Ascetic Minimalism

The other day I was looking through my MP3 collection and found that for some reason, iTunes was showing several tracks as having a time of 0:00 and refusing to play them. Fearing that my files were bad, I tried them in VLC and SongBird and they played without any problem. A definite WTF moment.

Some web searching later, I found that this is not an uncommon problem and that you can use a free tool called mp3val to validate and fix these problem files. I began using it and it was working great except for a "small" problem: it refused to read files that had any multi-byte characters in the filename. Oops.

I spent a few hours hacking together a solution that will read filenames with multi-byte characters without any issue. The logging is horked, and it doesn't seem to work with the mp3val front-end software (that probably needs some refactoring as well, but I'm too lazy to do that at the moment), but it gets the job done and seems to work perfectly at its job, and that's fixing busted MP3s.

I've provided my modified sources and the executable for those who just want to fix their stuff without fiddling with it. Link is at the end of this post.

This is provided as-is with no warranties or guarantees. Use at your own risk! Don't blame me if this hoses up your MP3s. :) I've only tested and built this on Windows, so I have no idea if these changes are portable to other OSes or not. Sorry.

As to what originally hosed these files, I blame Picard as that was the last thing I ran against these files before iTunes started pitching a fit, but it could have just as easily been iTunes.

mp3val-unicode.zip

Looks like syndication has been broken for a while, at least since I updated to MT 4.0. If you can read this and you're not looking at my site, then it's obviously been fixed. :)

I know a bit about electronics and electrical theory. As an amateur radio operator, a big part of the licensing exam had to do with electrical theory, and I've done a quite a few projects in the past building things like radio transmitters and other basic projects, most of which use a 555 timer :). However, there's this aspect of electronics that's always baffled me that maybe someone can answer for me.

Why is it that it seems like with every device that has a digital volume control seems to have this point where one click is too quiet, then the next click is too loud. It seems that every device with a digital volume control I've used has this issue; my car stereo, my iPhone, my iPod, and so on. Just like horsepower and torque always intersect at 4242 RPM, there seems to be this magical point in audio devices where there needs to be a volume point halfway between whisper quiet and ear splitting, and it's just not there. Is it a quirk of MOSFETs, a conspiracy, or something else?

Edit: fixed confusing grammar

Even though he has to relocate his ficuses, Donald Trump expressed his appreciation for the fine foliage by stating, "There's no plant as beautiful as the ficus and no plant that does the trick like the ficus."

Ficus. Respect.

Bill Anderson, one of the lead program managers just announced on his blog that the product I've spent the last 2 years working on just went gold. Right on schedule, too.

The last week was a whirlwind of craziness wrapping everything up, and it sure felt nice to end the week on a positive note. I came into the product team a few months before the Beta 1 release shipped, and it's been really being a part of seeing the product progress from that point to what was signed off on yesterday.

Yay.

I've seen plenty of crazy errors before, such as these two that made the DailyWTF a while back.

But this one really made me scratch my head...

Text:

---------------------------
Remote Desktop Disconnected
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This computer can't connect to the remote computer because an error occurred on the remote computer that you want to connect to. Contact your network administrator
---------------------------
OK Help
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Screencap:

Well.... alrighty then!

Testing MT 4.0

Update: Guess it works....

Update #2: Fixed comments. Now I just need to fix this funky-ass stylesheet.

We all knew that Shadow was big. But, now it looks like he's big time.

Thanks, Cute Overload!

It was weird enough seeing an album cover with me on it a few years back, but now I get an e-mail from my sister and find out my parents have become corporate media darlings (I say that in the kindest of ways). 40 years too late, mind you.

Click through the picture for the actual story..

Custom Wired Cover
Originally uploaded by rampage.

I jumped on the invitation to create a custom Wired cover as part of their recent Xerox promotion. After keeping this secret from Leslie for months, here's what I ended up with when the July 2007 issue arrived.

Awesome eBay find
Originally uploaded by rampage.

This was a great eBay find. Seo Taiji stuff is really hard to find, and being able to find a long since out of print and in pretty good shape copy of the original Seo Taiji and Boys album was awesome!

It seems like the last couple of years I've been holed away in my office slaving behind a computer. I've spent so much time working on this software I kind of took for granted that we're shipping a product that people are excited about. It was really cool to see the product I've been working on featured in an article, and on the cover of Windows IT Pro magazine.

Some of the features in particular that were highlighted from the mundane stuff like the new setup application to the new hotness like Internet-based Client Management, and native mode, and before that, Network Access Protection are feature areas I've become very intimate with in my time with this product team. To see press coverage about them is really neat. It just goes to show that there really are people who use this product and it makes me more excited than ever to finally get it out the door.

Link is here: Windows IT Pro article on ConfigMgr 2007.

Update: Looks like the link requires a subscription. Sorry. :(

Here's a clue as to why I haven't been writing often.

Working well into the evenings? Check. Working through the weekend? Check. Having to work late on my Birthday? Check. Wondering what the hell I've gotten myself into? Check. The push to get the next beta of the product going has been a ridiculous amount of work, and it shows no signs of letting up. But, I can't say that my job is not fulfilling, and I work with some great people. It's cool being passionate about your job rather than just doing stuff.

I've been with this group for almost a year now, and thus far it's been great, and a real challenge. Nobody ever said working on a product team would be easy, though.

So, yeah, I know I haven't updated in forever. It's not that I've been dead or anything, I've just been busy. But, if you need to get a hold of me, there's plenty of ways to find me and keep in touch.

You can find me on MySpace
You can find me on Flickr
You can find me on Last.FM
You can find me on Vox
You can find me on Delicious
You can find me on LinkedIn
You can find me on Xbox Live (gamertag: theficus)
You can find me on MSN Messenger (use my e-mail address)
You can find me on AIM (theCrufty1)
You can find me on my Wii (8750 4773 9605 7645)
You can find me on the Playstation Network (use my e-mail address)

So, I'm not dead. I just haven't updated this site in a while. But if you need to find me, you can.

Edit: Added Wii code and Playstation Network
Edit: Added LinkedIn
Edit: Added Xbox Live and Last.FM