A view of time.
To all of our friends enjoying the Italian summer:
The GF and I are sorry we are not able to join you this year but trust you are enjoying the warm waters, great food, and excellent wine!
Thanks B&A for the post card! We are looking forward to plenty of photographs when you return. 
If you are experiencing video problems with Skype 2.5 software then make sure to check out the Skype Forum for the details on how to resolve the issue.
After upgrading to 2.5 I started seeing erratic behavior where video would sometimes not work incoming or outgoing. In my case, I was having issues where no one was able to see my video any more. Turns out that I was using the latest Direct X 9.0c software but others were not. After having all users upgrade to Direct X 9.0c everything started working again.
To check if you have Direct X 9.0c installed, go to the Start Menu and click on Run… Then type “dxdiag” and hit enter. You will be presented with this screen (I have marked the version field in red):
You can download and install the latest Direct X drivers here.
It seems that the default WordPress configuration for generating RSS 2.0 feeds is bogus. This is the case for both the entry and comment feeds. However, I fixed my feeds by editing the following files for WordPress:
Applying these fixes resulted in valid RSS feeds. I no longer see any errors when using the Feed Validator or when using Feed Demon to read the feeds.
Lately I have been improving the way I handle the launching of processes on various operating system, namely Windows and UNIX based operating systems. The following is my experience with the handling of proper process launching in Java.
Originally, I was using the java.lang.Runtime class but found that the java.lang.ProcessBuilder class is better. It provides added API that you don’t get with the Runtime class especially when it comes to setting up the executable, current working directory, and most importantly the system environment. Regardless, of what you use, the key is to obtain the system environment so you can manipulate it appropriately. Assuming you already had a ProcessBuilder object called “pb”, the code to obtain the environment is fairly simple:
Map env = pb.environment();
With the environment in hand you can perform many of the natural mapping functions on it. While this is great, you don’t get much control over the map, unfortunately. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to control the order of objects you put in the map or even take out? Nope, not allowed. In fact, when tracing in the debugger, you’ll see random behavior of objects being added to the map. This is unfortunate because let’s say you want the environment to be set up as follows:
APPS_HOME=c:/apps
JAVA_HOME=%APPS_HOME%/java
ANT_HOME=%APPS_HOME%/ant
PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%/bin;%ANT_HOME%/bin
Well, you might end up with something like this when the enviroment actually gets used in execution:
JAVA_HOME=%APPS_HOME%/java
ANT_HOME=%APPS_HOME%/ant
APPS_HOME=c:/apps
PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%/bin;%ANT_HOME%/bin
Obviously, as shown above, it doesn’t help to have the apps home set AFTER the keys that require it to be set first. The best solution is to ensure that all environment keys being set are purely independent (more on this later). Interestingly, the PATH key always appears last which is very handy as it guarantees that previously defined keys will be picked up properly (if being used in the PATH value).
OK, so that handles the problem of key order and resolution but not entirely. Why? Well, depends on how you want to add new key=value pairs to the environment. In my case, I opted to use XML to define my environment which could then be consumed by my Java code to create the environment I need for launching. The syntax of the XML is simple as I just define an element that accepts key and value attributes. The syntax for value attributes uses the Windows batch script syntax (as shown in the examples above). When it comes to Unix operating systems, a simple algorithm replaces the %% with ${} and semi-colons (;) with colons (:). So, for example, the example shown above written in UNIX syntax is:
APPS_HOME=c:/apps
JAVA_HOME=${APPS_HOME}/java
ANT_HOME=${APPS_HOME}/ant
PATH=${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${ANT_HOME}/bin
Of course, you wouldn’t be using Windows directories on a UNIX system but that is not the point of the example above. Other considerations to take into account prior to launching processes in Java:
Introduction
This post explains how to customize the icons of your web site and RSS feeds. Most web browsers support web sites that use customized icons to represent their sites. In Firefox, it is a blue ribbon (
) and for Internet Explorer it is a page with a blue ‘e’ on it (
). Here are the details:
Icon Specifications
For Firefox or Internet Explorer you just need an .ico file with the following specifications:
For RSS 2.0 feeds, you just need the following:
Examples
In truth, you can name your .ico file anything and have it located anywhere on your web server. However, it has been my experience to not deviate from the specs or you might have browser and feed reader issues. Here is the HTML code to use for all pages:
In order to create the .ico file, I used SnagIt since the SnagIt Editor that comes with the program allows for the saving of images as .ico files. For my RSS feed, I simply created a .gif file of the same image used for my .ico file. Then I added the following code to my RSS feed (since I am using WordPress, I added this to the wp-rss2.php file):
The problem with this is that my FeedDemon RSS reader does not seem to make use of the .gif file in my RSS feed but uses the favicon.ico in the web root of my web site instead. Not sure why this is but it is something to be considered.
Notes
Be patient when testing your newly built icons. I noticed that in both Firefox and IE that it took some time for the browsers to update the icon associated with the bookmark.
When creating .ico files, make sure to drag and drop them in your browser to see if they load properly. Behavior between what you see in your file explorer can differ than what is really being shown in your browser.
Resources
I found these sites to be helpful when figuring out how to make my own icon.
Added the following to my Firefox page:
I have been using blogging software (i.e. Blogger) since November of 2005. Over the past couple of days I have been converting all Blogger posts to WordPress. This is why all recent activity on this site will appear a bit misleading since the date stamps are all within the last couple of days. I could have chosen to preserve the original date stamps but I opted not to. All original posts have now been categorized (something I could never do before). In addition, I have made proper pages out of some of the more lengthy posts. This allows for easier reference and proper updating of information on those pages (which is generally the case).
Conversion complete!
Ever have a situation where a family member or friend was in need of technical assistance but you were both located miles apart? Well, there are many software solutions for this problem but I’m going to talk about and walk through setting up Remote Assistance that comes default with Windows XP. The catch is that one must have a Passport account and you must use Windows Messenger.
Getting Started
NOTE: You might need to reboot both machines when enabling Remote Assistance for the first time.
Using Remote Assistance
You will want to say yes to this prompt (as outlined in red above).
From this point forward the Aeonscope user has total control of the other user’s computer. When all assistance of the remote user’s machine is complete. One only needs to release control of the remote machine and then disconnect.
Introduction
This post is for anyone managing their personal MP3 collections and in need of better tooling or information that you might or might not have already discovered.
Getting Started
Here is what I use:
iTunes
Love it or hate it, it is still a great tool for working with your MP3s. To understand why, lets look at all the features it provides.
First, take control of iTunes by clicking on Edit–>Preferences from the main menu and turn off all automatic updating settings. I personally do not like it when software tries to be too clever. The following is a series of iTunes preference dialog screenshots (at least those of interest) along with additional notes (starting from the left tab to the right tab and with my iPod connected):
Nothing to note. The defaults are fine.
As shown above, the Music sub-tab of the iPod tab is the most interesting. The podcast, photos, contacts, and calendars sub-tabs are nothing too special. You can either opt to manually manage or have iTunes manage those settings. If you have Microsoft Outlook, I can see setting your Contacts and Calendar to automatically update. Otherwise, you can leave it as a manual setting and manage it yourself especially if you have a Palm device. For information on working with your Palm device I recommend reading the iPod manual for more information.
Nothing to note. The defaults are fine.
Nothing to note. The defaults are fine.
I think there are better ways of doing this than leaving iTunes in control. For example, setting up your own server or using Windows shared folders (for in-home use only). Of course, this all assumes you know how to do that. If not, then you have iTunes, of course.
Nothing to note. The defaults are fine.
There is a lot to say about this tab, so using the numbers in red in the screenshot above, here is the corresponding breakdown:
The Importing sub-tab of the Advanced tab needs a few remarks as shown here:
Notice that I have the import setting as “custom”. Here are my custom settings:
An MP3, after all, is a compressed format so there will be degradation of the original CD recording. The default settings are to record at a flat rate of 128kbps. I suggest upping it to 192kbps for a slightly better import. This assumes that you do not mind eating up just a little more hard drive space. I also suggest using a medium VBR as shown above. Recording in stereo at 44.100kHz is fine. Going any higher is beyond what you get from your CD by default.
iTunes Tips and Tricks
With iTunes configured, here are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind. First, however, I want to clarify the concepts of the “import” and “mp3 collection” folders mentioned earlier:
With this in mind, it is easy to keep the iTunes library (a.k.a imports) clean:
Keeping the library clean, allows you to simply drag-and-drop an entire folder structure or song into the library at any time for fix up. Then you can delete the library view when finished so it is clean for your next import or song fix up. For example, lets say I want to fix the genre of the “Alhambra” album by The Tea Party. Here is what I would do:
That is it.
MP3 Tag Studio
While iTunes is very handy for importing new music, correcting song information, managing your MP3 collection, and syncing with your iPod, it can not handle some finer details of song editing. For example, some MP3s run on forever with no sound. There is no need to eat up unnecessary hard drive space so why not fix it? This is where MP3 Tag Studio is your one and only tool for correcting these kinds of things.
There is much that could be explained when using MP3 Tag Studio but I am only going to point out two very useful tools: Trim MP3 and Repair MP3.
Lets say that we want to trim the X-Files Theme Song (14 X-Files Theme.mp3) from the The X-Files: The Album movie soundtrack. The original recording is 14 minutes and 13 seconds long but the actual song is only 3 minutes and 25 seconds long. So to trim the MP3 just launch MP3 Tag Studio and browse to the folder where the MP3 file is located and trim it setting the trim settings for 3:25 at the end of the song. Like so:
Just hit the Cut! button and you are done.
Well, almost. Since my song was in VBR format, the MP3 header information still thinks the song is 14 minutes and 13 seconds long. We do not want that so we must repair the header information. To do this just click on the repair tab, select the song (if not already selected) and hit Execute! button using the settings as shown here:
That is it.
Conclusion
So spend less time managing your MP3 files and more time enjoying what you have.
The following software programs can help capture thoughts and ideas in an organized manner for solving complex problems:
Both offer various ways of exporting captured content to other applications such as XML, PDF, HTML, etc.
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