Paul Kimbrel's Musing

Okay, I’ve only had it for a few hours (I got it for my birthday today - and yes, my birthday is really on Tuesday), but I have to say a few words on this thing.

IT ROCKS!

Ok. A few more words. It’s a BlueRay player. That’s nice. But it also allows me to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but no other player would actually let me do it…

I hate letter boxing. We have a 16:9 TV that we got so that we didn’t have to look at letter boxing, but it seems that most wide screen movies are panamorphic, which still letter boxes on a 16:9 screen. *sigh*. Add to that the fact that we unwittingly got a plasma TV (it looked sharper to us), but they’re phosphorous based, so letter boxing can cause burn-in. *double sigh*.

Neato feature #1: Zoom

I’m sure other players have this, but this is the first I’ve ever had. I can zoom in on the picture and get rid of the letter boxing! Sure, it cuts off the left and right, but so far it’s not been too bad. And the picture is still great! It’s much better than the zooming I’ve done to going from 4:3 to 16:9 (which just doesn’t work right).

Neato feature #2: Netflix Streaming

This box can hook up to your Netflix account and stream the “Watch It Now” movies. The movie selection is a bit lite compared to the mail-order stuff, but it’s still a good selection. It streams over the Internet looks fantastic. It’s not BlueRay level, but better than streaming Hulu over my media computer. We streamed “National Treasure 2″ and it stopped once about 30 minutes in, but it picked up and we haven’t had an issue since. We streamed a few other movies and it does great.

We watched “Hello, Dolly!” and it looked fantastic and didn’t miss a beat. It was kinda fun when the “Barnaby” song (whatever it’s called) came on. It’s the tune they used on “Wall-E”. Ben whipped around like “Huh? I’ve heard that before!” The other kids came running in like bugs to a zapper. They loved it. I loved watching Ben dance around like the people on the movie.

Thank you Tonya!

Anyhow… I like this thing. I like it a lot. Oh, and Randy… the streaming is just fine with Verizon…

A little over 6 years ago, we were remodeling our living room. In a moment of stupidity I decided to put some drywall up myself. While trying to wrestle a sheet up onto the wall, I pulled just about every muscle in my back laying me out for a few days.

About the 3rd day, Tonya headed out for a doctor’s appointment and I had enough pain killers in me to allow me to wander into the studio. I decided I would write Tonya a song for her birthday that year. I sat down and wrote a song called “All I Need.” As I was preparing to do the vocals, our power went out - a rather frightening event when your in a sealed, sound proof room with the door closed. It got my attention and I pulled off the headphones. The lights immediately came on and the phone rang… it was Tonya announcing she was pregnant with our first son (Clayton).

That day the song took on new meaning for me as we entered into a new phase of our life together. It came to represent a reminder of how God, in his wisdom, left a little hole in my life unfulfilled that could only be filled with Tonya’s love.

It also needed a guitar solo.

*sigh* I’m not soloist. I’m really not that great of a guitar player. I play well enough to get other guys going, but this song had me playing the whole deal. I tried getting a few guys to help me out, but no one was really getting the feel of the song. I tried myself and even kept a small guitar part from my endeavor (the first “solo” in the song). However, the main solo kept the song from being declared “finished.”

6 years later, Steve Smith has completed this song. He came in tonight and recorded a fantastic solo that fits the feel and mood of the song and really adds an elegant flare.

I can finally say that after 6 years, “All I Need” is all done.

All I Need (mp3)

Now I just need to get the guitar solo done for “Where Are You Now”…

I was thinking the other day about a song I heard when I was growing up… Greg X. Volz’s, “The River Is Rising” (Greg being of the Petra fame). My sister, Amy, had this album (the song was the title of the album) on tape and I think we pretty much wore the tape thin. We loved this album tremendously and it became pretty much a part of our musical DNA.

Well, I decided to Google Mr. Volz and see what was out there. While the legality of the posted material is somewhat questionable, I did manage to find the entire album (though a very low quality version) out on YouTube. No video - just a scanned shot of the album cover - and the audio.

Wow.

Now, it came out in 1986, and it really sounds like it came out in 1986, but it was pretty progressive for Christian music of its day. Heck, there were guitar solos (gasp)! But what struck me about it was how it literally transported me back-in-time to those trips in the car when Amy and I used a headphone splitter to listen to Petra, Volz, DeGarmo and Key, U2, and even Lead Zepplin (oooooooh…).

The thing that struck me about Volz (and the other music we listened to), was the hook. That part of the music that sucked you in and held you… The thing that identified the songs in 2 measures or less.

It also showed me a glimpse into how I hear music and how much of what I write was influenced by these albums. When I work on a song, it starts from a base of something floating around in my head. Given my limited experience, the net result generally never sounds like what I’m hearing in my head. But the songs I hear and the songs I work out have a root hook that defines them no matter how they turn out.

After hearing that album again after all these years, I realized that a lot of those hooks started there and in the other albums we listened to. They’re not the same, but they certainly have some striking similarities. Even after all these years, I’ve forgotten in my conscious memory most of that music, but they’re all a part of my being - my DNA.

It makes me think about the music my boys’ are listening to. My oldest, Clayton, is somewhat infatuated with the music of Chris Tomlin. Tonya put a CD together of his music from her iTunes account and it gets some serious rotation in the van. The other day, he came to her and said, “Mom, I need to hear some good music” (referencing our Tomlin CD). Seeing as though it was better than hearing him fight with his brother, she quickly obliged. She asked him if he wanted to listen to it in the living room or on the porch. He said, “The porch.”

That boy… 5 years old… sat out there on the porch swing for 45 minutes by his own will and just listened to the music.

Now, I’m not sure what Mr. Tomlin’s influences were, but I’d be shocked if Petra and friends weren’t somehow a part. If not, they’d have to be at least 2 or 3 degrees removed. And I know Tomlin’s music will influence my son as he brings his own music to life. I find it fascinating how the torch gets passed from one generation to the next, each singing their own song, but building those songs from the roots of their elders.

How do you take down an armed gunman from the KGB? Duct tape over the eyes from behind! I mean… what would you do?

Wow. I really blew it on that last post. I even proof read it a few times. But it was just bad. Bad, bad, bad. I mixed up you’re and your. I mixed up buy and by. I mixed up site and sight. I got the plurality of my fingers wrong (thankfully I do have more than one). I just plain butchered a number of sentences (and there weren’t many to butcher).

I hate to do this, but I must give it an…

F

You can’t say you can’t do something when you read a story like this… a 78 year old man loses his sight, and then goes on to bowl a perfect game:

Blind Bowler Scores Perfect Game

It reminds me of what my friend, Steve, who taught me guitar basics, always told me… “Don’t tell me you can’t play! If I can teach a special-needs kid to play… YOU can play.” That’s paraphrased, by the way. The point was… I kept saying my fingers were too fat. He didn’t buy it. I’m glad he didn’t.

[edit]And apparently my problem is… I can’t tell the difference between your and you’re. Ugh.[/edit]

Okay… big question to you iTunes weenies… why iTunes? In my quest for a pure Open Source system, I got stuck on iTunes since that’s been my sole source to buy digital music. But I’ve never liked the iTunes interface and hated that I couldn’t take my music to any computer and play it (especially since I have a computer in just about every room of my home).

Enter Amazon.

I just used the Amazon MP3 service. Same price as iTunes… and I got high quality MP3 files that I was able to put on my internal file server and use on all my computers… including my soon-to-be-installed Linux desktop. It appears that Amazon, unlike Apple, actually wrote a Linux client for their service.

Niiiiiiiice…

I’m currently enjoying The Choir’s, O How The Might Have Fallen. As MP3’s. Purchased from Amazon.

I like Windows XP. I really do. But Microsoft seems bent on ditching a decent operating system for Vista despite calls from them to be rational. I’ve talked to several people about their Vista experience and only two have had favorable results. And, of course, they have good reason - they both have Quad Processor, 2thz CPU, 200gig ram, 50 gig video monstrosities of machines. I believe their lights dim when they turn their respective machines on. Okay, slight exaggeration, but not much.

I really, really don’t want to spend a zillion dollars on new machines, plus whatever they want for a semi-professional version Vista, just because Microsoft wants pretty windows that zip around when you switch applications. And on top of all that, now all my MS Window weeny friends are buying macs. Hmmmmm… more hardware.

Well, I’ve decided to take the Open Source plunge again and try Linux on the desktop. My studio computer will still be stuck in XP land, but it took me 5 years to upgrade it from Windows 98, so I’ve got a few good years on it, yet.

My laptop, on the other hand, is my development and office productivity computer. That’s where I intend to switch to Linux. So I’ve made a list of things I need to do. These are MS-centric programs and behaviors that need to either change or be addressed before I can go Linux on my laptop. My goal? 100% free software.

1. MS Office - I’ll admit it. I like Office. It just works. Everyone else uses it. I use it at work. Open Office has made some great strides recently and I’ll have to see if it cuts the mustard for me. I know people have MS Office working under Linux, but my goal is 100% free software.
2. MS Outlook - I’ll admit this, too. I like Outlook. Not Outlook express - the full Outlook. It’s the perfect PIM in my mind… and it synchronizes well with my PDA. I’ve used Gnome’s Evolution, but I always seemed to have issues with it. I can’t remember why. I’ll either try it, or I’ll try Mozilla’s new Lightning project. It’s being funded by Open Office and looks a little nicer. Plus, I think I can synchronize with Google Calendar with it.
3. Secure USB Key - this I actually have working on free software, though I haven’t gotten it running under Linux, yet. I don’t think that will be an issue
4. Development - I use Eclipse to do my development, so hopefully that will be a non-issue. I do recall having problems getting my PHP extensions working under Debian, but that was almost 4 years ago.
5. PDF’s - My laptop actually came with a paid license to Adobe Acrobat. I don’t actually use it (or know what it does for that matter), but I do use the PDF “printer” feature that lets me “print” to a PDF. I use that to send invoices to my clients. It appears that Open Office has the ability to actually “Save As” to a PDF format, so hopefully that will come through for me.
6. DOS Box - Yea, I got on this retro kick and started playing old video games from my youth. Most of the shareware stuff from 3D Realms (formerly Apogee) is still for-pay, but things are a lot cheaper. One game I really liked was Crystal Caves (yea, that dates me). It used to be $35+ to buy the whole set. Now I can downloaded it for $10. I bought it. I love it. I want to keep using it. DOS Box is an excellent DOS emulator that emulates the old machines DOS would run on as well as the operating system. All the old games, Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem… even Wolfenstein 3D, all work very well under Dos Box - even the sound. I see there’s a version for Linux… hopefully it will work.
7. WinAmp - I have all my MP3’s on my laptop. I’m moving them to a secure file server that’s inside my firewall to free them from my laptop, but I need a decent media player. Not just a media player. A good media player. I like WinAmp. I use WinAmp. Heck, I paid for WinAmp. I will miss WinAmp. So far, all the media players I’ve used in Linux have sucked eggs. Hopefully that’s changed.
8. Imaging Tools - Ah, the bane of Linux. Before someone mentions the Gimp - please know that I detest the Gimp. What a great idea that’s never been implemented right. I’m serious. I want to draw and manipulate my pictures with a graphing tool - not a scripting tool. I know the Gimp has a lot of power, but it’s just not very accessible from the GUI. I haven’t used the Gimp in years, so maybe it’s better, but I’m not holding my breath.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably have more as time goes on. My goal is to go over my laptop with a fine toothed comb to back up all my data and find what programs I have lurking about that I never use but can’t live without. I’ve tried a few Live CD’s of Ubuntu (and friends), but I’m having a horrible time getting my wireless controller working. That’s apparently been a standard issue for Linux users for a while. If I can’t get it working, I’ll be stuck.

A while ago, my wife bought me a SanDisk Cruiser 4GB USB flash drive. The thing works pretty well, but for encryption, it uses SanDisk’s proprietary U3 software. U3 is nice and all, but it locked me into the Windows platform and I always seemed to have issues getting it to run on machines that I hadn’t already tooled around with.

I’ve been considering moving off the Windows platform on my development laptop, but the two things that have kept me on Windows was the Office suite (believe it or not… I like it) and the U3 software. I started looking around at other secure USB flash drives to see if anything would work with Linux and I couldn’t really find anything pre-installed. But everyone pointed to an open-source software package called “TrueCrypt.”

I considered getting another flash drive and installing TrueCrypt on it as a second, more platform independent data solution. However, I got to thinking… Do I really use the U3 software? It has a sync feature that is nice, but you can only sync a profile to a single machine. So I didn’t use it - ever. I just copied my documents to the flash drive periodically and called it a sync! So I decided to ditch it.

Thankfully, SanDisk did something rare for a hardware manufacturer… they actually listened to their customers. They put an uninstaller for the U3 software that will remove the “secret” partition on the drive and free it up to act just like a standard flash drive.

So, I backed up my files, uninstalled U3, and installed TrueCrypt on it. REAL tough… you copy the files to the drive. Phew… tough.

I ran TrueCrypt. It works by creating a file on the unencrypted partition that acts as a data store for an encrypted partition. The TrueCrypt drivers then use that data store and de/encrypt data from/to that file in real time as you use the encrypted “drive”. Through some relatively easy menu options, I was able to set up a drive that automatically mounted when I fired up TrueCrypt from the USB drive. There’s an “autorun.inf” file on the drive, but it doesn’t seem to want to run. So I just created a batch file that ran the same command.

So, now, all I have to do is stick the drive in, let the unencrypted drive mount, then run the “start.bat” file that I created in the root. TrueCrypt asks for my password and another drive mounts with my encrypted data.

Niiiiiiiiice…

Next up… trying it with Linux.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about where I’m going with the Office suite, I’m looking at IBM’s Symphony. It’s basically a nice facade to OpenOffice.

And for those who know me, you know that I’m Outlook junkie. Yea, yea… don’t bug me about it. Hey, I can’t find any other package that integrates contacts, emails, and calendars as well as Outlook. Well, except for Evolution. I used Evolution a bit when I was trying the Linux desktop thing once before. I’ll have to give it another go. I did hear from someone that Thunderbird has a calendar plug-in. I’ll have to see how well it works. I mainly need something that I can sync with my PDA…

I’ll post more my Linux Desktop migration again as it progresses. My main drive is a slightly unfounded fear of Vista.

In what can be best described as an “Onion” article in real life, the good folks of London are padding their lampposts to prevent people from injuring themselves while texting on their cell phones.

Unreal.

Padding to Protect Pedestrians

I think everyone should be issued a helmet and a padded vest.