It's past middle of November now and we still haven't moved into our new home, which should have happened about 3 weeks ago. Thus, the dream of a nice Xmas 2006 in our own house will probably remain a soap-bubble.
patient, young padawan, is the winner of the game, eventually.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Xbox Media Center 2.0 : awesome
After my xbox has gathered a lot of dust, i wanted to check out the latest XBOX Media Center (XBMC) . Once you have a nicely modded box, setup is easy:
Download archive, unpack, FTP to the partition where your secondary dashboard is. done.
From this point on, it's pleasure all the time. One of the best features is the capability of running custom python scripts...so that you can watch youtube clips on tv now.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Lyrics so far
this is the list of lyrics I have started writing up to now:
Playing it Safe
Fly
New Beginning*
Of Pawns and Queens*
Dreamer*
Holding Back (what walls can't hold)*
Julia
Got Hope
Untitled
Echoes
Full Moon Blues
Nearly Lost You There*
Shipwrecked*
Starred (*) = complete Lyrics, updated where red
Playing it Safe
Fly
New Beginning*
Of Pawns and Queens*
Dreamer*
Holding Back (what walls can't hold)*
Julia
Got Hope
Untitled
Echoes
Full Moon Blues
Nearly Lost You There*
Shipwrecked*
Starred (*) = complete Lyrics, updated where red
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
myspace account for audio projects
hiho,
i created a myspace account for making my audio projects available on the web. Stuff can be heard on:
http://www.myspace.com/dummyuser
i created a myspace account for making my audio projects available on the web. Stuff can be heard on:
http://www.myspace.com/dummyuser
Thursday, August 17, 2006
FFXII OST fails to impress
Yo, folks.
Being a fan of the games Final Fantasy 7,8 & 9 was easy for me. Great music, great storylines, fantastic athmosphere...Well, talk about music in this place.
Honestly, after Part 9, which had a pretty chacteristic setting and an enourmously adequate soundtrack, Nobuo Uematsu seems to have become less inventive. It seems he lost the love for the subject, with only a few really appealing tracks to occur in FFX ("to zanarkand",ending theme and a tiny amount of others). Also, a big part of the tracks has been handed over to other artists, similar as happened later in FFXI OST and "FFXI - vision of zilat" OST. In these two albums, I liked only one track ("recollection").
Part 12 has been given to Hitoshi Sakimoto, never heard of, and reflects the tendency already visible in parts 10 and 11: The attempts to sound perfectly symphonic overrule the ambition to write memorable melodies, simple tunes like "terra".
FFVII Advent children featured some of the piano collection's songs, but also didn't bring any new amiable stuff.Nobody exepts Aerith's Theme Part II, but this (p.12) is the first FF OST I'm not gonna keep...Really, really disappointing, same development as shines through with the FF game series...
Being a fan of the games Final Fantasy 7,8 & 9 was easy for me. Great music, great storylines, fantastic athmosphere...Well, talk about music in this place.
Honestly, after Part 9, which had a pretty chacteristic setting and an enourmously adequate soundtrack, Nobuo Uematsu seems to have become less inventive. It seems he lost the love for the subject, with only a few really appealing tracks to occur in FFX ("to zanarkand",ending theme and a tiny amount of others). Also, a big part of the tracks has been handed over to other artists, similar as happened later in FFXI OST and "FFXI - vision of zilat" OST. In these two albums, I liked only one track ("recollection").
Part 12 has been given to Hitoshi Sakimoto, never heard of, and reflects the tendency already visible in parts 10 and 11: The attempts to sound perfectly symphonic overrule the ambition to write memorable melodies, simple tunes like "terra".
FFVII Advent children featured some of the piano collection's songs, but also didn't bring any new amiable stuff.Nobody exepts Aerith's Theme Part II, but this (p.12) is the first FF OST I'm not gonna keep...Really, really disappointing, same development as shines through with the FF game series...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
First Impressions on The Captain And The Kid
there's a lot of stuff on the web about the new album (Basic info: see below). First of all, there's the lyrics on eltonography.com.
First impression: Good with exceptions.
Now eltonjohn.com has sneak-peeked two songs, "The Bridge" and "Postcards From Richard Nixon". I have checked out the first one already, and the sound is awesome. A grandload of Piano and a brilliant voice give the rather weak lyrics of this song a really strong intonation.
More to be added about Richard Nixon later today.
___UPDATE___
It's been released a while ago now, and I still listen to it frequently. Many opinions can be found in the alt.fan.elton-john newsgroup, mine as well.
Long story cut short : The album rocks!
First impression: Good with exceptions.
Now eltonjohn.com has sneak-peeked two songs, "The Bridge" and "Postcards From Richard Nixon". I have checked out the first one already, and the sound is awesome. A grandload of Piano and a brilliant voice give the rather weak lyrics of this song a really strong intonation.
More to be added about Richard Nixon later today.
___UPDATE___
It's been released a while ago now, and I still listen to it frequently. Many opinions can be found in the alt.fan.elton-john newsgroup, mine as well.
Long story cut short : The album rocks!
PC-Silence : AMD Geode serves the purpose well
I needed a CPU for my Audioputer, which i record tunes from my Piano with and edit some MIDI.
The goal was to have a low-power, low-noise computer that has enough power to run i.e. cubase or reason without being more than slightly audible.
I found out about The Geode Series (AMD), with a mere 14-25 Watts for a 1750+ (@1400Mhz) the probably perfect solution for my purpose. Reports on the web said it should be possible to cool the cpu passively, so i took an interest.
Finally after all parts arrived (... after lots of ebaying...) I assembled the following into a nice, small machine:
*AMD Geode NX1750+ CPU (Socket A)
*Asus A7N8X Motherboard
*512MB Kingston Value Ram @266Mhz (...the geodes FSB)-->added 512, so it's a gig now.
*some dvdrom
*Maxtor 160GB 8MB Cache HDD
*seasonic 200Watts Power Supply
*matx case
*creative soundblaster card (nothing special) -->replaced by M-Audio Audiophile 2496
*GF2, 64MB, TVout
Big Drama: The CPU is recognized as An Athlon 800, since the board doesn't support it. More research had the following result:
For the Geode, only a few Boards work properly!
So i exchanged my A7N8X for a ASRock K7S41GX (there is also a non GX version, offering 400Mhz FSB instead of 333, but Geode operates at 266, so go for the cheaper one) and found it working smoothly. Noiseless cooling is achieved by active cooling:
*2 60mm 12V Case Fans @5v
*12V CPU cooler @5V
Everything fine. Windows MCE works properly and I am happy to have a silent beast standing in my room. One drawback nevertheless: The case is not all good for HDDs, since they get pretty hot in their place...
Summary: Geode rules, what a pity so few boards support it.
The goal was to have a low-power, low-noise computer that has enough power to run i.e. cubase or reason without being more than slightly audible.
I found out about The Geode Series (AMD), with a mere 14-25 Watts for a 1750+ (@1400Mhz) the probably perfect solution for my purpose. Reports on the web said it should be possible to cool the cpu passively, so i took an interest.
Finally after all parts arrived (... after lots of ebaying...) I assembled the following into a nice, small machine:
*AMD Geode NX1750+ CPU (Socket A)
*Asus A7N8X Motherboard
*512MB Kingston Value Ram @266Mhz (...the geodes FSB)-->added 512, so it's a gig now.
*some dvdrom
*Maxtor 160GB 8MB Cache HDD
*seasonic 200Watts Power Supply
*matx case
*creative soundblaster card (nothing special) -->replaced by M-Audio Audiophile 2496
*GF2, 64MB, TVout
Big Drama: The CPU is recognized as An Athlon 800, since the board doesn't support it. More research had the following result:
For the Geode, only a few Boards work properly!
So i exchanged my A7N8X for a ASRock K7S41GX (there is also a non GX version, offering 400Mhz FSB instead of 333, but Geode operates at 266, so go for the cheaper one) and found it working smoothly. Noiseless cooling is achieved by active cooling:
*2 60mm 12V Case Fans @5v
*12V CPU cooler @5V
Everything fine. Windows MCE works properly and I am happy to have a silent beast standing in my room. One drawback nevertheless: The case is not all good for HDDs, since they get pretty hot in their place...
Summary: Geode rules, what a pity so few boards support it.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
The Captain And The Kid
This year Elton John's new Album, 'The Captain And The Kid' will hit the shelves in September. eltonjohn.com informed about tracklist and cover art:
After the absolutely stunning Lestat Demos I'm seeing forward to this. If you want to pre-order, amazon might not be the optimum choice. @CDWow it's 2.00 cheaper, there's no shipping costs and the web is flooded with cdwow 1.00 vouchers. This way i get the cd delivered for 11.99 instead of Amazonian 17.99...nice deal.
- Postcards From Richard Nixon
- Just Like Noah's Ark
- Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way (NYC)
- Tinderbox
- ...And The House Fell Down
- Blues Never Fade Away
- The Bridge
- I Must Have Lost It On the Wind
- Old '67
- The Captain and the Kid
After the absolutely stunning Lestat Demos I'm seeing forward to this. If you want to pre-order, amazon might not be the optimum choice. @CDWow it's 2.00 cheaper, there's no shipping costs and the web is flooded with cdwow 1.00 vouchers. This way i get the cd delivered for 11.99 instead of Amazonian 17.99...nice deal.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Of Frog Princes and iron seas
recommendation
If you want to listen to some good stuff, check out this one:
'Keane, Under The Iron Sea'
except for the hamburg track everythings pretty good to listen to. some are really great ('leaving so soon?', 'Nothing in My Way', 'A Bad Dream').
Inspired some of my own songwriting.
Keep up the good work.
If you want to listen to some good stuff, check out this one:
'Keane, Under The Iron Sea'
except for the hamburg track everythings pretty good to listen to. some are really great ('leaving so soon?', 'Nothing in My Way', 'A Bad Dream').
Inspired some of my own songwriting.
Keep up the good work.
Announcing Julia
Wahoonies.
It's summer, the soccer World-Cup has just ended and everythings nifty as a pearl. Although the amount of spare time i have has decreased dramatically after getting the first daughter, i still found dozens of ways to spend it. currently it's songwriting.
Now my second daughter, Julia, has arrived. As a friend of mine said: I'm building up my own soccer team. We are all happy that she's in good health and pretty hungry all the time.
It's summer, the soccer World-Cup has just ended and everythings nifty as a pearl. Although the amount of spare time i have has decreased dramatically after getting the first daughter, i still found dozens of ways to spend it. currently it's songwriting.
Now my second daughter, Julia, has arrived. As a friend of mine said: I'm building up my own soccer team. We are all happy that she's in good health and pretty hungry all the time.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Money, money, money!
it hardly ever seems to stick with me for too long...is it me, being a techie?
Top urges for spending my money (updated as of May 3rd)
1) Sony PSP (Firmware version 1.5/2.0) - got it. momma, worth every single penny, that thing.
2) 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo -ordered one from HK. Remains to hope that it's a good fake and works properly.
3) Netgear WPN824 (RM) Wireless Router or similar (better : WRT54G)
4) Netgear WPN511 (RM) PCMCIA Card
Suitcaseputer (SCP) Projectt has been kicked for various reasons like time and money, to mention the most important ones.
Top urges for spending my money (updated as of May 3rd)
1) Sony PSP (Firmware version 1.5/2.0) - got it. momma, worth every single penny, that thing.
2) 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo -ordered one from HK. Remains to hope that it's a good fake and works properly.
3) Netgear WPN824 (RM) Wireless Router or similar (better : WRT54G)
4) Netgear WPN511 (RM) PCMCIA Card
Suitcaseputer (SCP) Projectt has been kicked for various reasons like time and money, to mention the most important ones.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Release Date of CobaltWeb pushed further
DID I SAY APRIL?!? WELL,...as you know things tend to get more crowded than they really ought to...no more promises, just facts :-)
good news, everyone!
CobaltWeb is making progress, most probably the raw version (1.0 release) will be available from the beginning of April.
Drawback: This release is excluding the implementation of CobaltMine, a powerful media-database.This release date also marks the launch of my enterprise web page, cobaltlabs.de.
CobaltMine will take another 6 weeks to finish, so that the first all-round-solution should be likely to appear in mid-may, if no major impassibilies crop up.
Anyway, I hope to be able to speed things up.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Internet Exploder 7 Beta Version available
Internet Explorer 7 is available in an early beta version. You will need Service Pack 2 to install it.
you can download it at bill's playground: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx
You might be interested in the security issues mentioned on the paged linked to below:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/09/19/471316.aspx
My first impression is that ie7 brings no major news to browser people. If you ever tried Mozilla Firefox you already know tabbed browsing (Avant Browser, btw does the same thing basing on IE's rendering engine). No need to get over-excitede so far...
you can download it at bill's playground: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx
You might be interested in the security issues mentioned on the paged linked to below:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/09/19/471316.aspx
My first impression is that ie7 brings no major news to browser people. If you ever tried Mozilla Firefox you already know tabbed browsing (Avant Browser, btw does the same thing basing on IE's rendering engine). No need to get over-excitede so far...
Friday, January 27, 2006
PHP: Smarty Template Engine's Limits
Today i was going to try rather boring recursion (like you need for i.e. a web-filebrowser) for my WIP-CMS called cobaltWeb.
Since I use Smarty for quite everything, i found out that a major pain in the arse is its incapability of handling arrays of indefinite depth, or recursion in general. There seem to be some hacks for smarty right now, but reviews say its lame as a duck can be.
Since I have no idea how to build my data, I will have to go for an ugly php-script. Yikes, php will never be a really good platform...
Since I use Smarty for quite everything, i found out that a major pain in the arse is its incapability of handling arrays of indefinite depth, or recursion in general. There seem to be some hacks for smarty right now, but reviews say its lame as a duck can be.
Since I have no idea how to build my data, I will have to go for an ugly php-script. Yikes, php will never be a really good platform...
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Gloomph - A growing adventure
Since I started writing "Gloomph" (working title), a space adventure novel, I haven't contrived to write more than 15-20 pages. I think this blog is a good place to publish the stuff and keep on writing...I will update this topic with a link and keep readers informed about changes...
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
gamedevelopment made its way to my hometown
after five years of taking a great interest in game development, but being limited by my own unwillingness to move away, i have found out that there's 2 local game-programming crews.
> www.silentfuture.de
> www.silentdreams.de
i'm happy to see things developing this way. i hope to be able to resume graphical work soon (after moving to my new appartment of choice), so that i can offer myself as freelance helper.
> www.silentfuture.de
> www.silentdreams.de
i'm happy to see things developing this way. i hope to be able to resume graphical work soon (after moving to my new appartment of choice), so that i can offer myself as freelance helper.
watching out for .NET
my departure from good old php has been overdue. Working for nearly 5 years with just one technology is like a palsy, just worse, because you could have done something else meanwhile.
After investigating for a while, i pick ASP.NET and C# as my new matter of learning, and hopefully find the time to create some interesting stuff with it.
finally a direction that leads me to system-close programming...
After investigating for a while, i pick ASP.NET and C# as my new matter of learning, and hopefully find the time to create some interesting stuff with it.
finally a direction that leads me to system-close programming...
what is a 'blerk'?
What a nifty thing, such a blog... So I can post my nonsense more frequently and more...just more. So, I flap up the first page of this wonderful, free, database-driven notepad of mine...
Yerssss....
Yerssss....
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