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I absolutely love this album! Here’s a photo I took of...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:03:25 -0500

I absolutely love this album! Here’s a photo I took of Mothlite around the time the album was released.

Mothlite - from the debut album “Flax Of Reverie”. The album’s six pieces encompass elements as diverse as choral madrigals cascading with strings, the melody and dissonance of Arvo Part and Moondog and the cinematic, studio-as-instrument manipulations of Pink Floyd, Coil, Cocteau Twins and late period Talk Talk. Woodwind and percussion take their cue from the devotional mantras of Alice Coltrane and Albert Ayler. O’Sullivan’s words are of the same bloodline as Jorge Luis Borges, Lewis Carroll and Henry Williamson. Mothlite will release their second album on K Scope in 2012.

keithwj: Film Noir: Weegee Was His Name; Murder Was His Game

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:43:33 -0500

keithwj:

Film Noir: Weegee Was His Name; Murder Was His Game

nprradiopictures: An Illustrated Guide To Weirdly Wonderful...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:27:15 -0500

nprradiopictures:

An Illustrated Guide To Weirdly Wonderful Florida: Becky’s thoughts on oranges, Polaroids and Mickey Mouse after a week on assignment. What are your thoughts on the Sunshine State?

Fifi Fatale’s Powder Puff striptease, filmed by Damon...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:19:36 -0500

Fifi Fatale’s Powder Puff striptease, filmed by Damon Allen Davison

“Awesome” would be appropriate here.

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:49:40 -0500

“Awesome” would be appropriate here.

sunfoundation: Where people are looking for homes In August...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 08:38:02 -0500

sunfoundation:

Where people are looking for homes

In August 2006, real estate search site Trulia had 609,000 visitors. Five years later, there were 27 million. Trulia’s most recent visualization shows this growth (bottom bar graph) and where people are searching for homes (map). Press play and watch it go. It’s pretty much population density, but for me, the method is more interesting than the material in this case.

Billie hiding her nose

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:08:04 -0500

Billie hiding her nose

Restricting users when setting up a file transfer server

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:13:00 -0500

Restricting users when setting up a file transfer server:

In my role of Production Manager at Southern, I keep running across rather, shall we say “sub-optimal” server configurations for delivering masters, artwork and other very large files to manufacturers.

For example, one of the plants we have worked with has a single SFTP account for all their clients to upload their masters to. It’s not an append-only solution like an OS X “Drop Box” where people can’t see what was uploaded—you can potentially download other companies’ masters. Another company we work with for digital retail doesn’t let you read anything, but you can see all of their clients. There aren’t many servers I think have been set up well.

I’ve decided that it’s a basic system administration skill to be able to set up private, chrooted SFTP accounts for any number of users on a system, so I’m linking to this HOWTO, which worked very well for me. Just create a user and home directory, add it to the “transfer” group, create a subdirectory under the home and chmod it so it’s world readable/writable/whatever.

A couple of important notes about the configuration:

Make sure you put the “Match” stanza at the very end of the ssd_config file. I had a single directive after it, which sshd parsed as if it were part of the stanza. Not good.
Even though the entire path has to belong to and be writable only by root, you can still use the %h variable to chroot individual user directories, and then put useful directories underneath the home, for instance “pick_up” and “drop_off” or similar.

Here’s the bottom (and relevant) part of my sshd_config:

#Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server
Subsystem sftp internal-sftp  
UsePAM yes  # not relevant to this discussion, but see my point 
            # above about Match being at the *bottom*
Match Group transfer 	
  ChrootDirectory %h 	
  AllowTCPForwarding no 	
  X11Forwarding no 	
  ForceCommand internal-sftp

Read the HOWTO.

Fugazi Live Series: Los Angeles, CA USA 9/08/91

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:30:00 -0500

Dischord have started their release of the Fugazi Live Series.

Between 1987 and 2003, Fugazi played over 1000 concerts in all 50 states and all over the world. Over 800 of these shows were recorded by the band’s sound engineers. The goal of this project is to make each of these recordings available to download for a small fee. We will start with 130 shows and release more monthly until we’re done. A searchable archive lists each show along with available photos, flyers and general show info. Each listing with a download offers a streaming preview of material for sound quality as well as the reading and posting of comments on the show and the recording.

The size and scope this archive dictates that it will remain a semi-permanent work-in-progress. We welcome visitors to contribute photos, recordings, corrections, and any additional info that may be missing from specific shows. Please see the About section for information about contributing content.

I was at the September 8th show at the Hollywood Palladium in 1991, but I don’t have a contiguous memory of the gig. Hearing the audio from the show when it is released is certain to bring back some memories.

I’m afraid neither of the opening bands left much of an impression, but then again we were there for Fugazi. It was a big deal.

The passing of Ronald Searle

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:22:29 -0500

My friend Laurent wrote to me to say that noted British illustrator Ronald Searle has passed away at home in Provence. Searle was the creator of Molesworth and St. Trinian’s and was very influential on other illustrators, including Matt Groening.

Today’s weather in London, bad even for Northern European...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:48:43 -0500

Today’s weather in London, bad even for Northern European standards.

I shot this in two minutes and edited it in 15 minutes.

Onion ring omelette with “American” cheese. It was...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:01:45 -0500

Onion ring omelette with “American” cheese. It was delicious. Oh, yes I am total white trash, but I made the onion rings myself!

"At least on the Web, you can amend. The ethic of the Web is to say what you know as quickly as you..."

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:24:25 -0500

“At least on the Web, you can amend. The ethic of the Web is to say what you know as quickly as you can, and then reiterate over and over again. The Web is kind of a self-cleaning oven, and what you have up there can grow more accurate as time goes by. That’s never true of print. It’s always there for the ages.”

- David Carr: A Media Omnivore Discusses His Diet : NPR (via thisistheverge)

This is a variation of the “release early, release often” directive in software development, isn’t it?

The Bust Magazine Christmas Craftacular London 2011. It’s...

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:59:09 -0500

The Bust Magazine Christmas Craftacular London 2011. It’s a short film I made from footage I shot at the craft fair, all of it handheld. It’s set to a track by Tartufi off of their album “Nests of Waves and Wire”.

Art and Craft in Film Editing

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:38:48 -0500

Art and Craft in Film Editing:

A recent blog post on my pro photo site.

The Pods CMS Framework for Wordpress

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:29:00 -0500

The Pods CMS Framework for Wordpress:

We decided on WordPress about a year ago. We’d had some disastrous development done on Drupal prior to that—a completely failed undertaking which took a good chunk out of our budget for further development, and after we finished picking up the rubble, it became clear to us that working with our existing CMS was the way to go. No offense to Drupal, of course.

WordPress used to be just WordPress, a pretty good blog written in PHP like Drupal, which isn’t exactly my favourite language on Earth. Over the last few years, some developers have really taken advantage of WP’s plugin and modular architecture and have created some plugins that completely transform your WP installation. The Pods CMS framework is one such plugin.

There’s not much Pods does that you can’t do with custom content types and custom coding. Okay, there’s not anything it can do that can’t be done with custom coding, but what Pods does is provide a framework upon which you can build content types for your site, the “pods”. As someone who has done it the other way, I can say Pods is a much easier path to take and you get a lot of stuff “for free” along with it, including a relatively useful MVC-esque structure to put everything into and access to code “helpers” that allow you do implement special features, for example resizing images on upload.

Creating temporary directories in Ruby

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0400

How can I easily create temporary directories (and files) in Ruby that won’t break the cross-platform compatibility of my script?

It took a bit of digging to locate this information, so I’ll post it here in the hope that the search engines will make it easier to find for the next person with this question.

The answer is to use Dir.mktmpdir, which will magically appear in the Dir class if you require ‘tmpdir’ in your script. Basically, tmpdir adds methods to the existing core Dir class. It’s apparently been part of Ruby since 1.8.6.

I would recommend using this standard library rather than rolling your own because it lets your operating system worry about where to locate the temporary directory.

Hard Drives for Apple Mac Pro RAID cards

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Having been stung quite recently when Apple Support ceased when they noticed I was using Seagate Barracuda XT drives, I have done a little research into which hard drives are used (and supported) by Apple.

For the record, Apple refuses to support any hardware that was not bought from them on their RAID cards. See Apple’s site for more details.

The hard drives Apple has shipped to me are:

The Western Digital Caviar Black 1.0TB SATA, WD1001FALS-41Y6A0

This came shipped with a Mac Pro

The Hitachi DeskStar 72K2000 2.0TB, HDS722020ALA330

This we ordered this month from the Apple Store.

A review of the Samsung N220 netbook (UK edition, repost)

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Great for a Linux install (Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04)

I was looking for an attractive netbook with a good screen and good performance whose hardware would work well with Linux. I chose the Samsung N220 because of its long battery life (about six hours), lovely matte screen (no reflections from a glossy one), good set of connections for wired and wireless communication, and its large hard drive.

A First Glance and Build Quality

The candy apple red of the N220’s top looks really great. I don’t like to attract too much attention with my electronics, but I’ve been forced into it.

The case feels quite solid. It doesn’t have anything that creaks or rattles when putting pressure on the case to flex it slightly. The screen hinge is solid and looks like it will perform well for quite some time.

Connections

I think the whole point of owning a netbook is to take advantage of its portability. Some people just want an extra computer for browsing the web on their sofa (me, too), but I need a computer I am able to take with me nearly everywhere, and which is small enough that I actually will take it with me. This basic requirement gives a big advantage to netbooks who have lots of built-in connections so that I don’t have to purchase and carry a lot of accessories with me. The N220 has three USB ports, a 10/100 ethernet port, analogue audio input and output jacks, an analogue plug for an external screen, an SD card reader, bluetooth and wi-fi.

I got the wireless adapter to work running Linux by using Windows XP drivers and ndiswrapper. Apparently, the native Linux drivers are ready for prime time, so I’ll probably try to install them this week.

Processor and Memory

The N220 uses the newer Intel ATOM N450 (clocking at 1.66GHz, with 667MHz bus speed, and 512KB of cache), so it has plenty of speed for a computer of this class. Just don’t expect too much. I have found it to be perfectly sufficient for compiling software under Linux, which tends to be very processor-intensive.

The N220 also comes with a gigabyte of RAM, which is barely sufficient for the Windows 7 installation it ships with, but is more than enough for getting far better performance from Linux graphical desktop.

Battery life

You should expect 6-7 hours of battery life under Linux. The 12 hours Samsung claims appear to be completely mythical, even when used as configured straight out of the box. Windows users report 8-10 hours.

Graphics and Screen

The graphics really do shine on the matte 1024x600 LED-backlit screen. The Samsung is one of the few netbooks that support decoding 1080p video, thanks to the Broadcom Crystal HD decoder chip it ships with in the UK, but despite the drivers for it being available, at the time of this review there is very little software support for it in the Linux world. If playing back HD video is important to you, then I would suggest setting up a dual-boot system with Windows until the Linux community catches up.

You can read more about Linux support of Broadcom Crystal HD at Jarod’s Junk Collection on wilsonet.com. I haven’t managed to get XBMC—a media centre application—to use it yet, and really XBMC is a bit overkill for the mplayer or vlc support I’d like to see.

Keyboard

I have seen some reviewers complain about the keyboard. Since I use Apple Mac hardware on a daily basis, I am familiar with the N220’s ‘calculator’-style keyboard. Since it’s on a netbook, it’s smaller than what I am used to, but quite usable. I think the flattened profile allows the chassis to be thinner overall, which may be the reason Samsung chose this design. For some people who are used to typewriter-style keyboards with deep keys arranged in terraces, the change in style and then in size may take some getting used to.

Track pad

I don’t really like the track pad, but I don’t really like track pads. The one on my old iBook was better. I’ll probably end up buying a small mouse or a trackball, but the trackpad has been tolerable up to now, probably because I tend to use the keyboard a lot more when running Linux.

Power Switch

Another complaint I have seen concerns the difficulty of using the power switch—a ridged spring-loaded slide on the front edge of the unit. I strongly suspect that the designer of the switch intended it to be actuated using your right thumbnail. If it were less resistant, it would be too prone to accidental switching.

Accessories

The N220 ships with a switching power supply whose power lead connector is a grounded three-prong IEC C5 cloverleaf, instead of the more common two-pronged C7 or C8 connectors. The C5 connector is less common than the C8, so that’s something to keep in mind if you are like me and prefer to swap out the power cable instead of using an adapter when travelling abroad.

Samsung makes an external CD/DVD-Writer in the same colour as the N220 (Model SE-S084C/TSRS).

The case is really a dust cover, so you should invest in a more durable one if you want any real protection for the netbook. Mine is pretty well protected by the Chapman bag I carry. I’ve also been keeping the N220 along with its power supply, a headset, an extra USB ethernet adapter and a Cat 5 cable in an old case made for a 12-inch Apple iBook. The N220 fits in the same case quite snugly, which I can then load into the aforementioned bag.

Linux Distribution

I recommend the Ubuntu Netbook Edition for installation on this netbook because it mostly just works, and because a load of packages to add device-specific functionality are available on the Voria Launchpad repository.

Conclusion

I wanted a netbook for a long time before I actually bought one—I was waiting for the right hardware to come along at the right price. The Samsung N220 definitely fits the bill with its great connectivity and flexibility.

Update 2010-08-03

Reviewers (and Samsung) are reporting that the N220 comes with built-in 3g in Australia. Compare the UK product page (model NP-N220-JA01UK) with the Australian one (model NP-N220-HAT2AU). My N220 has the slot to insert a SIM card, but no contacts for it on the inside.

Update 2010-12-09

I have since upgraded my memory to 2GB, which helps performance in some of the things I do. I have also added a mobile broadband USB stick (Huawei) to my accessories. The mobile access is incredibly useful.