baroquedub

One of PC Magazine’s 529 Computing Tips

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2285219,00.asp]

Make a cheap NAS
Build a low-cost home or SMB file server out of an old PC and some spare hard disks. Just set up an Intel box with as many disks as you can and at least 512MB of RAM, then download and install FreeNAS (www.freenas.org), a FreeBSD-based NAS app.

i knew there was going to be a good use for all those old PCs I keep hold of… maybe one day i’ll also get round to building myself that retro arcade machine using mame and an old motherboard…

Good to see Gnarls Barkley following the success of St Elsewhere with a free download for the kids… but what’s even even better is that you’ve got to work for it… elpuocddoeht is none other than a mostly instrumental album entitled The Odd Couple (get it?!) which you’ve got to reverse in an audio editor (audacity is a good free option) if you enjoy your music front to back rather than back to front:

http://www.fronttobackbacktofront.com/

Took me forever to get this after finding only a couple of blog posts which came remotely close to what I needed, so I thought I’d share…

To return the tabIndex value of the selected tab in a TabNavigator component, after the user has clicked on one of the tabs:

First define this function:

private function tabChange():void{
var currentViewIndex:Number;
try{
currentViewIndex = this.myTab.selectedIndex.valueOf();
}catch(error:Error){}
trace("selected index = " + currentViewIndex);
}Then call it from a change event on your component:

mx:TabNavigator id=”myTabs” creationComplete=”tabsReady()”
width=”100%” height=”100%” creationPolicy=”all” backgroundColor=”#FFFFFF”
borderThickness=”1″ borderStyle=”solid” minHeight=”0″ minWidth=”0″
selectedTabTextStyleName=”selectdTab” change=”tabChange()”

Useful post on TechRepublic:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877-5728564.html

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/

can’t argue with that sentiment!

If you seen the excellent Helvetica documentary you may be interested in this great little article on the differences between the real thing and the Microsoft forgery…
http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html

“Overall, 95% of the 1,158 people surveyed had engaged in some form of copying, including taking the music contents of a friend’s hard drive - 58% - and the more old-fashioned method of recording from the radio.”

more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/07/digitalmusic.drm 

looking forward to L. Cohen at the big chill this year…

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,,1305765,00.html

UK’s MI5 Wants Oyster Card Travel Data

“Currently the security services can demand the Oyster records of specific individuals under investigation to establish where they have been, but cannot trawl the whole database. But supporters of calls for more sharing of data argue that apparently trivial snippets ‘like the journeys an individual makes around the capital’ could become important pieces of the jigsaw when fitted into a pattern of other publicly held information on an individual’s movements, habits, education and other personal details. That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects.”

UK Police Want DNA of ‘Potential Offenders’

“British police want to [1]collect DNA samples from children as young as five who ‘exhibit behavior indicating they may become criminals in later life’. A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers argued that since some schools already take pupils’ fingerprints, the collection and permanent storage of DNA samples was the logical next step. And of course, if anyone argues that branding naughty five-year-olds as lifelong criminals will stigmatize them, the proposed solution will be to take samples from all children.”

Time to join Liberty? You have been warned…

Will finally get round to some streaming video around the house when I finally find a home:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2255155,00.asp 

Best free software according to pcmag.com. Nice list of useful and not so useful apps. Read the rest of this entry »

Media files from a home PC to your TV could be a reality… (and at only £200!)

NetGear Wireless Digital Media Player (EVA700)

NetGear Homeplug HD Ethernet Starter Kit

SwissCenter (media server)

ps. or buy an XBox…

Very comprehensive review of free image libraries at:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/where_to_find_free_images_and_visuals/index.html 

The joys of working in the same office as a bell ringing enthusiast:

http://www.ringbell.co.uk/methods/pb5.htm

Each number represents a bell and each bell-ringer follows a single coloured line (i.e. blue or red or green etc.)
Very reminiscent of serialist methods of composition (mathematical intervals creating ‘new and exotic’ scales) and very beautiful.

I’ve been a signed up member of the anti-facebook crowd for a while now but this article from the Guardian crystalises many of my concerns…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook