Since last summer there is a new version 1.3.12 (beta) so we are going to use that in the lab. So off to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to download.
Hey the new book on Audacity 1.3 from PACKT just arrived as i typed this..how cool is that? Ok we download the 1.3.12.dmg file and open the disk image. We create an Audacity folder in Applications and copy all the files there.
Libraries
While audacity is good as is, it cannot handle MP3 and other files because of IP laws. So we need to download two libraries - LAME and FFmpeg. The LAME library file gets copied to the audacity folder and then in audacity you select audacity,preferences,libraries and click LOCATE and point it to the libmp3lame.dylib file. It will remember the location. FFmpeg comes in a dmg which has a pkg that can be installed. Once that is done click the LOCATE button for FFmpeg and it is automatically detected. Click OK and yer done.
One thing i am excited about is using Audacity to record telephone interviews using Skype or Google talk. I've finally got my external iSight camera hooked up to the mac pro (which replaced the dual G5 this spring) and it's quite impressive. Not as bright as the iSight in the mac pro notebook (which replaced the macbook this spring) but really nice.
Select Audacity, Preferences, Devices and select the iSight under Recording device. You also have to turn off all skype notifications.
Select Skype,Preferences and click the Notifications tab. Untick the Play Sound checkbox.
Enough for now..time for a snack
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Media Server III
I've installed the TVersity media server on the HP DV9000 laptop so that i could play with the internet a/v settings and also to be able to demo it in class. First we copied over some pic, audio and video files in the usual my nnn windows folders and set them up in the TVersity library.
Next we dragged liam's youtube videos, my flickr photos to the library. The Tversity media server can be accessed from the program client but also from a web browser:
http://localhost:41952/flashlib/ gets you the very nice flash interface
http://localhost:41952/medialib/ gets you to the plain html interface
http://localhost:41952/admin gets you to the admin panel
The HP remote is a disappointment, it only works in hp dvd player. So we plug in the media center remote which uses a windows ehome infrared transceiver. Of course xp has no driver and can't find one. Off to the web and we find lots of people looking for the driver. Microsoft has one but their web site only works with IE. I goto their update site and it has me download a Windows Genuine Advantage plug-in, to "enhance the download experience".
Ok done. Now microsoft gets me to download some tool and run it. Which gives me a code i have to paste into the page. Geez - how to get in customer's way. Finally i can download Update Rollup 2 for eHome Infrared Receiver for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (KB912024) which gets me WindowsXP-KB912024-v2-x86-ENU.exe which i run. Which gives me an error message ' setup has determined the service pack version of this system is newer than the update you are applying' No need to install this update' - oh yes there is because windows cannot run the remote! arggh windows hell.
looks like a registry hack solution here http://it.megocollector.com/?p=8 but time for a break
.
We did find that XBMC supports the hp remote, so the win client version works
Next we dragged liam's youtube videos, my flickr photos to the library. The Tversity media server can be accessed from the program client but also from a web browser:
http://localhost:41952/flashlib/ gets you the very nice flash interface
http://localhost:41952/medialib/ gets you to the plain html interface
http://localhost:41952/admin gets you to the admin panel
The HP remote is a disappointment, it only works in hp dvd player. So we plug in the media center remote which uses a windows ehome infrared transceiver. Of course xp has no driver and can't find one. Off to the web and we find lots of people looking for the driver. Microsoft has one but their web site only works with IE. I goto their update site and it has me download a Windows Genuine Advantage plug-in, to "enhance the download experience".
Ok done. Now microsoft gets me to download some tool and run it. Which gives me a code i have to paste into the page. Geez - how to get in customer's way. Finally i can download Update Rollup 2 for eHome Infrared Receiver for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (KB912024) which gets me WindowsXP-KB912024-v2-x86-ENU.exe which i run. Which gives me an error message ' setup has determined the service pack version of this system is newer than the update you are applying' No need to install this update' - oh yes there is because windows cannot run the remote! arggh windows hell.
looks like a registry hack solution here http://it.megocollector.com/?p=8 but time for a break
.
We did find that XBMC supports the hp remote, so the win client version works
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Greenstone on OSX
With more and more of our students using macs we decide to take another look at the osx version of Greenstone, now at 2.83 to see if it is usable. In the past, we recommended students stay away from the mac version and those who really, really want to use their macbook or iMac ended up installing boot camp, fusion or parallels and running greenstone in XP!
So we download the .dmg and click to install. It defaults to Users/yourusername/Greenstone. No way to change drives so it want to go on the sys drive. We decide that is ok and it gets ready to install. Note that to make greenstone actually work it has a number of dependencies. The problem in the past was users had to install and configure those dependent programs and it was not very straightforward. Now the gs installer adds apache automatically as well as installing imagemagick and ghostscript. Sweet.
We do not use the admin pages in the lab with the windows version but decide here to check it out so we tick the enable Admin pages checkbox and give it a password of admin. Click Install and away we go.
When finished we check out the greenstone folder - lots of files but which one launches the application? We click o nthe readmeEn.txt file for enlightenment...looks like the gli folder has the interface..ok but which file in there - client-gli.sh might be the bash script that runs the thing but how do you know? There is a gli.ico icon file...rather than click things at random hoping it will work, let's read the release notes. Ah....it says
On Mac and Linux, use a terminal (in Macs this is found under Applications > Utilities > Terminal) to go into the Greenstone installation directory and run
So we open a terminal window to the shell which puts us into our user directory (pwd will confirm where you are) so cd Greenstone/gli and then do ./gli.sh and joy - the usual gli interface launches. Since the gli is written in Java it is quite similar in windows, osx and linux.
One difference right at the start. You do file,new to define a collection and then have to do file,open to open the collection you just defined. We decide to test by creating a collection of midi files of Frank Zappa tunes. So we open the test collection and watch the spinner go round and round...this should not be. Ok it's crashed so we need to kill it.
Not impressed - let's try tomorrow to load the demo collection
So we download the .dmg and click to install. It defaults to Users/yourusername/Greenstone. No way to change drives so it want to go on the sys drive. We decide that is ok and it gets ready to install. Note that to make greenstone actually work it has a number of dependencies. The problem in the past was users had to install and configure those dependent programs and it was not very straightforward. Now the gs installer adds apache automatically as well as installing imagemagick and ghostscript. Sweet.
We do not use the admin pages in the lab with the windows version but decide here to check it out so we tick the enable Admin pages checkbox and give it a password of admin. Click Install and away we go.
When finished we check out the greenstone folder - lots of files but which one launches the application? We click o nthe readmeEn.txt file for enlightenment...looks like the gli folder has the interface..ok but which file in there - client-gli.sh might be the bash script that runs the thing but how do you know? There is a gli.ico icon file...rather than click things at random hoping it will work, let's read the release notes. Ah....it says
On Mac and Linux, use a terminal (in Macs this is found under Applications > Utilities > Terminal) to go into the Greenstone installation directory and run
./gs2-server.shThe small Greenstone Server will display. Run
./gli/gli.shTo get to the Greenstone Librarian Interface
So we open a terminal window to the shell which puts us into our user directory (pwd will confirm where you are) so cd Greenstone/gli and then do ./gli.sh and joy - the usual gli interface launches. Since the gli is written in Java it is quite similar in windows, osx and linux.
One difference right at the start. You do file,new to define a collection and then have to do file,open to open the collection you just defined. We decide to test by creating a collection of midi files of Frank Zappa tunes. So we open the test collection and watch the spinner go round and round...this should not be. Ok it's crashed so we need to kill it.
Not impressed - let's try tomorrow to load the demo collection
XAMPP on the Mac
Last time we did 9713 it was not possible for students to access the web server so they could not copy their project there (for some security reason). We ended up uploading them to the class sharepoint. This time around we are thinking maybe we bypass this by using XAMPP 1.7.3 for the mac. There may be some issues:
The windows version which works on any drive as long as the xampp folder is in the root, so c:\xampp, e:\xampp, f:\xampp all work - in fact you can have multiple different copies of xampp on the same machine, a cheap version of the dev,qat,prd server model for development. The same process also works for xampplite and xampp and xampplite can be on the same drive as they have different folders. This is actually very useful as you can really play around without worrying about losing work.
Anyway, unfortunately the mac xampp version only works when installed to Applications. So we have to test this on lab machines and see what happens. Once installed you click the XAMPP control panel and start the apache,mySQL and even the ftp server. Of course, since you have access to the console you don't really need to ftp.
The students would then copy their content to the /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs folder and access them with Safari at http://localhost or depending on the lab setup they might be able to put their web content in their Home folder and goto http://localhost~username but i doubt if that has been set up.
We shall see...
The windows version which works on any drive as long as the xampp folder is in the root, so c:\xampp, e:\xampp, f:\xampp all work - in fact you can have multiple different copies of xampp on the same machine, a cheap version of the dev,qat,prd server model for development. The same process also works for xampplite and xampp and xampplite can be on the same drive as they have different folders. This is actually very useful as you can really play around without worrying about losing work.
Anyway, unfortunately the mac xampp version only works when installed to Applications. So we have to test this on lab machines and see what happens. Once installed you click the XAMPP control panel and start the apache,mySQL and even the ftp server. Of course, since you have access to the console you don't really need to ftp.
The students would then copy their content to the /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs folder and access them with Safari at http://localhost or depending on the lab setup they might be able to put their web content in their Home folder and goto http://localhost~username but i doubt if that has been set up.
We shall see...
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
FLAC's in iTunes
I've been using iTunes less and less because of it's limited support for the audio file formats i use. But I've been listening to the Connect360 media server from the mac pro and like it, but since i am only adding new stuff in the FLAC lossless format this posed a constraint with iTunes.
Open source innovation to the rescue via Fluke (play flacs in iTunes). I downloaded 0.25b (for beta) and installed. The FLAC extension is now associated by default with Fluke. We go to //Gamera and select You Really Got Me by the 13th Floor Elevators. You could ctrl click and select open with, fluke as well (or right click if you have a 2 button mouse, a useful thing Steve!)
Once you select the file it open iTunes and imports the file. No problem but that was just a little 3 min song. Let's leave iTunes open and try importing the entire Psychedelic Sounds album. Not so good. You can shift click all the tunes but when you ctrl click and choose open there is no Fluke option. So we select Open With, Other and browse to the Applications folder and click on Fluke. Now we tick the Always Open With checkbox and click Open. A dialog box called Adding Files is shown and each file being processing. Doing 21 files on a dual 2.66 xeon mac pro took about 30 second but Fluke terminated with an error. We check iTunes and the files we all added. It is beta after all!
For an unfair killer test let's try a 450mb high resolution FLAC of Count Basie and Sinatra Live at the Sands. We start at 6:15. We get the same error but do not terminate as iTunes shows it copying the file. Wow, it took 1 minute to convert 1:16:03 of high rez audio! Let's test it out, we fire up the Spherex system and press play. Excellent! Great job by the Fluke project team. Highly recommended.
Fluke - http://blowintopieces.com/fluke/
Open source innovation to the rescue via Fluke (play flacs in iTunes). I downloaded 0.25b (for beta) and installed. The FLAC extension is now associated by default with Fluke. We go to //Gamera and select You Really Got Me by the 13th Floor Elevators. You could ctrl click and select open with, fluke as well (or right click if you have a 2 button mouse, a useful thing Steve!)
Once you select the file it open iTunes and imports the file. No problem but that was just a little 3 min song. Let's leave iTunes open and try importing the entire Psychedelic Sounds album. Not so good. You can shift click all the tunes but when you ctrl click and choose open there is no Fluke option. So we select Open With, Other and browse to the Applications folder and click on Fluke. Now we tick the Always Open With checkbox and click Open. A dialog box called Adding Files is shown and each file being processing. Doing 21 files on a dual 2.66 xeon mac pro took about 30 second but Fluke terminated with an error. We check iTunes and the files we all added. It is beta after all!
For an unfair killer test let's try a 450mb high resolution FLAC of Count Basie and Sinatra Live at the Sands. We start at 6:15. We get the same error but do not terminate as iTunes shows it copying the file. Wow, it took 1 minute to convert 1:16:03 of high rez audio! Let's test it out, we fire up the Spherex system and press play. Excellent! Great job by the Fluke project team. Highly recommended.
Fluke - http://blowintopieces.com/fluke/
Library Science Portable DJ
Library Science DJ
Ok - to get a break from marking we created the Library Science DJ kit (LSD) for impromptu dance parties in the library or lab - all done from stuff lying around the house...
The kit consists of:
The small speakers are Synthedata B-55's which are active computer audio monitors but not bad. I use them with my iPod to provide patio music. Made of metal and quite heavy but there is only one amp which powers both speakers so they cannot play too loud. However, they are small enough so i can put them in my back pack and bike them anywhere.
The larger speakers are KRK Rockit 6's which are really nice active studio monitors. They weight over 20lbs each and can really, really, really play loud without distortion. Each speaker has two amplifiers, one for the woofer and one for the tweeter. They have more base than my sub/sat spherex system i'm currently using on the mac. They also have nice controls and inputs but they are too large for the backpack. However, they do fit in the Wike (pronounced wiki) bike trailer so i can still bike them anywhere.
So how does the system sound? - with the small speakers it's ok but only useful in a near-field setup like a cubicle or small office. With the Rockit 6's, you could fill a small club or large lab. The sound field is much wider thanks to the waveform guide around the tweeter and the usable bass seems to get down to about 40-45hz which is very good. Playing high resolution FLAC's from SACD, DTS or HDCD disc's is incredible.
Anyway here are the pictures .....and back to work.
Ok - to get a break from marking we created the Library Science DJ kit (LSD) for impromptu dance parties in the library or lab - all done from stuff lying around the house...
The kit consists of:
- 1 portable mixer board (runs on a 9v battery) with 2 source inputs, mic input, and headphone jack
- 1 set of speakers (6" woofer) for large areas
- 1 set of speakers (4" woofer) for small spaces like cubicles
- 1 set of headphones
- 1 microphone
- 1 mirror ball
- 1 equipment bag
The small speakers are Synthedata B-55's which are active computer audio monitors but not bad. I use them with my iPod to provide patio music. Made of metal and quite heavy but there is only one amp which powers both speakers so they cannot play too loud. However, they are small enough so i can put them in my back pack and bike them anywhere.
The larger speakers are KRK Rockit 6's which are really nice active studio monitors. They weight over 20lbs each and can really, really, really play loud without distortion. Each speaker has two amplifiers, one for the woofer and one for the tweeter. They have more base than my sub/sat spherex system i'm currently using on the mac. They also have nice controls and inputs but they are too large for the backpack. However, they do fit in the Wike (pronounced wiki) bike trailer so i can still bike them anywhere.
So how does the system sound? - with the small speakers it's ok but only useful in a near-field setup like a cubicle or small office. With the Rockit 6's, you could fill a small club or large lab. The sound field is much wider thanks to the waveform guide around the tweeter and the usable bass seems to get down to about 40-45hz which is very good. Playing high resolution FLAC's from SACD, DTS or HDCD disc's is incredible.
Anyway here are the pictures .....and back to work.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Koha on USB Stick II
The goal here was to create a persistent bootable USB version of Ubuntu with Koha, dspace etc to use for class. Students would work on their stick each week in the lab, adding software and configuring services. There are some missing bits - like PHP so we have to do some work later to get a full lamp stack running so we can install Wordpress and Scriblio etc.
Format the USB device
This process erases everything on the USB stick and creates a FAT32 partition. The process can be done on a Windows computer in advance but we might as well do it here. We re-format the stick to ensure it is FAT32 and not FAT and to get rid of any proprietary software included by the manufacturer. Your name should be limited to 8 characters or less with no spaces or punctuation.
Install Ubuntu
Be careful to select your stick and not the internal hard disk! Your USB Stick will be called something like /dev/sdb1/mchau99. This process is used to create a caspar-rw file which will be the 'persistence' file that stores changes between boots. The 4 gig limitation is not from Ubuntu but a constraint of the Windows FAT32 file system. If you were using a large portable hard disk and wanted a larger persistence file it can be done but it requires a manual installation.
Boot From the Stick
The system is now booted from the USB Stick. You can test the persistence by installing something - i first installed the Google toolbar in Firefox and used the synaptic package manager to install Brasero, sbackup, filezilla, and the MySQL Query browser. The query browser was able to connect to the mySQL server running on localhost with a username of root and a password of library. I rebooted the system and the changes were there, so the persistence works!
Backup
So how will students back up their weekly or daily work? With the portable USB Sticks a backup program is included - you back up daily or weekly and if your stick is lost, damaged or just screwed up - you reinstall the portable app environment and restore from the backup. This also makes it possible to have multiple sticks in use.
With the Ubuntu stick it is not so easy - there is no backup option on a menu. You need to be able to create a backup than can be fully restored. I can think of several possibilities:
Option 1 - use sbackup to create a backup of files. Sbackup can backup to local drives or to remote hosts using ssh or sftp. The local host option worked well but then you need a second stick to backup to and until we test the restore we cannot guarantee everything (such as the koha changes) are backed up. The other problem is that although i was able to browse the windows shares and connect to some, i could not connect to //files3 or //files when the user's local files (U: drive) are stored, so you cannot backup to your space. I was able to connect to the personal web space on panther but since that is only 10mb it is quite useless. Backing up to a file storage site via ssh or sftp would be preferable.
So option 1 can work but has some questions.
Option 2
An easier option for the student would be the ability to make a complete image of the USB stick that could be re-created. For example an ISO file. While there are lots of utilities to burn disk images like ISO or dmg to a CD/USB/HD, it is hard to find any information on creating an ISO from a USB stick. In fact, programs like NERO that can create ISO's won't even list a USB stick in their source menu.
Next Steps:
Run the Koha Install and import some MARC records.
Copy the large MARC record files to the S:\local\mlis\courses\9762 for students to use
Test Restore from sbackup with koha changes
Format the USB device
- Boot with the CD (ubuntu 9.10)
- Insert your USB stick
- Select the stick and right-click
- Select Format from the menu
- Select Compatible with All Systems (FAT) from the Type: pulldown menu
- Type in your username, ie (mchau99) in the Name: text box
- Click FORMAT
This process erases everything on the USB stick and creates a FAT32 partition. The process can be done on a Windows computer in advance but we might as well do it here. We re-format the stick to ensure it is FAT32 and not FAT and to get rid of any proprietary software included by the manufacturer. Your name should be limited to 8 characters or less with no spaces or punctuation.
Install Ubuntu
- Select System, Administration, USB Startup Disk Creator
- Under Disk to Use select your USB stick
- Select the Stored in Reserved Extra Space option
- Adjust the How Much slider to 2 gig for a 4 gig stick and 4 gig for a larger stick
- Click MAKE STARTUP DISK
- Click QUIT when the Installation is Complete message is displayed
Be careful to select your stick and not the internal hard disk! Your USB Stick will be called something like /dev/sdb1/mchau99. This process is used to create a caspar-rw file which will be the 'persistence' file that stores changes between boots. The 4 gig limitation is not from Ubuntu but a constraint of the Windows FAT32 file system. If you were using a large portable hard disk and wanted a larger persistence file it can be done but it requires a manual installation.
Boot From the Stick
- Click the Ubuntu menu item in the top right corner
- Select Restart from the menu
- Remove the CD-ROM disc from the tray when it opens
- Press ENTER
The system is now booted from the USB Stick. You can test the persistence by installing something - i first installed the Google toolbar in Firefox and used the synaptic package manager to install Brasero, sbackup, filezilla, and the MySQL Query browser. The query browser was able to connect to the mySQL server running on localhost with a username of root and a password of library. I rebooted the system and the changes were there, so the persistence works!
Backup
So how will students back up their weekly or daily work? With the portable USB Sticks a backup program is included - you back up daily or weekly and if your stick is lost, damaged or just screwed up - you reinstall the portable app environment and restore from the backup. This also makes it possible to have multiple sticks in use.
With the Ubuntu stick it is not so easy - there is no backup option on a menu. You need to be able to create a backup than can be fully restored. I can think of several possibilities:
Option 1 - use sbackup to create a backup of files. Sbackup can backup to local drives or to remote hosts using ssh or sftp. The local host option worked well but then you need a second stick to backup to and until we test the restore we cannot guarantee everything (such as the koha changes) are backed up. The other problem is that although i was able to browse the windows shares and connect to some, i could not connect to //files3 or //files when the user's local files (U: drive) are stored, so you cannot backup to your space. I was able to connect to the personal web space on panther but since that is only 10mb it is quite useless. Backing up to a file storage site via ssh or sftp would be preferable.
So option 1 can work but has some questions.
Option 2
An easier option for the student would be the ability to make a complete image of the USB stick that could be re-created. For example an ISO file. While there are lots of utilities to burn disk images like ISO or dmg to a CD/USB/HD, it is hard to find any information on creating an ISO from a USB stick. In fact, programs like NERO that can create ISO's won't even list a USB stick in their source menu.
Next Steps:
Run the Koha Install and import some MARC records.
Copy the large MARC record files to the S:\local\mlis\courses\9762 for students to use
Test Restore from sbackup with koha changes
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