic said that it sounded awesome. So I think its time to make some money.
When I get my Numark, I will start a range of videos demonstrating the lessons on Traktor with Numark. I am sure there are quite a few people who would be interested in watching them.
Will be starting a new section on Digital DJing.
Jan 21st
I have been waiting for this from a long time. Very soon my DJ console would be arriving and I would be able to have quite some control on my Traktor on the laptop. Till now I have been quite quick with the mouse and handling Traktor DJ Studio, but there are limitations which made me search for a proper hardware interface that would allow me to have quite a lot of control over the controls. I have recently order the Numark Total Control and shipped it to one of my friend on Santa Monica who would be getting it here somwhere around the 26th of Feb. I will then start making some video classes on how to use that console and become at least a bedroom DJ to start with and also how to handle the different genres of music. Stay tuned
Rock Solid Resolutions for 2008
Dec 31st
Its time. Have to plan the next 366 days in 10 mins.But this is something that I have been thinking a lot for the past couple of months,. There are some serious things that I want to do this coming year.
1. I am going to drink more responsibly.
2. No more smoking(Not even special days).
3. No more drinking and driving.
4. Will enroll into SAP and plan a career around it.
5. Settle the issue of buying a house.
6. Be more professional and refined.
7. Develop extreme patience.
8. Practise music, let it be playing my guitar or mixing on my laptop. Come up with more composition.
9. Shove away the laziness.
10. Extreme workout. Wanna be huge again.
11. Strict diet for the whole of Jan and Feb.
12. Spend more time with the family and atleast one dinner in a month with mom outside.
13. Waste lesser money on buying electronics.
14. Will buy a Mac Book Pro.
15. Invest in Mutual Funds.
16. Maintain a bank balance of at least 2 laksh by the end of the year(Although its tough).
17. Go on frequent biking trips.
18. Dress well and well groomed.
19. Try to get a double promotion.
20. The most important of it all. I WILL STAY SINGLE. Can’t take no more heartache. Been enough of a bitch. That’s it.
This year, I want to make something out of my life. I want this year to be the beginning of a career highway and to be a successful man. I have started believing quite a lot in myself, and I will continue to do that for the rest of the year.
iTunes versions below 7.5 not compatible with iPod firmware version 1.2.2
Nov 26th
Last week I had a problem, that just drove me mad. This is what happened.
I was defragging my 80Gig iPod, and my desktop at home for some reason froze. I had to hard reboot, but to my horror, all my music, the songs and the videos now do not showup on the ipod. I connected the ipod again and I could see them in iTunes. Even media monkey showed that the music was there on the ipod. The ipod stats also showed that the content was there. Why the hell is the ipod library not able to detect the media. Is it that the library got corrupted. If yes, then there was not way to rebuild an ipod library. So my only solution was to copy all the music off the ipod to my work desktop using Yamipod. After that I had to restore my ipod to factory settings. And then put all the music back on the ipod. I dont use Auto sync. So it was even more tough for me. Things went smoothly until just 2 days back when I connected the ipod again to my home computer. The same thing happened again. All the music appeared to be gone. This time it was nothing that I screwed up. All I did was just update a few albums on my iPod.
This is the time, I had to research on this. I brought out my Compaq 3228AU. Connected my iPod to that and copy just one song to the iPod. Miraculously, the library now showed up on the ipod. So what went wrong??
This is really interesting. What I did not realize was that I had upgraded the ipod firmware from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2 which was the latest firmware for iPod 5G and 5.5G. Now when I connected it to my work comp, the iTunes version there was 7.5 whereas the iTunes version at home was 7.3. There is a major incompatibility between the iTunes earlier to 7.5 and the 1.2.2 iPod firmware update. If you want to stick to an iTunes version lesser to 7.5 you should not update the firmware to 1.2.2. If you want to still use 1.2.2 firmware, you better upgrade the iTunes to 7.5. I think this is a nasty way Apple is forcing the consumers to use the latest versions of software.
I have been able to fix this problem after quite some research. If you are having the same problem, do comment. We will try to fix it together. If you have already fixed it, it would be great if you can share it.
Just a simple list of steps to fix this again:-
1. Upgrade to iPod firmware 1.2.2.
2. Upgrade iTunes to 7.5
3. Connect the ipod to iTunes 7.5 once and disconnect. Or just copy one song so that the library is rewritten.
4. Disconnect the iPod.
Voila!!!!
—–Update——
Just today I noticed that apple has released it Firmware version 1.2.3 for the ipod 5Gs. I have’nt had any problems till now. but just in case there are any surprises, Will surely post.
gBox, a competition to iTunes Music Store
Aug 15th
This news is something that really is a good move by some company to put an end to the iTunes Music Store domination. I was reading this news article today that Universal is teaming up with Google to release a service called gBox which is a music store just like iTMS but will sell DRM-free music for much lesser price. iTMS charges about $1.29 for a single track and these are DRM protected. DRM protected means that you cannot play them on any other music player other than iPod. Not even using another software on your computer. Now that is what sucks. When the DRM protection is removed, the track can be played on any other music player or using a media playing software. gBox will make this more easy by offering the tracks at only $0.99 which almost 30 cents cheaper to iTMS.
Google’s involvement with gBox and UMG’s DRM-free experiment looks sinister enough many observers believe gBox will pose a direct threat to the iTMS. But when you get down to it, Google’s participation may simply be what it does best: search and making oodles of money from AdSense.
Now how does gBox fit into the Google model? Simple search and make money out of text ads. Its as simple as that. Its not that we are pissing off Steve Jobs, just that we are grabbing a portion of the market which is still a virgin.
A great solution to media support on Windows – CodecInstaller
Jul 30th
There have been so many times when I had to download another music player or a video player software just because my Windows Media Player was not able to play a particular format. Unfortunately there was no way in Windows through which we can install just the media codec but not the players. I found a really good solution to this problem. This tool is called CodecInstaller and is free for download. This I found is very similar to Automatix in Linux. So how to get it working?
Just download Codec Installer from their website. Once you install it, you will be able to get a complete detail of all the codecs that are already installed on your computer in the forms of Audio and video. But the best thing about this utility is the Analyze file feature. A lot of the videos that I watch are encoded in Avi. If there are some that you are not able to play, all you need to do is analyze the file and install the missing codec.
I think this would serve the purpose for people like me who dont want to install a whole lot of player or codec packs like K-Lite Mega Codec.
Access your music from anywhere using Simplify Media
Jul 30th
Imagine this situation. You are a big music buff(just like me) and have loads and loads of music on your home computer and have a really high speed internet connection as well. You can access to this content anywhere you go and that too using your iTunes. It just wouldnt be possible untill learn about this little software called Simplify Media. Wanna know how it works?
Once you download an install SimplifyMusic from their website, just select the folders you want to share. SimplifyMusic can read your iTunes DB and stream it over the internet to any computer using a user id and password that you have to register with them. Once you are registered, you can install the software on your client machine as well and your home media will show up as a Shared Library on your client machine. You can now play the music just as if you were playing from your hard drive. How cool is that?
This is just a one time pain with all the sign up process but if you actually see, you are saving hdd space by having all your music only at one place. All it needs is a high speed internet connection.
Did I really manage 2 days
Jul 8th
So this is my second attempt to stay at home and do nothing. And above all, resist the temptation of going to work. And guess what. At last I succeded. Did nothing, played guitar for quite sometime. was able to get to a 140 bpm on chromatics. Now that is some improvement considering the fact that 120 was quite screechy on my fingers.
Even today was kinda boring. My idea of a perfect leave schdule is just about 3 days including the weekend if wanna just stay back home.
I know that I havent been blogging for quite some time now but its just that there is not much excitement in life these days Same old rock and roll at work, drinkin on the weekens and chillin at home. What do I write about then. As far as the music wandered thing that I was doin previously, that needs some time and more than anything else, it need patience and creativity. And both these things are gapp marofying these days. Whatever it might be, will try to stay on track.
Off late there are a lot of people asking review about the Compaq 3228au( its the one that I use). I wanna tell anyone searchng for this model that this is one of the best one can have for a price something like 33 grand. I you wanna know more about this then I have one of the posts about the full review of the laptop in my earlier technology posts. Got through them and generate some traffic for me but pointing a link from your blog or ur site. That way I would be able to get the message to a larger group of people.
It is 1:30 am now and I still cant figure out what to do. Want to play the guitar but my mom is asleep in the front room as she sleep like a hen. I shoouldnt even breather to avoid waking her up. Lets see what the nite has in store for me.
My personal recommendation on the best music player software available today
Jun 30th
Ok, So I must have tried at least 15 music players till date including ones like Winamp, Media Player, Music Match Jukebox, Sonique, iTunes, Media Monkey, Media Player Classic and many more that I dont even remember now. But after this open source keeda cought up with me, I wanted to see what would the area of music have in store for us in this open source environment. Been to some forums, read a lotta reviews, downloaded a lotta them, screwed up my sys several times. I wanted all that a media player can offer in a small package. So lets see what factors I have concluded on.
1. I wanted to have something relatively very small. Maybe just about 5 mb to the max of an installation package. In this category, there were two interesting candidates. The first is media player classic that comes as package with K-lite mega codec pack and all the audio codecs that one would ever need. The next one is Foobar that has always been my favourite. Media player classic as a software takes a very small place to install. Just about 2 mb. Whereas foobar comes as just a 1.6 mb installation. It beats most of the players in all aspects. Even when playing quite a lengthy playlist, foobar takes just about 1.7 mb of memory which is one of the biggest credits of player.
2. The next criteria is the interface and the ease of use. In this, I would nominate Winamp and Foobar. Winamp has always had the best and the easiest interface ever made. Foobar has also taken some inspiration from this and placed most essentials controls in the first window. Even Foobar has an edge over Winamp cos, it uses no skinning( which means faster load times), and basic windows concept. It just blows out all the other players when it comes to inteface. The player can be resized to just as a sidebar for easy accesibility.
3. When it comes to file type support, Winamp, Foobar and Media Monkey are the ones that dominate my list. Winamp as evolved over years and supporting all the file types that one might encode in. But i found that sometimes it fails to play a few file types if they are not encoded properly in a known file type. Foobar takes the lead here and supports almost all the file types as Winamp and plays allthe file types with ease. Media monkey on the other hand plays most of the formats as foobar but fails to play M4A. This is a drawback as some of the music from my ipod are in .m4a format.
4. Library management which might be something that some people do. But it surely is an important thing to some people. The heirarchy of my preference for library management would be Media monkey, Winamp and then Foobar. Media Monkey has by far the best way to manage the library. You can manage it as based on id3 tags or as disc navigation. Foobar on the other has a really simple interface and quick playing. Winamp has been the same over years and actually serves the purpose.
5. Device Support – Here Media Monkey, beats the competition. It has by far the best friendship with all the version of ipods. In fact you can add files into and ipod using this as well as copy them back to your computer. Winamp has a native support for ipod and is good just for playing. Foobar has abs no support for devices.
6. Visualizations, Plugins:- Winamp is the leader of this area. It has the biggest library of visualizations and plugins that I have ever seen. Foobar on the other hand as good ASIO plugin if you have a card that supports ASIO. I use foobar cos I have a creative sound blaster that supports ASIO.
There are a lot of other features that can be discussed but if we do that, the list would never end. My conclusion are that if you are looking of a small, nifty and advanced player, then Foobar is the one for you. If you are a huge music enthusiast with a realllly huge library, then Media Monkey is the best for you. And if you want so decent o/p of your comp with some visual bling with sking and visualizations, then Winamp is the one for you. So go ahead and download the one that suits your needs.
Leave a comment if you need more info on music playing software as I believe I have done quite some research on them.
