Older blog entries for highgeek (starting at number 48)

Busy

I have been very busy these last few weeks working on setting up moderation on the SDGoth site and getting into the way of doing things at the new job. So far it has been a mixture of silly boring stuff, mixed with understanding the current architecture and getting a grip on the wealth of information and software available at HQ. I feel pretty confident about things though and have a good idea on how to proceed from here. Everyone has been really great to work with from the start, which is always somewhat surprising.

Ezmlm

Setting up Ezmlm to a complex setup as I have now, was kind of a pain. I mean, if you install it out of the box with the right flags it isn't hard. But once you start tweaking things. You can easily get caught up in the details and forget something minor that causes the whole thing to fail. I guess this is where the unix philosophy of small programs with specific functions that make the entire application breaks down. It breaks down when you get lost in the details and don't remember what went where.

Gibson's MaGIC

This is definately one of the most interesting things coming from the AES Show. Granted it has been in the works for a while, but it seems to be getting pretty good. Now, I haven't looked into it much, but although it uses RJ-45, I am not certain it will actually work along side a normal ethernet IP network. If it does that would be great, it would provide a dual purpose for the wire I am stringing around. Now if it could deal with 802.11 wireless as well, that would be even better. This isn't exactly MIDIoIP as provided by sfront, but communicating Sysex and MIDI control messages over TCP/IP would be pretty cool. I guess RJ-45 is nice, but TCP/IP would be even better. RTP and SIP might be able to help here. Hmm.. Ah, too many cool toys to play with and that is besides the creation of music.

How much of your disk space do they own?

I am starting to see this more and more, and I am wondering how far this will go. We all know that in browser cache we sometimes store things that we did not necessarily want. Such as banner ads, pop-ups, cookies and other tracking and control data from online services. But what happens when these things get thrown about your normal applications and download data?

We are starting to see a lot of bundling of applications and pre-caching of content. They can be bonus apps or shareware that you might be interested in or just something that will hide in your windows registry, so you won't be able to adjust your settings later, or provide you with a pretty blue of death. Or what if they are pre-caching content that they assume you would be interested in? such as the rest of an album, although you only asked for the 3rd track you like so much. How would you know what you could delete and what you can not? The invasion of disk space, by people assuming to know what you want.

Now it gets even more fun with DRM and lets say PressPlay content. When I no longer use the service, will I be able to remove all the unwanted propaganda and delete all the now useless songs? Maybe I am caching content for my neighbor, because they threw us in some P2P network, I wasn't aware of. So there goes a good 2 percent of my disk space, for what? I ask you. I am already having a lot of issues with software I install myself (including Operating Systems), let stand some rogue P2P network. I can see it now. Spammers are going to take over my disk space, because they made my machine an open SMTP relay when I installed the latest screensaver.

Vacation

After doing some minor consulting and hanging out for a couple of months, reading things and catching up on what has been going on in the world. I just recently took on a new full-time job. I will be doing more Network and System Architecture work for an old school dot.com.

During the time off, I ended up reading a few books, playing games, watching lots of ANIMEs and doing a trip along the southern states across the United States. It was a total of about 5,400 miles on the road in a little bit more then 2 weeks. Other then that the significant other had other commitments that made her not able to join us on this trip. It was definitely worth it. While I have just about been everywhere in Europe, this was really the first time I made it to the east coast with some time to look around. It wasn't just for some conference where all you see is the insides of the hotel and (if you are lucky) a couple of bars around the corner.

Remote E-Mail

Now that I had a good trip where we wanted to do some remote logins to be able to check e-mail and such. Now that we have SSL based IMAP, POP3, S/MIME and PGP we are pretty good at securing e-mail body content and retrieval, but we still seem to be somewhat lacking in first delivery to the MTA.

On the windows client side there are a lot of MUA/MTAs that support the pop3 extensions [RFC2449], SASL [RFC2222] and SMTP Authentication [RFC2554]. On the UNIX side it tends to be a lot more slim. Since most clients tend to be just MUAs or only implement a short subset of the MTA. I wonder how some folks do MTA relaying of arbitrary mail messages? They must us static IPs in the ACLs, since that is about the only thing that I can see.

Are any of you aware of a MTA client that supports SMTP Auth? Right now, I am just using a local qmail installation where I can just call 'qmail-inject -h' to have it delivered, but it would be better if I could have a way to sent it from the main MTA (via SMTP Auth).

Conferences and Proposals

Looks like it is time to start thinking of proposals for some of the conferences coming up such as the IETF, BSDCon and OSCon. It looks like another ApacheCon is pretty far out of reach, but I assume we are all just waiting for Apache HTTPD 2.0 to be released. I also have had thoughts of submitting a talk for the "Emerging Technologies" conference put on by O'Reilly and Associates. Although, the deadline for that is in the next few days.

Happy New Year!, everyone!.

Life

It has been a while, but I guess I have been busy enjoying my time off and doing all sorts of stuff, not necessarily computer related.

I had a few trips to Universal Studios, Legoland California and to South Baja California, Mexico for some surfing in freezing water. Overall a very good time to get away from things and ponder some more on the current happenings and goals in life. I find it good to do that every once in a while, just to keep on top of why you are doing what you are doing. It was good to hang out with old friends as well talking what all has happened in the last few years.

On the computer front I have been hacking on MusicBrainz and MacOS X.1 and reading random things that find my interest. Not much in detail really, just reading up on mailing lists and writting random scripts and programs to make life on MacOS X a little easier. I did some minor consulting work, but found I wasn't really what I looking to do right now. Although, I must say it was a fun bunch of people to work with.

Media

With all this time, I have been reading a lot of things, listening to some new music and watching a lot of movies. Maybe I will post about that under my alter ego one of these days.

Money rules America?

First Microsoft escapes break up because our government feels it has taken way too long. Now we get this new SSSCA bill that pretty much takes away the rights that consumers have been taking for granted. It pretty much is build on the experience of the big five and the RIAA . Although I haven't had the time yet to read the document in detail, but it seems like it is a way for them to protect them from technology moving faster then they would like it too. Online music services are going to have a very hard time existing for independents that do not have the money to prove that their way is a reasonable way of doing business on the net.

Add this(reg req'd) event to the list and it clearly shows that we need a whole new government setup or something, because what ever happened to the rights of the consumer and residents of this country.

kgb, let me know where you decide to move to. I have been reading about living in different places of the world, now maybe I will have to include property and patent law as well as a consideration. Arghh, this is probably going to limit my options a considerable amount. Doesn't look good. I am not sure if becoming a US. Citizen to see about voting the next election would help prevent these kinds of things. Sad times at the beginning of this new billennium.

Lots of interesting conferences coming up (besides the canceled apachecon). CMJ Marathon, International Computer Music Conference, Streaming Media East and of course the IETF. I will most likely miss out on most if not all of them because of limited time and finances.

MP3.com, Inc., a Vivendi Universal Company

With the acquisition complete and public figure Michael Robertson moving on to other things; I am sure we are going to see a lot of changes at the online music service provider. Now with some fun articles at Hits Magazine and an engineering department that will have to spend more effort to explain technical details to the executive team, we will never know what will come of it. I really hope things go well, because there are still a lot of great people there that I hope will be able to survive these changes without too much hassle.

I really appreciate mbp for posting the engineering perspective on VCs. It ironed out some loose thoughts and combined them to a more solid perspective. It would be really great to have some of the rich techie types help finance some technological start ups that can push the envelope. Although, companies like Google are definately showing that with some research done ahead of time you can even conquer the wel established.

Quality of Living

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about this. Especially from my time spend in the bay area. If you look at housing and real estate alone it is soo expensive to live up there it is rediculous. You are going to have to take some serious risks to survive or be willing to deal with the hassles of public transportation or sitting in traffic commuting to more reasonable areas to live.

I spend a few days last week with a friend of mine living in Las Vegas. It put a whole new perspective on my life and made me think about getting a better perspective on the pros-n-cons of living in San Diego, California or just about anywhere in the world for that matter. The differences to what kind of real estate you can afford and the different tax laws in different states and countries are tremendous. It can really make a huge difference in how you spend your day and how much money you really would need to have an enjoyable life.

Technology

I have been spending some time learning about Cocoa frameworks to get familliar with the Audio and Quicktime APIs. I have also been spending some more time playing with the Darwin Streaming Server. It has been a good experience and since I am doing it in my own time, I do not have to worry about how long I am taking and if I am hitting the unrealistic deadlines as set by management. Which is always good.

There are a couple of other projects that have been on my mind for a while such as upgrading components on a few of my servers and writing some cataloging code for a database of our music collection. If we do not get that up soon enough, it could get pretty seriously out of hand keeping track of things. This might finally be an excuse to integrate some of the MusicBrainz project. To be able to integrate the loads of Vinyl I have it might make sense to record some of it for cataloging and back up purposes. Scanning in the barcodes would probably also be a good idea. It will be great to have this finally in place, it will make music purchasing soo much easier and knowing what ever happened to that one CD and how come I ended up with having two copies of it.

Elektrode Studio

I have been spending some more time learning the insides and out of the new Virus TDM Synth plugin that I finally got working. (Yeah!). It required me to get a particular USB floppy drive for authorization, since my G4 (DA) doesn't come with a floppy drive. It looks like some of the plug-in developers are trying to use other authentication methods such as an OPIE challenge response system linked to your hard drive by Kind of Loud to new hardware USB keys such as the iLok and the iButton. Now I wonder how the labels would have felt if you needed one of these to listen to your music online (ala my.mp3.com)? I mean these keys are useful in crypto cases such as SSL and such. But I am sure you can see it now, someday some one will steal your wallet containing your music card and your eyeballs to be able to hear the latest tunes of their favorite artists that you were evaluating.

It is odd how we went from analog synth to software synths and now we are going back to physical circuitry for authentication purposes. You are going to have to replace all your rack modules with USB keys and hubs.

Anyways, till next time

Pho and Online Music

tunesmith: Glad to hear you found pho. It has been an interesting list for a while but now that most online music startups have gone bust it has been mostly noise with the occasional worthwhile post. People are trying to figure out where to go to next and waiting to see where things like MusicNet and Duet end up. Hopefully it will get better again once the momentum starts going again.

Covalent Technologies, Inc.: No more

After my last diary incident at the office things have had been nothing but political and a strive to make as much money with as little effort as possible. It mainly has been an exhibition of power by upper and middle management which really didn't sit right in my stomach. So last thursday I send in my letter of resignation after I concluded it wouldn't get any better. This was confirmed by getting a reply to my resignation from the CEO containing the single word "Boring". It is really a shame because the place had soo much potential and had a very talented group. Oh well, now it is time to locate the next great thing I believe in to contribute to. If you know of anything that might be of interest, feel free to contact me.

Electronic Music

I have been spending a lot of time these last few days in my Studio work on a new track. On top of recording some mixes of my favorite records to come out in the last year or so. It has be quite productive and has allowed me to get away from life for a little while. With all this emotion and energy being replanted, I actually feel that the new track and mix are looking to be some of the best work done todate.

After seeing Anthony Pappa at DNA Lounge a few weeks ago, I went to go see Cass dee-jay at Spundae @ Circus. He played a magnificant set which was nice, energetic and dark. Probably the best set I have been to this year. Tonight I am going to see if I can see Satoshi Tomiie and Scott Bond play at Giant or I might swing by Spundae againto see Lee Burridge on the decks.

Jabber

I spend a few hours last night reading the Jabber protocol spec and playing with the server and clients. From my experience using Gale and comercial IM systems, I must say that Jabber has a lot of potential. I am going to see if I can write some code against it to get a better idea of how it works in practice. Maybe looking into a gale - jabber gateway could be interesting.

There are plenty of things to do. It is now a matter of figuring out what would be the best thing for me to focus on.

CD Copy Protection

Looks like someone has spend more time looking into the new Music CD Copy protection that got launched by the majors. Playing with the error protection bits is something I could have seen coming, but didn't really think people would have actually gone for it. Bummer.

Online Music

Some other interesting articles are on MP3.com's last quarter and how Online Music should go Hollywood and an interview with Rep Rick Boucher on the DMCA. TheStandard has been posting a lot of news/articles on online music. Gotta find more time to read them all.

Online Journals and Diaries

Well, this week I found out that public diaries and journals aren't always a good thing. People tend to missread or interpret what is written and hold it against you. Regardless of how hard you try to make something succesfull or try to create the best you mention a single word in your diary and it all comes out like you do nothing at all.

Add telecommuting to the puzzle and life becomes even more unpredictable. I can see diaries like these become an issue when you discuss trade secrets or explain how easy it would be to by pass security, but even simply stating what you do on a particular weekend or things you care about can be taken the wrong way.

I said it once and I will say it again, politics only provides a way for the most expressive people to gain a voice that could ultimately undermine everything you have done.

O'Reilly Open Source Conference in San Diego

I spend a few hours last week at this conference and I must say it was great to be able to run into soo many people you haven't seen for a while at the same time. it is like having a reunion, except this time it was in my home town. I also saw a few people from my old stomping grounds such as tommy, bmd, scottb and geekd.

I met a few new people have been getting active on the Apache front. And this occasion also allowed to show some friends one of the better mexican restaurants in old town. It was good to finally meet people such as ask with whom I have talked many times online, but never ran into in person.

I mainly was there to be able to give some people rides and go to a few meetings, since certain people such as dirkx, rbb and dougm where in town for the conference.

Peer 2 Peer

This movement is really taking all the hype it can get and moving forward. This totally reminds me of what started the MP3 movement. Many companies such as LimeWire, Kazaa, Edonkey and San Diego's FirstPeer are taking a stab at the market. It all sounds very interesting technology wise, but I find it hard to see how you would make any money at it, which is good for a pay check, but ultimately why most people start companies anyways.

MacOS X

I am getting really close to getting my MacOS X machine to be what I ultimately look for in a client OS. Of course having my normal Macintosh programs work such as ProTools and other audio software would be ideal, but I guess it will still take a while. I really need to spend some time looking at the Audio API. Thanks to XonX, Fink I now have enlightenment 16.5 running on MacOS X next to my Omniweb browser windows. A few hours hacking on the weekend and boom! Look at what you get. It is funny though as many people have told me that soo many open source people are starting to run a proprietary OS on their desktop/laptop. Pretty odd, but I guess you run what solves all your needs and MacOS X is definately the closest OS from what I can tell.

MP3.com Summit

After going to 3 of these and finding to be less technical and more and more business oriented I am happy to say I ended up missing this one. Everyone is pessimistic about the music's future, although there is still a lot to be done and there is still a huge future it is just not going to be something easily grabbed without serious research and market testing.

Distribution and Quality are still serious issues today. Licensing is another issue that is really holding up just about everything. MENTAL NOTE: Get a lawyer before putting your latest creation live. ;-)

Work

I currently get the greatest pleasures of learning how the installation procedure works on the Microsoft Windows platform. I guess there are still people who want our software to install smoothly and run on this excitingly confusing platform. It is definately interesting, but the last thing I want is people to realize that I am understanding this and they might get the bright idea that maybe I should work on this for a long time. No thanks! So, yes, I am learning the Installer SDK.

I am getting to do all sorts of different things ranging from a little XML work (the reason I actually got hired), build and install environment hacking, performance tuning, network architecture and research on things such as Audio/Video. I really just wish I could continue hacking on XML and I18N issues. I will have to find time in after work hours for the real fun stuff.

San Francisco

This Tuesday I will be at Covalent's Headquarters in San Francisco for some meeting and most likely will try to stay the entire week, so I can hit up some clubs on the weekend and see Darren Emmerson at Nikita and Anthony Pappa at Red Square in jwz' newly opened DNA Lounge. If you are up in SF during the week and want to meet up, let me know. It is going to be interesting to be working from the office again, I am not sure if that is going to be productive or counter productive. We will find out I guess.