So after years of blogging about technology here and also using blogspot for more personal thoughts, I decided a while back to migrate over to my own domain. Migshouse.com will continue to provide musings on bytes, beats & everything in between.
Until I can migrate the contents over, I´ll keep pointing here as an archive.
Creative Commons and G33k D1nner celebrated birthdays, 6th & 3rd, respectively, on 12/16/08. The LA Weekly even came out to cover the festivities.
The Los Angeles G33k D1nners are where folks of the huge, yet still burgeoning LA Tech Community get together to geek out over food, fun & drinks. Very cool event, way cool people.
Creative Commons is a movement that is VERY close to my heart. I mentioned it briefly here a little over a year ago. As I said in that post, Creative Commons is where open source met multimedia & their beautiful love child was CC. Just imagine a world where multimedia content of all types is provided by its authors under varying license types. You can also check out some of their many cool projects. I love CC because it is just one of the many ways that open source is invading the mainstream.
Microsoft patched Internet Exploder...err, Explorer today. After the internet was abuzz over ¨forgetting¨ to patch IE in its monthly patch last week, Microsoft had to respond. The issue was two-fold. First, Microsoft wasn´t going to be able to patch again until January. Also, and more importantly, the IE security gaffe was not only HUGE but it affected ALL Windows users since IE is installed automatically when Windows is installed and CANNOT be uninstalled.
There were already tons of reports gushing over the sheer amount of exploits that were already circulating. So yea, they patched it but if you´re browsing this in IE, stop it already! There is not one feature in IE that´s not in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc. Not to mention that most of these browsers not only do it better but are also more secure. Of course, your mileage may vary, especially if you´re using one of those browsers on a Windows machine.
The emergency patch can be found on the Microsoft website. So please go download it even if you´re not using IE as your browser on a Windows box.
ps. I feel very dirty tagging this post w/Microsoft & Security as those are terms that, for as long as I can remember, have been mutually exclusive. You´d figure M$ would spend some of their money on creating solid, secure software but I guess they´re more worried about saving that p.o.s. operating system codenamed Project Mohave...errr, Vista.
So Songbird finally went 1.0 Gold! Its release today marks a major milestone for this free yet feature-rich, do-it-all media player. As a long-time user and minor contributor, I can honestly say that it is a wonderful product and solution for us music heads. Songbird is an open source media player powered by the Mozilla engine (yes, as in Firefox).
For those of you yet to try out this awesome media player, here are some of the features that I dig:
Browse the web while you play your tunes
Tabbed browsing
Ability to play/download media files from any web page you´re browsing
Last.fm integration so you can rate your own tracks
Shoutcast radio
MashTape integration
Complete customization through add-ons (called ¨feathers¨)
You can check out the full feature set here.
Download it today and feel the power of open source and media at your fingertips. Songbird runs on the big three operating systems: Linux (any distro), Mac and Windows so don´t be alarmed when you visit the download page. It is smart enough to detect your current OS and only provides that option for download.
Wow, what an awesome weekend!
Friday night started with my buddy Oscar & I heading out to support our old high school by attending this year's Homecoming Game. I hadn't been to a football game since being at their CIF Championship game in 2006. The young men & women did an outstanding job of putting together a very fun event & Verb won the game convincingly. I saw and spoke with several old coaches, teachers & administrators. There were also a few guys I recognized from back in the day but by far the BEST moment came when we saw Gavino. I've known Gavino since we were 6 years old but we had all lost track of him for many years. The cipher is now complete & Gavino will forever be a part of it.
That was only the beginning, though, as I headed off to Firecracker's 10th Anniversary event in Chinatown. This is my favorite club in all of the U.S (been going for like 708 years since my friend Lea put me onto it)! Why, you ask? A very diverse crowd (both ethnically & age-wise) that enjoys a good time dancing led by phat beats-spinning DJs is the draw. Additionally, there's no dress code (they want you to be creative), a minimal cover charge & no pretentiousness allowed. For a few hours, you feel like you're not in Los Angeles. Headlining was Biz Markie (whom I'd never seen live) which was a treat for someone like myself who grew up listening to him- he killed it on the turntables as he drove us down a trip through memory lane. The resident DJ's were killin' it as usual (especially Coleman) & the other special, guest DJs (like Tittsworth) had us dancing all night long. Put it like this, I'm an old fogey but the music was so darn good I forgot about my age as I slipped back into my old "battling" days. Sure, I was sore the next day but I had such a great time & met so many cool folks that it didn't even faze me. Here's to 10 more years, Firecracker Crew!
Saturday was going pretty quietly along until my friends Vero & Adriana invited me to go with them to see a band. So happy I tagged along as I'd never been to that venue (Bordello's- the old Little Pedro's- next to Little Tokyo). One of their friends is in a band called the Boogaloo Assassins & they were great- fusing Latin Jazz with percussion, great vocals & a fun vibe. Up next was Humo Verde, a Latin ska, dancehall & reggae band that was really awesome & reminded me a lot of Quinto Sol.
Sunday, I headed over to my buddy Dan's as he wants me to collaborate with him on a MediaWiki project (more on that later, you'll want to hear about this sweet project). We did some work, did some research & then hung out & watched some football games also.
Great weekend filled with music & technology...what else could a geekmeister, like myself, want?
In a landslide victory, this week's Website of the Week is:
The office of President-elect Obama
So there were two moments that really got me all emotional during the acceptance speech festivities. During President-elect Obama's speech when he started talking about the 106 year-old lady, reflecting on her plight and what she must've seen got me.
But the one that really got me was when the camera panned to the crowd and captured Jesse Jackson Sr.. Seeing him open up emotionally like that reminded me that he was so young during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's when he was very involved with the Rev. Dr. Marlin Luther King's peace movement. He was THERE for all that discrimination and, yet, still trudged on.
People will say what they will about Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. but what they cannot say is that he has not "been there or done that." After all, he took the early lumps of attempting to become the first African-American president. Which, imho, paved the way (somewhat) for President-elect Obama's victory.
ps. I'm glad I was wrong about the long lines.
So today is the day (ya, shoulda posted this earlier) where Lars Behrenroth of Deeper Shades of House was going to release a FREE remix in honor of President Obama utilizing words from a speech he gave in Berlin addressing 200,000 people in July 2008. The free download link is only active until 11:59pm tonight so hurry up!
From the site:
In celebration of election day in the USA, you will be able to download the current Deeper Shades Recordings release 006 "Now Is The Time" by Matt Flores at no charge.
enjoy.
So I've told a couple friends of my prediction for this year's "issue" at the voting booths & figured I should put my money (words?) where my mouth is & post it:
I predict this year's "hanging chad" issue to be the really long lines at the voting places.
I know, not much of a prediction w/the voting almost over but it's something I've been thinking about for a while.
Hopefully, there are no issues so that whichever candidate wins out doesn't have to answer to 4 years of questions regarding it. But something tells me there's going to be issues reported- if simply for the fact of all the reports touting how many new voters will be coming out to vote in force. For example, a leader of the A.C.O.R.N. organization was on CNN Sunday night speaking on how they'd gotten 400,000 new voters registered!
Personally, I'd prefer to be wrong about my prediction. :)
So I've been traveling a lot the last few months- for work & otherwise. During my free time, I've been teaching myself some new things & working on some personal projects (Stay Tuned for more details on these later).
There's a really cool site I got turned onto & it would've been one of my "Sites of the Week" because it's VERY cool.
Courage Campaign is a website for Progressive California voters. It is supported by various progressive organizations & they have a full listing on their site.
What's really, really cool is that they have a Progressive Voter guide for Californians in 2008. I like because it does a good job of explaining & summarizing the Propositions on this year's ballot. What I'm suggesting to all my open-minded friends is for them to print out the 2-pager & take it with them to the voting booths, tomorrow.
So I've been actively searching out either very cool or very conscious (social, eco, etc.) websites. Hence, the long hiatus. But never fear, I've stacked up several cool sites that are sure to get your inner Che "ooh'ing" & "ahh"ing."
This week's winner is:
In honor of this week's shaker here in Southern Cali... :)
Shakeout.org
So I recently joined the LA Perl Mongers group. It´s something I should´ve done a LONG time ago but, hey, better late than never right?
I´ll be attending my first meeting tomorrow night. In a weird coincidence, it just so happens that this meeting will be hosted by Ticketmaster. It´s a little-known fact that TM´s a big open source shop who´s made several contributions to the open source community. I might just run into some old, cool co-workers & look forward to learning about Log4perl. So, for me, it´ll be a win-win-win so I can´t wait!
Maplight.org
Now that's what I'm talkin' bout, Willis...holding our politicians accountable! Was watching an episode of Law & Order: CI & remembered this very cool site.
I always knew Obama would know what the heck is REALLY up!
There might be some who don't know what LAMP is. It's an open source development environment that includes:
L - Linux (the operating system)
A - Apache (the web server)
M - MySQL (the database)
P - PHP (or Perl) (the programming language)
There's several different variations like LAPP (PostgreSQL instead of MySQL) where you can exchange certain components and still be going all open source.
So I'm starting something new- a weekly post on the WTF Moment of the Week. This week's candidates are:
-Rachel Ray- terrorist?
-Hillary Clinton's Enron-esque accounting (creative math. claims victory in popular vote)
& the winner of this week's WTF moment is:
Dunkin' Donuts for caving to a right-wing blogger who claimed Rachel Ray's scarf was jihadist. Orly? Said blogger didn't say jack when Megan McCain (daughter of John) was photographed w/a similar scarf later! This reminds me of Craig Hodges wearing a daishiki to the White House after a Bulls championship. Yea, Hodges has been "black-balled" from basketball ever since. WTF!
Houston, we have a conflict! Firestarter Events´ SQL Learning Day down in Irvine which *might* be useful/informative vs the LAMPSIG meeting where I KNOW this month's topic is going to be useful right off the bat!
You might be thinking, ¨a 6 hour conference hosted my Microsoft vs. a 2 hour meeting down in mid-city? Slam dunk?¨ Not so fast! The main reason why it´s a tough call is that the Firestarter event is centered completely around Microsoft technology. This is fine but the top 3 environments I run are all Linux (#4 is my windows XP box). The SQL-DEV track (the one I´d be most interested in) is all based on .NET. I worked in a .NET environment long enough to know I don´t have much interest in spending my free time on it. The SQL-ITPro track, if anything, is the LAMPSIG competitor. So, hence, the quandary.
MySQL permissions is the focus of this month´s LAMPSIG meeting. Solomon Chang, a MySQL author, will be presenting. As always, we´ll be descending upon the local IHOP after the meeting where folks can unwind & meet everyone else.
Tonite at Arroyo (in Arcadia, CA). While posts like these are rare, I was overly-impressed by how nice, easy-going & humble they both were. Of course, my phone's on the fritz so couldn't take a pic w/Teddy Riley (/sigh) but my boy Obie was with me later & Mr. Miguel Angel Rodriguez was nice enough to grace me with a picture (boy is my mom going to be happy about that as it is one of her favorite artists).
Good music + good friends + (unexpected) down-to-earth folks = a good night!
So after checking out all the rest, I think I chose the best: Drupal! While I made this decision a couple months back, it´s just now that I´ve gotten the sandbox & time to actually start playing in it- after testing distros & configuring LAMP stacks.
I can´t wait either, as I´ve got roughly 8 sites to work on by the end of the year. Drupal + teaching myself PHP = fun times ahead.
I should note that my old work buddy & good friend, Marco hooked me up with his old Professional PHP Programming book...good lookin´ out! :)
