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October 30, 2005
Bayville Haunted FireHouse
Tonight we head out to our annual Trek to The Bayville Haunted Fire House
Those who have never experienced this... You should! it's a volunteer effort by The Bayville Fire Company.
Cost is $10.00 and it goes to supporting the local fire company. The wait is long, but well worth it. They really do a great job of making a scary haunted house. Where else can you donate $10.00 and be entertained at the same time?
Posted by Me at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2005
Van Helsing's Curse
This eve Tricia and I went to see Van Helsing's Curse. Tricia had suggested it about a week ago thinking I would like it.
I navigated over to Van Helsing's Curse website and after a painful "flash splash" page got to the core.. The music. After first it sounded good, then It sounded great. it seemed more progressive then a normal halloween type music event. Interesting violin overlays and symphonic sound. It intrigued me.
I went to J&R music world thereafter to pick up a CD, they did not have any. Instead I picked up Mike and the Mechanics Greatest Hits and Disturbed Ten Thousand Fists. Eh the prices were right.
I bought tickets at the last possible minute online from clicknprinttickets.com. I've noticed there are a number of ticket alternatives recently. This is a good thing. Someone's gotta combat Ticket Raper. This site had a unique method of allowing you to pinpoint a seat. The service charge was only $3.00 a ticket. Seemed fair enough.
The show was at The Patchogue Theatre For the Performing Arts in Long Island. It's out there, but not totally inaccessible if you drive. It reminds me a bit of the Wintergarden & The Beacon. We had seats all the way in the back in the balcony (by choice) and it was still good enough.
So this is a Dee Snider sponsored event, I thought, Must have some level of quality. Upon starting up I see what I thought was a familiar face.. I lean over to Tricia.. "Key... Is that Mark Wood?" My Excitement grew. After l realized this. This just made the experience 100 times better. Not to put the rest of the excellent musicans down, It's just that I love Mark Wood's playing. (by the way, click on over to Mark Wood's site, you have to see the opening flash presentation. it's a gas).
The intention behind Oculus Infernum is a story (which was is narrated by Snider) with words, sound effects and music. Intentions are to have a traveling stage show complete with live musicians, costumes and special effects. ALA TSO. The basic premise of Oculus Infernum entails some sort of entity that has touched down and is wreaking havoc, a descendant of Van Helsing (of Dracula fame, as if you didn't know) is then brought forth to help put an end to the bloodshed. Frankly, the narration was the weakest part. While I sug Snider's narration and I feel that it lends a thematic feel to the show, it was hard to follow, probably due to the volume of narration compared to the music. We found ourselves paying more attention to the music. I bet if there were some form of acting or play on the stage it would fill out the storyline better. There is always room for growth.
So as the show progressed I switched from observant to participant. The music is Rocking moving metal intermixed with violins, keys, errie chorus and Dee Snider as MC telling a story. Tricia leaned over and said, "Hey, it's like a Halloween version of Trans Siberian Orchestra!" She was right. We missed a bunch of the story, However I picked up a CD and will check it out in more detail. The music itself is wonderful. There are elements of familiarity that seemed to be borrowed yet redone with flair. I heard pieces of Tubular Bells and Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath" number. The choral arrangements during this number were wonderful.
The CD itself features 10 tracks and as the press release states, features an 18-piece orchestra. Featured tracks include a reworking of such horror classics as the theme to The Omen and the too often reworked Tubular Bells from The Exorcist. In addition,there are quite a few spooky classical pieces on display that have been reworked as well along with Black Sabbath's self titled song, Black Sabbath. Each of the ten tracks blend beautifully together with smooth transitions, and like any well-developed concept album, each track works independently or as a whole.
Posted by Me at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005
Jamiroquai - 70's Funk for the New Age
I saw Jamiroquai Live last night. Although I'm not a big fan, the chance presented itself to see them at a fair price so we went.
The show was at the Nokia Theatre on 44th St/7th Ave in Manhattan. It was a rainy nasty eve that just got better and better as the night went on. First off, the Venue reminds me a bit of Earthlink Live (atlhough not the crowd). it has a deeper pit for the state and takes on a few levels, with the back seating in a stadium arrangement.
As we take the long stairs deep down into the concert hall I hear Pink Floyd and think.. Oh this is going to be a fun night ;)
We entered the venue, grab some seats behind he mixing board and begin to listen to the house music.
It gets a little worse when we hear this awful hacking cough behind us, so we get up and move. God knows you don't want to hear that or be gettng coughed on all night.
So later in the eve, some live DJ's come out and start to do it up with Regge. I must say. This is not my thing. In fact I found it a bit annoying and literally went to sleep. It just did not fit and the crowd was barely into it. I was pleased when they finally finished and the house music came back on. This time with a vengence. Pumping newer disco that had the crowd going.. OK, It's warming up in here now!
After a long intro (around 9pm) the Band comes out and the crowd is on fire.
Let me tell you something, When they get pumping, this band Rocks.
Jamiroquai reminds me of the older 70's style funk and fusion, but for a modern age. Many of the sounds, instrumentation, vocals and backup singers all feel of that era, yet it has modern overtones. I kept feeling a bit of Jeff Beck, Jazz, 70s Rock & Fusion. A few things I love about this band. The funk, Strong moving bass lines.. How can you not mov to it, Solid Drumming and Percussion (although at times you could not hear the percussionist), Electric keys to die for. (containing all the classic electric piano sounds mixed in with analog synths of the age). Vocal harmonies that fit and move you.
Jason Kay as a front man is spectacular. He's all over the stage, With a presence that keeps you focused. The crowd loves him and he deserves it. It's a bit funny how his talking voice is one way and his singing voice is another, Yet I found no flaws in either. A spectacular performance.
I loved everything about this show and I think I'm now a fan.
I owned one CD by them (A Funk Odyssey) and now I think I'll own more.
Hmmm...What to get next?
Posted by Me at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2005
DOOM ! ! !
The Movie
Synopsis: In the year 2145, an experiment on a remote planet goes horribly wrong. A group of marines lead by John Grimm are sent to face a terrifying monster and a dark, disturbing future.
The Deal: This movie rocked! If you are a fan of the game then this movie will bring back all the old feelings of the game and then some. Truth be told, this is a classic zombie style movie (ala Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil) with the elements and feelings of the game. It can be a bit gory at times, but it's also riventing. Some elements reminded me of Resident Evil (madmen experiments), Others of Dawn of The Dead (The zombies walk and eat) and still others of Total Recall. (An ancient cilvilization discovered, Interesting notion on space travel).
What I liked: Riveting SCIFI Suspense, The space element, the zombie element, Action Galore (or is that action a gore?) Even more so there is a segment of the movie where you actually feel like you are in the game. I found this to be an interesting aspect. It actually made me giggle and get the urge to go play the game. The sound effects were good. An interesting aspect that brought back memories was the sound of the radio's and chatter back and forth. Totally reminded me of quake II. . There are more elements I would like to post, but I do not want to spoil it for anyone.
What I didn't like: Can't think of anything I didn't like. I would have liked it more if they used some of the quake II music. I like the quake II music so much I made my own CD out of it. Don't get me wrong The music in itself was good. It was going for most of the time and provided the eerie background needed for this movie. I think I would have liked seeing some more of the other monsters.
Still an enjoyable horror game movie flick. Should have come out much earlier.
Posted by Me at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2005
Vmware Player FREE!
OK this has to be one of the cooler things I've heard about recently.
Vmware has released something called the VMware Player. Better yet. It's FREE!
This product lets you play or run pre-created virtualized operating systems.
Part of this makes me wonder.. What's the catch?
Frankly, I'll still buy the Workstation product and keep running it.
I depend on it so much.
Expecially since my windows machine died last year.
Yep, I've been running 3 virtual windows machines in my Dual Xeon LInux workhorse. In some sense, it saves me power and all the maintance chores. OK so I don't have full Multimedia and mind blowing graphics, Then again.. I'm programming through a telnet session, so.. Who needs them LOL.
Check it out.
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
Posted by Me at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
Kuro-Box
Buffalo Kuro Box
I've recently been intrigued by the amount and variety of embedded linux devices. Upon looking for information regarding the roku soundbridge and slimdevices squeezebox I stumbled onto a new scene. Hacking the embedded Linux NAS devices. It seems people are hacing into these devices, upgrading/altering them to do more then the initial intent. Not only can these devices be a NAS server, but they can be more advanced music servers. With the newer downstream hardware clients out, there is a need for more advanced servers. It sure is great to have a server use the very basic SMB file access mechanism, yet not everone designs thier systems around that. The audiotron was one of the first mainstream products. Yes I owned one, but quickly felt it's limitiation on 10,000 MP3's (I have 40,000). I sure wish they had opened sourced it as it the audiotron was one of the best hardware user interface I've seen. So, during the search I've come across 2 interesting devices. Buffalo's Linkstation and Cisco/Linksys's NSLU2. If you know me, I got both to play around with.
Friday night my Kuro-Box arrived and I got to hack it all weekend (sorry trish).
Let me tell you this, It's a pretty cool box for the price. All you do is add a 3.5" hard drive of your choice. Boot up a special way, set up partitions, format, FTP an image and you are done.
It's a full linux environment on the Power PC. 128M Ram, network adapter, 2 USB ports in a self contained box the size of a small toaster. Even the power cord is attached.
It took a while to get this unit going. Although there used to be alot of information out there, the main site that had it was hacked and ruined due to a security flaw in phpBB. *sigh*.
In any case there is a Wiki that has alot of information here http://www.kurobox.com
Once the images/zips/ipkg's were installed I had a full gcc environment to put anything I had the source code for on the box.
I quickly installed, all the core GNU utilties, SSH, RSYNC, NAGIOS and a few others.
Imporant for me was the ability to use this as an offload device for my main linux workstations.
I then decided to offload my network monitoring to the lil guy.
I also added MT-DAAPD/ so it could be an itunes server for the ROKU SoundBridge and a Samba server for the ROKU HD1000. Now I can access segments of my music when I am doing work on my file server.
Kuro Box Pretends to be Toaster
It's a handly lil toaster sized box to have around as you can attach USB hard drives to it for more offline storage.
I even have a Tritton external USB with a card reader that was accesible.
So for the $200 + hard drive investment I have a tiny lil linux box capable of many services.
Something to really consider these days.
Next up is playing with the NSLU2 and getting a complete NAGIOS in a box environment running from a Compact Flash or 2.5" USB/IDE drive.
I'm also considering the addition of USB audio and festival to have a vocal alert system for NAGIOS. This is something I have today, but would sure love to move it off my linux box and onto an offboard box.
I have some gallery pictures of the device in the extended entry if anyone is interested.
You can also read alot more detail about this device on Tom's Networking Page
RESOURCES
KuroBox Wiki
Penguin PC Article
Tom's Hardware Article
Another Informative Wiki
Engadget Article
The Technologist Corner Part 1
The Technologist Corner Part 2
The Technologist Corner Part 3
Posted by Me at 11:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 13, 2005
Roku M2000
Roku SoundBridge. M2000
So, I ended up going with A Roku Soundbridge instead of the Squeezebox2.
I really bought the puppy mainly as a remote notification console.
Yes, as silly as it sounds, I thought it cool to have a couple of these around the house so specific alerts from my computing environment could post messages.
BTW, It plays music too! so a second use was for music, mainly as a client to an Shotcast/ICECAST jukebox server I plan to set up for Seismic Radio.
I really miss my audiotron. It's too bad Turtle Beach did not manage it well.
Had they open sourced the hardware, it would have sold like crazy.
That dam WinCE hurt them.
Don't get me wrong, they were very responsive in feature additions, but they also limited thier market too.
I believe it would stil be selling today if they opened sourced the hardware.
Linux on that hardware would have provided life way beyond what thier developers dreamed of.
After seeing the market with Hacked NSLU2's, Kuro Boxes, WRTG54's, Roku's photobridge & soundbride, peop[le should really consider where things are going.
Roku did the right thing by allowing such interconnectivity with techies.
In any case, I bought one, tested it, put it on top of my 21" monitor, then turned around and bought another for the living room.
Normal retail is $399, My price point for these was $300 each. When I found an eBay seller making them available at $279 +$20 shipping I jumped on it.
It's going to take a bit of programming to write to the screen.
It allows simple telnet access to write in 5 different fonts all over the screen.
Pretty slick.
I just have to integrate it with my alert system.
Right now the alert system is based on a Voice Synthesis application called Festival.
A simple mail message to an address and the subject is extracted and sent to the speech synthesizer.
I also have this tied in externally to an alert mailbox that is queried via IMAP.
Once everything is done, it will display the alerts to the remote consoles around the house.
All wireless too.
As I mentioned, it plays music too!
It's not as simple to implement as the HD1000/Photobridge, but it's small, highly portable, ver visible and a workable solution for remote MP3 library access.
Supposedly it works with slimserver, however I could not get it to work right.
Slimserver sort of sucks anyway.
It's a great idea, but the implementation is in perl (of which I love) and starts to bog when your library gets large.
I expect to get it to work with slimserver in the future, although it looks as though Roku does not plan to offer future support.
Roku supports the UPnP AV interface. It can also support iTunes and WMC.
I had to install some server software mt-daapd to allow access and once done it worked like a charm. A lot of people on the boards balked at having to install server software, even I was a bit turned off by it. After I thought about it, it would either be a samba server or a daapd server so it became moot.
There is an issue with the mt-daapd implementation. It uses the file's inode as a key in a GDBM file.
Also it can only access one directory at the current time.
Although you could use symlinks to build a spanning tree, the single inode key will cause problems when two files on different filesystems have matching inodes.
I may have to hack at it.
We'll see what the future brings.
Posted by Me at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2005
Unix Programmers
Ran into this one today!
Posted by Me at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 07, 2005
Seismic Radio Forum Now Up
For those missing PM/X and PM/Pub, I had Neils BB software installed for a while on seismic
I updated the front page for more visible links.
You may now visit us there. http://www.seismicradio.com/
Posted by Me at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Riverside - Out Of Myself
Riverside Out of Myself
So, I'm a lil late to the game in regards to this CD. It's been out for quite a while, yet I've been on Hiatus with my music... Now comes the good part... All fo the music I have not heard in 9 months seems fresh. w00t.
I can't stop playing this particular CD. It has all sorts of styles I love.
It borders on Rock, Ambient Rock, New Age. It is Dark, Moody, Atmospheric, Emotional, Passionate and heavy at strategic points. There's a certain point of growling where I can totally agree with it and feel it myself. This CD touched me deeply.
Influences seem to be Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Anathema, and Pink Floyd with a sound that encompasses prog, psychedelia, metal and even alternative rock. Yet I also hear a bit of Queensryche with it's whispring, narrative aproach alongside the external ambient soundclips. I also feel alot of Paul Speer and Interesting flowing bass lines. If you like this CD you may like the Rockenfield & Speer CD.
Highly recommended mood music.
Posted by Me at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 03, 2005
Hacking the midnight oil
For those whom have not heard from me, I've been pretty dam busy hacking the midnight oil.
Dealing with issues on my consulting gig and also trying to work on the http://www.seismicradio.com/
That's taking a bit of work testing out software, hacking it and planning a strategy for integration with the DJ's and the eggdrop IRC radiobot.
So far I've been working with the http://www.slimdevices.com/ slim server and a software emulator slimp3lave/ for the hardware. I had to modify the source and get a few support programs working (mainly Madplay).
(Now to get the plugins working so the DJ's can stop and start the puppy.)
I'm considering the purchase of external players as this has the cool slick VFD display of the current song. It also affords me the abiliy to write alert messages to the screen.
Roku M1000/M2000 Soundbridge
Who knows I may get an M2000 for the living room just for remote screen alerts!!!
The slimserver is nice, however it's ALL in perl and takes a big foot print.
Futhermore it leaves too much interface control in the program.
Ths soundbridge is cool too, it uses an iTunes interface, UPnP/AV or a slimserver.
I'm still considering the globecom jukebox with mpg123 due to it's web interface along with mySQL.
This would allow the seismic DJ's to queue songs in under thier control.
Ahh , still much work to be done.
Posted by Me at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)