Oh my god, it’s still breathing!

How to remove a password from a USB enhanced removable storage device in Windows 7

2011-12-01T00:53:00.003Z

This took /way/ too long to work this out... so posting here in the hopes it will help someone else.

So basically my friend has Windows 7 Ultimate and had 'set a password' on her cheapo USB disk. She then found out she couldn't use the disk on anyone else's computer. She knew the password, she just wanted it removing so the disk would work on other computers again. The disk had no files on it.

Turns out this password protection is IEEE 1667, and the only real world implementation of this appears to be in Windows 7. It's implemented at the hardware level, so if you try to use the disk on any other OS you get zilch. Nada. NOPE.avi

What we finally figured out is that if you type your password incorrectly upon plugging your disk in, you get an option to 'reset' the device. This wipes it clean and removes the password protection, and makes it work on other systems again. Obviously, note the 'wipes it clean' bit there -- you should back up the contents of the disk before resetting.

God bless Microsoft usability...

All Grown Up

2010-08-19T00:04:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I blogged about anything, so I thought I'd fill the void with some personal updates.

I've finished my degree at Imperial College London. Those of you who are close to me will know that the few months leading up to my final exams were some very difficult times for me, least because of the pressure to do well in exams. Turns out I made it through OK, but I owe a lot to the very good friends who lent me their support. You know who you are, and I love you all. Anyway, my mum is now in possession of a certificate saying that I'm an absolutely first class master at physics, or something. Graduation is in October and she can't wait. Super.

After my massive snowboarding credit card binge this year (two holidays in the Alps and countless trips to the Milton Keynes Sno!Zone adds up to a lot), I didn't waste any time after exams finding a source of income. Since the beginning of June I'm very proud to say I've been working for one of the major players in the world of CG visual effects - Soho-based Double Negative.

DNeg have worked on many major titles of recent times including my own personal favourites Inception, Cloverfield, The Dark Knight, The Bourne Ultimatum and Hot Fuzz. I work as a Research & Development Programmer, and hack on the software that we use to make sweet shiz like this happen. I learn so much every single day and it's awesome to be given the opportunity to solve such unique and interesting problems. Still getting used to the whole "waking up in the morning" thing, though - in fact, I'm lucky to be there before eleven. It's a good job they are flexible on working hours else I would have been P45'd a long time ago. (For our US friends, that's a "pink slip", not some kind of submachine gun.)

I think, without question, the best thing about working for DNeg is that I get to sit on this beast. I have not fussed about a chair so much in my life and I doubt I ever will again. You could probably buy a house in Darlo for the price of one of these, but believe me when I say it is worth every last penny. I actually get a bit of a semi just thinking about it. If there's one office chair you save up for all your life, make this it.

Music is still on a break. I banned myself from producing till my exams were over and then when I've tried to get back into it I'm still not making anything good, so it's time to shake it up a bit. I'm going to get hold of a pair of BeyerDynamic DT 880s (probably), Ableton Live, a few new synths (Sylenth, V-Station, Massive?) and some sample packs (probably get VEC3 because my drums feel somewhat outdated), and actually make a real effort to learn some theory and produce something good. I cannot actually believe I've let four years go by since my LXJ remix of Dan Stone - Road Test was released. While there have been a few tracks in the pipeline since, most of them have admittedly been pretty sub-par. Hopefully things will change if I get my act together. Wish me luck.

kthxbye!

PHP wart of the day

2010-03-01T18:33:00.005Z

Just spent about a half hour debugging this. It's such a shame that if you try to do anything neat in PHP, stupid behaviour foils your plan:

php > $n = NULL;
php > var_dump($n['something']);
NULL
php > var_dump($n[0]);
NULL

How this makes any sense is beyond me. It even happens if $n is FALSE...

Python, for comparison, throws an exception sanely:

In [1]: n = None
In [2]: n['something']
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is unsubscriptable

Python tip: enumerate(list) vs. xrange(len(list))

2010-02-24T22:30:00.007Z

For a long time, when wanting a counting variable with which to index some list in a Python loop, I've used for i in xrange(len(some_list)). However, I've since discovered the built-in enumerate function, so you can instead do for i, item in enumerate(some_list). This has the benefit of already giving you effectively item = some_list[i] for each iteration of the loop, and also working on iterators that don't necessarily have a length. (enumerate simply gives you an iterator that returns each item of the input collection back together with a counting number. Far too simple!)

Hopefully this will help someone, but if not, it’ll remind me later!

Some Short Tune Reviews from TATW 296

2009-11-29T20:47:00.005Z

Thought I'd review the tracks played on this week's Trance Around The World to force me to listen properly! Here it goes.

Dan Stone "Fahrenheit" (Anjunabeats): Arbitrary piano over stock pads and plucks with a standard bass progression. As expected from Dan Stone, crisp production, but can't help think that this track is born of a need to get another pay cheque in from Anjunabeats. 2/5
Hydro Aquatic "Moon River" (Monster Tunes): Overused techy side-chain-compressed bass line with a Nitrous Oxide "North Pole"-style theme that Above & Beyond are absolutely caning right now (see "Anjuna Beach"). Nothing much going on here. 2/5
Angelic "It's My Turn 2009" (Darren Tate Remix): Not much to offer over the older versions other than an updated sound set. Nothing very interesting above that. 2/5
Boom Jinx & Jaytech "Milano" (Anjunadeep): Wouldn't expect anything less than lush, edgy sounds from Boom Jinx and Jaytech, and they deliver on those grounds. Reasonably funky bass pattern, but gets boring quickly. Good warmup material. 3/5
Mat Zo "Rush 2009" (Anjunabeats): I'm still caning the original of "Rush", and I was surprised to see an updated version so soon. Borrows even more from the world of tech house. Mat's production is as always very refreshing, but I feel this remake deducts more than it adds. I will forego this one for the original. 3/5
Temple One "Sahara Nights" (Steve Brian Remix) (Enhanced Recordings): Typical Anjuna-fodder. Good production, but totally generic sounds and theme. Also, the guy has two first names. 2/5
EverLight "Colours" (Cressida Remix): Delightful themes with a blissful atmosphere. Adventurous accompanying parts give this track some nice originality. Great flow and solid production. 3/5
Everything But The Girl "Missing" (Greg Downey Remix): Greg delivers a typically techy concoction balanced with the iconic breakdown lifted from the original Todd Terry mix. Absolutely fantastic take on the theme, I just wish he could have made something out of it for the main part instead of resorting to pretty generic tech trance beats. Regardless, how can this not go off in a club? 3/5
Edu pres. Time Traveler "Save The Planet" (Cramp Remix) (Levare): Arbitrary piano and more boring plucks on the break, but the build up seems to pay off. The theme brings a smile to my face, even though it's quite simple. 3/5
Filo & Peri feat. Aruna "Ashley" (Alex M.O.R.P.H. Remix) (Vandit): Heavy peak-time tech trancer with pretty good vocal work and disgusting(-ly good) bass programming. Not much love, but very functional. 3/5
Chapter XJ "Resurrection" (Jorn van Deynhoven Remix) (Monster): Almost-arbitrary piano breakdown, but completely forgiven by a real crowd-pleaser of a theme. This is big-smile, textbook trance. I have been going absolutely nuts for this in the clubs. 4/5
Paul Keely "Cloud 9" (Anjunadeep): Eighth-note progressive house. Functional, but somewhat uninspired percussion. A gorgeous and well programmed 4 bar theme, but not much going on other than that. 3/5
Jerome Isma-Ae "Hold That Sucker Down" (Pilot 9): Tech house beats with a classic-sounding, dark and moody theme. Pretty cool, but I don't feel much emotional attachment. 3/5
Sunny Lax "Misgrey" (Anjunabeats): Now this is a side of Sunny Lax I didn't expect to see. Techy beats and fresh, interesting sound work. I absolutely cannot resist the theme! Mesmerising bass, decorated beautifully and tastefully. Just try and keep me off the dance floor. 4/5
Markus Schulz "Do You Dream?" (Grube & Hovsepian Remix) (Coldharbour): Nice theme with a big spacious sound. Ticks all the boxes, but somehow doesn't really do that much for me. 3/5
Mark Pledger feat. Melinda Gareh "Time Stands Still" (Solaris): Gorgeous sounds and and a theme that, if a bit indulgent at times, practically melts my spine. Hypnotic, progressive and full of the trance sensibilities I long for. A genuine, refreshing arrangement and form, though, like "Fallen Tides" I am left feeling a little lost in the theme sometimes. Looking forward to remixes. 3 4 3 4/5

Today’s hack: CD wallet inlay track listings generator

2009-09-10T00:22:00.004+01:00

If you’re a CD DJ, and, like me, you’re used to scrawling the names of the tracks you’ve just burnt down onto a piece of paper and slotting it into your CD wallet, you probably know how difficult it is to write legibly in a small space.

So, I hacked this Python tool together to generate a printable PDF from some simple text files. There is no graphical interface (yet), just a simple command line interface.

All you have to do is:

Create a folder full of plain text files like such:
LABEL GOES HERE Artist 1 - Title 1 Artist 2 - Title 2 Artist 3 - Title 3 ... etc.
that is, the CD label goes on the first line, and then the track listing goes on each line after that. The file names do not matter, but it's probably a good idea to use the same thing for the label and filename.
Run the tool as such:
python /path/to/tracklisting.py /path/to/tracklisting/files/*
Out pops the PDF “output.pdf” in the working directory. Print it off, and cut it out! Happy times!

The code is up on Launchpad at https://code.launchpad.net/~alex-weej/+junk/tracklisting. Please feel free to submit patches or suggestions for any improvements you may have!

A Protest Against “Wall-to-Wall” Conversations on Facebook

2009-09-03T23:59:00.005+01:00

Do people realise that when they write a “private” wall post on their friend’s or loved one’s wall, that it shows up on all of their friends’ home pages? Does anyone really care to read half a conversation?

As a mild method of comical protest, I’ve started hitting “Like” on such posts to politely remind and simultaneously freak out people who do this. I think everyone should join in the fun.

Jane → Joe: night night darling ;) xxxxx
15 people like this.

Send a message instead! No-one else gives a shit!

Ubuntu 9.04 Released!

2009-04-23T16:03:00.002+01:00

It’s that time of the half-year again. Get your torrents on!

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Conservapedia: Infuriating and Malicious

2009-04-19T01:03:00.006+01:00

Question: What do you get when people with a political and religious agenda decide to create their own version of Wikipedia? Answer: Conservapedia.

From their own “About” page:

We do not allow liberal bias to deceive and distort here.

The sheer hypocrisy of this statement is astonishing. Articles I have skim-read include those on Evolution, Atheism, Homosexuality and (just LOL) The Great Flood and are completely biased far beyond anything I’ve ever seen on Wikipedia.

Make no mistake, this is not even an attempt to distill information of subjectivity. This is an attempt to shield people from consensual truths which right-wing bigots and religious zealots find uncomfortable or incompatible with their belief systems.

Now, it’s fair enough to have all of this “information” on a website; I’m a strong believer in Freedom of Speech. The most infuriating aspect of this is that somehow, there is a plethora of genuinely useful and legitimate information on there, diluting the bullshit considerably. Earlier today I had searched Google for “matrix multiplication suffix notation” and the Conservapedia article Matrix was the top result. It is clear to me that the intention of this project is to blur the line between fact and fiction, to teach objectively and subjectively in order to mislead, and to cast doubt in the mind of the reader on issues that are as plain as black and white in the Real World.

I consider this one of the highest crimes of humanity; the corruption of the human mind. Alas, this is only really a 21st century extension of an age-old war, and with the Web rapidly supplanting all other formats as information outlets, I suppose it was only a matter of time before those who were brainwashed as kids by colouring books and Sunday School grew up and took it to the tubes.

Of course, the right way to combat this is to make sure that the best information is in its rightful place: Wikipedia. So that’s why I’m going there right now to figure out why Wikipedia wasn’t in the search results. Hopefully, other people will do the same.

The Wikipedia article on Conservapedia is an interesting read.

The Signs of Autism

2009-02-18T01:02:00.002Z

A hot, young girl with pigtails == autism, apparently.

Anyone know what’s going on here?

How to get beautiful, Mac OS X-quality text/fonts in Ubuntu

2009-02-09T17:59:00.008Z

Want text to look its finest in Ubuntu?

You’re just a couple of steps away.

Firstly, in a shell, run:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

Select “None” for the “font tuning method”, “Automatic” for “subpixel rendering” and “No” for “enable bitmap fonts”.

For some reason, the default greyscale mode overrides the subpixel rendering set by fontconfig, so you also need to open System → Preferences → Appearance, select the “Fonts” page and choose the “Subpixel smoothing (LCDs)” mode.

You’ll notice that while the text has slightly less contrast, it actually preserves the form of the letter shapes much more faithfully, just like Mac OS X. As long as you don't have a low resolution monitor (less than 96 dpi), the characters will appear to be just like printed type, and you’ll forget you’re looking at a grid of pixels!

Enjoy!

Facebook: Alexander became a fan of Jabber

2009-01-10T14:46:00.001Z

Maybe you should too? :)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jabber/29336967655

SomaFM Tag's Trip

2009-01-03T21:33:00.003Z

I've recently started listening to Soma FM's trance / progressive house channel, Tag's Trip. It's awesome, and makes for a refreshingly less-inbred listening experience than Last FM. (Not that I don't still love Last FM!)

Soma FM - enjoy!

All the cool kids are doing it…

2008-09-20T17:00:00.002+01:00

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair… just take a picture.
Post that picture with no editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

Re: Creationism!

2008-09-17T19:09:00.003+01:00

Jen

I was going to bite with a lengthy response, but I can’t be arsed to read all of your comments to make sure I’m not repeating. So a couple of quick points, instead, for future reference of your own, and other misguided folk.

You’ve made the classic schoolgirl mistake. Evolution is a theory, yes, and so is gravity.

If you ask me, religion is a problem for humanity. Max Mosly’s Nazi S&M orgies don’t affect his ability to run Formula 1. Religious beliefs, however, tend to reflect on many things they really shouldn’t. And that’s why people should resign from their positions of responsibility if they can’t enforce a boundary. The Church of England’s treatment of Charles Darwin is a tragic, extreme, but perfect example of what problems we still face today in the scientific community.

IE8 - Getting my web pages right, first time!

2008-09-10T02:38:00.003+01:00

Just fired up IE NetRenderer to check the rendering of the new ICU Music Technology Society web page I was working on today.

Unsurprisingly, IE6 gets implicit font sizes wrong (base font size is 8pt, yet level 1 headings disregard this), ignores instruction to inherit colours (link colours don’t match the normal text foreground colour) and fails at alpha-blending PNG images.

IE7 blends the images properly, but that’s the only thing it gets right over IE6.

IE8 beta 2, however, gets everything right! Granted, the page is very simple, but I think this is the first time that any non-trivial page that I’ve coded has worked in IE without any extra work. I wonder if the scripting interfaces are up to standard yet... We may be out of the dark ages by the end of the decade if Microsoft roll this out to Windows users!

The end of the world?

2008-09-09T00:05:00.003+01:00

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN fires up Wednesday. Reading uneducated musings about the end of the world on message boards is LOLtastic.

But something did get me thinking...

Perhaps the search for extra-terrestrial life has shown up nought so far because every construct that evolves eventually becomes intelligent enough to destroy itself, inadvertently or otherwise, beyond detection. Curiosity is pretty good at killing cats—throw a high energy particle accelerator in and I reckon it could blow a pretty impressive hole in the Universe.

Whatever happens, it’s exciting times for science. The things we do for knowledge...

070 numbers - NOT mobile phones!

2008-09-07T20:20:00.003+01:00

070 is the prefix used for “Personal Numbering” in the UK. These numbers can be used like disguises for your real telephone numbers. Depending on your tariff, it may cost you an unexpected amount to call!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United_Kingdom

(Seen on Gumtree, probably scam-vertisements.)

Sucata Run 2008

2008-08-08T21:11:00.003+01:00

In less than two weeks, myself and two of my good mates, Edd and Jay, are going on the Sucata Run, a banger tour from Rouen to Cabo da Roca. We picked up our car on eBay, a totally clapped out Alfa Romeo 155 with 140,000 miles on it and built in dog smell.

The event is a fundraising gig for Gemin-i.org in its third year having started in 2006. We are trying to raise £1,000 for the charity, which helps to bring communications IT to kids in developing countries. You can read all about their story on their website. If you feel like donating any amount to the cause, then please visit our Justgiving page: justgiving.com/the-fail-mobile. It’s really easy to donate, and the money goes straight to the charity with added Gift Aid if you pay tax!

justgiving.com/the-fail-mobile

We are The Fail-Mobile, and it’s going to be an adventure of epic proportions!

Thanks loads!

You’ve Been Framed!

2008-07-19T19:23:00.001+01:00

You’ve Been Framed is funny again... thanks to Harry Hill! Get it watched!

“SoCo for everyone?”

2008-07-15T23:07:00.002+01:00

There’s a new Southern Comfort advert doing the rounds in the UK, subtitled “For Picture-Perfect Nights”.

The spot places absolutely no focus on the qualities of the drink itself, instead choosing to portray the scene of a trendy club playing trendy rock music, in which lots of pretty guys and girls flirt, dance, and order trendy mixers for each other.

Right, look. I am pretty libertarian in political orientation, so I’m hardly going to argue that glamorizing alcohol use on TV should be banned. Let’s be reasonable, the advert’s on after the watershed, it carries the “Drink Aware” badge, and we all know that susceptible kids who are unable to enforce their own limits are long since tucked up in bed. (Hah!) I’m sure the angry letters have already been sent to the ASA, so there’s no need to go down that route. But, what I find incredible is that this advert so purely and remorselessly promotes the recreational use of drugs, and because it’s “only” alcohol, that somehow makes it OK.

This double standard is beginning to grate me now. It is widely accepted amongst those with the credentials (I make no stronger claim than that) that alcohol use is much more harmful both directly to the human body and to society in general than many of the drugs we currently outlaw (BBC report). Why, then, is it still illegal for me to drop a couple of E’s at a rave, whilst Big Alcohol are allowed to actively pimp the entirely functional aspect of spirit-strength alcoholic drinks on prime time TV?

The alcohol and tobacco industry lobbyists have it so well embedded in popular opinion that everyone else’s drugs are bad. They are loving their cozy little duopoly on recreational intoxication. What does it take for sanity to prevail?

Post Offices

2008-07-01T18:44:00.003+01:00

BBC News reports on the newly announced Post Office closures in various counties in the North East of England. 57 of them are due to be shut in the near future, pending a six-week consultation.

As I watched the report on BBC Look North, in which a pretty respectable gathering of protesters had assembled at one of the closing branches, I couldn’t help but notice that almost every single one of the people in the crowd had white hair.

Have you ever been to a Post Office? Whenever I go to one to post a parcel or whatever, the place always seems to be crammed with old people, it takes about 20 minutes to get through the queue, during which I have to endure a robot man and woman repeat the phrase “Cashier number twelve, please.”, or variations of, over and over again, and then I have to pay “Large Letter” postage because my marginally elongated birthday card is, unfortunately, slightly exceeding one of Royal Mail’s f***ing arbitrary dimensions.

So what exactly is it about Post Offices that old people are so obsessed with? They are shit, and you can do everything you would need to do regularly at any number of other newsagents, corner shops or supermarkets. For pensions, can’t they be paid by BACS by now? If not, why not?

Answers on a post card, please. (Blog comments also read.)

What is Nokia is up to?

2008-06-25T15:26:00.006+01:00

They have the open source Maemo platform, which they’re already using in moderately successful devices such as the N800.

In January, they acquired Trolltech, whose technologies (which power KDE) are more-or-less competitors to those already in the Maemo platform (those used by GNOME). Seems like an odd position already.

And only yesterday, they announce that they are acquiring Symbian and handing Symbian OS et al over to the newly-formed Symbian Foundation, i.e. they’re opening up the source code.

You know the grey goo doomsday scenario? Seems like Nokia is just swallowing up as much stuff as it can and turning it into open source goo.

While I guess it’s a good day for software freedom in general, I can’t help but feel a little dejected by the lack of focus on and commitment to Maemo by Nokia. But with OHA Android, LiMo and OpenMoko all looking to win the hearts of developers and consumers alike, perhaps Nokia is right to feel the need to have three independent, (if incompatible) software stacks in its arsenal.

The fastest way to shut down a MacBook Pro...

2008-06-11T12:19:00.004+01:00

...Pour half a pint of water right into the keyboard.

As you may know by now from my tweet last night or my Facebook status, I clumsily poured half a glass of water onto my MacBook Pro last night whilst revising for my exams. The screen went dark almost immediately, and there was a worrying hiss as either the water furiously boiled off my very hot components, or expensive bits of silicon were toasted by stray current. I don’t actually know for sure if it shorted out, as with my lightning fast reactions, I had the computer inverted in my hands, emptying water out of it, whilst yanking the battery out. The power connector had fallen out by itself as I had picked it up, so hopefully that counts for something. It’s really quite likely that it did short, though.

A bit of towel-drying and hair-dryering later, I took what panels (or rather “panel”) I could take off easily, and it’s now sat upside down in an L shape, propped up atop a box in my room. Gonna wait till Friday or so to power back up and see if we get signal.

Thankfully, I have accidental insurance with a 10% excess, so it’s not a total disaster. And I’m smart enough to not keep any important data on the disk, so I’ve not lost anything should the disk be hosed. Can’t be chewed with the ball-ache of repair/replace, though. Pants! :(

Follow-Up: It turned back on with no signs of fault after about a week of drying in various orientations. As of February 2009, it’s still working, even though I’ve dropped it and put a massive dent in the case since!

“The conversation has been moved to the Bin”

2008-06-07T12:28:00.002+01:00

Interesting to see that Google have ~~localized~~ localised Google Mail for us Brits, now opting to call the place where unwanted messages go to die the “Bin” now, instead of the “Trash”. Weird that, but it makes sense. Nobody says “Trash”. Maybe we should be doing it in GNOME, too?

Getting a refund on an “Oyster” card

2008-05-18T00:39:00.004+01:00

Last Friday I got ridiculously drunk and managed to lose my 18+ student Oyster card (and my credit card... epic fail.). So while I waited for a replacement, I made use of a spare one that I had lying around, and put a few quid on it to keep me going.

Tuesday my replacement came. Kudos to TFL for dealing with it so quickly, I don’t think I could have received it any faster. However, I now had £8.50 on my spare account. I’ve had a card’s outstanding balance and the £3 deposit refunded before, but this time they wouldn’t refund me more than £2.50 on the balance. Panties. Oh well, I’ll use it up somehow.

So anyway, the lesson of the day is: don’t go overboard when topping up temporary cards. On the other hand, make sure you have enough on the card when you start travelling to qualify for the daily travel caps if you’re likely to travel that much on a single day, otherwise you won’t be eligible for the limit and will be scammed out of your backside.

Probably the best 60 seconds of my life

2008-02-17T22:48:00.004Z

We went to Planet Angel on Friday night for their (Chinese) New Year's party extravaganza.

As if it could have gotten any better, Sly One played my remix of Road Test! Unfortunately, I was getting a drink of water at the time and missed most of it! I got a text message from my friend Phil (who was very drunk, by the way!) saying it was on, and by the time I got back into the main room I had missed the break and most of the main part!

But for the last minute or so, I might as well have been dreaming.

I am still buzzing, and using the mood and momentum to make new music. It has been over a year since I finished a track, so I've gotta get my act together! Wish me luck...

Ubuntu ♥ Windows: Sharing the Desktop

2008-02-06T20:23:00.000Z

There are some things for which Windows just can't be replaced yet, and getting Ubuntu (or any other OS) and Windows to play along on the same computer is sometimes pretty baffling. Here's my short guide to getting your Ubuntu "desktop" folder to be shared across both systems, meaning you can place a file onto your desktop and reboot into the other OS and have it be sat there as if to say "Uh, what else did you expect?"

Ready?

Boot Windows.
Download the installer for the Ext2 driver from http://fs-driver.org/. This will allow your Windows system to read the file system you are using in Ubuntu, assuming you are using the default choice of Ext3.
Run the installer.
During the installation process, you will be asked to assign Windows drive letters to Ext2 file systems. Choose one for a Windows drive letter for the partition with your Ubuntu "Home" directory on it. For example, "U:".
Run Registry Editor (Start, Run, type "regedit"), and then browse to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders".
Change the value of the "Desktop" key to, e.g. "U:\home\alex\Desktop". (Remember to replace "U" with the drive letter you chose, and "alex" with your own Ubuntu username.)
Close Registry Editor.
Log out, and then back in.
Behold your Ubuntu desktop in all of its glory!

If you're feeling adventurous, you can change more than just your desktop folder. You might want to relocate your Windows "My Documents" folder to your Ubuntu "Home" directory, but with the amount of crap that Windows and Windows programs like to dump in there, I prefer not to. But don't let me spoil your fun.

Happy interoperating!

two thousand and eight ce

2008-01-01T01:32:00.001Z

cd ../2008

./configure && make && ./life

geek points plz thx

If HTML was really useful...

2007-12-15T00:33:00.000Z

<noboyfriend>Let's have sex!</noboyfriend>

Google AdWords

2007-12-01T17:49:00.000Z

So I logged on to Google Mail today and saw this "targeted" Google AdWord:

She Pee. P-mate UK Shop. - www.shepee.co.uk - No more squatting. Women can now pee standing up easily & discreetly

Penis envy or what?

Note to Google (as I post this on their Blogger service): I have a real cock.

Facebook Crap-lications

2007-09-06T22:06:00.000+01:00

Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans. I am pretty sure that I haven't actually been "invited" to this amount of crap by actual, real-life people. These scummer applications seem to be just spamming everyone whenever anyone else installs them. Please, stop installing this crap, everyone!

New Remix, new website, new direction

2007-09-04T00:52:00.000+01:00

In just a few weeks, my remix of Dan Stone's Road Test will be released on Red Force, along with the original mix and two stonking remixes from German trance legends, Signum.

It's been a long time coming - just over a year, in fact - but this release marks my debut commercial release, which is something I'm very proud of.

To celebrate, I decided to give my website a lick of paint and give it a new name. Gone is DJLXJ.COM, replaced by the newfangled LXJMUSIC.COM, something which looks slightly less like a random assortment of letters that a hypothetical cat might have come up with whilst walking across my keyboard. I don't think I have ever called myself "DJ LXJ" anyway, save for one Internet forum that wouldn't let me sign up with just the three letters, "L", "X" and "J".

More significantly, however, I decided to drop the "DJ" thing because it's something which I believe has its days numbered. "Discs", both vinyl and CD are rapidly on the decline, and for good reason. 2007 blesses us with 20 Mbit Internet connections, and insanely powerful live production performance tools such as Ableton Live, and I don't see things going forward at anything less than light-speed as we approach 2008. DJing as we know it is dead. Long live progress!

Road Test will be available on CD and digital download from most good retail outlets, including iTunes and Audiojelly, in September.

Leeds Reading Festival

2007-08-28T01:30:00.001+01:00

Why would anybody want to go to a reading festival, in Leeds of all places?

And why is it sponsored by Carling? Carling make lager, not books.

World has gone mad. Kill me please.

Cameras, phones, and all that jazz

2007-08-24T00:19:00.000+01:00

I've been the proud owner of a Sony Ericsson K750i since July 2005. I bought the phone as an upgrade to my old Nokia 6100, but mainly as my first digital camera - just in time for Global Gathering. The phone sports a 2.0 megapixel camera and has taken thousands upon thousands of exceptional quality photos over the years, many of which I post to Flickr and DontStayIn.

By far the most important thing to credit for the quality of my nightclubbing shots has been the MXE-60 flash that clips on to the bottom end of the phone. As a proper xenon flash, it gets much better results than a more typical, white LED. Furthermore, the distance from the camera lens to the flash is sufficient enough to guarantee that you never get any "red-eye". Ever. This is something which cannot be said of newer cameras that come with a built-in xenon flash, including even Sony's newer models. These cameras typically have to employ red-eye-reduction routines that make taking a picture a five-second, multi-flash ordeal.

In July 2006, my contract came to an end, and I was now in a position to upgrade my phone. Incredibly conscious of how awesome my current setup was, I was unable to find anything that suited me. So I put off upgrading for a while, every now and again checking to see if anything new was worth the upgrade.

Fast-forward another twelve months, and I still hadn't found anything that really pleased me. Instead, I had become obsessed with the prospects of the OpenMoko (.org) project - a project whose commercial arm (.com), backed by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer extraordinaire, FIC, will soon be mass-producing and selling the world's first, truly open mobile device.

The product is the Neo1973, and what makes it so special is that all of its hardware and software is completely open. Hardware specifications and software source code are all freely available, meaning that I can make whatever tweaks I want to my phone, without having to do any prohibitively time-consuming and illegal reverse-engineering.

This is a completely orthogonal approach to what usually happens, where hardware is secret, and software is locked down. Cellular network operators sometimes even remove functionality from the original software in order to benefit themselves. Such an example of this is a certain UK operator removing a certain mobile phone's ability to use uploaded MP3 files as ringtones, forcing the user to pay a premium for "mobile content".

Typically, phones will have Java (J2ME) support that allows you to run special Java applications on them, including small games and utilities, as well as more useful things like Google Maps. Unfortunately, the kinds of things that these applications can do is pretty restricted. Being able to develop real software for the Neo1973 means that I can for example, write a program that takes offline voice mail for me when I miss a call. That's right - no more being extorted by 901 just because you couldn't get to your phone in time. You can bet that if operators could lock that down, they would. But they can't, so nnerrrrr.

The device does not require a nonsensical, proprietary charger or USB connector that retails for £35. Instead, it uses an industry-standard USB cable that can be replaced for about £2 and found anywhere you care to look. It's so simple that it's unbelievable to think that more phones don't do this.

And naturally, the phone is not locked to a single network, unlike the ~~AT&TPhone~~ iPhone. Plug in any GSM SIM card and go.

The reality of the situation, however, is that the Neo1973 is far from perfect. The device lacks a camera, 3G, and even a sane place to store the stylus. In fact, it's obvious that they just admitted defeat with the stylus issue and decided to make it a gadget in its own right - it features a pen, a torch and a freaking laser pointer! So Rome wasn't built in a day, but at least you get to laser the eyes off anyone who doubts that you have the coolest phone on the planet.

So, it has become apparent in this day and age that mobile devices are all having a bit of an identity crisis. Mobile phones, PDAs, audio players, gaming devices, cameras and lasers are all suddenly becoming one and the same class of product. The German word for "mobile phone" translates back to "handy", and I see that as a much more fitting description of these technological pieces of madness that radiate our thighs and tie us to our chargers.

Back to my problem, then. I currently have one, aging "handy", which does my mobile-phone-ing, my camera-in-your-face-ing, my FM-radio-ing, my music-playing, my Google-Maps-ing, and once in a while, my SEGA®-Super-Real-Tennis-ing. If I get a Neo1973, I would definitely need to buy a camera, and would definitely miss the convenience of having an integrated bananaphone. I mean cameraphone. I think I should probably stop thinking too hard about this and go to bed.

Mmmmm, pie

2007-08-14T20:54:00.000+01:00

Pie pie pie pie pie pie pie!

So I just hacked up the Ubuntu Notification Daemon theme to make the pie chart drawing a bit nicer:

Before and after, top and bottom:

And again... before and after, left and right:

Wooties!

Kinda surprised

2007-06-27T18:21:00.000+01:00

People seem to be very good at drawing stuff with the new Grafitti application on Facebook...

Linux - I'd hit it

2007-03-20T20:54:00.000Z

Phwoar. (YouTube)

Misspelling of the moment 1: "arguement"

2007-03-20T09:48:00.000Z

I've read this about a million times over the last few days, blaaaah!

Correct spelling is: argument

kthxbye!

Africa

2007-03-17T22:50:00.000Z

Wow.

http://www.frogview.com/show.php?file=1745

Absolutely breathtaking.

Kite

2007-03-15T01:05:00.000Z

From xkcd:

It's easy to regret your awkward conversations but hard to regret the ones you didn't have.

Sigh...

Goodbye, Great Grandma

2007-03-07T04:12:00.000Z

My great-grandmother died today at the age of 105.

When my mum told me the news, I wasn't quite sure how to feel. Truth be told, she was really quite mental being as old as she was, and didn't really know what was going on anymore. I don't feel particularly sad, but rather proud that she lived as long a life as she did.

So goodbye for now, Great Grandma. If only my milk could last as long as you.

ATHF:MFFT

2007-03-04T02:49:00.000Z

AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATRES. OMG.

Bad Vista

2007-02-28T16:32:00.001Z

Saw this poster for some kind of talk in one of our CompSci lecture theatres today, and just had to Bad Vista it! :P

God said it, I believe it, that settles it!

2007-02-18T01:52:00.000Z

Fucking idiotic.

Dear Christianity, Science isn't out to get you. Just because you selectively refuse to accept science when it doesn't suit you, doesn't mean to say that it is out to get you. Stop being so fucking paranoid.

Thank god that's over

2007-02-15T01:48:00.000Z

So Valentine's Day is over for another year, and, once again, I didn't have the balls to declare my undying love to anyone.

Here's a look at some of the highlights (lowlights?) of Valentine's Day 2007.

If you get a dozen your loved!! Happy Valentine's Day

......... , . - -.- - . , .......
......... ) ` - . . - `(.......
........ / . . . .`\. . .\ .. ........
........ |. . . . . |. . .| .........
......... \ . . . ./ . . / ...........
........... `=(./.)=` ...........
............. `-;`;-' .............
............... || ... , .........
.................|| _.-'| ..........
...........|'-._ || . / .........
....... . ..\ . || .' / ..............
........... \ . || . /.............
............. \.|| . /.......
.............. \.||./ ..............
........ .......\||/...............
............. ...|| ..............
.................|| ..............
.................|| ..............
.................|| ..............
.................||.......
.......
..........................
.........

send this rose to everyone you care about including me if you care. See how many times you get this back

How shit is that? Not only does the grammar suck, but that is the shittest ASCII art I've seen since "YUO HAVE BEENE HIT BY TEH VODKA TRUCK! @#@[}{}&%]#~::*&$][]]]&" started showing up on my Facebook wall. Needless to say, nobody sent me one of these this Valentine's Day.

These special Valentine's Day *ahem* "gifts" have been all over everything on Facebook today, "...designed by Susan Kare, the designer of the original Mac icons". Yeah, as if any fourteen-year-old kid with Photoshop and five seconds away from World of Warcraft couldn't do better. They cost a dollar each, with all proceeds going to charity or something. I don't think I saw more than a single one go between sexes, either implying that the world has become incredibly 21st Century, or more likely that everyone is just taking the piss.

Frankly, this one pretty much sums it all up for me:

Needless to say, nobody sent me one of these this Valentine's Day.

Time for bed. Goodnight!

xXxXx

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD copy protection cracked

2007-02-13T19:20:00.000Z

Already.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/13/bluray_and_hddvd_bro.html

Now that the system is cracked, it makes ripping Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies as easy as it became after they cracked the copy-protection on DVD. That is to say, very easy. All this copy-protection serves as now is to make reading these discs more computationally expensive, pushing the price of your player, and its energy consumption up to unnecessary levels.

When will people learn that copy-protection is a crap idea?

Can't Sleep

2007-01-30T04:32:00.001Z

Kill me.

Damn illness! :'(

MySpace

2007-01-22T19:50:00.000Z

...is like a shit version of the real Internet.

Except on the real Internet, you can't make friends with a movie.

That is all for now.

2007!

2007-01-01T01:32:00.000Z

HAPPY BIRTHDYA! In case you have been living inside a cave, it is now officially the year 2007 AD in regions that are UTC and UTC+0100 PPLUS PROBABLYT MORE BY THE TIME YTOU READ THIS!!!! AD stands for ANNO DOMINI and that means years after the birth of JESUS CHRIST our saviour. So I wish that 2007 is a good year for everyone in general because it;s a bit of a shit number TBH and it'll only redeem itself if everyone gets laid lots and wisn the the lottery or something!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY WORLD!

Kiss and make up

2006-12-31T04:02:00.000Z

In response to Waldie's post:

I used to have a real problem with this kind of stuff, and it really used to get me down. But, since then, I've come to realise two things.

Firstly, you need to realise that the world as we know it is not going to be around forever, whether we like it or not. It is undeniable that the Universe is in a constant state of change, with stars being born and destroyed all the time. Just get your head around that for a second. Can you even imagine that? Can you imagine the Sun being destroyed? Something which is such a fundamental part of our existance not being there any more? Quite probably even swallowing up the Earth in its final stages of swelling before its death? This is Science, and we need to accept it. This particular apocalyptic event is billions of years away, but we need to accept that if something else doesn't get us sooner, this will.

And you know what? After the Earth, Sun, and all that we know is gone, it doesn't make a tiny bit of difference. The Universe is unimaginably big. Utterly, mind-bogglingly, brain-explodingly big. It's older than anything you can comprehend, and will go on for a hell of a long time, too. In fact, it's quite possibly even infinite in time and space, we just don't know. The world we do know is just a tiny, tiny, microscopic piece, in an impossibly big jigsaw puzzle. Your family, friends, pets, house, car, job, way of life - everything you know is just insignificant and unimportant. After it's all gone, the Universe will go on and have many more stories to tell, and that's what I find just fucking amazingly cool.

Secondly, if we are ever going to stand a chance of making the best of our time and not destroying our environment, civilisation needs to get over a few things. We need to put our differences aside, stop fighting each other and get down to getting along.

Without a doubt, one of the biggest hurdles on the path to this utopia is religion. We really need to move on. Of course, many people will disagree, and likely say that I'm as brainwashed as I might claim they are, but in my opinion, as long as people have such fundamental beliefs so incompatible and deeply rooted that they find it necessary to spend their time either "saving" people or blowing each other up, people are never really going to see eye to eye. What chance do we have, then, of fighting for the greater good?

Call me a hippy all you like, but the world really needs to kiss and make up. If it doesn't, we'll be tearing ourselves apart well before global warming ever poses us any real threat.

Things I've Learnt This Christmas

2006-12-25T23:57:00.000Z

Sellotape is gay
Non-rectangular presents are a bitch to wrap
There's never enough roast potatoes
There's always too much mashed potato
Some people like to replace the more conventional notion of a Christmas Tree with a giant, pink penis. (Only messing, Spooky! :D)

Merry 2006, everyone!

Goodbye, Legacy IM...

2006-12-24T20:19:00.000Z

...Hello, Freedom!

Dealing with closed-off IM networks is basically a ball ache, and I'm no longer dancing this dance. I want instant messaging without the bullshit, and this isn't what MSN Messenger is giving me.

As of Christmas Day 2006, I'm no longer using the MSN (or .NET, or Windows Live, or whatever the fuck they're calling it these days!) Messenger or AOL IM services. Please have a quick read of the following, to find out why I'm using Jabber, and how and why you should too.

I know a lot of friends who have Hotmail accounts. I also know a lot of friends who have GMail accounts. I personally don't use either, I have my own email server at deepdarc.com. Do I need to have an account on Hotmail in order to email my friends who use Hotmail, or a GMail account to email my friends who use GMail? Of course not—that would be absurd. Yet, that is exactly the situation we tolerate with respect to instant messaging.

Above & Beyond's Top 20 2006

2006-12-20T22:42:00.000Z

Well, the results are in. Trance Around The World #144 was Above & Beyond's Top 20 of 2006 show, and I'll be honest, the results are a little questionable! This year's chart is dominated with bzzt-basslines and 8-bit techno-trance, and it's the kind of stuff that, although I appreciate at times, just doesn't do anything like what proper trance does for me.

With no sign of Daniel Kandi's "Child", Evbointh's "One Wish", Sunny Lax's "M.I.R.A.", Mike Shiver's "Morning Drive"... is this a reflection of the direction of future A&B sets and signings? Is Anjunabeats as we know it over? I can only hope not. Tracks like the A&B Club Mix of "Good For Me" give me a glimmer of hope, but only time will tell!

Regardless of my disagreement with the #1 choice, here's to another successful year for Above & Beyond and Anjunabeats in 2007. Thanks for the tunes and the memories, guys! :)

The run-down:

2 Devine ft Cara Dillon "Black Is The Colour" [Coco & Green Mix] (Anjunabeats)
Aalto "5" (Anjunabeats)
Jaytech "Starbright" [Jaytech's Touch Your Dj Remix] (Red Seven)
Super8 "Get Off" (Anjunabeats)
Gabriel & Dresden ft. Jan Burton "Dangerous Power" (Organised Nature)
Above & Beyond "Stealing Time" [A&B Deep Club Mix] (Anjunabeats)
Above & Beyond ft. Zoe Johnson "Good For Me" [A&B Club Mix] (Anjunabeats)
Signal Runners "Aria Epica" [Bart Claessen Remix] (Anjunabeats)
Nitrous Oxide "North Pole" (Anjunabeats)
Sean Tyas "Lift" (Discover)
Cass Fox "Touch Me" [Koglin & Grant Mix] (CDR)
Cosmic Gate "The Element Of Life" (Maelstrom)
Bolier & Coenraad "Mohawk" (Intuition)
DT8 "Destination" [Above & Beyond Mix] (Mondo)
Rob Mooney "Feelin Electro" [Valentino Kanzyani Remix] (Punch Funk)
Above & Beyond ft Ashley Tomberlin "Can't Sleep" (Anjunabeats)
Smith & Pledger "White" (Anjunabeats)
Maor Levi "Shining" (CDR)
Armin van Buuren "Control Freak" [Sander Van Doorn Mix] (Armind)
Boom Jinx "Remember September" (Anjunabeats)

Until next Tuesday, you can listen to a recording of the set at anjunabeats.com. Have fun!

Will we ever see this on Channel 4?

2006-12-18T22:08:00.000Z

Warning: Contains repetitive use of strong language! If you are easily offended, cock off!

"What's your favourite swear word?"

Beryl in Ubuntu? Please, for the love of God, no.

2006-12-13T21:16:00.000Z

With the way things are going, it looks like Beryl (the fork of Compiz) is going to be making its way into Ubuntu as the default window manager, replacing the GNOME default of Metacity for all but operation on old hardware.

This concerns me. It seems that a desire to get one up over Windows Vista and Mac OS X is overcoming a more fundamental goal of making the best software.

Consider the earlier decision to use Firefox instead of the GNOME web browser, Epiphany. The main arguments for Firefox involve user familiarity, and that anyone who wants differently has the technical knowledge to switch. I think this is really hurting GNOME development, as it gives little incentive to support Epiphany - all of the Ubuntu work goes into hammering Firefox into the shape of a GNOME application, rather than making a GNOME application better. Saying that, there isn't really a lot that Firefox does better than Epiphany. In many ways, Epiphany is head and shoulders above Firefox with regards to desktop integration (session management, global proxy settings, fonts, UI, etc.).

It seems we are going the same way with Beryl. Apparently, people think it is easier to build a window manager into a compositing manager than a compositing manager into a window manager. I can't pretend to understand the technical situation, but my opinion is that we should be supporting GNOME development better than this.

Saying that, who knows? Maybe Beryl will replace Metacity as the GNOME window manager one day. I hope that the default feature-set is somewhat toned down by then, though.

Regardless of what happens, if that stupid icon makes its way into my Notification Area in Ubuntu Feisty then I am going to be monumentally pissed!

You might get AIDS!

2006-12-11T04:10:00.000Z

As if they didn't notice that!

* Alex looks at the time... :E

No Smoking

2006-12-06T00:56:00.000Z

As of 1 July 2007, a nationwide ban on smoking in enclosed public places will go into effect in England. I can't wait.

I for one will definitely be going out more as a result. Coming home stinking of cigarettes is the worst thing about a good night's clubbing.

Bring it on!

My Braaaaiiin

2006-12-02T23:35:00.000Z

So I stayed up till 6:15am last night. Didn't even go out, just blew the whole night away making music and playing poker.

Up for 9am for Saturday morning cartoons. Missed Spongebob Squarepants, though. Arse! Back to bed at midday, and didn't get up again till like 5!

So my weekend is already completely screwed up. Nnngeh!

What a crappy evening/morning

2006-11-30T05:10:00.000Z

Well, my hard disk crapped out on me today. All of a sudden programs started complaining of my file system being read-only.

At first I suspected I had gone over 95% disk usage as I was downloading some large files at the time - but I was only at 85%. A quick check at the kernel log revealed some scary messages. My disk had been remounted read-only as a result of read errors.

So I rebooted*, only to see lots of the same errors on the text console. Arg! Thankfully, I have another disk with Windows installed on it, so I boot that instead with the intention of installing an Ext3 filesystem driver to pull some important files off. Scarily, opening /home/alex makes lots of noises and then reveals that it is empty. :(

* Why? Don't ask.

However, a refresh later and it's full of my files again, yay! ... !? ... Anyway, I managed to back up everything I really wanted to, but my Music folder really took a hit, with only 150 or so randomly selected files remaining. Thankfully, I have a full backup at home that I made at the end of September, so all of my 12" rips will be there, along with a few MP3 files that I had purchased way back when. All of my CDs I can rip to FLAC again, so that's not a problem. All of my original Beatport purchases (I counted them!) are intact in my "Archive" folder, but unfortunately, the same could not be said for my Trackitdown collection. In fact, none of my TID purchases were in the folder they were supposed to be in. Instead, I'm greeted with some more bad hard disk noises. I'm gonna plead with them to let me re-download my collection.

So, new 320 GB Seagate hard disk on the way. Gonna do the best disk image rip that I can with dd_rhelp, then have a go at fscking it to see what else I can recover.

The sun shines, grass grows, and hard disks fail. It's the first time it's got me, and thankfully, I've been let off reasonably lightly. Don't let it catch you out.

Well, it's 05:30, and I've got labs at 9am. Better get some sleep.

This post was brought to you by an Ubuntu Live CD.

[blogsoc] No Subject

2006-11-20T20:19:00.000Z

HEY GUYS JUST WANTED TO DROP YOU ALL A BLOG POST IN A NICE BIG FONT AND ALL IN CAPITAL LETERS BECUASE I KNOW THAT UR ALL PARTIALLY SIGHTED CU LATER

trance.nu Does the DJ Mag Top 100 DJ Awards Party... The Movie

2006-11-19T02:48:00.000Z

Full story at trance.nu

Ubuntu 6.10

2006-10-29T13:53:00.000Z

Ubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft") was released a few days ago. Go get it now!

DJ Mag Top 100 DJs Awards Party - It's Over!

2006-10-26T18:30:00.000+01:00

Wow. I wasn't expecting that!

DJ Mag invited trance.nu to the awards party to film some footage and interview the DJs, etc. My friend, Luke, took up the challenge and brought me along to Fabric as his guest for the night. And thank god for that privilege, as the queue looked to be a good hour-long wait, and I needed a piss! We were given media passes, which was amazing-cool as it meant we could go wherever we wanted. Oh, and also a few free drinks tokens, wahey!

So, we managed to get some great interviews - one with Armin Van Buuren, who swiped the runner-up title from Tiësto this year, one with Tony and Paavo of Above & Beyond, who shot up another 10 places this year to number 9 (many congratulations to them!), and some awesome DJ-box footage of the once-again world's #1 DJ, Mr. Paul Van Dyk, mixin' it up during his victory set. Unfortunately, it seemed he'd either done one straight after his set before we got the chance to interview him, or was just somewhere uber-secret that we didn't know about. (God knows we looked everywhere!) We stayed right till the end to see if he showed up - but alas, he didn't.

Great to see people again, it's always good to have a chat with Tony and Paavo, and super-thanks go out to Mike Koglin and his "shag" (her words, not mine!) who gave me a free copy of his new artist album, VS, which I'm listening to right now! It's very good. You should buy it. :P

Special thanks to Danna and Johnathan for taking care of us on the night, and of course Luke for taking me with him. Look out for the documentary video on trance.nu in the very near future!

Why I Love Trance

2006-10-23T17:42:00.000+01:00

Trancegasm!

So someone stole my door-sign again

2006-10-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

Bastards!

That is all.

Update: Ric you are a b*****d!

Newspaper Delivery

2006-10-22T16:20:00.000+01:00


"Because he was asleep."

DJ Mag Top 100 DJs Awards Party

2006-10-21T00:40:00.000+01:00

Oh my god I can't wait for this!

I am going to be so knackered on Thursday morning. Labs at 9am. Hmm!

So who's coming?

"Human" user group?

2006-03-10T22:57:00.000Z

When fiddling with GDM setup in Ubuntu, I finally noticed the "face browser". More specifically, I noticed how much the logic sucks. It decides whether someone is a human user by looking at the UID.

Would it not make more sense to have a "human" user group, and use that instead? I can see why "users" might not work, because some non-human accounts might need to be part of this group for access purposes, but creating a new group for humans would be a clean solution, IMO.