Random Thoughts of Jorriss

I have a problem with iTunes. I’ve been using iTunes for over a year and a half now and I love it. But there is one thing that I haven’t used much of in iTunes is the music store. I’ve got a problem with spending money on music that I can’t archive or use with another mp3 player. That is until now. The hymn project allows you to use your iTunes music store music anywhere.

The purpose of the Hymn Project is to allow you to exercise your fair-use rights under copyright law. The various software provided on this web site allows you to free your iTunes Music Store purchases (protected AAC / .m4p) from their DRM restrictions with no loss of sound quality. These songs can then be played outside of the iTunes environment, even on operating systems not supported by iTunes and on hardware not supported by Apple.

Why use Hymn Project software?

·         To decrypt your iTunes protected AAC files so that they can be played on operating systems for which no official version of iTunes exists, such as Linux.

·         To use non-Apple AAC-capable hardware to play your music.

·         To eliminate the five computer limit imposed by iTunes.

·         To make archival backups of your music.

·         As the first step in converting your music from protected AAC to MP3, Ogg, or your other favorite audio file format, for use with your non-iPod portable audio player.

·         To demonstrate your belief in the principles of fair-use under copyright law.  

Hymn is not to be used to help music piracy. Having many friends who are musicians I know that they are the ones who are screwed by the record companies. Piracy isn’t hurting the music conglomerates the most, it’s the musicians. So enjoy hymn and buy a CD every once in a while will ya?  

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has done a piece on bloggers and it is darned funny! Check it out.  Via Halley’s Comment.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months Gmail is Google’s e-mail service. It offers one gigabyte of storage space and a simple interface. Currently, you can only get a gmail account by invitation. If you don’t have an invitation you can get one at the gmail invite spooler.

I think it’s time for a little experiment. The first person that e-mails my new gmail account I will send them a $15 iTunes gift card. The trick is I’m not going to give my gmail address. This isn’t as hard as it looks. First a couple of rules: 1. I will only accept e-mail from a gmail account. I got one so should you. 2. Have something in the e-mail about this post. Something clever like “I found you now pony up!” 3. You better have an iTunes account because I’m not shipping anything. Well, I think that’s about it. Let’s see how long it takes to give away this gift card.

Update: Well that was fast. My boy Stephen scored the iTunes gift card in six minutes. I think that's a record for this blog. Congrats. BTW he wants everyone to know that he loves me.

It started Monday morning at about 2 A.M. I woke up with a splitting headache. I got outta bed and my whole body hurt. I went to the kitchen to get some water and I was dizzy the whole way. I slept most of the day and had a 102 degree fever that night. I woke up this morning and the fever, the aching, and the dizziness was still there. Luckily, the fever broke this afternoon. I do feel better but I still feel crappy.

I can never remember the proper syntax for those darned DB connection strings. Thanks to ConnectionStrings.com and this article on .Net connection-string keywords I don’t have to. I highly recommend ConnectionStrings.com. It has connection strings for all kinds of databases. So the next time you have to connect to Lightbase or PostgreSQL go there first.

 As an early Valentines’ Day present I give to you, my loyal reader, the ability to search jorriss.com. Yes, now my blog can be searched. I was waiting for the new version of community server to add search capability but after reading how Chris Sells added Google to his blog I figured I’d give it a try. I did run into a small problem with the search form. When the search button was pressed the form wasn’t posting correctly. After some research I found this post on how to launch Google from .Text.  The author used an iFrame to host his search form. Great idea. So I added the iFrame and whatdayaknow it worked. So happy Valentines’ Day all I hope you like your gift.

Quick poll. Who has been watching Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi? I see one, two hands. Shame on you people! Battlestar Galactica has delivered the best five consecutive episodes of any series that I’ve ever seen. (Notice that I say consecutive.) Is it better than Lost, Alias, or Desperate Housewives? Dunno. But it’s definitely in the conversation. And just in case you missed it Battlestar has been renewed for a second season. Oh and don’t forget to read Ron Moore’s blog. He’s the mastermind behind Battlestar Galactica. Too bad there’s no RSS feed. Dang.

Update: I forgot to mention that Battlestar Galactica can be seen on the Sci-Fi channel Fridays at 10 PM.

 Rory is on another rant, but this time he’s right.  His target is 3D desktops like SphereXP.

“Human beings have 7 +/– 2 memory “registers” for short term memory. In other words, you can keep anywhere from 5 to 9 pieces of information in your short term memory before you run out of space and have to commit something to permanent storage (which, unfortunately, isn’t as easy as it sounds) or discard it to make room for new information (much easier than it sounds).”

Rory, for once I agree with you. Just because the interface is “cool” doesn’t mean it would equate to productivity. The Mac has had a slick interface for years but do you see Macs in business. Nope. Of course there are other factors for the Mac not being accepted into the business community but that’s outside of the scope of this post. Conversely, the iPod has a simple, intuitive interface and we all know how well the iPod has done. So go download SphereXP if you are so inclined but don’t expect any miracles.

Since I’ve been taking more pictures I’ve been using Photoshop Elements 2 more often. One of my biggest pet peeves about Photoshop Elements 2 is the red-eye tool. All it does is replace the red of the eye with a big grey blob. I’ve found this review of the new Photoshop Elements 3 and it upgrades the old red-eye tool with a new one that actually works. I might pick this up on the way home.

Recently, I’ve been debating an important issue. Do I show only the most recent pictures that I’ve taken or do I show a random set of pictures? The answer is simple post them both. Thanks to everyone who gave their input into this decision. I’m glad to ride the fence and play the politician.

Sometimes things just keep going wrong. After I got out of the hospital (I promise a post is coming on that) I needed to get back running. The Miami marathon was just two weeks away and I really, really wanted to run in it. So, on my first run out of the hospital I invited Lucy to come along to ensure that I’d “take it easy”. After a mile an a half I decided to run some sprints to work on the speed a bit. During one of the sprints my right knee didn’t feel right. It was sore on the way home and stayed sore for the next few days. I gave it a weeks rest and I was back in the gym for some treadmill work. Almost two miles into the run my knee started hurting again. I finished out the mile and tried to walk it out. It started to hurt even more. I got off of the treadmill and limped back to my car. That was a week ago. My knee is extremely tender right now and I had to miss the Miami marathon because of it. I’m probably going to miss the Palmetto Bay 15K and the 5K Walk for Life because of it. *sigh* I’ve seen one doctor about it and he said it would be fine “in a couple of weeks” but I’m not buying it. I’m going to see another doctor next week and hopefully he’ll send me to see a specialist. I just want the knee to heal so I can get out there again. This is frustrating!