Wow. It has been a long time...

I might start using this more. I wouldn't hold you breath for regular content, but I might add something to it in a bit.

I'm moving hosts again....

This seems to be an almost constant thing with me. But I am just not satisfied with Blogger anymore.I will be shifting the site to a new location and will likely be quiet until the move is complete.

Thanks,
MurfMan

Installing Skype 2.2 on Fedora 17 x64

I am happy that Skype for Linux was not totally abandoned, but come on. Skype 4.0 for Linux is fucking terrible. It is so bad, that I highly recommend that you get rid of it and install the much more useful version 2.2 beta. (Kinda funny how the beta was more useful than the release isn't it?)

This is going to work only on Fedora 17 64 btw...

1. Download the Skype 2.2 Beta RPM. You can google for it, or you can use this one.
2. Install the dependencies:
1. sudo yum install-y qt-x11.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libXv.i686
3. Install the RPM for Skype:
1. sudo yum loclainstall -y skype-2.2.0.35-3.el6.nux.i586.rpm

That should get it going fine. If you already had Skype 4.0 installed then the dependencies are likely not needed.

Fedora 17 and Gigolo

Again this is a note to myself, and any others who might have had the same issue. After installing Fedora 17 XFCE Spin, for some unknown, and rather bewildering reason, it does not have Samba support for browsing files enabled by default.

To enable samba sharing via the ever popular Gigolo app perform the following :

1. sudo yum -y install samaba-client
2. sudo yum -y install gvfs-smb

After this you should be able to open Gigolo and connect to a Samba share. Why Fedora left this out of the final release is somewhat confusing, but oh well.

My First Narration!

This past week I had been working with Jesse over at SFFAudio.com for my very first narration. This is of a short story by William Hope Hodgson called Out of the Storm. I had a lot of fun doing it, and learned far more than I ever expected to! I can't thank you, Jesse Willis, or Julie Hoverson from 19 Nocturne Boulevard for their help and support.

You can find the link to the story, and audio, over at sffaudio.com

DIY Microphone Shock Mount

So after making the PVC mic stand and the improvised pop filter I realized that the system really needed a shock mount for the microphone. And let's be honest, there was no way I was paying $30 for it.

After digging around on the Interwebs I found an Instructable for a mount that used PVC and some rubber bands. I modified this to work with the desktop stand I built a few days ago, and came up with this.

I had some 4" PVC lying about and my wife had a bag of large rubber bands for some reason. After cutting off about a 3" pice of PVC, I fitted the rubber band and tried the microphone in it. I wasn't too sure it would actually hold the mic to be honest, so imagine how thrilled I was to find out it did!

With the rubber bands in pace I marked their location with a pencil and then removed them. These small lines would be the cut marks I would make the notches with. With a trusty hacksaw blade in hand I went to work, and a few minutes later had all the lines cut. Then I just used a pair of good dykes to cut out the space in between. These notches would serve as holders for the rubber bands keeping them in place regardless of the jostling they took.

I wanted to keep the actual desk stand I made the other day as intact as possible. Which means I really did not want to remove the actual microphone clip from the stand and have to use another type of mount. The mic clip allows my stand to pivot in two place, the  base of the arm and at the microphone itself, which makes it a lot easier to position.

What I decided to do instead was to simply drill a small hole into the PVC shock mount, and a hole through the mic clip itself and attach them both with a 2" nut and screw. I'll admit that I was a little leery about drilling through the mic clip, but it seems to have affected it none and allows the shock mount to tilt.

 And that was really it. I sanded down the PVC some to remove some of the dirt and I left it white for now. I may try and spray paint it black, but I'm not sure what I can use that will stick to PVC, and I didn't have it in my garage.

So the real question is, did it work? I am happy to say that the very short test recording I made had me thumping my desk, and re-positioning the mic stand while speaking. Neither of which were apparent on the  recording. Yesterday with just the mic stand and doing the same thing, I realized that any jostling of the mic or mic stand would cause some serious clipping. And any time I would type, or even tap on my desk absent-mindedly, I was picking it up through the microphone.

Does it work then? Hell yes it works! It is freaking awesome! It may not be the prettiest Heil shock mount that you have ever seen, but it is functional and cost me nothing. Which is pretty spectacular!

DIY Desktop Mic Stand and Pop Filter

So a few weeks back I got in my Xenyx 1002 mixer and a Behringer XM8500 mic. I had tried experimenting with them a bit but honestly I needed a mic stand for the desk. Holding a mic is not possible for audio recording, at least not possible for me.

So I looked online and realized I flat out did not want to pay $20 for a crappy mic stand. Hell if anything I can build my own crappy mic stand! So that is what I did.

I had a bunch of left over PVC odd-and-ends and several pieces of cutt-offs from various projects and figured that I could use that as the stand. So I made a roughly 10" x 6" square base and on one of the short sides inserted a 3/4" to 1/2" PVC tee. This would allow me to fit a piece of 1/2" PVC as a boom.

On the tip of the boom I cut out a notch for the mic clip to rest in. And then another notch perpendicular to that that would hold a square bolt. The nut and bolt are actually some extra server rack hardware pieces that I re-purposed for this. With the mic clip attached I was fully functional, and it hold the fairly heavy XM8500 without tipping. It was still ugly though, not a problem that is why man invented black electrical tape.

After sitting it on the desk I realized that I now needed a pop filter more than ever. So, riding on the success of the fresh mic stand, I decided to make one of those as well. Shouldn't be too hard, just need a pair  of pantie hose and a wire coat hanger, no problem! Or so I thought.

As it turns out in a house with three women in it there was not a single pair of pantie hose to be found. And to make matters worse, there isn't a single wire coat hanger in my house.

"OK Brian," I says, "time  to get creative." I figured the wife's lingerie had enough spandex in it to do the job, so I went in search of the once worn, failed birthday gift from years past. And so there I was about to slice this shiny teddy to ribbons when, "Oh. What's this?" In the same box as the teddy was a lone silk sock. obviously forgotten about for years and no chance of a match coming into play. And better yet it was mine. No guilt associated with this acquisition.

So what did I have to replace a coat hangar? Well, I garden a bit and I have some tomato cages lying around the back of the house waiting patiently for me to drive them into the ground again next spring. That would work, bit f an overkill, but fuck it! I need a pop filter.

I quickly realized that this wire is really heavy, so thick that I had a hard time bending it with a heavy pair of lineman's pliers. OK, shit Well now I need a hoop. Something sturdy but somewhat flexible. "What do you have thousands of feet of lying in the garage, Brian?" "Fuck me. Cat5."

Yeah so I braided a ring out of Cat5 and then wrapped it in duck tape. It wasn't pretty, but I was going for free on this one. Then I made use of the vise in the garage and bent the wire around one end of the Cat5 hoop as best I could. Taking the partially made pop filter to the newly made mic stand I figured the best place for mounting and started bending. There was a very good possibility that this mount was in no way going to be removable, ah yeah not coming off. But that is OK because why would I record with out it?

Now the interesting bit... I decided to mount to the stand before I put on the screen, not really all that interesting actually, sorry. So I stretched the sock over the hoop, and ZIP tied it around the stiff wire. After pulling it as tight as hell and clipping off the excess it was time to try it out.

Holy shit this actually works! Sometimes I surprise myself. It might not be pretty at all. But it is functional, which is all that I really care about.

Switching to the Pipe... Again....

My pipe posts have been somewhat sparse lately because Madame Nicotine dug her claws into me and hasn't easily let go. So I really hate cigarettes. Really hate them. They smell disgusting they are taxed out the wazoo now, and they are doing me no favors at all. So I decided to attempt and drop the dirty fags for a pipe once again.

I thought about using the drugs commonly available, but honestly, I have had bad luck with them and the side effects are not particularly worth it. In other words, the fraking nicotine/cigarette dreams I get are insanely annoying.

So I recently read an article, you can read it here at Pipedia, in a past issue of the NASPC that detailed how the author was able to finally give up smoking cigarettes and smoke only a pipe. The main premise of the article is basically nicotine content. Most people do not realize it, but one cigarette has about as much nicotine in it as three bowls of pipe tobacco. So by smoking a cigarette I am getting a massive dose of nicotine in a relatively short period off time. As opposed to the hours it would smoke to get the same from my pipe.

So conditioning yourself to deal with the smaller amounts of nicotine is essential. To start the author, Steve Fallon, says to be extremely cognizant of the nicotine content of the pipe blends that you are smoking. And then goes even further to recommend Dunhill's Royal Yacht mixture as a good starting point. Royal Yacht is got a bit of a reputation for turning inexperienced pipe smoker's a little green, something also noted by Mr. Fallon.

Another suggestion is to do something anathema to many pipe smokers out there, inhale. Yes, this can get that bum rush of nicotine into your system faster, which is what we want, but only once or twice at the beginning of the bowl. Then just force yourself to puff slowly as normal.

The rest of the article goes into some other ideas and methods of forcing yourself to slow down and enjoy your pipe. All mainly re-associating your cigarette habit with the much more enjoyable pipe.

Anyway, today was my first day with the pipe primarily. I don't expect to give up the little rolled nicotine sticks just yet, but hopefully I will be able to severely curb my growing habit over the coming weeks.

I wanted to thank Lou Paoletta a Google+ friend for sharing the article with the masses. I hope you have been able to stop Lou, and you prompted me to join the NASPC. So thanks for that as well.

Some obligatory pics of me and the first bowl of Dunhill's Royal Yacht in my old Comoy Guild Hall follow.

Opening the tin for the first time.

Dunhill's Tin Plate

The smell hits here and it is really nice!

Really packed in there. That Dunhill ribbon cut likes sticking to the plate.

Letting it sit for a few minutes before loading. It wasn't too moist in the tin, but needed some time to dry.

Loaded into my Comoy Guild Hall and ready to go.

The first real puff!

ArchBang Dead, Long Live Fedora

So just moments after the last post, I realized that the only iso of Archbang that I had was actually from early 2012. Why does that matter, you ask? Well because Arch changed their basic structure during ArchHell, the name I am giving the update in question. After hours of attempting to update the system, I said to hell with all of this and moved back to a distro I knew would work.

So after another hour and downloading and installing Fedora Core 17 XFCE spin, I was back at a usable desktop. It took a while later before I had all of the post-install stuff completed. Don't listen to what they tell you, Fedora is not ready out of the box.

So ArchHell was avoided and I am back to Fedora. I still have a couple of little issues with PlayOnLinux and getting my Dropbox symlinks to act properly, but those are little things that are not preventing me from working and playing as I like to do.

Now for some Legend of Grimrock and Temple of Elemental Evil from gog.com!

UbuntuStudio Died...

So in a fit of exasperated rage I replaced UbuntuStudio with ArchBang. We had a power outage here that completely fried Ubuntu. How you ask? I have no fucking clue. While loading the kernel during boot, the system would freeze, no TTY, no nothing. After letting it sit for a bit, to calm me down more than anything else, I tried again. Same results. So that was it.

ArchBang is simple so far and, being a minimalist, I like it. It is going to take some time to get eberything set back up and re-learn Arch thoguh.