Tech – Page 129 – Prattling before the Pratfall

Advice for Would-Be Bloggers

Unless you’re into technology for its own sake, I strongly recommend using a blogging service, such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com, rather than maintaining your own Web site, as I am doing. I started blogging as much for the learning experience as for the blogging. Well, sometimes learning is painful. But I have to admit, the hardest lesson I’ve learned is an old one — the absolute necessity of adhering to the rules that are followed where I work:

Do daily backups
Do a weekly database analysis
Do test restorations of backups

Back (And Forth) In A Flash

One nice thing about the way embedded Flash video can be done in WordPress is that I can update and, if necessary, downdate the player in a matter of seconds. An update to Jeroen Wijering’s player, version 3.7, was released today. [Link] Unfortunately, it breaks the “overstretch” feature, which is how 4:3 videos that need to be wide are posted in 16:9 format. So it’s back to version 3.6 for now.

Synthetic Sir George

Time Beat Waltz in Orbit

I’ve been trying to find a copy of a 1962 single of partially electronic music, Time Beat b/w Waltz in Time, by Ray Cathode. I’ve placed bids, and lost, for the single on eBay, but fortunately I found these MP3’s on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. [Link] Here are the tracks.

Ray Cathode – Beat Time
[audio:http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DG/time_beat.mp3]

Ray Cathode – Waltz in Orbit
[audio:http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DG/waltz_in_orbit.mp3]

Ray Cathode was a pseudonym for a collaboration between BBC technician-producer Maddalena Fagandini and George Martin, who would sign the Beatles to Parlophone Records just a couple of months later. The recording was made for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which was set up to create atmospheric music and effects for radio and TV. The 1963 production by Delia Derbyshire of Ron Grainer’s theme for Doctor Who is undoubtedly the workshop’s most familiar work.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/APR07/DoctorWho.mp3]

Big, Bad Google?

Google Gobbles

Business Week used to be worth reading, but I let my subscription lapse after they fawned over pre-scandal Enron and praised Bush’s first term tax cuts. But anyway, Business Week has a good article that’s asking the question “Is Google Too Powerful?” [Link Here]

Giving In To TV Desktop

Video Desktop

For a long time I resisted using my TV tuner card as video wallpaper. I dunno, I thought it was a silly feature. But now I like it. If something sounds interesting I right-click the task bar and select Show the Desktop to watch it.

Low Fidelity, High Quality

Louis Armstrong and King Oliver Back in December I mentioned the WGBH radio program The Jazz Decades, hosted by Ray Smith. This Sunday’s show featured some noteworthy restored 1920’s recordings that are of particular interest to Smith — King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, with Louis Armstrong.

Smith rhapsodizes at length during the twenty five minutes of the program that are on the audio player, recorded off of my computer’s FM tuner. I fiddled with the dipole antenna for a few moments at the beginning, as will be obvious if you listen.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/APR07/JazzDecadesApr1-07.mp3]

Not being a musician myself, I appreciate these acoustic (non-electrical) recordings more for their historical and technical significance, but Smith’s infectious enthusiasm for the virtuosity of the performances is fun to hear. Note: At one point Smith refers to 1933 when he meant to say 1923.