HELP! My iPhone got wet!!!! September 12, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in digg.Tags: iphone mac tips howto mobile phone cell
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Google will produce many results with titles similar to the one heading this post!
Recently this is something I became familiar with first hand when our 13 year old accidentally went swimming with his in the pocket of his shorts. You don’t get a phone much wetter than that folks!
I searched google and was almost convinced we would be spending US$200+ for a replacement when I came across the following tip and decided to try it… (more…)
Flock 2.5 August 27, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in Flock, browsers, cross platform, open source, web, web 2.0.Tags: browser, Flock, web
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My favorite web browser now integrates twitter, flickr, facebook and more with it’s new “Broadcast Anything” feature. More good stuff where that came from too! Check out the “What’s New” videos: http://www.flock.com/tour/new.php
The Uninformed Skeptic: Eat Right For Your Type January 28, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in consumer, health, opinions, personal, skeptic.Tags: blood type, D' Adamo, diet, evolution, food
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It was one of those occasions when a relatively large group of my extended family gathered together in a public establishment for an extended period of time, in this case, a fairly popular restaurant. The menu was extensive and offered many appetizing choices and I mulled my decision for quite awhile with a growing amount of impatience and suggestions from parent and sibling alike. One suggestion suddenly stuck out from the rest: “You shouldn’t eat that… you have the same blood type as me.” That’s how the argument started…
Windows Seven beta 1 and GIMP! January 21, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in Flock, GIMP, Seven beta, Windows, software.Tags: beta testing, flash, Flock, GIMP, seven, software, vlc, Windows
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After there was so many problems for so many people getting GIMP for Windows to run under Vista (in fact it is still one of my most visited posts!) I wanted to tackle that one with “Seven” right off the bat…
Windows Seven beta 1, first impressions January 21, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in Seven beta, Windows, technology.Tags: windows seven beta testing gimp vista ultimate software operating system
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Music piracy a growing problem? January 19, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in music business, music technology, opinions, personal, technology.Tags: digital, internet, music business, piracy, technology
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I wrote this as an answer to a thread (on a sim racing forum of all places!) concerning a story from the BBC about how music piracy was still an ever growing problem. I spent too much time thinking about and writing my response to have it buried in a forum so thought I would put it here too. As always YOUR comments and opinions are welcome!
My D-Link wireless card, Madwifi and the state of linux distros for the desktop January 10, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in debian, distro reviews, hardware, open source, opinions, personal, ubuntu.add a comment
Here is one of those posts I write more for my personal reference in the future but I´m happy if someone else gets some use from the information too.
Today I´m posting from my new Ubuntu Studio 8.10 install. This is after trying several new releases of other distros first and even though Ubuntu Studio is still missing a decent realtime kernel it still somehow ended up on my harddrive! Here is the main reason why…
And the best free audio DAW for Windows is… Linux MultiMedia Studio?!?!? January 9, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in cross platform, make music, screenshots, software.6 comments
YES! That is right! Linux MultiMedia Studio, or “LMMS” as it’s more often called, now has a very nice Windows port! 
Quoting from their website LMMS aims to be “a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio®, which allow you to produce music with your computer.” And FL-studio users will feel right at home with LMMS and with no sting in the pocketbook either…
Was Santa good to you? January 3, 2009
Posted by oktyabr in funny, personal.1 comment so far
A (mostly) fictional story: 
Hey, first I hung all our pretty lights from the eves of our house to get in the Holiday spirit. It started out good and they were going up like I was a professional!
Then it started snowing. That wasn’t so bad, kind of festive and all, you know what I mean?
Then it started snowing really HARD! I only had a couple of 30′ strands left to put up so I kept on going. A cat on the roof supervising my progress managed to knock a big bunch of fresh, %$#@ icy cold snow right down on top of my head and most of it went down the front and back of my shirt, of course.
$#% cat.
Back to Black vinyl! 60th Anniversary of the vinyl long play album December 28, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in audiophile, listen to this, musik links, opinions, other cool stuff, personal.7 comments
Think vinyl is dead? But it’s not! Far from it in fact. And as evidence take a look at Universal Music Group’s “Back to Black Vinyl” campaign celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the LP (“long play”) album! I know, I know, I’m sure at least one reader must think this born of quaint nostalgia known to frequent the “boomer” generation but think about it… when is the last time you saw a new release on cassette, reel to reel or 8 track?
By contrast vinyl has never gone away completely and fairly recent marketing schemes seem to indicate it might be making a bigger come back than you may think…
HDtracks – itunes for the audiophile? December 28, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in audiophile, listen to this, musik links, opinions, other cool stuff, personal.add a comment
HDTracks is a relatively new service that offers *extremely* high quality music for downloads. Their library is still relatively small but their prices are quite reasonable and the significant difference between their high bit rate offerings and 128kbs mp3s offered by their more well known competitors is literally astounding when played over similarly high quality speakers and equipment!
Springnote, best of Web 2.0? December 28, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in other cool stuff, web 2.0.add a comment
Recently I went in search of a way to collaborate with others in a structured, nested manner, preferably for free. After taking a look at a few possibilities I stumbled across Springnote and while I’m still not quite sure exactly when the hammer will fall (i.e., how they plan to eventually make money from it), it has quickly earned my praise and respect as possibly one of the most useful webapps of 2008! (more…)
Freeware I can’t live without December 8, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in personal.add a comment
Looks like it’s time for my semi-annual reinstall of Windows and I wanted to post a short list of “must have” applications that will go on shortly after:
AIMP2 — Fast winamp replacement for audio playback with lots of neat features.
http://www.aimp2.us/
Ashampoo Burning Studio Free — A recent addition I haven’t really had a chance to play with yet. Looks like it might have lots of nag-alerts but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/burningstudiofree.html
Burrrn — Best freeware application I’ve found for burning audio CDs.
Fast and can handle several different audio formats at the same time!
http://www.burrrn.net/?page_id=4
Crimson Editor – If I could only have one text editor this one would be it: http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
Fairstars CD Ripper — twice as fast as anything else I’ve used, easy
to configure, nice clean interface. http://www.fairstars.com/
FLAC – audio tools for the Free Lossless Audio Codec, the ONLY way to store music on a PC!
http://flac.sourceforge.net/
Flock — My top notch web browser and so much more! http://flock.com/
ImgBurn — very fast, very light .iso burner: http://www.imgburn.com/
IZarc — My favorite archive manager. http://www.izarc.org/
K-Lite Codec Pack — play everything. http://www.codecguide.com/about_kl.htm
Rising Antivirus — A new kid on the block with low resources and lots of power.
http://www.rising-global.com/
The GIMP for windows — Top notch image editing software with most of the capabilities of Photoshop without the price. http://www.gimp.org/windows/
Wega2 – Image viewer. Has excellent EXIF data abilities and batch processing, something I would normally use Irfanview for. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/wegaviewer.html
Slimserver — The BEST free server software to get music from your hard drive to another PC, a networked music device (I have the Roku Soundbridge), or even a gaming console (Xbox 360 works great!):
http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html
Songbird — Mozilla based music manager and player. http://getsongbird.com/
Syncback Free — Nice way to back up and synchronize drives.
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
VLC media player — Simple, fast and mighty powerful playback (and server!) of just about all audio and video formats. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
I’m sure there are many, many more that should be on this list but I really need to get to work on this machine!
Codemaster’s GRID: Why I am recommending a game I didn’t like June 7, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in games, opinions, personal, software.1 comment so far
I noticed on Steam that a new racing game had been released from Codemaster’s simply called GRID and after watching a few videos and reading a healthy amount of reviews I decided I couldn’t loose by at least trying the free demo. I’m not going to go into a full review here (google for “Codemasters GRID” for plenty of those) but I AM going to tell you why I might recommend this game… even though I didn’t like it! 
A year revisited February 29, 2008
Posted by oktyabr in audio, blogs, linux, opinions.add a comment
As more and more musicians contemplate making the move to linux for audio work I thought it relevant when I came across a link on the LAU (Linux Audio User) mailing list to Sebastian Tschöpel’s blog and one post in particular that reflects on his experience making the move, or as Sebastian puts it:
I thought it would be time to sum up the experiences I made in the past year working (irregular) with Linux as audio production platform.
