Archive for November, 2005

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Automagic Podcaster

Sunday, November 27th, 2005

Today I learned how to pull images out of my audio files. Woohoo! I also started using a free little program called ID3-TagIT to add meta data to my files. So far, everything is working like a charm.

So let me tell you a little bit about the reason I’m doing all of this. Podcasting! A few of you may have known about my Dreamy Audio podcast. Every now and then I wake up and speak into a voice recorder about what I had just dreamt about. Eventually, I get around to moving the files to my computer, editing them, and then uploading to the website.

There are many steps involved in this process. I’m aiming to take a few steps out by automating a few things. With the scripts that I have been setting up, you just upload an audio file into a directory and forget about it. The scripts read all of the meta data and build your feeds, a blog-like website, and it even has a flash audio player on the front page that lets visitors play the most recent audio files.

Once I had an edited file ready, I used to upload it to a separate site and tell that site to publish things over to my blog. I would have to enter data for a few things but was not pleased how it would strip away any meta data that I had already placed in the file.

The ID3-TagIT program is helping out very much as well. I am no longer limited to the fields that iTunes and Win amp permit me to use. ID3-TagIT lets you edit just about every known field. It does not yet support chapters though. You can visit the new podcast for Dreamy Audio or take a look at some of the details that I can pull out of an audio file.

I eventually want to package the script and let the community use it to make there own podcasts much easier.

Posted in Blogging, Hobbies, Programming | Comments Off

Problem Solved

Saturday, November 26th, 2005

MP3 ID3v2 PHP CodeI solve problems for a living. It is the point of overcoming a difficult problem that gives me the most joy. I was trying to read MP3 files with a script so that I could determine the length of the audio playtime in seconds. I just broke through and got it to work.

So now comes the fun part. I get to clean up the code. I also have plenty of time to reflect why I didn’t catch on earlier. As the saying goes, “Hindsight is always 20/20″. All documentation over the MPEG format does not cover what to do in the case of ID3v2 tags. ID3v2 was added as meta data after MPEG became a standard, so it is no wonder why there isn’t any mention of it.

The answer was simple. If an MPEG audio file has the string “ID3″ as the first three characters in the file, then you just read the header to find out how large the ID3 tag is and skip past it. Once I did that, everything worked perfectly.

One benefit to solving this problem is that my code started to become optimized. I separated portions into smaller methods so that I could manage things easier and see the big picture. I even learned many ways to do the same thing. I’m still a little new to the PHP programming language, so this was a great exercise.

Posted in Hobbies, Programming | 2 Comments »

MP3 Playtime

Friday, November 25th, 2005

I’ve been at this problem for a while now. I’m trying to find out how many seconds are available in my MP3 files that I encode for my podcast. If I can find out how to get this information, then I can display that information along with other meta data on the web page that I’m building for it.

So far, I have figured out everything else under the sun. I am able to pull out ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. I’m able to read header information such as the format, sample rate, bit rate, channels, CRC, copyright, padding, original, and more. From what I see, everything should work perfectly. From the bit rate and channels, I should be able to calculate the playtime based on the number of frames available.

The problem is that the files that I have don’t match the information that I am decoding. I’ve looked at the properties of my files through the file system, iTunes, and win amp. All three references report the same information, but my code seems to be off.

I’m scratching my head here. I’ve looked at samples from others and it appears that I’m doing roughly the same thing. I’ve reversed my bits in a vain attempt to make everything work. I decided to list out the bit masks of all of the MP3 headers in the file. What is odd is that some frames have different MPEG and Layer versions. I’ll be scratching my head for a while.

Posted in Programming | 1 Comment »

Happy Turkey Day

Thursday, November 24th, 2005

Angel and I headed on up to my Aunts house for this Thanksgiving. I hadn’t been there in so long. As soon as we arrived, Angel went strait for the horses. I thought that they only had an old horse, but it turns out that they had three. They were not so old either.

Angel and a Horse Clydesdale Horse Palomino Horse The Barn

Supper was great. They had green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sour kraut, lama beans, and of course – Turkey. They had plenty of deserts as well. My favorite was grandmas’ strawberry cake. There was also some killer chocolate cake and some local homemade ice cream.

Thanksgiving Food Thanksgiving Deserts Grandma's Strawberry Cake

We all had a good time catching up on what everyone has been doing. My nephew showed off his albino ferret. One of my niece’s played the guitar while I relaxed in a nice soft chair and listened to the family chatter. There was a commotion breaking out when my dad tried to give his sister some money. He always does that for whomever is hosting the dinner. Grandma is usually the host. My aunt had a lot more energy and started chasing him around the kitchen trying to give him his money back.

Near the end of the event, we all went out to visit with the horses for feeding time. A few of my nephews played some basket ball on the side of the barn while we went into the horses pen. It was cold, windy, and little specs of snow could be seen here and there. When the feeding was done, my wife and I said our good byes.

Happy Thanksgiving

I had a very good day today. Thanks.

Posted in Friends and Family, Life | 5 Comments »

Gerbils on the go

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

My gerbils have been moving across the house over time. They began in my bedroom, but the constant gnawing at the plastic was cutting into my sleep. They ended up in the spare bedroom, but the echos of chewing and spinning wheels could be heard in the room next to it. Then it was the kitchen. They seemed to be doing OK there, but they were taking up valuable space on the kitchen table. Last night, I moved them downstairs.

Gerbil Multiplex

It took me almost two hours to get everything setup. Most of it is trying to figure out what pipes will get around certain obstacles. I end up removing old tunnels in favor of different configurations. The other part is trying to make sure it is secure enough so that our cats don’t open up any of the tubes. The shelving unit was also adjusted so that the big tanks could fit and have enough space for the tubes coming out of the top.

As usual, the gerbils went crazy crawling all over the place. I think they might have everything memorized by now. I sometimes wonder if they still remember any of the old configurations.

Posted in Entertainment, Hobbies | 2 Comments »

The PS3 is up for grabs

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

PS3It was only a matter of time before it happened. The next generation of the Sony PlayStation (PS3) is now on the Free Pay/Gratis network. The XBox 360 went on sale this week, but the release date for the Sony PS3 is in 2006. There is much heated debate over which is better/faster. My heart is on the PS3.

Here are a few features of the PS3:

  • Powered by new “Cell” processor
  • Processor speed is 35 times faster than PS2’s
  • Graphics support for movie-quality images in real-time
  • Blue tooth wireless controller
  • Uses “Blu-ray” format game media
  • Support for HDTV output
  • Integrated Ethernet, WiFi, Blue tooth support
  • Backwards-compatible with PS2 games

I’m curious if it is also backwards compatible with PS1 games since the PS2 also supported them.

The deal is legitimate. I already got a free iPod from these guys. Now I’m going for a free video iPod, a free XBox 360, and a free Sony PS3. Go ahead and get yours now!

Posted in Entertainment | Comments Off

Amarantine Days

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

I’ve picked up Enya as one of my favorite artists back in the old college days in Pittsburgh. I had a room mate (who looked very much like Enya) that would play her music and fall asleep to it.

This week my mother in-law (also a big fan) told me that she was coming out with a new album after five years. She had seen an advertisement in the paper that Best Buy would be selling it under ten dollars. As she was telling me this on the phone, I looked at a few coupons that I got from McDonald’s. I had a total of five dollars in Best Buy Bucks.

I went on over today. As I walked through the doors, a table was rite there with a few items laid out. I figured that this might be the stuff in the advertisement and quickly found Amarantine priced at $13.99. The register at the front picked up the discount of $9.99. The cashier said I could only apply up to three dollars towards a musical album. The total came to $7.49. That is still a very good deal.

Much of her music was just like much of her other stuff. There are subtle differences. I especially liked Less Than a Pearl, Someone Said Goodbye, A Moment Lost, Drifting, Amid the Falling Snow, and Water Shows the Hidden Heart. The album cover simply had Enya with a white backdrop. Simple.

One thing that I noticed was a small comment on the back. The lyrics for three songs (Less than a pearl, The river sings, and Water shows the hidden heart) were sung in the Loxian language. I haven’t heard of this language before. My mother in-law said that some songs were sung in elvish or a similar language in some of the past films from the Tolkien trilogy, “Lord of the Rings“.

This comment went on to say that the language was taken from the book “Water Shows The Hidden Heart”. Amazon doesn’t have this book. They don’t even have the person, Roma Ryan, as an author either. They are mainly a lyricist/conductor for Enya. I found a related article that said that the language was inspired from her work with Lord of the Rings.

“Roma suggested a fictional language for singing and tried to create a culture and history behind it,” Enya says. “The Loxians live on another planet and are looking out, wondering, ‘Are we the only ones who exist?’ It’s a beautiful idea.”

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Carry on, Jeeves

Monday, November 21st, 2005

At digital NATION, (one of my past jobs,) I won a Land Rover Discovery Series II. Yea – I’m that guy. I sold the vehicle to the vice president and got myself a smaller car that I still drive today. With some of the extra money, I started investing in stocks since it seemed to be a smart idea at the time. One of them was Ask Jeeves (ASKJ).

Jeeves is a butler from a book called “Carry on, Jeeves”. He has an answer for everything and knows how to make things work out in the end. It is a comedy of sorts that originally appeared in 1925. I’ve heard a few of them on my XM Radio with Sonic Theater.

The company, Ask Jeeves, is a search engine that gives you results that other people have moderated. It was something new and catching on pretty quick at the time. I invested about a thousand dollars into it. I watched as my stock continued to go up higher and higher. Then I watched as it tumbled so far down that a single share of stock wouldn’t even cover the cost of the book that it was based off of.

I had long ago sold all of my remaining stock in my eTrade account due to the dot-com crash of 2000. I knew nothing about stocks and today I know less. Much to my surprise, I received a letter in the mail of a class action law suit against them. To sum up the summary, I could get nine cents per share, but pay three cents in fees. I only had a few shares of Ask Jeeves, so I might get a check for a dollar in the distant future. Maybe I should I start counting my eggs and plan for that trip to Hawaii.

Posted in Finances, Life | 3 Comments »

Uploading Stupid Videos

Sunday, November 20th, 2005

Angel watches many videos on Stupid Videos. The site seems to be very popular. For this reason, I was a little shocked when I received the following email:

I just tried uploading a video on stupidvideos.com

And it gave me this error message:

“Upload Without COM 3.0 error ‘8004000b’

Not enough free space available.[Need help? Contact Lewis Moten,
lewis@moten.com, http://www.lewismoten.com]

/include/clsField.asp, line 431″

It looks like the folks over at Stupid Videos ran out of disk space by the looks of this message.

I’ve uploaded many scripts over the years to an open-source community on the internet called Planet Source Code. The third generation of my upload files without COM script for ASP has been a contest winner and very popular. It brings a warm feeling in my heart to see that well known sites are picking up on the script as well.

Posted in Communications, Entertainment, Programming | 7 Comments »

Kittens, Parks, and Cleaning

Saturday, November 19th, 2005

The morning didn’t start off too well. On top of that, Angel and I got a phone call that someone would be over to pick up Bandit for adoption day. Angel and I took Bandit over ourselves rather then wait. Waiting is the worst part of it all.

Lewie and Bandit on Adoption Day

I played with the dogs over at Lisa’s house while Angel helped her out around the house getting things ready. When we left, we headed on over to a park. Angel led me through the different trails. It was cold and all I could do was just hold her hand at times and let her know that I was there for her.

Shadows Smelly Wetlands

I dropped Angel off at a friends house while Mom and I cleaned up the house. We rearranged the living room to expose one of the heating vents and get a better layout to expose more room. By time Angel got back, Mom had already left. She loved the new floor plan.

We later got a call from Lisa about Bandit and found that he was not adopted today. A woman and her daughter had wanted him, but the people in charge of the adoption did not feel comfortable with the woman. We later went over to Lisa’s house to pick up Bandit. While we were there, we offered to help a friend of hers out who had five kittens that needed a place to stay for a few days. There was a knock at our door a few hours later and a woman came in with the kittens.

5 little kittens

Posted in Hobbies, Life | Comments Off

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