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Software Search, Pt.2

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to my boss and asked to move forward on the software decision.  I had reduced the three choices to:
  1. ComputerEase
  2. Maxwell Systems
  3. Spectrum (Dexter & Chaney)
I thought a round of having each com back and pitch to department heads would be a logical next step.  I was surprised when I was asked just to make the decision and just bring on back.  I chose ComputerEase for its simple design, user security, ease of use and glowing reviews about support.  A demo was given to a couple of key employees and I was also sent to the user conference in Austin to do some last minute research/learning.  This morning I got the ball rolling on negotiations and I have a final proposal to give to Sam.  Once a check is written, it is just a matter of scheduling the set up.  I am looking forward to the many trials, obstacles and long hours to follow knowing the end result is a better system and putting me one step closer to having this department to myself.
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Ink – Film – 2009

I saw the movie Ink last night and I was blown away.  I’m not sure exactly what the formula was, but it really worked for me.  Written and directed by Jamin Winans this is his second full length feature, the movie is clearly an indie film with a budget around $250,000.  The characters remain in the same costume for the entire film, though I was surprised ho many extras they used.  A full synopsis can be read at 



The cinematography is a little jolting, but I think the director was trying to capture the feeling of the main character and the dissociation one feels between waking and sleep.  The music is spot on lending to the dreamy state of the film.  The film has a richness of characters and a universe that could be expanded, though I would hope it would center around completely different characters since the story has a very fulfilling conclusion.  I am a sucker for indie films anyway, but I was literally moved to tears by this one.  I highly recommend it.
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Mountains of Music!

I am finally organizing my music collection.  For many years I have just been ripping and downloading (legally of course) music and just letting Windows Media Player put it wherever.  At some point, I used Media Monkey to “auto-organize” it which put it into numerous folders.  I also used MusicBrainz Picard to tag some of the albums.  When I started, I guess they had not perfected tagging and the music libraries were still a work in progress.  Add to that a couple of PC transfers and you get 7,195 files for 41.8gb and this is *after* I have been working on it a bit.
To get started I needed a clear idea of what I wanted so the files would be consistent, slim down the space I am using and make it easier to find and sync what I want to listen to on my nifty pocket computer.  I decided the file name should be:

(Artist) – (Album) – (Track Number) – (Title).  

This makes a million subdirectories unnecessary, makes files organizing and searching easier and helps locate duplicates.  Though I rarely go to the file itself, but access it through a player, it still needs to be tidy.

I am using three programs for the whole process.  Media Player is adequate for ripping only.  I try to steer clear of Microsoft if I can on principal, but no one has made a player quite as simple.  The trouble is the tagging.  WMP wants to tag your songs automatically,  save the album art somewhere else and generally rename your collection without asking you.  I originally though it was doing a good job, but I have had to go back and repair much of the damage done

I am using Media Monkey for its more powerful organizing tools.  It has the ability to locate duplicate files by name, length, size and their e-signature.  I’m not real happy with the playback since it seems to have trouble quickly locating the files I want to play.  Though that may have something to do with all my organizing, WMP is having no trouble.  Also, the tagging in Media Monkey is funky.  It pulls up some really strange suggestions.

My preferred method has been to use MP3TAG to tag all the songs.  It uses MusicBrainz and Amazon databases for the album info and the tags include the album art which seems to stick.  So far, the process is going well and I am getting reconnected with my tunes.  It is great to hear some songs that flood me with old memories.  Of course, it has also given me the opportunity to weed out junk I don’t want or even remember ever liking.  I guess some of my wife’s stuff got in there. ;^)

Update:  After many hours updating music tags, I thought I would just go back through the collection and make sure the cds were all ripped.  Turns out, I was really picky when I did it the first time.  I have found at least half of the cds were not in my library.  Maybe I started when memory was tight or I was just being really choosy.  I don’t know, but I have been adding them in over the weekend.  It will be a little while, but I’ll have the entire collection searchable before too long.

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Bass Reeves


From the publisher:

“Sitting tall in the saddle, with a wide-brimmed black hat and twin Colt pistols on his belt, Bass Reeves seemed bigger than life. As a U.S. Marshal – and former slave who escaped to freedom in the Indian Territories – Bass was cunning and fearless.

When a lawbreaker heard Bass Reeves had his warrant, he knew it was the end of the trail, because Bass always got his man, dead or alive. He achieved all this in spite of whites who didn’t like the notion of a black lawman.

For three decades, Bass was the most feared and respected lawman in the territories. He made more than 3,000 arrests, and though he was a crach shot and a quick draw, he only killed fourteen men in the line of duty. Bad News for Outlaws reveals the story of a remarkable African American hero of the Old West.”

I had the good fortune to run across this when I was down town and as luck would have it, our local library had a copy.  I love stories of the Old West, especially the ones that are about characters that just seem larger than life.  After reading this and looking at some of the other resources, Bass Reeves was just one of those characters.  While the man’s life would seem the stuff of legend, many of the events are backed up by other sources.  The author, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, uses colorful language and slang from that time to add to the enjoyment of the book.  She also has a short biography of Judge Parker (of Parker Co. fame), a list of other resources and glossary of terms.  While it is a kids book, I think I got more out of it than the kiddos.  It’s definitely worth a look.

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Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

I just finished watching Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  I had high hopes for a fantasy action thriller based on a game I played years ago as a kid.  The movie had a lot of promise but failed to deliver on many points.  Technically it is not well done.  The camera is jerky during intense scenes, the CGI looks like it was done by the local community college and the world is way too plastic and cardboard to get you in the moment.  The characters are flat, the British accents are very distracting and the director really likes scenes with people alone in high places while the camera whirls around them.  Being a Disney film, there are no mothers or any really useful female characters.  Even the female lead comes across as half baked, overly proud an in need of a man to save her.  I wish I had something nice to say about the movie, but it just had no redeeming qualities.
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Texas and Education

Public Education

  • Texas is #49 in verbal SAT scores in the nation (493) and #46 in average math SAT scores (502).

  • Texas is #36 in the nation in high school graduation rates (68%).
  • Texas is #33 in the nation in teacher salaries. Teacher salaries in Texas are not keeping pace with the national average. The gains realized from the last state-funded across-the-board pay raise authorized in 1999, which moved the ranking from 33 to as high as 26th in the nation, have disappeared over the last five years.
  • Texas was the only state in the nation to cut average per pupil expenditures in fiscal year 2005, resulting in a ranking of #40 nationally; down from #25 in fiscal year 1999.
  • Texas is #6 in the nation in student growth. The general student population in Texas public schools grew by 11.1% between school years 1999 and 2005, with the largest percent of growth seen among low income and minority children.
  • Between school years 1999 and 2005, the number of central administrators employed by Texas public schools grew by 32.5%, overall staffing in public schools grew by 15.6%, while the number of teachers grew only 13.3%.

Higher Education

  • From fiscal years 2002 to 2006, average tuition and fees at public universities increased 61.4%. Average tuition and fees at community colleges increased 51.3%.

  • From fiscal years 2002 to 2007, the Texas state budget was cut in terms of real dollar, per-student funding for universities by 19.92%; for community colleges the per-student cut was 35.29%.
  • California has nine nationally recognized research institutions; New York has seven; Pennsylvania has four; while Texas, the second most populous state in the nation, has only three.
  • Out of Texas’ 145 public and private higher education institutions, only one private institution, Rice University, ranked among the nation’s top 50.
  • The number of students attending Texas colleges and universities increased by 23.6% from Fall 1999 to Fall 2005 with the highest growth in community and technical colleges.



Oh my goodness Texas.  We cannot afford more Rick Perry.  We are getting dumber and education is getting more expensive.  Vote for change.

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Double Twist

I don’t know why this is not the very first line at the top of doubleTwist:

“Important to remember if you want to add a new playlist, or a playlist with altered content to your phone without wiping all the other playlists – or taking the time to resync already happily existing playlists. Remember: drag and drop is cumulative. Syncing is a total do-over.”

So, I have re-synced twice to get all the content on there since I was unaware of this little rule.  On a positive note, doubleTwist is free, easy and seems to covert files to usable media on any device where many other programs fail.  
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How to Install Amazon MP3 on Isadora

Written by:
keithnyc		 Score: 1
votes: 6
Format: Article


 How to Install Amazon MP3 on Isadora


If you’ve recently tried to install the Amazon MP3 downloader in the hopes of purchasing some music to play on Linux Mint / Isadora, you probably quickly realized it depends on an older version of libboost than what you have installed. It’s a very simple fix to make it work, and here’s how.
Please note that these instructions are currently only for 32-bit installs.
First the steps, and then the actual commands:
  1. Open the terminal and create a new directory called temp
  2. Download the older version of libboost
  3. wget the libboost older libraries
  4. Install
  5. Cleanup
  6. Download the Amazon MP3 Installer (or re-run it)
Simple enough, yeah?  Here are the details:
mkdir tmp

cd tmp
wget https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959932/libboost-signals1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959936/libboost-thread1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959922/libboost-iostreams1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959918/libboost-filesystem1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959916/libboost-date-time1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/26959928/libboost-regex1.34.1_1.34.1-16ubuntu1_i386.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/34165098/libicu40_4.0.1-2ubuntu2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

cd .. 

rm -r tmp
Once completed, simply re-run or download the Amazon MP3 downloader and you’re good to go.  
Thanks to tvst on the Ubuntu forums for finding the solution to this:
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Businesses as people

I think of myself as a Libertarian.  Both of the political parties have gone off the deep end and no real change will happen until we have a viable third party in place.  That said, one of the worst things to happen is treating businesses as people.  Corporation have one motive, to make money.  That’s fine, but it leads to acting against the welfare of human beings.  The people who run the company need to be held responsible for bad decisions.  Corporations also get to contribute to the political system with few restrictions.  The corporation has its bottom line as its only consideration.   That needs to end.

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