Category: General
Smart(phone) Controls
I use my phone a lot in the car to listen to music and podcasts. With subsonic I have full access to my entire music catalog which makes it a no brainer to use instead of fooling with CDs. However I found myself really missing having physical buttons to control pause, play, and track skipping. Aside from the convenience, it was also a little dangerous for me to be messing with my phone while driving. Inevitably, I would end up hitting the wrong button, and that would be an even bigger distraction.
I knew headphones were sold that provided some external controls for phones so I did a little digging and came across this post where someone had already solved my problem.
I ordered the parts and when they came in I got my breadboard, alligator cables, etc. and brought it all to McDonald’s and spent … Read More »
Before Cloud Music Was Cool
Before cloud music was even a blip on the radar. I was frustrated with the state of the art: syncing music to my devices. I have a pretty big music catalog and it has never been possible to sync it all to a single device. When I was traveling I’d have to decide just what it was I thought I’d want to listen to. Inevitable, I’d want to hear something I didn’t bring along. That sent me in search of a solution, and that’s when I stumbled across subsonic. It’s a donationware application that allows for streaming music from your home network to the Internet. It has some cool features. It can convert any audio format (assuming you have the right libraries) to mp3 so you don’t have to worry about device compatibly. It can resample to lower bit rates … Read More »
Twelve Days, wtf?
On Sunday I was making cookies (Snickerdoodles) and Ali had put on some Christmas music. The Twelve Days Of Christmas, The Sinatra Christmas Album version, came on, and I said to her, “I’m confused by this song. What are the twelve days of Christmas?” I went through a couple of scenarios in my head, and I finally said, “How many days are in Hanukkah?” She said, “Seven? I think.” Me, “Huh. I really don’t understand this song, where do the twelve days come from?”
Today, I was poking around on the intertubes and came across this video. I thought it was pretty funny how much this mirrored my thought process …
Man In The Middle
I got pulled into a problem at work yesterday. The issue is that some people (randomly) begin experiencing one-way audio on a phone call that moments before had been working fine. Packet captures revealed that when the problem occurs the audio stream makes it all the way to the IP phone, but fails to be played on the user’s handset. A colleague had analyzed the data and found an anomaly around the time the audio stopped working; the RTP timestamp in the packet jumped significantly. The working theory was that maybe the phone was confused by the time jump which caused it to quit playing the audio. It felt like a plausible theory, but it also felt like it could be a red herring.
The obvious thing would be to reproduce in a controlled environment to … Read More »
Devil’s Path
David and I did our annual hiking trip back in September. It was absolutely the hardest terrain we’ve ever covered. We were hard pressed to do seven miles a day. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I hadn’t made significant strides in reducing my pack weight.
In a previous post I wrote about my plans to reduce pack weight. I bought the do-it-yourself G4 pattern from Quest Outfitters. I think a sensible person would have just bought the pre-made pack from Gossamer Gear. The guys in the how-to lightweight backpack books talk about how great it is to make your own equipment, and I guess I drank the Kool-Aid. The problem was I had never sewn anything with a machine; for that matter I didn’t even own … Read More »