More on Miro

So, you'll probably have noted my fondness for Miro if you've read any of my previous entries. Well, they've just released version 1.0, so I thought it'd be a good time to talk about it some more!

So, I've mentioned before that Miro is more than just a media player. The idea behind it is that it works on RSS feeds, so it allows you to keep up when content becomes available and then Miro will download things automatically (if you wish). This is great for things like video and audio podcasts, a lot of which can be accessed via the Miro guide which is built into the player.

Another place you can get feeds is tvrss.net, where you can get RSS feeds of available torrent downloads for various TV shows, which can then be downloaded using Miro's built-in torrent features!

I now have feeds set-up that tell me when a new episode of Heroes or Bones is available, so I never have to worry about remembering which is on which day or if the show is off air for a week (stuff I'd have to actively find out as they air on American TV).

Stumbled upon part 2: Linux

So, continuing my series of collections of links that I've come across while wandering the web, here are a few pages providing useful info on various Linux-related topics. (I haven't included the pages I have of GIMP tutorials, they'll come later in an art-related post. This goes the same for anything non-strictly Linux-based)

Debian Package Of The Day

A great page that lists a different Debian package every day (well, in theory). It's intention is to introduce people to some of the lesser known packages that are available for Debian (and its derivatives). They run the gambit from useful to fanciful (Thoggen is a great DVD ripping tool, whereas cowsay is just silly) and from niche to usable by all (not everyone needs a command-line calculator, but a countdown timer is always useful). Check it out and at the very least you can be amused by ASCII cows saying things...

Reconstructor

Reconstructor is a simple and easy way to create your own Ubuntu live CD without having to learn to programme and then compile it all. Say you have a friend who wants to try Linux/Ubuntu but doesn't want to install it, so you give him a live CD. Now, as great as it is, the Ubuntu live CD doesn't come with anything that exciting (I mean, can you get excited about Open Office?), so instead you put together a suite of applications on a Reconstructor CD that you think he'll like and Bob's your uncle!

Finally, a few links to help anyone who may be unfamiliar/unwilling to use the command line:

The one-page Linux manual - The most important commands you'll ever need to know on one simple page.

LinuxCommand.org - More in-depth tutorials on using the command line.

A day without X - One man's adventure spending a day not using a GUI.

TED Talks

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader."

So, a while back, I introduced Miro (formerly Democracy player), which allows you to watch video podcasts as channels. When you first install Miro, it comes with a few subscriptions loaded by default. One of these is "TED talks", which is videos of various talks/performances given at the annual TED conference. They involve all kinds of things ranging from technology to language to music to psychology to pretty much anything you can think of that's on the cutting edge of creative and innovative thinking.

I highly recommend checking it out as there's some extremely interesting stuff on there. Even if none of the things cover your field of interest, I'm sure you'll find the talks interesting and some might even spark your interest about things you've never even thought about before (I do nothing to do with neuroscience but Vilayanur Ramachandran's talk was extremely interesting).

So, you can either get Miro or head to the TED talks site, here.

Interesting links

So, I find interesting stuff on the internet all the time thanks to things like StumbleUpon (If you don't have it already, check it out, it's a great way to kill time on the internet and I've managed to stumble on many useful resources through it) and I thought it was about time I start sharing them with the world. I've got loads stored in my bookmarks, so I'll be going through them and putting them up here. I'll try and group them into categories somewhat. For now, here's just a couple of the latest ones I've come across.

Disposable web pages

So, you want a page for something that's coming up but you won't need the site after the event. You could make an event page on Facebook or a group or something, but why not something everyone can access, rather than just those on Facebook? Why not make a disposable web page? I'm sure there's even more possible uses, so check it out!

Open Design Community

"The Open Design Community (TODC) is a group of Open Source Website Designers providing hundreds of XHTML and CSS based free web design templates available for download.

The main goal of TODC is helping to make the internet a prettier place."

HTML Playground

Or, if you don't find a template you like, you can just use HTML and build it yourself. This is a great resource for learning as it tells you exactly what HTML tags do and gives you editable examples.

That's it for now, more to come soon!

The times they are a-changin'

So, there's been some changes afoot and I figured it's time to tell you about them.

I no longer do music tech. I graduated in July with a 2:1. I have now started a Master's course in Creative Technologies. I'm still at DMU, but now I'm working in the Institute Of Creative Technologies. You can find some links to various IOCT-related things over on the right.

What this means, is that this blog is now going to broaden its scope to cover all kinds of creative technology, rather than just those that are music related. I'm not changing the name though, as that's too much hassle.

Also, for those that don't know, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) is being released in a few days. I plan to once again do a complete reinstall, as that should fix various things I've broken in the course of using Feisty for the past six months. I shall obviously give a full report on that endeavour when it's all over.

Who needs TV when you've got Democracy?

So, what do you do when there's nothing on TV? Maybe you don't even have a TV... Introducing Democracy Player:

Democracy is basically a video player, but it can do a lot more than that. It comes with a built-in channel guide that lets you connect to sort of Internet TV channels (basically just Video podacasts). This means rather than having to go to each individual webpage and download each video, Democracy does everything for you. You can also set it up to automatically download new videos. This means you can leave Democracy running and whenever you fancy watching something you'll find a couple of new videos downloaded!

There's channels about pretty much everything, a couple of my favourites are Pulp Secret and Fresh ink (both comics related), Rock and Roll TV (interviews, features and video clips of various rock bands, some underground, some quite big), The Cooking Show (two drunk Australian guys cook random stuff), Ask a ninja and The Onion News Network. There's also a couple of music tech channels available in the form of Music Tools and The Audio Dojo.

Just head over to www.getdemocracy.com/ and check it out.

Just a note: In a little while Democracy will be changing its name to Miro.