Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes Times 22

Posted on 2/3/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

Today I finished reading “Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes“by Chris Newman. I read about half of this book when I was working on Vloggerheads but now I’ve finished reading it so I can enter the book into my database of books I’ve read. This book is the 2304th book I’ve read. It was published in 2005 and covers PHP 5 so the information is still fairly current. Speaking of PHP, I have it installed on my new Vista PC along with Apache 2 but I have not migrated my PHP web applications over to this PC yet.

Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes: Chris Newman: Books

ISBN: 0672327627
ISBN-13: 9780672327629

Last night I watched Mysti Mayhem on BlogTV at: http://www.blogtv.com/People/mystimayhem Mysti is one of the popular vloggers on Vloggerheads.

In order to justify mentioning this here I’ll discuss the matter of online promotion. Web 2.0 and the online media revolution has made everyone a content creator. It does not matter who you are. If you are writing blog posts, creating videos for YouTube, uploading your photos to Flickr, or making music with GarageBand and putting MP3s online, you are creating content. Virtually any level of participation on the Internet makes you someone who is contributing to the new media. So everyone has some interest in promoting themselves and just posting a link to your blog, video, photo, online profile, or music is spamming. Your profession may not require you to do any marketing of yourself but you are still competing for everyone’s attention.

There are thousands of ways to promote yourself online and you could spend all day just joining web sites, creating profiles, and uploading content. I think you have to weigh the amount of time and effort you put into this with the size of the audience you gain. I mean you can waste an entire day on a single web site and only gain one new “subscriber”, “follower”, “reader”, or “fan”. I see a lot of creative people exerting an enormous amount of effort online to attract a tiny audience. Given the vast scope of the Internet I’m not sure what you can do to stand out from the millions of users and the sheer volume of content out there.

So last night Mysti Mayhem spent two hours entertaining approximately 25 people. Her band mate even snorted some garlic powder to keep us amused. That is really going the extra mile! But it was kind of like attending a coffee shop performance. I’ve noticed that a lot of struggling musicians travel around to play coffee shops before really small audiences. So there is nothing unusual in that but it strikes me as being highly ineffective. I don’t have any better ideas but I know you need to do something that gets you a big audience for the minimum amount of effort. I don’t really need to promote my business so I’m not going to exert any more thought on this matter.

Posted in PHP, Programming, Vlogging | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Convert An Old PC Into Network Attached Storage

Posted on 1/31/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

Today I converted an old PC into a Network Attached Storage device. I have an old PC that I was thinking of selling on eBay but its processor is just 550 MHz so it would probably be a waste of time trying to sell it. However it does have three hard drives installed so I might as well store some files on them.

You can get a free operating system for your Network Attached Storage device at http://www.freenas.org/ – download FreeNAS 0.69, file FreeNAS-i386-LiveCD-0.69.4276.iso and burn it onto a CDROM. Set up the BIOS on your old PC to boot from the CDROM. Then you want to make sure that your old PC can ping the other computers on your network. Once this is working you will be able to access an administration web site in your browser. I ran into some trouble with the network card drivers for my old PC so I had to edit a configuration file. I edited the loader.conf file to disable ACPI which was preventing my network card from working after a reboot. As you can see, files can be edited in your browser.

After that you’ll want to configure your hard drives. I have three hard drives in this old PC; ST33210A/1.70 3099MB = 3 GB, Maxtor 51536U3/DA6207V0 14656MB = 14 GB, ST38410A/3.03 8224MB = 8 GB. I used the recommended file system UFS because the files are just going to be stored there so I really don’t care about the native file system.

Then you have to set mount points for these hard drives because this is a Linux system:

You also have to set up your swap drive:

You can also create user accounts in your browser. This will be necessary if you plan to transfer files using FTP which requires a log in account:

After that you can enable the CIFS/SMB service which will allow this Linux system to appear in your Network Places under the Workgroup network. You will then be able to access the files in Windows Explorer:

Just to be on the safe side, you should enable the SSH service so you can telnet into the file server and run commands. When you are finished configuring the NAS you can run it without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse (known as a headless server) so you’ll want some ability to connect to the server and issue commands.

If you need a SSH client for Windows then go to http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html and download the file putty-0.60-installer.exe. You can use that program to telnet into your new file server:

This will require an user account for the log in. Type the command df if you want to see how much disk space is left.

You can even shut down the server from your browser:

Of course, you can buy external hard drives that run an embedded operating system and function as Network Attached Storage devices.

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Working On My New Computer

Posted on 1/25/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

I got the new computer I ordered. It arrived on Thursday. It is a Acer Veriton M460-ED7201C – Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53 GHz desktop PC. I have determined that the computer I’ve been using dates from 2005 so it is four years old. It was taking 12 minutes to compile the project for my custom help collection and then another 11 minutes for the help update so that was practically 30 minutes of lost productivity every time I wanted to update my notes. That was simply unacceptable. On my new system it takes 7 minutes to compile and 8 minutes for the help update. That is not much of an improvement but at least the processor is not maxed out so I can do other things. Below is a screen capture of my CPU Usage while compiling my project, pegged at 100% as usual. My custom help collection now has 1621 topics!

And here is a screen capture of the CPU usage on my new dual processor computer:

There were a few things I did not like about this new PC. Acer loaded it up with trial software and its own browser toolbar. And the hard drive was partitioned into two 70 GB drives, one for data, so I had to configure everything to store data on the D drive. I suppose this will be useful for backing up my data. It is running Windows Vista Business so I’ll get more experience using that operating system. Vista runs IIS 7. I really needed more experience working with that web server. Unfortunately it is very time consuming for me to switch to another desktop PC because I’m a developer and programmers tend to deal with a lot of software which requires additional configuration. There are many technical details I will need to attend to. For example, I need to hack the registry so Outlook will not block any Access databases or VB.NET source files that are emailed to me. Then I have dozens of local development web sites which need their database connection strings updated. I’ll probably be installing software and configuring settings for quite some time to come as I discover something missing from my old system.

However, I do not plan to decommission my old desktop PC just yet. Right now I’m using Remote Desktop Connection to run the Acer Vista computer so I can use my widescreen monitor and the same keyboard and mouse for both systems. I probably won’t switch completely over to the Acer until I find myself using the Windows XP computer less and less.

I’m interested in seeing how a dual processor system handles a really CPU intensive task like converting video. I may make more videos if it takes me less time to create titles in After Effects. It does not have a good graphics card so I won’t be playing any games on this system. I prefer to be doing something more productive than gaming anyway. Some of my VSTs really need more processor power but I’m not sure my M-Audio Axiom25 works with Vista. I don’t have any speakers hooked up to the Acer yet. Its sound comes over to my old PC through Remote Desktop Connection. That is good enough for system sounds but video and MP3 songs sound choppy.

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Selling Old Technology Books

Posted on 1/20/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

I’ve decided to sell some books on eBay. I have way too many books in my small house now. I have no room for any more bookcases. There are stacks of books piled up everywhere. I will probably never read many of those books. The books I’m most willing to get rid of are books on obsolete technology. I have books on Windows 2000 Server Certification. That exam has probably been retired so I certainly don’t need those books. Anyone who is still supporting Windows 2000 Server may want them though. I also have many books on Java programming. I’ve decided that I don’t want to ever program in Java. It is easy enough to learn the Java language but there are huge frameworks you need to learn to master Java development. I really don’t have the time to master another huge framework like the .NET Framework. In my opinion, you either master the Java J2EE platform or the .NET Framework but not both because nobody has the time to become proficient in both. I suppose a programmer entirely focused on programming could manage it but I tend to study many other subjects like web design.

Below is a widget I found for displaying the items I have for sale on eBay. This is a great way to give my auctions some additional exposure. Just move your mouse over the book’s image to see the price and auction status. Unfortunately this is probably the only place I can use this widget without be accused of spamming.

It is fairly easy to list books on eBay because you only need the ISBN to get all the details into your listing. They even supply the image although occasionally I have to scan the book myself.

Amazon is also a good place to sell used books but they tend to drive down the price to the lowest possible value. There is almost always somebody selling the same book for less. I really get tired of relisting books on Amazon but I must have forgotten to do it because I have not been swamped with emails from them in awhile.

I should do some more research on how to sell books online because I have hundreds of books to get rid of. Unfortunately, it is really difficult to sell books on obsolete technology although I sometimes buy them myself if I happen to need to use some old software or programming language. For example, I got rid of my books on RPG II but then I had to replace them when I found work requiring that skillset.

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More Drum Programming

Posted on 1/18/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

I finally finished reading the book “Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer” by Ray F. Badness. The book is only 54 pages long so of course it did not take that long to read it. I was entering the patterns into my drum machine (Propellerhead Reason’s ReDrum) and learning how to use that. Today I completed the process by arranging my song parts in the sequencer. This was fairly difficult because I was unsure how to get so many drum patterns into the sequencer. What I wound up doing was creating a ReDrum device for each song part. This keeps the patterns organized and allows me to load up all the samples needed for a set of patterns. Then I had some difficulty arranging my tracks in the sequencer so I’ve added some detailed notes to my custom help collection on that topic.

Last evening I learned how to do drum programming in Cubase, another DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) that came with my PreSonus FireBox recording interface. I thought it was important to reinforce my knowledge in a slightly different environment where the concepts are applied a little differently. Cubase has a Drum Editor which makes it difficult to enter notes because you don’t have a bar measured in 16 notes. You have to keep track of your note positions visually. But it does allow you to see all your channels in one grid so there is less button pushing to switch channels and it resembles my drum tabulature.

You can listen to the complete song I arranged below. Please note that I was following the instructions in the book so I didn’t bother too much with making it sound perfect and did not change much to improve it. My focus was just to learn the techniques.

[audio:http://www.williamsportwebdeveloper.com/media/DrumProgrammingSong.mp3]
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Spending Freeze

Posted on 1/17/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

This morning I ordered an Acer Veriton M460-ED7201C – Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53 GHz computer to replace my aging workstation at home. I have to keep the process viewer open all the time to kill the programs that are bogging down my PC. It has really been interfering with my work because I need to run memory hogs like Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2005. But it is the browser that is usually hogging all the system resources. My workstation for my day job is a lot faster than my home PC so I hope to see the same speed improvement with this new computer. It has been taking 20 minutes just to compile my custom help collection and my computer is too maxed out for me to do anything while that is going on.

But that was my final splurge. I intend to go on a spending freeze from here on out. Everyone thinks the recession is going to get a lot worse so I don’t want to be unprepared for hard times. I don’t think my day job is at risk unless the Pennsylvania state government has to cut back drastically on funding many programs. I’ve heard that the state is in some financial trouble and that will probably get worse. I expect to continue to find plenty of freelance web development work online but you have to be careful about your clients. There has been a surge in entrepreneurs looking for web developers. However, many of these entrepreneurs were probably laid off from their jobs and are now going through their savings trying to start their own business. These people usually underestimate the costs of running a startup. They think their great idea for a web application is worth more than the expertise to implement that idea. So they expect the poor programmer to work for nothing more than a stake in the company. Or they try to defer any payment until later when the site gets going. Eventually they’ll run out of money and stiff you for a lot of work.

I’m going to raise my rate for any new clients I take on. I’ll also demand a deposit and require the client to sign a formal agreement that is legally binding. I neglected to do that when I was desperate for work but now I can afford to be choosey.

I don’t know if I’ll go on a lavish vacation this year. I’ve been thinking of going to France which would be a dream come true. I’m doing some research on guided tours which should eliminate the need to speak any French. I don’t have time to brush up on my French. This is the kind of trip you dream of going on after you retire but who wants to travel when you are old and decrepit? If consumer credit becomes tight and people start losing their credit cards then I’d certainly have to cancel my plans. I’ve only noticed that credit card companies are canceling inactive cards.

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Back In Business

Posted on 1/12/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

I got a replacement DSL modem from Verizon this evening so my broadband Internet access is restored. I was using my old USB modem and a free dial-up account from NetZero. NetZero is a good temporary back up option for your Internet access because you probably won’t need to use a long distance number and they give you 10 hours of free Internet access per month which is sufficient for checking email.

This was a serious matter for me because I work online. Over the weekend I worked on a project that I could run on my local web server. I got a lot of work done without the distraction of the Internet.

Today I spent a lot of time documenting how to use the ASP.NET Repeater control because I’ve been struggling too much with it. My notes on the data controls were not complete enough to help me with the things I was trying to do. I really need to organize my notes on ASP.NET. I have trouble finding what I’m looking for in them.

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Offline Until Next Week

Posted on 1/9/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

Yesterday evening my Westell 6100 DSL modem’s power light turned amber which means it is in safe boot mode. I have been unable to get it out of safe boot mode. I tried the reset button many times, disconnected all the cables, plugged the power adapter into various wall outlets, etc. I can’t get the modem out of safe mode so I have no Internet connection. This blog post is being composed at work.

I called Verizon and they will send me a replacement in two business days which means I could be offline until next week. I figure Tuesday at the earliest. However there are two things I can try to fix this problem. I can try a firmware update or attempt to access the administration web page.

Even without Internet access, I can work on one of my projects using my local web server. I can also continue to study drum programming and digital music production. I have several books to read on that subject.

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Drum Programming

Posted on 1/5/2009 by Robert S. Robbins

I am currently studying drum programming. I’ve been reading the book “Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer” by Ray F. Badness.

Drum programming seems to be easiest part of digital music to master and this short book is giving me enough information to finally make some progress. It does not have any instructions on how to enter the patterns into Propellerhead Reason but I managed to figure that out. I was so pleased with the results I am getting that I even invested in an acoustic drum refill from Garage Drums. I really needed some clearly identified samples for a Hi-Hat Pedal and a 1/4 Open Hi-hat which I believe correspond to the drum tab symbols HF and SH but unfortunately none of my samples are labeled as such. I’ve had to assume that a Hi-hat labeled “fot” might be a Hi-Hat Pedal and a Hi-hat labeled “mid” might be a 1/4 Open Hi-hat. You can listen to Pattern 26 below:

[audio:http://www.williamsportwebdeveloper.com/media/DrumPattern26.mp3]
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Book Review – ASP.NET 3.5 Application Architecture and Design

Posted on 12/30/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

Today I finished reading “ASP.NET 3.5 Application Architecture and Design” by Vivek Thakur. This book is published by Packt Publishing who “specialize in publishing focused books on specific technologies and solutions“. They have books on JavaScript Libraries like jQuery, open source web applications like WordPress, Joomla, and Elgg, and web application frameworks like CakePHP.

This book appears to be a response to the growing interest in domain models and design patterns in the ASP.NET community. I’m not sure why this has become a hot topic, unless the MVC pattern has inspired developers to think more about their application architectures. I’ve been reading many blog posts over on the ASP.NET Weblogs community on this topic, for example, http://www.worldofasp.net/tut/designpattern/Design_Patterns_210.aspx. The Wikipedia article on Design Patterns suggests the practical application of design patterns is a recent phenomenon.

The jargon for application architecture is very mysterious; lazy loading, front controller design, model view controller, singleton pattern, factory method, dependency injection, command design pattern, etc so I was getting a little miffed to be so mystified by it all. Fortunately, Vivek Thakur does a good job of explaining all this in plain English. And since he covers how these design patterns can be implemented in ASP.NET you aren’t left wondering how it applies to web application development. However, that being said, most of this does not apply to my work. My projects do not need to scale, will not be integrated with enterprise systems, are not commercial, and have low budgets. I appreciated the author’s reasonable recommendation against using a design pattern for projects that cannot justify the time and effort or which don’t have a legitimate need to for the extra overhead.

Basically this is a thin book that you can read straight through to grasp some hot topics in .NET development today. There isn’t a lot of code to study or exercises to do. You may be disappointed if you know a lot about application architecture and are expecting detailed instructions on how to implement various design patterns. But if you are mystified by the current programming fad then you’ll find this book provides a good explanation for what everyone is talking about.

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Plugging Along

Posted on 12/26/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I’ve been feeling pretty listless when it comes to programming and web development but I continue to make progress on various projects. I have not been learning much of anything lately. Instead I am focusing on a few projects.

Elgg is beginning to look more promising for vlogging because I found a Kaltura Video Plugin. It eliminates the need to store the video files, convert the video, or stream the video. The file storage and bandwidth costs for running a video sharing site are a major concern so this makes the whole project more practical. I’m putting more time into studying Elgg and recently examined the database schema. I figured out how to retrieve blog posts using the Elgg entity objects. Now I am exploring its code used to present different views of the data in formats like; HTML, RSS, XML, and JSON. I copied and modified the RSS view to create an ATOM view.

I finally finished reading the “GarageBand for Dummies” book. Yesterday I spent some time adding material to my notes on GarageBand. I have ordered a book on drum programming to continue my study of Electronic Music. I don’t expect this to serve any real purpose but it helps to make me feel like I’m making progress in my creative pursuits.

The day before Christmas I installed some eBook software from Fictionwise onto my iTouch. Since my iTouch is such a lousy MP3 player I decided I may as well use it for something else. I then bought the eBook version of Caitlin R. Kiernan’s novel “Murder of Angels“. I already had the paperback version and the eBook cost just as much but now I can read the book on various devices.

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Creating WordPress Themes

Posted on 12/11/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I’ve been studying WordPress Themes in order to improve my web design skills. WordPress is very popular in the web design community. I have seen many tutorials on designing for WordPress so I decided to master that skill. I’m very fond of WordPress because I’ve been using it for my blog for many years.

I have created a new theme for my blog based on the Sandbox theme from http://www.plaintxt.org/themes/sandbox/. What I like about Sandbox is that it provides a very plain, generic template for themes which you can then customize entirely through CSS. You can make all your changes in the style sheet without editing any PHP files. Actually, this is not quite true. I did have to edit the sidebar.php file to add a calendar and my chicklets.

Although I already know a lot about CSS, I did manage to learn a few new tricks while working on this theme. I was working on the header for my design and found it would not appear at the top of the page in Firefox. There was a gap between the top of the page and my header. I examined the layout in Firebug and saw a 16 pixel offset on the top of the header element:

I could not figure out where that 16 offset was coming from. There was nothing in my CSS to set any height to 16px. Eventually I tried the developer tools in other browsers. Opera told me that there was a top: 16px computed style for my header element. So I had to learn about computed styles and how to deal with them.

The height for a block-level element is calculated in CSS. If such an element has no height defined, it will be set to auto, which is the default height for block-level elements. You have to change the height of the div by either adding a border or a padding to avoid the computed style.

So to eliminate that computed value I had to add a little padding to the top. As you can see I did have its height defined so I don’t know why there was still a problem.

   1: #header {
   2:     background: #FFFFFF url(images/dark-trees-mist.jpg) top right;
   3:     height: 145px; /* height of image */
   4:     padding-top: 1px;
   5: }

The following CSS property values will result in a computed value; ‘auto’, ‘inherit’, ‘50%’, ‘smaller’, ‘1.5em’ etc.

I learned how to add icons to my theme. This theme uses a calendar, tag, and comment icon. I can move the sidebar to the left or right. The blog title will have a drop shadow in the Safari browser which supports the text-shadow CSS property. There was also quite a lot of positioning and border adjustments to do which are documented in my notes.

I’ll probably create a few more WordPress themes or make improvements to this one. I tried out some theme switcher plug-ins but none of them quite work with the Sandbox template. It would have been nice to have a theme switcher which would make this blog serve as a design portfolio.

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North Coast Gathering II

Posted on 12/7/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

Today I attended the second North Coast Gathering for vloggers hosted by Zen Archer of Stickam’s Zen Live show fame. It is one of the most popular shows on Stickam and demonstrates the potential for average people to broadcast online. Zen Archer does a talk show and relies on his natural gift for telling anecdotes to build an audience. I’ve become slightly more interested in online broadcasting because I now listen to Internet Radio that plays my favorite kind of music. I’d like to find an online party hosted by a DJ based on the alternative music genres I like. Unfortunately there are few people with the vision to take advantage of new media and social broadcasting so I hang with the people who pioneer it.

The gathering was held in Strongsville Ohio. I did not have any problems traveling there because you can just follow Route 80 West the entire way. I like easy to follow directions like that. Route 80 is a popular highway in Pennsylvania so I’m very familiar with it going east. I don’t travel west so often.

The meeting place was at The Chalet in Mill Stream Run Reservation, located on Valley Parkway between Routes 42 and 82 in Strongsville OH. The Chalet is an interesting place with a curious atmosphere. It is sort of a combination hunting lodge and ski resort. It has big, roaring fireplaces and a concession stand. It creates the kind of conflicting impression that I tend to enjoy. The fireplaces made me dream of fancy hunting lodges which is a world that I’m not familiar with; luxury accommodations in the woods for outdoor recreation. The architecture and winter sports scene put me in mind of ski resorts. However the concession stand and shabby bathrooms reminded me of cheesy amusement parks. This creates a very subtle surrealism where the elements don’t complement each other and your imagination must supply the synthesis.

The big draw at The Chalet is the two 1,000-foot refrigerated ice chutes for tobogganing. You have to drag your toboggan up a series of wooden steps before riding down the hill. I shot some video of our group doing that. Up to four people can ride on a toboggan. You have to put the legs of the person behind you under your arms and hold onto some rope straps with your hands (which must be gloved). It was a curious way to cram people on a toboggan. I was afraid my hands were going to rub against the sides of the chute. I only went down the toboggan chutes once. It was rather thrilling.

I arrived at The Chalet an hour early but I wasn’t going anywhere after finding the place because I was afraid I’d never find it again. I did manage to squeeze in some shopping because I was so early. I found a Borders bookstore and bought “Vampire Zero: A Gruesome Vampire Tale” by David Wellington. I’m reading a lot of dark fantasy now, a style of horror novel with darker themes. I also bought a documentary on Joy Division and the foreign film “Angel-A” on DVD. I’ve never heard of “Angel-A” but it concerns a mysterious blonde who rescues a suicide so it looks interesting.

At Noon Tara916 and Pamela showed up followed by a few other vloggers and then Zen Archer. Zen passed out mittens, baseball caps, ski hats, and camera tripods as little gifts. We passed around baseball hats to autograph and I videotaped Zen with the fireplace behind him. Zen was dressed all in black and looked quite fashionable. Then we all went outside to go tobogganing. There was Christmas music playing over loudspeakers and a light snow began so it was a perfect winter scene, one of the few occasions where I did anything special to enjoy the winter. We tried to videotape other members of our group as they came down the chutes but it seemed like everyone delayed going down and there was much confusion.


Find more videos like this on VloggerHeads

At 4:00 PM we left the chalet and I headed out for my hotel on Royalton Road, the Holiday Inn with Zen following behind me so he could show me the way to the Seekers Coffee Shop. Unfortunately Zen thought I was heading the wrong way so he asked me to follow him to an area where everyone else was staying at various hotels. Once Zen realized that he misdirected me, he kindly offered to pay for my room at a nearby Residence Inn by Marriott. Personally I would have been fine with just turning around and going back to the Holiday Inn but I appreciated his hospitality. Zen also took care of me by making sure I had a car to follow so I would not get lost driving to the other places where the group was meeting. I genuinely appreciated this because there is nothing I hate more than getting lost while driving. It really stresses me out. It was snowing out so driving around in circles would not have been fun. If you are contemplating attending a gathering hosted by Zen Archer, remember that he will take care of you.

After I checked in at the Residence Inn by Marriott, we drove to the Seekers Coffee Shop, a faith based coffee shop where I gave Zen the gift I bought him for his birthday, a professional microphone. That should make up for the hotel room because it was a fairly expensive microphone. After that we went to Buffalo Wild Wings Bar & Grill for dinner. I don’t go out to eat much and I’d never been to a restaurant like this. They had a lot of football playing on large televisions and wide screens so it was like a sports bar. Zen was given many more gifts and told many amusing stories including some I’d never heard before. We were also amusing by children struggling to win stuffed animals using a nearby mechanical claw arcade game. I had the “Wild” sweet fruit lemonade and some boneless barbecued wings which frankly tasted like a TV dinner recipe.

I followed Tara916’s car to find my way back to my hotel. This is an unusually nice hotel room with a complete kitchen. It has a stove, a refrigerator, a dish washer, and a kitchen sink and countertop. You could practically live in this small apartment which must be where it gets its name “residence”.

Although this trip wasn’t as exciting as a cruise vacation, I don’t get out much for a change of scene so I enjoyed it. It does not take much to entertain me because I usually appreciate new surroundings. I’m the kind of guy who would like to spend every day in someone else’s house or apartment just to gather the impression of a life lived in different surroundings.

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Ohio Trip This Weekend

Posted on 12/4/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I’ll be doing some more traveling this weekend. This time I am going to Strongsville, OH to attend the North Coast Gathering II hosted by Zen Live Radio. Zen Live is one of the most popular radio programs on Stickam and Zen Archer vlogs on Vloggerheads. I’m not doing much for Vloggerheads now except for some web design work. I really cannot develop any new features without the ability to test something on a development site.

I’ve been slacking off on improving my web development skills except for web design. I recently learned more about customizing the Elgg Social Networking web application and I may study WordPress themes. Many professional web designers seem to focus a lot of their time on creating WordPress themes. There really isn’t much more I can learn about CSS so I may need to focus on Photoshop tutorials to improve my web design skills.

My trip this weekend will put my digital lifestyle on the road. I’m going to bring my iBook (Mac laptop), iTouch (iPod MP3 player), camcorder, and KORG Kaossilator (pocket synthesizer). That is a lot of gear but it should keep me from getting bored except while driving. I’ll be spending one night at a hotel where I should have Internet connectivity.

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A Day At The Museum Of Modern Art

Posted on 11/23/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I spent all day Saturday, November 22nd 2008, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I’ve been to MoMA once before on April 30th, 2005. I was just reviewing an old blog post about that trip. This bus trip to New York City was sponsored by the Pennsylvania College of Technology Alumni Association.

It takes four hours to drive to New York City from Williamsport so I brought along a paperback book to read and my iTouch. Unfortunately the volume on my iTouch is incredibly low. I bought this iTouch in St. Thomas while on my cruise and I’ve since discovered that Apple built-in a volume cap for the foreign market of its iPod devices. There is nothing you can do about it unless you jailbreak it to remove the volume cap. The man sitting next to me also had an iTouch. He was probably wondering about the videos I was watching on my iTouch. I had copied some YouTube videos by this total freak onto my iTouch. I’m not even going to hint at what that is all about. By the way, you must convert YouTube’s FLV files to MOV files in order to get them into iTunes.

The paperback book I was reading was Strange Angels by Kathe Koja. Unfortunately this book is out of print but I was still able to buy a copy online from an Amazon used book seller. It conveniently arrived the day before this bus trip. Although this book is a horror novel, its premise is highly intriguing and quite relevant to my trip.

Strange Angels: Kathe Koja: Books

ISBN: 044021498X
ISBN-13: 9780440214984

Strange Angels is about a photographer going through a period of existential angst due to a lack of inspiration. He develops an obsession with the drawings of a schizophrenic patient being treated by his wife who is an art therapist. I’ve only read 70 pages so far but the reviews suggest this book is a serious exploration of the relationship between madness and creativity. It really should not be classified as a horror novel. I find this novel to be highly troubling because it is suggesting that there is something extremely compelling about the irrational. Maybe it really is a horror novel because its premise makes me very uneasy.

When I arrived at MoMA the first exhibit I saw was Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night,  an exhibit built entirely around his painting The Starry Night. Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night is definitely the most renowned painting in modern art. You practically have to make an appointment to see the original. There was a long line for the exhibit and you had to get a special yellow timed ticket to get in. I had a 10:30 AM appointment.

According to one online source:

Starry Night (oil on canvas) first and foremost is a reflection of the turbulent and torturous combination of manic ecstasy and melancholy that battled for control of Van Gogh’s mind.

Vincent van Gogh painted this while being treated at a sanitarium and committed suicide about a year later. It is ironic that the most highly valued painting in the world is a work of art closely associated with mental illness. I have to wonder if everyone who sees this painting really wants to vicariously experience the visionary ecstasy of  its creator in order to fill the void within themselves. This is precisely what the protagonist of Strange Angels sets out to do with morally sickening results.

Another artist mentioned in the novel is Francis Bacon. MoMA has two paintings by Francis Bacon on display including the Painting (1946). According to Wikipedia:

Bacon described the work as his most unconscious, the figurations forming without his intention.

It is not hard to see why the work of Francis Bacon would appeal to horror writers and artists. This painting features a carcass from the slaughterhouse and his other painting is of a man screaming. I bought a biography of Francis Bacon, Anatomy Of An Enigma by Michael Peppiatt but I have not read it so I cannot comment on this work although it appears he explored some dark corners of the psyche.

However, I have read a biography of Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma Of Giorgio de Chirico by Margaret Crosland, and I do have something to say about his paintings. Unfortunately, MoMA does not have his The Disquieting Muses or The Seer but I did see The Song of Love and The Serenity of the Scholar. Giorgio de Chirico is credited with creating metaphysical art, which according to Wikipedia:

represented a visionary world which engaged most immediately with the unconscious mind, beyond physical reality, hence the name.

While gazing at The Serenity of the Scholar I thought about deserted city streets seen at twilight when long shadows stretch across empty spaces. There is a sense of serenity to be found in contemplating such a scene. It eliminates all social consciousness from the mind and allows you to regard being in itself, a mute existence devoid of the rational calculations of the social being. You feel free of all ambitions and the social construct of meanings which obscure the real significance of what is seen.

Other current MoMA exhibits I saw include; Looking at Music where I saw Laurie Anderson’s Self-Playing Violin playing by itself, Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out which was a psychedelic immersive environment. You can see videos about that on MoMA’s YouTube channel. There was also an extensive exhibition of Joan Miró paintings on the top floor.

I went shopping at the MoMA book store. They have a fantastic collection of books on modern art, design, and film. It is like a small library and you are allowed to read books before buying them. I bought the books Positif 50 Years: Selections From The French Film Journal and 100 European Horror Films. I had researched the books that might be available online and intended to buy the Positif book because it might introduce me to some great foreign films. I probably should not have bought the book on European horror films.  I regret not buying a book on modern Chinese design which could have been more interesting. No doubt there was some really fantastic book there but I had no way of guessing the contents.

I also had lunch and dinner at the MoMA cafes. I had a shrimp and salmon salad with just one giant shrimp for lunch and a chicken panini for dinner.

One of the paintings that caught my eye was Janet Sobel’s Milky Way. I’m not sure if I had ever seen that painting before. It resembles a Jackson Pollock drip painting but it was much more colorful.

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New York City Trip This Weekend

Posted on 11/19/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I am going on a bus trip to New York City this weekend so I won’t be getting any work done on Saturday. The bus trip is sponsored by the Penn College Alumni Association and will take up my entire day on Saturday. I like going to New York City as long as I don’t have to drive. I’ll probably visit the Museum of Modern Art again to draw inspiration from modern art. Maybe I’ll get some ideas for new web designs. I’m currently very focused on web design and have really cooled it on the programming. I did a few case studies of web designs I downloaded from the Open Source Web Design site. I also learned how to use the jQuery Cycle plugin to animate an image slideshow without using Flash. If you don’t think design requires any technical skill you should have seen how much trouble it was to prevent the background from appearing behind a fading image. I really should learn how to do that in Flash too.

Currently I’m reading the book “GarageBand for Dummies” by Bob LeVitus. This is an excellent introduction to multitrack recording using digital audio software. I’ve learned a lot of this stuff from studying Reason but it is useful to have it reinforced with simpler explanations. I probably won’t be using GarageBand much though because it is not as sophisticated as other audio software I have.

GarageBand for Dummies: Bob LeVitus: Books

ISBN: 0764573233
ISBN-13: 9780764573231

Last night I totally uninstalled Visual Studio 2005 because Windows Update kept trying to install a security patch and frequently hogged my CPU. I discovered that I had both the Professional and Standard versions installed which will cause you a lot of problems. However, you can use Visual Studio 2008 to work on .NET Framework 2.0 projects so there is really no need to have that old version installed. I am still unable to install the Silverlight 2.0 Tools because uninstalling Visual Studio 2005 did not help with the install failure.

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M-Audio Axiom 25

Posted on 11/2/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I was inspired by the cruise to spend more time learning how to use synthesizers. That was one of my reasons for going on that cruise, to be inspired to make greater efforts in my creative endeavors. All of the bands on the cruise were in the Industrial or Synthpop genres. They all had their MacBooks on stage hooked up to synthesizers or something. I did not have an opportunity to examine their gear. It had never occurred to me to install any software synthesizers on my iBook. I now have Reason 4 installed on it. Propellerhead Reason is my favorite virtual music studio and I’ve studied it enough to at least be familiar with its basic functionality, although they changed a lot of things in this new version.

However I did not have a MIDI controller for my iBook. I do have a CyberSound MIDI Keyboard which is designed for the Mac but it is pretty old and only works with older Macs. I use it with my PC by  connecting it to a MIDI to USB device but I don’t think I have the drivers for a Mac. So I bought a M-Audio Axiom 25 USB MIDI Controller.

 

This MIDI keyboard is a lot larger than it looks. It is twice as thick as my iBook and almost twice as wide. It really takes up a lot of desk space and isn’t as portable as I’d like. I should have bought the Korg Nano USB-MIDI controller which is very compact and a lot less expensive.

I had some trouble getting the M-Audio Axiom 25 USB MIDI Controller to work with Reason until I discovered on a newsgroup that I needed to go to Reason’s Preferences and set up the Keyboards and Control Surfaces for this device:

I now have it working with a Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer, one of the many instruments in the Reason stack. The Modulation and Pitch Band wheels on the Axiom 25 control the Modulation and Pitch Band wheels of the Subtractor. The programmable knobs control some of the envelope sliders but I probably need to learn how to program them or at least activate the Reason preset. The Axiom 25 does not come with a printed manual. It does have eight drum pads which just seem to act like extra keys right now.

As I’ve said before, if you are a music fan and a geek then you’ll love software synthesizers. Even if you don’t know anything about music they can be a lot of fun to play around with.

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iPod Touch

Posted on 11/1/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

I bought my very first iPod while on vacation and I’ve finally had  time to use it. It is an iPod Touch 8GB, Model #MA623LL/B. This must be the first generation iPod Touch because it lacks the external volume controls and built-in speaker of the second generation.

At first I was not very impressed by the iPod Touch compared to my DELL Axim Pocket PC. The Multi-Touch graphical user interface seems hard to use compared to a stylus and I did not like how it requires you to use iTunes. However, it does have some features that you gotta love. It is a Wi-Fi device and works with my wireless router so now I can access the Internet via a handheld device. I never could get my DELL Axim Pocket PC to work with my wireless connection. The iPod Touch includes a viewing client for YouTube and that is a major bonus for me because I’m heavily invested in the YouTube community. Now I can watch YouTube videos anywhere in the house without having to be sitting at my desk. Of course, I could do that with my iBook but it is still a fairly large device.

I don’t have many songs loaded onto it yet because I don’t use iTunes to play music on my PC. I’m not sure if you have to buy songs on the iTune store or if you can use any song on your PC. I’m sure it will make a nice MP3 player. Apparently the iPod Touch is very similar to the iPhone. It just doesn’t have access to a phone network or a built-in camera. However it can run iPhone applications.

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Ning Has Eviscerated Their Platform

Posted on 10/30/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

On October 21st, 2008 Ning announced that they would no longer allow Network Creators to customize the functionality of their Ning sites via PHP development. The only option to add new features is now through OpenSocial Applications. And the only way to modify existing features is through a limited set of configuration options. Ning has removed all direct access to your PHP pages, CSS files, and even images and JavaScript resources. SFTP access was removed a while ago but now WebDAV access is gone as well. This has effectively eviscerated the Ning platform because it is no longer customizable enough to be considered a platform. What you have now is a web application that is set in stone. You can add a few widgets but they don’t change the core functionality. Ning even shut down their REST API so any web application that made use of that API will no longer work.

Ning’s excuse is that this will make it easier to customize a Ning site without programming. However, this is only true in that they drastically reduced the number of options available to you and give you far less control over your site. That is like saying we’ll make it easier for you to buy a car by allowing you to visit just one car dealer with only last year’s models on the lot and no dealer options. Ning has made it easier for themselves to maintain their web application without worrying about breaking custom functionality that Network Creators may have developed but at the expense of other developers.

So PHP developers who gained expertise in customizing the Ning platform have wasted their time. Fortunately, in working on the Vloggerheads Ning site I focused on improving my PHP skills and developed some features without relying too much on Ning’s implementation details. We were also given WebDAV access so I could upgrade the site without losing our customizations for vlogging. But this marks the end of any custom PHP development for Vloggerheads. We are now limited to improving the design through CSS and maybe we can develop a custom widget. OpenSocial Applications are being adopted by many social networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn so I may invest some time in learning how to create them.

The Elgg Social Networking platform now looks like the best bet for creating a fully customizable social networking site. However it lacks a decent video plugin to support interaction through vlogging. In my opinion, video is crucial to online social interaction. All forms of interaction through text are far less effective in forming real relationships between users. I will attempt to create a sophisticated video plugin for Elgg which will support video responses, comment threading, subscriptions, and embedding control. These are all features that YouTube offers its users and which were missed on Vloggerheads.

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Gothic Cruise 2008 – October 17th

Posted on 10/26/2008 by Robert S. Robbins

Friday was the last night of the cruise and another “Fun Day At Sea” because the ship was steaming back to Orlando Florida. The last Gothic Cruise event was a rock concert in the Amber Palace featuring Red Flag, a synthpop band which has become popular with the dark industrial and goth crowd. I’ve never heard of them before the Gothic Cruise but I don’t follow Industrial music except for Skinny Puppy. Most of that kind of music is only released on compilation albums and you don’t check out the individual artists if you are lazy. So apparently Red Flag has been around since 1984 without ever making it onto my radar.

Fortunately nobody challenged me as I entered the Amber Palace for this concert. I was kind of worried that they would. Chris Reynolds, the singer for Red Flag seemed disappointed in the reaction from the audience. He tried to get people to stand up, called on CombiChrist for help, and made sarcastic comments like “This is music, people” and pointed out the melody in the song. I thought that was hysterical. Later on someone at our dinner table said it sounded like he was doing karaoke to his own music. I think his music just relied on more technology than was available on his Macbook. He did mention that his vocals needed some reverb and his musicians were playing to a track. CombiChrist’s drummer was seated in front of me to my left and saw him take some of his famous arms length photos that he uses on his blog. I must say that he writes lengthy blogs with plenty of photos so he must be the most prolific blogger in alternative music. The Red Flag singer is 40 years old and he must have felt self conscious about his age because he mentioned it but several people shouted out that they were older. I may have been the oldest person in the room but I wasn’t going to shout that out. I could identify with Chris Reynolds after that.

At dinner after the show some people began to dress down and wore regular street clothes. I drank two glasses of wine which may have had some effect because I was more aware of my tendency to stare into space afterwards. There was a farewell party on the Lido Deck just like the Bon Voyage Deck Party on the first night. Several people wore white bath robes over their gothic outfits. There were two Carnival Cruise bath robes left in my room as a gift but I did not touch them because there was not enough room in my luggage for something that large.  Before the party began there were some normal people playing bean bag toss right where the dancing would take place and they were not in a hurry to leave. I sat next to a black family who seemed very amused by the party.

My dinner companions, Sam and his wife were there but they were not dressed for the occasion so they mostly just sat and watched. I shot a lot of video and some photos. I was especially interested in capturing the dancing on video when they played my favorite songs like Rammstein’s “Amerika” and Skinny Puppy. Zaida talked about her plans for the next cruise so I recorded that to play back later.

The next morning I videotaped the Disney cruise ship Magic as we docked at Port Canaveral. I spent the entire day Saturday sitting in airports waiting for my flights. I did allow myself to eat at Burger King when I got hungry. I did not get home until late at night but one final spectacle was the city of Philadelphia which I saw out my plane window that night. It was a vast mosaic of lights that seemed to stretch out forever with many ribbons of lights where the highways were. It was a pretty awesome sight!

Overall the Gothic Cruise was a grand adventure for me although a few things went wrong and it was not the perfect vacation. But it really meant a lot to me to finally meet some goths and participate in their scene. Williamsport has never had a goth scene so I’ve been impoverished all these years. Unfortunately, the Gothic Cruise may give me a false impression of the real scene because it probably was not a typical crowd and the Carribean definitely was not a typical environment. I think the cruise has had a profound effect upon my imagination and may inspire me to be more creative. This is exactly the effect I anticipated and it is the reason I invested so much money on this vacation which must have cost me at least $3,000. It was very inspiring to see so many creatively attired freaks although a little disconcerting because goth has always been a very private part of my fantasy life which does not really involve anyone else. It was shocking to meet people who play the same kind of music as I do and who have the same fascination with “dark culture”. It also occurred to me that they may not be so very different from me and they may be as powerfully influenced by the disquieting muses as I am. Usually I can assume that the people around me know nothing of such things. I had to keep reminding myself that I should not underestimate these people because they could be on the same wavelength as I, although I’m pretty sure they didn’t consider me to be very “goth”. That does not really bother me because I know I’m about as deep into the unknown depths of the psyche as you can get. You really would not want to delve any deeper and I cannot imagine you going any deeper.

I’ll probably be buying many more gothic rock CDs and getting deeper into dark culture now that it seems more real to me.

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