(35th)Amonpolis II on the way

It's totally been awhile since writing. Writing here, writing music, writing anything. I seem to have some sort of mental downhill going on. In Sweden the downhill is a good thing, no need for pushing. In Finland it's just the feel of speed before the actual crash :D

Anyway, I can now announce that the first draft of a complete song is now officially drafted to my recorder (The mighty BOSS Micro BR). And besides all my previous thoughts, it's not in major, it's a blues tune in B minor. Artifactial Blues as the working title. Making the lyrics is also started, looking for to finalize them at the point when it's time to actually sing the tune :D.

My approach, anyway, on the forthcoming recordings is to make first the song and the tune, and then write the lyrics. In that precise order, just to do something new. The arrangements and chords should be as simple as possible to bulletproof my songwriting abilities. I'm aiming to create a basic set of songs with basic arrangements and having catchy tunes and guitar -licks there while at the same time keeping my standards of writing. Meaning that the songs should be easily adoptable but still yet unique both in melodic and lyricist points of view. I suppose that I've already proved myself that I'm capable to create somewhat complicated arrangements and song structures. The lyrics, still, will remain on the same blurry central lyricist style I have adopted and feel familiar to :D.

Above these I've started a sidekick for this blog, a public Wiki to hold on the background information about the songs, lyrics and the world the songs should be describing. I'll get back to that when it is ready to be explored by the others anyway.

(34th) Gibson's robo-guitar tunes itself | Crave : The gadget blog

Gibson's robo-guitar tunes itself | Crave : The gadget blog

And there it is (once again) - a technological gadget to ruin mans mind. What I mean is this:
Back in the old days I was capable for tuning my guitar after hearing only one note and tuning only one string (A - usually) first. And after that tuning the rest depending on the first tuned string. Nowadays, it just won't happen. I admit that I'm lazy, since it's SO easy to turn on the tuner and follow the LEDs. But the thing is that I might've got too used to not to hear or listen to the correct, tuned tone, since I don't have to.

The same thing has happened to my memory of numbers. Still during the end of 20th century I remembered all the phone numbers me and my friends had. And that's something from 70 to 120 numbers back then. After the cellular phone, no way :D. Nowadays I don't even have type the number down, all I do is ask the friend to call me or send the contact info in mail. And then I'll transfer it to the phone, without paying too much attention to the number at all.

The solution for these would quite obviously be that I'll start using the old tuning style of mine and also start to actually write down the numbers and actually picking them also up and entering them manually. That would help it.

But then, these helping technological gadgets let me use my time to something useful instead. Or is the thing so that the useful stuff is just the productive work I do for my employer, then? This is once again a capitalistic/commercial conspiracy and should be strongly boycotted :D.

Yeah right, but actually, the tuning -stuff would be a neat one to re-learn. The numbers, I won't bother, but keep on nagging :D.

(33rd) Usability

One more thing about the usability. Google. They seem to know how to tide up a bunch of good services behind one account. But then. The services are really good, but how to get them interacting together without adding the google toolbar (check the previous blog -entry), or other firefox-plugin. Not so sure how it works with Internet Explorer, I've tried to avoid it as much as I can.

For example, if I find anything interesting in my e-mail, google reader-feed or from the search -page, I should be able to select the item, or to click it, let's say that we'll do this with secondary mouse button, again, and send it to my google notebook's tagged collections. Or to my e-mail inbox.

Actually the Gmail could be so much more than just a collection of ever-deleted mails.But then again, would it have too much stuff inside, like the native non-web appllications tend to get. I suppose so.

But anyway, the google -stuff is great, but there's no good connection between them, without using the darn plug-ins. And why would I have to download something extra if this sort of behaviour could be inside the applications themselves? The API:s are available and they are working anyway. At least so it seems :D

(32nd) Simple Browsing

First of all. I'm not a windows -hater. Not that I'm a big fan of any of the operating systems at the moment. Or any software, as I see them, too. It seems that more powerful they get, more features are added. And the way the features are added really seems to suck. I don't know if anyone of the development circle in open or closed software side of the web can actually look outside the box they are coding. Nice features and plug-ins are added to the programs and OS:s, but then again they are not thought through.

For example the web browsers, who needs the title bar? I mean really, who? You can use the Google search -box to find the page you want. OK, some might need it, but why it has to be visible. Or the default encoding. After you've set it up, how often do you change it? Usually (if the web page is properly done) auto
-setting should work.
And any of that toolbar- stuff, in the other hand. From my point of view they could be thrown away from the screen. And be hidden in a cleverly designed pop-up that can be activated with secondary mouse button, for example.

Then there's this social web browser, Flock. It is neat and it stores the web 2.0 social blah blah in one place. Nice idea, but even more toolbars and whatsoever, check it yourself. It's not that bad, still.

All the settings you need to set for your browsing environment could be asked from you in the installation phase, while the files are unpacked and the registry is tweaked. That sort of a settings- file can be then stored locally before the first boot when it is read as an input to the executed program. When the program is shut down, it would store the settings in to the registry instead of the default file. At least in windows :D Hmmm. This makes me think twice about the security issues that were in my mind when writing this part down. Have to check it anyway, if I'm about to actually develop this sort of tweak.


Actually, I'll have to check if somebody has done it already.There's simply no point to re-create the wheel. Unless the pre-released wheel is a triangle ;)

BLING! (sound of the darn triangle, then)

But anyhow, I think the same approach can be taken in to any OS development, too. Windows is nowadays quite easy to use, but still, the start menu? And Vista sidebar? Sidebar looks neat but the gadgets suck. Really. At least the default ones. I suppose there's a bunch of really talented developers in Redmond (or in India;), but they are concentrating to more serious business than creating gadgets for the end-users. Who then develop them themselves. Which is ok, but the overall quality of the gadgets is poor.

And Linux, oh my god :D Ubuntu has been the only distribution ever to work at least when you help it out of the box. There's usually way too much to choose from, even though, the latest releases have been awesome. You can actually use this as an everyday computer, and you don't usually have to tweak anything. IF you own a computer that is commonly used and uses common hardware. And if it doesn't, you usually find your way through by reading forums and blogs. Unlike in windows, in linux-world the word is somewhat more free. But then, if you want to tweak it, you can do whatever you want, if you just have the abilities to do it. In the other hand the overall quality of the software made for linux is better than in windows, but the usability still sucks.

Mac (The apple stuff) has been pronounced as a highly sofisticated and user-friendly operating system. And I do agree. The native OSX -applications are highly usable, but still, there's the toolbar. And it seems to be always there. I just can't still see the point. :D

Overall, I think that the usability of different types of software has been studied carefully for years. Why do we still have to stick in to these old-fashioned toolbars and UI:s which seem to be designed to show how much different types of properties we can fit in to one application. As long the software works, you don't need to change the settings.

Talking about the usability, have you tried to write a SMS with cellular phone? Or make a call with the latest ones? This could go on and on... (and it will ;)

(31st) Ubuntustudio 8.04 beta and Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li1703

Dirty thirst? Oh yes, I definitely need to fool around with words. Especially without a descent meaning.

And back to the lost point. I tried to get my lousy laptop (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li1703) display-drivers to work with Ubuntustudio 8.04 Beta on friday. And actually, I did, thanks to the marvellous amount of support pages across the web. So, here's the steps as I remember them (next time I'll blog at the same time):

1) Search for the help, Google with Amilo Li1703 ubuntu unichrome (VIA display drivers)
Don't remember ALL the links I tried, but managed to find this link:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome

2) Compile openchrome -drivers according to the found instructions.

3) Compile the 3d -effects to the desktop according to the found instructions.

4) TRY to use the compiz effects on the desktop. Setup works, but nothing happens or seem to happen on the display anyhow, which is weird. Actually, it is ok, since I'm anyhow using the laptop to mix my recordings or making music, not for swallowing eyecandy ;)

5) I'll have to keep on digging what's the actual problem for this. I actually do have now myself a working desktop, which is also kind of fast, since the 3D -glitter is somewhere else. Still, it would be nice to have it ;)


And to be honest, laptop itself is good, it's only the SW support that the HW needs that is missing. In Windos XP & Vista it sucks, so no wonder it's hard in Linux, too. :D Yeah right, I hope someone sees the ironic blink behind that sentence...


PS. As you could see, I swallowed my tasty pride and changed the title decoding. Just for someone who'd like to see something else than an ordering number and the amount of posts in my blog.

thirtieth

And this morning, while reading the news, I can see that Ilkka Kanerva has been made to resign. Am I happy? No. I am not, totally. Still, I think it is the right thing to do, and I assume that mr. Kanerva can stay resigned happily, the amount of money he gets out of the pension system in Finland is enormous. If I got it right it would be more than my salary.
And still, hopefully people see the point in here. And that this is not just a media hunting down a poor bugger, but that this was a way too simple man in too big position.

And anyway this is only my opinion. Hopefully this ends up to a situation in the next election that the left side of the politcs will win. Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

Thanks for comment. I don't know about the media, at least I got what I wanted. ;) And mr Kanerva got what he was asking. His work is to be in public, all the media did was that it kept the subject in the headlines, that's their job. The actual thing is that besides his actual job Ilkka did something else that should not be done when you are in such a position he was. Crossing the fine lines between the right and wrong.
Still I think he got what he deserved. Unlike mister A. Stubb, who is really irritating as a person from my point of view.
And about the right and wrong, the world is not black and white, I know. It's in shades of gray. And brown :D.

twentyninth

Some comments to a friend of mine's blog.
Background of this is that Finlands Minister of Foreign affairs (Ilkka Kanerva) has sent few HUNDREDS of SMS:s to an 'erotic dancer'. And here's my thoughts about the issue.

From my humble point of view, mr Kanerva gets paid quite a lot for a) representing Finland abroad (and in Finland, too) b) serving the government and the people of Finland in best possible matters. And he's not meeting all the standards there by acting like that.
I don't feel sorry for him at all :D He's also being paid for being the frontman of his ministry. And that brings a responsibility to act like a good leader, not like a normal man. If he does not meet these standards, apparently he won't, as we've seen, he should be resigned from the position. Or at least he should be given another position, where he's good at. A messaging router, perhaps? :D
At least if I were a prime minister and he was working for me and representing one of my leagues of extraordinary gentlemen, I kind of get rid of him. That's anyway a type of thinking that these right-wing business-focused seem to follow anyway.

And that should not be something personal, the whole thing is not personal at all, it's a matter of common justice, I suppose. The point is that the news in Finland seem to be focusing to the wrong end of the whole thing. And that's mr Kanerva's personal rights to act the way he wants as a human being. Well, he kind of resigned from those common man duties when he volunteered and was chosen to be representative of Finland. Because that is what is expected from him, and that is what he gets paid off. At least he should have some common working ethics told him to follow in the first place.