Saturday, July 26, 2008

I Love Music... Especially Free Music!!!

A few weeks ago, I started listening to Last.fm and have rediscovered my love of music... especially free music. So, I took my D630 and plugged it into my receiver when I'm at home, launch FF and jam out during various domicile activities. Here's where my lazy nature comes into play, I'm running the 64bit Ubuntu 8.04 and my flash keep crashing (I need to also add that this behavior is not conducive to watching 'Highlander - The Series' reruns on Hulu), thus initiating the day the music died aura in the domicile.

Yes, I know there is a fix for my flash issue (basically removing flash and installing he 32bit versions etc...) however I know that this project would take me some time to get up and running, and I seriously need to keep watching the Highlander... because we all know 'There can be only ONE!"

Anyway... I decided install the last.fm app on my laptop, instead of dealing with the flash issue. Go here to get the package. For 64bit you will need to add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list

import the GPG key:

wget -q http://apt.last.fm/last.fm.repo.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Then add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://apt.last.fm/ debian stable

then you can use the following command to get the app (our just use Synaptic)

sudo apt-get install lastfm
to launch the app type
lastfm&

Now, I also ran into an issue with the sound driver (alsa) I'm not exactly sure what caused this error, I think it has to do with other apps or systems locking alsa driver so that lastfm is unable to use the resource. I recieved the following error:
The ALSA soundsystem is either busy or not present.

And this is how I was able to solve the issue... (solution source HERE & HERE courtesy of UbuntuForums)

Run the following:
sudo aptitude install libasound2-plugins
and create this file ( ~/.asoundrc)
sudo gedit ~/.asoundrc
paste the following and save the file.
pcm.pulse {
type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
type pulse
}

Once you're done, launch the lastfm app and you should have a working player! I hope this helps anyone else who is experiencing the same issues.


Discaimer: this solution worked for me and my D630 running Ubuntu 8.04 64bit. This may or may not work for you, if you experience any issues, please search google or use the Ubuntu Forums - they are a god send)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Bow Down to Mutha-Na-Chah

So I've been trying to track down the radar map from July 10th, 2008 to compare the photos I took to provide some perspective. These were taken from my deck using my Nikon D40 and my 18-55 lens. This storm was crazy looking, crazy fast (only lasted about an hour or so) and crazy cool...

Here are the photos:




Here is the only radar picture I've been able to trackdown, the storm was a little more defined (it looked like a up-side-down/side-ways 'U') this image shows the storm shortly after is left the Chicago area...


While I was searching for this radar image, I did stumble upon THIS video on YouTube. It's 2 dudes somewhere in the Chicago Suburbs commenting on this storm. The commentary is pretty funny...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos...

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Gmail & Firefox 3 - How to make Gmail your default email client.

So today I discovered 2 of my most favorite things (web related) have kept racking up the 'I'm a Bad Ass App' points. On my laptop I only have Thunderbird installed as a way to archive my Gmail account and prefer to use the Gmail web interface for all my mail.

I just happended to be purusing the Gmail Blog this evening and saw this great post about taking advantage of Firefox3 and using Gmail as your default email client.

Open firefox and log into your Gmail account. Now from your Gmail window past the following into your address bar:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://
mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail")
Click 'Enter'

You will be prompted to add Gmail as an email client. Make sure you put a check in the box "Remember my choice for mailto links" or Firefox will not keep Gmail as the preffered email client.

//This content was found at the Official Gmail Blog. If you have any issues with this DO NOT CONTACT ME! I am only sharing this info as it is a feature I am using with my setup.