This was a stupid problem that being somewhere between noob and mid level *nix geek really hurt me. Either way, painful as it was:

If you are using Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), and you follow any of the tutorials or info for building Rails software stacks, and also happen to be trying to do all this with a PostgreSQL (postgres) database, you are going to need to install the postgres gem. If you are using Ubuntu’s package management (which you should be!) you may hit a problem. In some mythical land there was a package named postgresql-dev or something along those lines, and it had all the required headers, but it has apparently been renamed (drum roll)

libpq-dev

So apt-get or synaptic your way to db bliss.

(oh, just in case, here’s the command:

apt-get install libpq-dev

)

In case you’re curious, here was the magical googcantation that found the grail:

“which ubuntu packages does the postgres gem need?”

Seriously…

Hey, if you tried it first, you wouldn’t be here. LOL

Ok, this one goes out to my wife, who loves this idiotic piece of ENTERTAINMENT…

Yup, that’s right, I said “entertainment”, and I meant it. This show is based off of bad science, and I’m sick of wanting to go all Elvis on my expensive widescreen every time this turd is on my set. Let me ’splain Lucy.

This show’s goofy producers find these poor morbidly obese people, and then put them through the ringer with a trainer, who beats the tar out of them daily, and tries to teach them to eat correctly, which leads to bitch numero uno:

1. These people are getting their bodies used to an exercise regimen that:

a. No one can possibly continue if they have a normal life, after they win or are booted off the show.

b. Will cause most of these people to begin to gain weight back when they leave the show.

Given, I understand this is a type of “fat camp”, and they are trying to give these people some propulsion to live the rest of their life healthy. But I also think they are at a critical point in their lives, when they are truly making the decision to live healthy, and should be brought in more gently, and with a higher expectation of consistency, which is really what it’s all about in the weight loss game.

Now, the next problem is the stupidity of some of these workouts. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the trainers on the show for some reason, they are cool characters with taut little cartoon bodies, excellent motivation. But here’s the problem. Take a 500 lb dude. His bones, and specifically his knees and hips are taking a beating just moving him to the bathroom to pee. This is not a joke, our knees aren’t built for this. Now, amplify that by making him run around on asphalt with a trainer on his back. If these little trainers weight 130 lbs (I’m talking about Jillian here in case you are wondering) We’re talking about 630 lbs of weight, standing STILL. I don’t even know what the math is to compute the impact force of these people trying to RUN on a hard surface on their knees, but man, it’s easy to guess it’s way over what human knees were ever made to deal with. So exposing bitch #2:

2. These people are abusing their bodies, at their trainers behest. Use your head people. Replacing knees and hip joints later in life is not going to be fun. Back off on the nonsense, keep these people on super low impact exercises. Go get some advice from an orthopedic specialist, and do it right.

Those two are just small gripes compared to this next one, which for me really is the deal breaker. This is why I think this show is complete trash and should be taken off the air.

When you exercise and eat correctly, and you are overweight, two things begin to happen. You begin to put ON more lean muscle mass, and you LOSE fat. My emphasis is on putting ON lean muscle.

So lets say Lucy Loser (fake name, get over it) gets her butt mauled by crazy little Bob the trainer, and has been putting her body through some grueling stuff for a few hours a day, and she’s eating good. She puts on a bunch of fuel efficient fat burning muscle, and at the same time, she burns a bunch of nasty fat. Fast forward to weigh day or whatever the heck they call it… Lucy Loser gets on the scale, and it bleep bleep bleep bleeps it’s way through 25 random numbers, before it finally settles on a weight, that is only 2 pounds less than last week. You hear the big “sigh”, tears well up in her eyes as she swears up and down she tried her hardest, the teammates all give her looks of disappointment, and then they show her interview where she continues to crumble in what she believes is her defeat.

Not one person says to her “This is all bullshit. I have this scale over here, come see. It measures the amount of fat on your body AS WELL AS YOUR WEIGHT, because one of those numbers without the other is USELESS. Oh, look, it says you lost 2% of your bodyfat. Your body composition is completely different than it was last week, you actually lost more fat than %50 of these other people who had bigger WEIGHT numbers, and YOU are a healthier winner, not a loser, stop crying, and keep kickin’ ass in the coming week.”

So there you have it. My monster gripe about the show:

3. There is no attention paid to overall body composition, just “weight loss”, which means zilch on it’s own.

Now I know better, so I blame the producers. They probably think it’s just too complicated to get all that involved, I mean TWO numbers instead of ONE would just turn the show into something only Stephen Hawking could understand, and none of us has the time that he has to sit around and think about two numbers. Seriously.

Overall, I think it’s great that America is getting more health conscious. Teaching them bad science behind it is just bunk, and setting people up for unwarranted failures and depression. Booooo on you loser producers.

Oh ya, one last lesser bitch…

4. Stop throwing people off the show. I know you need drama, but damn, it’s a feel-good show. Let them stay, keep the teams together, and let them battle it out until the end. Why is there always this F’in “Survivor” need to get rid of people? To hell with that old formula already, move forward, be a little progressive.

Oh, that’s right. It IS television, what the hell was I thinking?

Peein’ In A Bottle Video on YouTube

Hola Geeks! Ok, now I KNOW some of you are World of Warcraft fans (lovingly known as Warcrack to those who are addicted) because it’s a proven fact that geeks can actually derive essential proteins and bioflavanoids via their eyeballs while playing this game. (No. Duh.) “Fans” is kind of a funny word to use, but the English language falls short for our purpose. Some of my friends and I simple call it “The Game” as in:

Muskratboy: “Hey, what game do you wanna play?”

RB: “Duh, THE game.”

or

RB: “Dude, you wanna play a game?”

Muskratboy: “What game?”

RB: “THE game!!!”

anyway, I digress…

Some of our best buds work for American Television Distribution (Producers of Stag) and luckily, they let us borrow their expensive cameras at night to film whatever nonsense we can come up with. Well, here’s your first dose of nonsense from the newly formed off-hours comedy troop known as “Skippy McLizard”.

Enjoy fellow geeks, we did this for you. And before you ask, YES, squirting that much EZ-cheese in your mouth and eating it like that IS pretty F’in nasty… Taken in that volume, it takes on a real strange cinnamony taste. Even stranger than that, is that my spell check let “cinnamony” go. That’s a real word? Even more strange-o than THAT is the second time, it DIDN’T let it go… What the F is goin’ on here?

Anyway, enjoy, fellow Warcrackers and EZ-Cheese gulpers.

-Love n stuff-

RB

Link to “Peein’ In A Bottle” Video on YouTube

Wooooooo! I can feel the heat coming off the Internet as that title got encoded into binary. FLAME WAR! I could probably end this now, and let everyone finish it in the comments section, and it would surely get ugly, but we’re not here for a big scrapple-dapple now, are we? I’m just going to throw my 2 cents into the pot, stir it, and hopefully you’ll come out feeling 2 more pennies worth of enlightened about DAWs and which platform to roll with.

First of all, I have been recording digitally on PCs since the Quad-4 from Turtle Beach came out (1995), and we had that whoppin’ 4 tracks of digital goodness to noodle with (that we could bounce to 2 virtual tracks! Wheee!)  So, you can say that I am a super freaky early adopter. Windows 3.1 was a great platform for audio recording, and I also believe heroin is really great for your health and longevity… All jokes aside, you already know I’m a geek (see URL above), and since I was 13 me and my computers have been tighter than Luke and R2… point is, I am not afraid of hardware or software of any kind. (That’s right, back off Excel, I’ll take you out just the same!)

Now no offense to Turtle Beach, because it was super early on in digital wonderland, but it outright sucked.  I could usually count on at least 15 crashes before I could complete any mix. I lost lots of great takes, and lots of thick hair. But what I did produce was leagues ahead of what was being produced with cassette based 4-tracks at the time, sound wise. There was a certain amount of hardship you had to endure to get music recorded sans that wonderful tape “HISSSSSSSSSS”… and we endured it.

Now as our systems grew, and got more complex, and multimedia became a more serious concern, our hardware and software got stronger and more integrated, and we grew along with it. Windows 95 made an immense difference (I know, I even feel funny saying that Windows 95 did something good for me.) and then we got DirectX and the audio mix DLL on Windows,
and things REALLY started to chug. With the consistent issues though, I was always extremely thankful that I was an IT person as well, and watched many of my non-techie musician friends say “F this, I would rather just pay a studio.”, understandably.  I had always heard that things were better on Apple, but I didn’t really believe it, and as a long time computer user, I go where
the apps are, and Windows just had all the apps…

So, fast forward to 2006. I was using Cubase SX 2 at the time, hooked up through a Presonus Firepod on an AMD X2. Now compared to the old days, it was AWESOME. Compared to the Mac I got at the end of last year, it just plain sucks. That’s right, flame me all you want. I have a flame retardant psyche, and I will continue to rock out in Mac bliss while you have at it.

Cubase doesn’t crash on OSX. If I happen to plug in or remove any hardware while any DAW application was running on Windows, I would be real lucky if I didn’t lock and lose my work. OSX handles this with grace and ease. Now I won’t lie, and tell you I’ve NEVER had a Windows machine running a decent DAW, I have had those lucky hardware combinations where everything was peachy now and then, but it always involved a lot of swapping out this controller or that interface because it didn’t agree with this motherboard or that memory… Always doing software tweeks, and dealing with random plug-ins not working, it was never perfect.  With my Mac, I can honestly say that I walk into my studio, and I work, as a musician, and a musician only. I have the chance to be creative, and think about music, not about gear. Macs are a little more expensive, but for me, those benefits are priceless.

You can use a PC, and if you are on a real tight budget, I would even recommend it. If you need to make music DEPENDABLY and RELIABLY though, and you can afford it, go with a Mac. I am not a Mac person, or a PC person, or an any computer type person. I am a computer user, and I go with what works, and I go where the applications are. Musicians have always huddled around Macs, so the software for musicians is always going to be there. We work with KNOWN hardware configurations on Macs, and that’s what makes it easier for them to keep things working correctly. PCs have an unlimited amount of variables affecting each individual machine, and that’s where unexplainable (and often unanswerable by any particular vendor) problems seep in.

For the uninitiated, OS X, although a newer OS, is based off of a Unix variant called BSD. Unix is old and strong, and has it’s own philosophy surrounding it, and there’s a reason it’s lasted this long running some of the biggest baddest machines on the planet… Because it works. If it can work for huge corporations, sorting and saving and serving terrabytes and terrabytes of data daily, chances are it will be able to swing the load on your desktop, even if you are running 4 separate effects on each of your 4 vocal tracks, and running 3 instances of that sweet new “Massive” synth from Native Instruments (have I mentioned that that thing rules? That’s
another blog day.).

So, in conclusion: We, my friends, are at the best point ever known for recording in the home. It’s cheaper than ever, and the tools get more impressive every single day. Whatever platform you wind up on, you will still have what you need to make great music and then some, for sure. You will surely have more than what the Beatles had available to them when they were starting out, and look what they did with what little they had!  BUT, if I have to cast a vote, I would surely say Apple is the way to go today. Yes Apple, even with all their nickel and diming. Yes Apple, with their crazy, borderline fanatical keynote speeches and fans, and their crazy patents, and all the other nonsense. Their computers just work, and I know that my life in my studio has been nothing but a joy since that shiny brushed metal monster showed up!

Fire away!

Love and stuff,

Right Brain

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of developing a new dynamic navigation piece for the University we work for. This currently consists of a collection of somewhere around 300 separate Flash movies, and is obviously a challenge to maintain.

When originally tossing around ideas to complete this task, we rejected a javascript / css approach because the font we were required to use wasn’t standard. The navigation for the school’s site is enormous and complex, so an image solution is obviously a no-go as well. So, the (questionable) wisdom of our crew and The Whole Brain (Left and Right hemispheres, UNITE! Geek powers ACTIVATE! Form of a MICROPROCESSOR!) dictated that we go with a solution using Flash for the nav interface, our existing Postgres database to store all the info, and a Ruby on Rails application to populate the DB and serve the menu contents to the Flash navigation via XML. Yay! Sounds great…

Whooped my tired ass to implement. Let me tell you why, one problem at a time.

1.) Flash movies cannot resize from within.

I needed this thing to dynamically resize itself vertically. I didn’t even give this a second thought initially, and that was a mistake. (though not a big unrepairable one, also known as a “you’re fired” bug. Hate those. ) I thought this was going to be the most rudimentary ActionScript api call ever. I was wrong. So I scoured the web, no answers. Found a few people saying things along the lines of “can’t”, but with all the disparate technologies we have to work with on the web, I just wasn’t accepting this. So I pulled out my thinking cap, my JavaScript Super-Bible 9000, and got to work.

Long story short for everyone who got bounced here from Google and need the quick answer: yes, you can do this, but it requires a little bit of weirdness, and if you can stand a little “flash” when your movie loads (think camera flash, not Macrodobe Flash), it gets simplified. If you’re a perfectionist as we tend to be around these parts, well, it gets even a little more kludgy. But, it works, and the people upstairs could really care less about how kludgy I think my solution is… With that nice wordy intro behind us, here’s how to make it happen.

On the page that needs this resizing movie, I have one single JavaScript function call, and two external JavaScript files pulled in. One has all my code, and the other is a nice little library that is located here:

http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject

Grab the download over there, and yank out swfobject.js and throw it in your working dir.

If you are dealing with Flash, this script makes movie deployment to the page way more pleasurable, but even more than that, it gets rid of the Internet Explorer issue that requires users to click the movie before it starts doing anything (ooooh, I feel so… protected. Trojan, eat your heart out.) AND gets rid of that ridiculous border with no user intervention. For the price (free!) you can’t beat it. It does some other neat stuff too, so check it out.

As of now, we have our .html file (or whatever variant: php, asp, rhtml, it really makes no difference), our custom js file (which I named flash.js), and our swfobject.js file from deconcept. If you need code for this, fine, be that way you lazy monkey. Here’s what should be in your <HEAD> somewhere:

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<script src="/javascripts/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/javascripts/flash.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

See, that’s not so bad! (yet…)

The next thing you want to do, is set up a DIV element on your page where you want your movie to show up. Using a DIV keeps the area flexible, easy to target, and just so happens to be the way swfobject.js is designed to work. Within that DIV, we are going to put the single call to our super-do-it-all function. We will also give our DIV an id of our choosing. I choose “dynamovie”! Here’s the code, add it to your HTML file.

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<p id="dynamovie">
<script type="text/javascript">
  showMovie();
</script>

See, that was easy as well! (for now.)

For our purposes, our work with the HTML file is complete. Now we move on to the meat, the flash.js file.

This is where we start to get naughty. What we’re going to make happen here is this: the Flash movie loads, by the time it’s done, it knows what it’s height should be. At this point we call to the JavaScript super function from within our Flash movie using getURL, and build it all over again, but this time, displayed at the correct size. Neat huh? The only problem is, this reload is what causes that flash (think lightning) I warned you about. Lets start with our custom flash.js script:

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var DESTINATION_DIV_TAG = "dynamovie";
 
function randomXDigitNumber(size) {
 
    return Math.floor(Math.random() * (Math.pow(10,size)));
 
}
 
function whack(str_to_whack, num_chars_to_whack) {
 
    if (str_to_whack.length <= num_chars_to_whack) {
        return "";
    }
 
    return str_to_whack.substr(0, str_to_whack.length - num_chars_to_whack);
 
}
 
function showMovie(height) {
 
    // Fake default args.
 
    var height = (height == null) ? 0 : height;
 
    // set a flag as to whether this is the first time through (with no height)
    // or the second (with height already calculated and passed back in.)
 
    flag = "true";
 
    if (height == 0) {
 
        flag = "false";
 
    }
 
    random = randomXDigitNumber(6);
 
    var movie_url = "/dynamovie.swf?r=" + random + "&flag=" + flag;
 
    var so = new SWFObject(movie_url, DESTINATION_DIV_TAG, 150, height, "6", "#0F1D4E");
 
    so.write(DESTINATION_DIV_TAG);
 
}

We have three functions in this file, two are just helpers, but the one we are concerned is showMovie(). If you’ll scroll to showMovie() function, we can go over it a bit.

The first thing we deal with is default arguments for this function. This basically makes things simple on our web page by allowing us to not think about parameters for this function when we don’t need them. If you have no idea what’s going on with that, do a search for “JavaScript default function arguments” and you’ll get enlightened. In short, it sets things up so that if no argument is passed in, our “height”argument will have zero, just like you had passed it in yourself. We do need this argument, because when we re-call this function from WITHIN the Flash movie, we need to let it know that we actually DO have the height, so use it, and DON’T call the function recursively again, because that would just get us stuck in a loop, right? And enough of life is already like that…

The next portion is just some simple code to set up a flag that we use to decide if we should call in again later. (Yes, this could be written more simply. For the couple bytes it takes, it keeps it clean and understandable. It’s like comment-in-code, know what I’m sayin’? :-))

Next, we generate a random 6 digit number just to make sure that when our Flash movie is re-called from our Function, it actually applies our params, and doesn’t just reshow us the same movie from cache. (Which in my case, caused it to NOT reload it’s XML from the server.) Depending on your circumstances, you may be able to remove that if you really don’t want it, but all it’s harming is a couple bytes of ram and a minute number of cpu cycles.

Next we build up a string pointing to the location of our Flash movie on the server. We then use a function from our magical swfobject.js script to build, then display our movie. Simple enough, right?

Now, here’s the big, silly trick. This stuff runs, and your Flash movie gets called and revved up. I built this up in 99% actionscript, and as I’m building my dynamic movie in code (working from the top of the movie down), I’m using a variable to keep track of the height of the movie. By the time I’m done creating my nav, I have the exact height my movie is! (albeit a little late, as the HTML is already built that states how big my movie is, so that’s what we’re gonna try to square up now).

Now, the last part of this rig is the code to use in your ActionScript, which is super-simple. The (slightly) challenging part will be for you to develop your movie so you know the actual height when you’re done. This is beyond the scope of our problem here, and there is a lot of great ActionScript info out there, go exploring. In the past few months quite a few good ActionScript 3 and Flex books have hit the shelves as well, don’t be afraid to poke around those either.

So in the bottom of your Flash movie ActionScript code, you want to do something like this:

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// if the height of our movie doesn't equal what we thought it should have been, we need to
// re-call our function and redisplay...
actual_y = Math.round(actual_y);
 
if (actual_y != navheight) {
  // this javascript function stores the new height, then redisplays.
  getURL("javascript:showMovie(" + actual_y + ")");
}

The navheight variable is what got passed in to Flash from the movie URL. The first time through, this is going to be zero, the default JavaScript param, remember that? We check to see if that is equal to what our calculations decided the size of this movie REALLY is, and if it isn’t, it means we need to call back out to our JavaScript function again, and feed it our calculated height, and it will redisplay. If it IS the same, then we know we’re done! All the magic here happens thanks to our good buddy, the getURL() Flash API call.

The first time through, when the movie displays, it will not have the correct height, but it WILL display some of the movie. When the JS function gets called again, there is that quick blink I told you about, but it’s really fast, and not too bothersome in most situations, especially for quick jobs that not too many people will see, like back end applications.

That’s about it for part one of this series. That’s a decent amount to digest! The whole key to dynamic resizing is understanding the reasoning behind the recursive showMovie() function, and what’s happening in the Flash movie. This is NOT a complete example, there are lots of holes to fill in to make this code run, but I’m sure you understand the philosophy of what I’m doing with this now.

Good luck, and I’ll c-ya in the next article where I show you how I used this solution, a field in a database, and a little touch of Ruby on Rails to eradicate that bothersome blink! (Go ahead and try to figure it out yourself if you need it right now, you know it’d be a great exercise, and I gave you all the clues you need!)

Until next time, keep on keyboardin’ code soldiers!

Ok. Here’s the deal. Lando betrays Solo. Solo is frozen. As Solo’s super-size candy bar lookin’ tomb is being wheeled out to Boba’s Dad’s car, old Chewie is busy choking Lando to death. Chewie knows who Vader is, and he knows that Vader had Lando by the chones (you can’t frell with the hand of Vader), but instead of listening to what he had to say, Chewie decides to waste those few precious moments available to choke Lando. What’s he saying as you’re crushing his larynx? ha…? (gasp) gah…(gasp) gatta have a sweet Colt 45!??!?? WHAT!??! …hahm? (gasp) han? (like, of course he’s not saying “Han” as in “Han Solo”, the guy this whole to-do is about.) OH I THINK HE’S SAYING HAN! Revelation.

Excellent choice wookie.

The heroes arrive just in time to see the cart going in the door of the Slave I. Chewie groans loudly WHOOOOPPPS… (ok, a little less consonanty) Bastards. They froze Solo.

Which leads to the next question.

Had they gotten there in time, could Chewbacca even come close to taking Boba Fett? I mean, I know in all those wacky novels, there has to be some history about Boba’s training, and at the very least we know his clone father(?) really whooped some ass. There were also a bunch of random soldiers around on both sides, and I think Lobot was there, and I bet some landing port security, don’t hold me to that though… They would have had their numbers d10′ed towards the outcome as well.

Bottom line, Chewie let his emotions get the best of him… Yoda was friends with the Wookies, one would think they were at least semi-versed in basic Buddhist principles. Bummer Chewie, you could have saved us all a trip to Tatooine…

But that would mean no metal-clad bikini’d Leia. Phlarg… Solo really took one for the team though, and dang those Buddhists and their moderation, they’re always right.

xoxo

Right-Brain

No, no, it’s not a hoagie, but by this time, you already know that, because Guitar Hero 1 has already swept the world and spawned a boatload of imitators and successors. Thankfully no one’s cholesterol has been raised by all the cheese factor being perfected as kids jump around on beds with their wireless 5 button guitars, imitating guys who’s names they don’t even know… That S.O.B. even comes with a guitar strap so they have insurance that you get nuts with it.

To get to the point, I’ve been playing music since somewhere around 8 years old, and now I’m 0×24. (Well of course it’s in hex, this IS ‘Two Bald Geeks’ right???) and my first and strongest instrument is guitar. I’ve taught a bunch, and teaching rhythm can be one of the most challenging portions of the process, depending on the student of course. I think Guitar Hero should be a prerequisite at this point for young budding musicians, because you can gather so much technical ability from this toy, reguardless of how old you are, and I can almost guarantee you will have a good time, unless you are more docile than a box turtle. Most of all though, it will help your rhythm. That’s right, no studies, no statistics, (sadly, no stock ownership either… blerg.) and I’m telling you flat out that I know this will help your musicianship. If you say you’re a musician and will whip this things ass, I say guess again, your rhythm isn’t as strong as you think it is. Think I’m joshin’? Go rent this bad boy, and beat it on hard. (No, I’m not even ASKING for expert… That’s just crazy talk.)

After spending some time with this thing, my conclusion is that it IS a toy, but not JUST a toy… If you focus on your form, and use your right hand the way someone actually uses a pick, when you get a real guitar in your hands, it WILL be easier. I convinced Right Brain to get one of these because of my incessant bragging about the songs I so elegantly whipped the night before, and now I think his wife has a reason to hate me. He’s a long time musician as well, so I’m sure he will have something to say about it…

Just for the record, I’ve been playing Guitar Hero II, I have no experience with I. What I’m saying here is that this toy will HELP things be easier when you approach a real guitar, not that they will just BE easy. It’s a whole new world when you move to having your two hands REALLY be responsible for the sound the strings are making, fine tuning your hands to differentiate between strings, reading music, developing your ear, list goes on and on…

We were talking about doing a sort of community service YouTube video demonstrating correct hand positioning, various moves required on Guitar Hero and how they relate to real guitar, and any helpful info we can come up with to help aspiring musicians get the most out of this game. Anyone have any interest in this? Anyone know of any other super-fun rhythm games? Anyone want to tell me “I’m a purist, go buy a Ramirez classical, send the kid for lessons with a guy who’s name ends in -slov, and kick his ass into shape, video games are for knuckleheads, and you don’t know jack!” (If that last one is your response, send me your address and I’ll send you a shoehorn to help loosen up your…