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
