• Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
I’m kind of tired of just showing up here every once in a while and doing a hit-and-run post on whatever’s been happening so instead though I might get back to doing the occasional ramble about other things instead.
I haven’t really been using LastFM recently for various reasons. The major one being I hadn’t synchronised my iPod in about a month. While it still doesn’t seem completely clear if they actually handed out user data or not I’ve always had a bit of a dislike for their closed and inflexible architecture, and I don’t really like companies who want to be a single source for my data. It was with this thought in mind I stumbled across Libre.FM, an open source system aiming to provide much the same service. Being open source they claim you can just download it and put it on your own server if you want. This ability is mentioned often in blog posts, etc although in every case I’ve seen no one actually tried. Needless to say I tried to do that very thing.
After a lot of fiddling around I did get it mostly up and running, but came to the conclusion it’s just not ready for use like that quite yet. I downloaded the “stable” version, but actually had to fix a small number of code bugs to even get it to install successfully (SQL code referencing non-existent columns, etc). There’s also no documentation whatsoever for installing it that way. It’s more a case of just trying to use it, have it fail, and then hunt around in the Apache logs to find why. In doing this I found some rather interesting dependencies, bugs and some shonky code. I don’t want to be too hard on Libre.FM though because it’s a fairly new project (It looks like it really got underway in April 09) and has come a long way in a short period of time. Using the official server it functions fairly well. It’s not pretty or especially feature packed, but no doubt that will come in due time.
One side effect of playing with Libre.FM is that I found they have a tool capable of ripping the play history from a Last.FM account and dumping it into a simple file. The idea being that you can import that file to migrate your data across to Libre.FM. Even if you don’t do that though it’s a way to extract that data either for as a backup, running your own stats on it or just to do whatever you want with it. I’m still tempted to write my own web app for this at some point and this data would prove helpful, but another project is the last thing I need now.
• Thursday, June 11th, 2009
I think I’m finally starting to shake whatever it is that’s kept me sick for the last few weeks. I’m still coughing a bit, but on the whole have been feeling substantially better and my energy seems to be returning to more normal levels. One strange coincidence is that since I got sick the curries and other spicy food I’ve eaten have not really been hot enough for my tastes. For a few years now I’ve typically asked for “hot”, but lately I’m just not enjoying anything less than “extra hot”. There’s no pain, no sweating or any other negative effects. It just tastes right. I’ve found this to be the case from various sources including homemade food as well as restaurants and the like so I can’t just write it off as one food outlet skimping on the chili. I have no explanation for this whatsoever.
In the last few days I’ve made the jump to Telecom’s new XT Network which after switching my internet to Orcon a while back means I no longer have any dealings with Vodafone. It’s not that I like Telecom per-se, but I’ve had enough bad treatment and poor service (even total lack of service) from Vodafone over the years that I have no intention of giving them any of my money where it can be avoided. That makes Telecom the lesser evil so to speak as at least they . So far the new network seems quite impressive. Txt messages arrive in a timely fashion and I actually have full strength coverage at home. Voice calls are nice and clear. Not high expectations to meet perhaps, but it’s nice that they seem to have the basics working well. Porting my number over took some time (Yes, I’m now one of those evil people whose 021 prefix is not what it seems), but that’s to be expected really given how busy Telecom stores have been since XT went online. The cost for my usage is cheaper than with Vodafone too so it’s win-win.
On the downside I’m once again finding that my portable in-ear monitors (IEMs, aka earphones on steriods) don’t like winter. I’ve already had one pair die out of warranty due to the cables cracking in the cold, and now the older backup pair is heading the same way. I think this is the last winter they’ll survive. These are about 3-4 years old now so I’ve had a decent run out of them given most cheaper earphones break within a year. I’ve been doing running repairs with heatshrink tubing, etc to keep them going, but there’s a limit on what’s repairable. Supposedly the manufacturer of the pairs I own (Shure) has changed their cable shrouding compounds to something more robust now too, but I’m leaning towards going down a different path. I use my IEMs almost daily at work and home often for a few hours at a time so it’s not a hard thing for me to justify spending some cash on.
I’m actually looking at “customs”. In essence they take a mold of your ear and make a matching earpiece for an IEM that’s a perfect fit. Customs almost always sound better than universal fit IEMs according to those who have heard both. For years I’d been interested in Ultimate Ear’s UE-10 Pro and UE-11 Pro but that company’s founder, Jerry Harvey (he pretty much created the custom IEM industry), has now formed a new company JH Audio, and I’m leaning towards one of their models. Given the prices of these things though I won’t be buying any time soon. Hopefully the exchange rate will be more favourable by the time I have cash on hand.
