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Logitech Media Manager and Perl 5.16

Sunday, March 17th, 2013

I have some Logitech Squeezeboxes.  Some of the older Slim Devices ones, too, actually, but they work together well.

The nice people at Logitech have dropped the Squeezebox line to make a new cloud-based product.  Not my cup of tea.

Problem: The Logitech Media Server software is old and balky, and installing it is a pain on new systems, because it includes binary versions of Perl modules.

Solution: Install perlbrew for the squeezebox user, install a supported Perl version there, and tweak the #! lines to use that squeezebox user’s perl install.

The right perl works fine, and since it’s in ~squeezebox, it won’t get screwed up when SuSE upgrades.

WAY easier than trying to fix the idiosyncratic Logitech Media Server software!

 

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Posted in Audio, Perl | No Comments »

Loricraft PRC6 Record Cleaning Machine

Saturday, November 24th, 2012

I ordered a Loricraft PRC6 Record Cleaning Machine early this month, and it arrived today while I was out.  I’ve got it unpacked, but not all set up yet.  I’m excited to try it, but I know if I do I’ll be up all night playing records and messing with it.  So, sleep first.  Record cleaning tomorrow.

 

Posted in Audio | No Comments »

New Cartridge

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

I have just discovered that the prior owner has put an entirely inappropriate cartridge on my “good” turntable. Not only did they use the cheapest one they could find – it is a Shure, but old and bottom of the barrel when it was new – they used a P-mount on a standard tonearm, which adds weight and made connecting it difficult.

So. Shopping for cartridges. This leads easily down the audiophile rabbit hole, and I don’t want to go too far. (more…)

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Making Paizo-like pawns AKA stand-ups

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

There are often cardboard stand-ups used for characters on a map when playing a role-playing game. They’e cheaper than minis. Paizo has sets of them they market as “pawns”.

The plastic bases commonly used hold 1/16″ chipboard, perfectly. It’s also numbered 0.06″ or just 0.06. It can sometimes be called Binder’s Board and is used for making book covers. Check the scrapbooking places.

I got a big box of it on eBay – possibly a lifetime supply – for $16, including shipping.

It fits the stands perfectly. I’ll print the art, glue them to the cardboard, and cut them out on the laser cutter at TechShop.

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Vinyl Record Brush

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

I’ve been playing records lately, and have been considering one of the big expensive Record Cleaning Machines.  I’ll probably buy one, in fact.  In the meantime, and to handle surface dust, I ordered a carbon fiber brush to use dry.  I’m really impressed at how effective it is!  It’s easy, quick, inexpensive, and makes a big difference.  Highly recommended!

(more…)

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Why I Dislike Autodie

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Many people have suggested I use autodie. I have never been interested in the functionality it provides, and don’t use it. I think there’s primarily two reasons why that is. I might know a way to address one of them, but it’s tricky. (more…)

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Posted in Perl | 9 Comments »

About Lifehacker’s Headphone Picks

Monday, October 8th, 2012

A friend sent me a link to an article from Lifehacker, where they picked their Five Best Headphones.  My friend knew that I like headphones.  I try not to be too into audiophile headphones.  I only own one pair of headphones worth over $1,000, so I’ve not gone completely overboard.  Trust me.  Or don’t and go over to Head-Fi and read what all the nice people there have to say about headphones.

I replied to my friend, discussing that article on Lifehacker, and he suggested I publish it as there was a ton of additional information in it.  So, here it is, a reply to Lifehacker’s article: (more…)

Posted in Audio, Headphones | 1 Comment »

Remember to store errors!

Monday, August 20th, 2012

In Perl, when you get an error, there are magic globals that the interpreter sets to the value of that error. If you’re going to do any other work before reporting the error, save those variables!  Work almost got this right… (more…)

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Posted in Perl | 2 Comments »

Fix for Bowlfish 2.1 on a Soekris net6501

Sunday, August 19th, 2012

Bowlfish assumes that after it boots, the single hard disc in a system will be wd0a.  Not true on a Soekris net6501 when using a USB volume.  It’s sd0a.  You need to update /etc/fstab to mount / from sd0a instead of wd0a.  You can do that with a site.tgz file, or just mount and edit the disc before you boot.  Or mount -o rw,noatime /dev/sd0a /mnt on the booted system, make the change to /etc/fstab, and then mount -o rw /dev/sd0a. (more…)

Posted in OpenBSD | No Comments »

Quirk installing Bowlfish 2.1 for OpenBSD 4.9.

Sunday, August 19th, 2012

I use a tool called Bowlfish to build OpenBSD images which run with the drives mounted read-only. This lets me use cheap Compact Flash or USB drives in a Soekris single board computer instead of a real disc or a more expensive SSD.

Bowlfish has been a lifesaver and has worked perfectly for years. The current version, however, didn’t. I was shocked.  Then I fixed it! (more…)

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Posted in OpenBSD | No Comments »

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