Archive for the 'Technology' Category

dead headphonist

Virtual File Systems & FTP

Published
by
dead headphonist
on July 27, 2007
in Technology
. 0 Comments

I’m excited. I’ve been trying to tackle the problem of providing a near-online storage solution for an application that stores its data in a very specific data structure and saves it via FTP. Sure… there are plenty of applications out there that will automate this for and leave tidy little pointers on the real file system so your application is none the wiser.

My budget, unfortunately, is not such that I could take that approach.

What I found is an FTP server from a company called Gene6 that provides the ability to create a virtual file system (VFS) out of a merge of several directories. More info here : http://www.g6ftpserver.com/manuals/en/vfs.html .

Next, will come testing of the concept, but this should allow us to move (behind the scenes) data to a less expensive disk media and still have the files accessible by the application in the same “spot” they’ve always been in. This is really cool stuff and I hope it works the way I think it will. Stay tuned…

dead headphonist

back again

Published
by
dead headphonist
on November 8, 2006
in Music and Technology
. 0 Comments

I know that for a while, I was updating this regularly and I should probably get back to doing that now that I’m not totally consumed by my daily grind combined with trying to get some sleep and avoid the computer on the weekends.

So… carveout, for the most part, is over. Long story short, one month into a three month project, I was given three weeks to complete the entire project. We actually ended up pulling most of it off in just a titch over two weeks, which was a real attestment to the excellence of the team. It was a very interesting ride… certainly the single most challenging two week stretch of my career and to be honest, I really need a vacation now. More later on the whole carveout experience.

Life here in GR, other than the “door incident” of last week is actually pretty good. I’m coming down with some kind of creeping crud, but I’m not sure I really care. I’m just happy to be here right now and I’m scheming to try to find something awesome for Char and me to do this winter. We were kind of hoping to make it to a party that Beeko and Jackie are holding in December, but the money situation isn’t such that I can plunk down for plane tickets and such. Maybe a trip to somewhere tropical in January… that would be killer.

In the music realm, I’m back to “investing” in shiny round discs again and lately it seems I have a penchant for Indie Rock (once again). In that category, I’ve been listening to Yo La Tango, The Decemberists, Cursive, and Snow Patrol a lot lately. I’ve also picked up and highly recommend Beck’s latest, Gnarls Barkley, and the latest from Robert Randolph & The Family Band, which has to be one of the funkiest albums made in the last 25 years. In the category of “everyone else is buying it so why the hell not me”, I would recommend Outkast’s latest, Raconteurs, and Nelly Furtado’s latest, which is actually very very pleasant ear candy.

The Who has a new album out… I caught a quick listen to it at the book store the other night. After just a cursory listen, I’ll probably pick it up next, along with Weird Al’s latest, which I would have bought if Best Buy had anything other than the DualDisc version. I don’t generally buy DualDisc editions, mainly because of their reputation for being “broken”, which means that transferring to Minidisc or to my Archos is out of the picture (not good).

Speaking of Archos, I picked up an Archos AV 500 recently. It is quite a device, does everything I want and has no pesky DRM-laden software to mess with… basically, it shows up as a hard drive in Windows and you copy stuff to it. Simple, beautiful, functional. I love it and would recommend these devices to anyone.

Until next time, later all.

dead headphonist

everyonepointandlaugh.

Published
by
dead headphonist
on December 27, 2005
in Music and Technology
. 0 Comments

Char has a myspace.com site! Here’s the link. Nice pic, by the way. In case no one knows, the photo of the powerful and beautiful Charma is from the Pike’s Peak summit, some 14,000 feet above sea level. Anyway… I’ve added a link to her blog to the ‘le menu’ so all you creepy peeping Toms (and Bettys) can read someone else’s take on the insanity that is our life. I told her I could set her up with a blog on this site, but she’ll have no part in it. I guess myspace wins another battle.

We’re going to be headed to drop the Clarester with my brother and sister-in-law for the course of New Year’s. The party this year is located at a friends’ in Big Rapids, so we’ll be road warrior’ing it this week. Should be lots of fun.

Work on the staggercat.com has been continuing, though it’s slowed a bit. I think I’ve uploaded all of the initial music catalog, but I still need to create download links for it all. Matt, Tracy, and I have been working on trying to get together a list of topics that make sense. My guess is that the site will officially lauch with a full editing staff sometime around March. In the meantime, feel free to read my ramblings as I work to move some of the paper mess I have lying about into a permanent (and public) form.

I think I’ve decided that my personal blogging will continue here, for the time being. I like this format and I think the blend with the personal site as far as theme goes is important (at least to me). Besides, publishing something on staggercat.com is pretty involved. The software I use on eastowners.com is pretty simple.

Well… I’m off. Hope everyone had a lucrative and safe x-mas.

peace.

–bc

dead headphonist

Long time, no blog

Published
by
dead headphonist
on May 29, 2005
in Art, Music and Technology
. 0 Comments

Yes, yes… I know I’ve been deliquent in my blogging efforts of
late. Those of you who know me, know that I’m mostly busy, with a
lot of lazy. This being Memorial Day weekend, I have a bit of
time between shopping and World of Warcraft to write a bit of
prose. To be honest with you, however, only one thing inspired my
excursion into writing something non-meaniful on a website that no one
reads; Stevie Wonder has a new album due in June and I heard the new
single last night.

Click here to listen!

The track is called “So What the Fuss”. The album is due in
stores June 21st (some sites say the 14th, but Amazon lists it as the
21st) and yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be buying it on release
day. Apparently, it was supposed to be out already, but for
whatever reason, was pushed back. Anyway… that’s it.
Great excitement here in this little blog tonight.

Oh, and Al Green has a new album out. I bought it tonight and
haven’t had a chance to listen to it. I’ll update more after I
give it a couple of sessions. In the “music I’ve been listening
to a lot” category, I highly recommend Jack Johnson’s ‘In Between
Dreams’, Common’s ‘Be’, and Beck’s ‘Guero’.

In movies, we recently went to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,
which is highly recommended… a wierd, fun movie adapted from a weird,
fun book. This afternoon, we took Clare to see Madagascar, which
gets a nod of approval from both toddler and parents. A few weeks
ago, we took her to see Robots in IMAX, which was really cool. We
had already seen it in the normal theatre, but in IMAX it’s just so
much BIGGER. :) We’re -very- interested in the upcoming Tim
Burton/Johnny Depp creation, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which
is looking more and more interesting with every preview we see.
Burton has another film out this fall called Corpse Bride, stop-motion
animation ala Nightmare Before Christmas, also with Depp, which seems
most interesting.

Anyway… hope all is well with everyone who stops by to read another
installment of ‘My Boring Life’. Just kidding. Peace all.

dead headphonist

Mmm… 20" LCDs

Published
by
dead headphonist
on January 29, 2005
in Technology
. 0 Comments

It’s me again. This time with just a quick little “hey” and then I’m out of here. The UPS dude was kind enough to deliver Char and my 20″ LCD panels this last week! Mmm… they’re the 16ms pixel reset kind in the 20″ 1600×1200 variety. I’m waaaay excited. They are a beautiful addition and will help with the old vision. Everything looks wonderful and there is definitely going to be less eye strain from now on.

cya later. Hope all is well.

dead headphonist

Slowed to a crawl.

Published
by
dead headphonist
on January 25, 2005
in Alcohol, Music and Technology
. 0 Comments

I know… I know. The entries in this thing have slowed to a
crawl lately. Between playing WoW, work, and general homebound
things, there hasn’t been much time for musings on the subject of my
impending doom lately. Is that OK? :) Besides,
I’ve taken a different tact on it all and things are working out better
than expected. I guess that’s what they call learning.

As for life in general, all is well. I picked the guitar
back up last night and I’ll tell ya… not playing for 6 months makes
your fingers soft. Playing for any amount of time was a painful
ordeal. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like had I
picked up the bass. I need to get back into that groove.
Maybe I’ll get a method book and start over this time. I think
it’s my ADD that keeps me from following through on it, though.
It also keeps me from leveling my characters in WoW, because I’m always
wanting to play another character (I have about eight different ones
now). *shakes head*

Anyway… nothing new to report on the music front. I’ve just
been listening to things that I haven’t spent enough time with
lately… though I did pick up Cream’s Disraeli Gears and Camper Van
Beethoven’s New Roman Times, which is an excellent album and highly
recommended for those that like the disjointed and trippy.
Actually both albums pretty much fit that bill.

As for a beer report, we had an interesting beer made with pumpkin,
nutmeg, and cinnamon last week. The name of it escapes me at the
moment, but it was interesting; not sweet, very hoppy (bitter), and
only the aftertaste reminded one of pumpkin. It wasn’t aweful,
but I don’t think I’d purposefully seek it out again. We also had
an excellent Chardonnay last week from Mommessin. I picked it up
at GB Russo for the low low price of $4.98 and for a five-dollar bottle
of wine, it was wonderful. Here’s a link to a page with a picture
of the label, if you’re interested :
http://www.boissetamerica.com/products/ProductDetails.aspx?PrdId=276

dead headphonist

the LAN party

Published
by
dead headphonist
on November 22, 2004
in Annoucements and Technology
. 0 Comments

Doug’s LAN party was a huge success and we had a blast! There will, no doubt, be some pictures available somewhere at some point. Char and I spent most of Sunday driving to/from Pt Huron to pick Clare up and bring her back. Now I just have to go home this evening and put all my crap back together.

Nothing much else to report. This weekend is the annual Char & Brad party. Get yer party hats on, ya’ll! Oh, right… there’s now a Geeks List hosted here. Send me mail if you want to be included in the noise or go to https://mailgw.funkcoaster.com/dada to sign your damned self up (it’s called ‘TheLIST’ if you’re too slow to figure that out). Don’t ask for web-based forums… ain’t gonna happen, but there is an rss feed for it.