The Other Distraction: Audible Dot Com

In an earlier entry I mentioned the distraction brought about by the plethora of information made available, most of it interesting, when using the RSS reader in Opera.

The feeds found themselves into the reader’s list because the original page was of some interest, the information flowing from their feeds naturally stays in that direction.

The VLC media player, combined with sites like OurStage.com,  Hulu.com   and AOL Radio bring an endless flow of entertainment.

The final distraction has become Audible.com.

When I first started using it, at the behest of Leo Laporte, it was with the intention of copying the recordings to my Kindle, and then to listen to the books in the car during the morning and evening commute.  Though this is primarily its use, I have discovered, because so much of my free time is spent sitting at a computer, the books can be listened to directly from the the Audible file manager.

While I have The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni playing on the Kindle for the commute, I am listening, directly from the manager,  Stephen Fry read Eleanor Updale’s  Montmorency.

LiveJournal Tags: Audible.com

Katie Sawicki – A Pure Talent

In my wandering through OurStage.com, once it had figured out my likes and dislikes the site sent me to a recording by Katie Sawicki. 

It is a rare thing for me to become an instant fan, but with this artist, this incredible all-there singer/songwriter, I can honestly say it was not something under my control.  I bought two of her MP3 collections on CDBaby,
Time Spent Lost and For The Quiet.

Then, I followed another link on her MySpace page to YouTube.  There is a good selection of videos that show how she performs, but you honestly need to hear her sing on one of her recordings to fully fall in love with this talent.

LiveJournal Tags: Katie Sawiki

First Opera RSS Reader – Now OurStage.com

LiveJournal Tags: OurStage.com

I thought the RSS reader in Opera would give me a plethora of material to bring to this blog, but instead it has dragged me into the bowels of the Internet. It is here I have fallen victim to the forest of cross references.

It was in that forest, first into VLC, then into AOL Radio and finally into OurStage.com where on channel 28, I have found off main stream blues recordings.

And in the Blues channel, (28), there I found Izzy & Chris.  Sweet blues guitar and blues harp in the delta blues style.  Click the above and let me know how you feel.

iPhone Hysteria

In an earlier tweet I mentioned that as I have avoided drugs all these years I have also avoided apple products. 

It isn’t easy living in the geek world.  Watching people sit in line for three days for a phone, one with many bells and whistles indeed, but a phone nonetheless, reminds of the people I see standing outside of office buildings in below zero temperatures smoking.

As a disclaimer I will admit being a crackberry. It is a drug of choice thing, I believe.

LiveJournal Tags: iPhone Hysteria

Mulberry Email Program

While reading one of the Opera 9.51 RSS Feeds, I came across an interview with the developer of the M2, the email handler inside Opera.  The focus he put on the email setup was to make it a cross-reference database.  This works.

With a short learning curve you will soon find there is no way, as long as you know something about the email and you haven’t deleted it permanently you won’t be able to find it.

The comment that the developer made was the Imap handling of M2 is good, but not as good as Mulberry.  Being the of the curious kind, and never having heard of Mulberry, I went to Google, found it and installed it.

It seems simple at first.  I loaded a Fastmail.fm and a GMail account into it.  The Fastmail account loaded easily.  The GMail required a / in the hierarchy field and SSLv3 enabled.  With those two minor adjustment, it worked fine.

For detailed instructions avoid Mulberry’s website. It is written by a code writer.  Instead, go to the Uof Va’s instruction sited HERE. This is especially true if you want add more than one account.  The method is not plainly put before you by the Mulberry interface.

LiveJournal Tags: Mulberry Email

What was with the umbrella?

We just watched, as we do every year, the Macy*s fireworks display on NBC. 

Did the professionals go home and let the interns run the show?  That was the most pathetic display of amateur production techniques I’ve seen since High School.

People are watching the show to see the fireworks. 

In the middle of the magnificent pyrotechnic display, for which I am sure Macy’s spent a fortune, they pop a singer up who is supporting a golf umbrella across her shoulder.

The umbrella blocks the view of the fireworks her song is supposed to enhance.  You could see the poor camera operator trying to get around her to the left.  And then some idiot of the highest degree decides to project stars onto the umbrella.  What was that supposed to do, make us less annoyed? 

Didn’t work.  It made us notice the umbrella even more.

I feel almost as bad as when NBC stopped showing Mary Martin in Peter Pan on my birthday.  Not as bad as when Dave Garroway left the Today Show.  Somewhere in between.

Happy Fourth!

Bozo Dead?

It has been reported that Bozo the Clown, or at least a man who is associated with the character, Larry Harmon, has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 83.

The pictures of the clown fish was used because most clown faces are copyrighted material.

LiveJournal Tags: Bozo Dead

Bozo Dead