mattchristensen.net

Google Music

2011-11-22T00:47:00.001-06:00

Google recently released its free music service. I decided to give it a try. I've used Pandora and Spotify, but wanted to try something that would use my own music collection.

Google Music GUI

Google gives you 20,000 songs worth of storage for free!

It integrates with iTunes which is what I really like. I use iTunes/iPod, but did not have a service to take my music on the go online. The iPod is great but I only have a shuffle and the space is limited. With Google Music I have my entire collection with me wherever I have an internet connection.

What you need to know:

20,000 songs worth of free storage
Connected with Android and Google+
Upload from iTunes

Drawbacks:

Android only for mobile devices (sorry iPhone users)
No way to download after you upload (unless purchased from Google store)
DRM stops some uploads

So I uploaded my entire music collection (about 3800 songs). It took about 3 days to upload. Because of DRM 100ish didn't upload.

Overall I'm liking it. Search works great (as expected with Google), player is your normal play/pause, next/previous, volume player. iTunes playlist upload as well so you can sort your music.

I'm disappointed in album art. Many were not found, and some are wrong. I'm more worried about the music so not that concerned, but expected better.

For no other reason you can use it simply to back up your collection. Although you can't download it again, at least you have it somewhere if your system completely goes down. 20,000 songs should be enough for most users.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Walking Wednesday

2011-07-13T23:21:00.004-05:00

Beautiful day today. July, yet not too hot. Hanging right around the 80 degree mark.

At work there is a program called 'Walking Wednesdays' which I love. Every Wednesday we go for a walk around the campus. On a day like today its a great break to get and stretch and enjoy the fresh air. One of the many things I love about the new job.

After work my 'Matt Unplugged' concept continued. Off the computer and family time until the kids go to bed. I'm a geek after all so still blog for example but its after kids are asleep.

So today the fun was a walk then a stop at a park very near my house which just got new equipment.

Walk was fantastic. Especially given the weather. Was nice to go on a long walk holding my daughters hand until she got too tired and joined her brother in the stroller.

At the park it was crowded for this particular park. Its small with not much to offer so its usually unoccupied. Today (maybe because of the new equipment) it was bustling with kids. Kate instantly took to some of them and played nicely. Drew went on a 'big boy swing' by himself for the first time, but nearly fell when he let go to wave at people.

Back to the geek I've decided to release some code as open source. Created a GitHub account and will be posted code soon. I've decided to try some 'social good' with my freelancing. Going to be working on some other small projects as well, keep my skills sharp.

A New Hope

2011-04-25T21:53:00.002-05:00

Today was another warm, sunny day in beautiful Pontiac, IL. Whole family participated in the adventures today.

Started with a trip to the library. So happy Kate loves books. Love to hear her made up stories as she ‘reads’ them on the fly by looking at the pictures.

We continued the day to Humiston Riverside Park. We simply walked the paths, enjoyed the weather, and just relaxed outside. During the path that goes right next to the river Kate stopped because she saw two ducks, who when they saw her swam over quickly. She squatted down and took this pose naturally to just observe and enjoy. Not a care in the world. How wonderful! With a near government shut down, bombing in Libya, disaster in Japan, she is blissfully content with the simpleness that was the ducks in the river. Happy to just study the world around her peacefully.

This gives me hope. Maybe her generation will start the repairs. Live in peace, love one another. How do we go from chilling by the river to gihad and launching rockets? Where/how do we lose that innocence? Seeing this photo I am hopeful that the cycle can be broken.

The day continued back home to the back yard and then out to eat. A long held on to gift card needed to be used. When I coached in Odell I was rewarded with a gift card to Rentz’s. That coaching gig was a long time ago and we decided to cash in.

At the resturant Kate was perfect. On her best behaviour. She talked to the waitress (normally very shy and reserved), talked with us, and ate without a huge mess. She even recognized the Cubs were on the big screen. ”Daddy look! Its the Cubs! That’s the team you play on right?!” Couldn’t help but laugh. Playing church league softball doesn’t make me nearly good enough for the Cubs. ”No honey, daddy is not that good, I just watch. ” Once again peaceful and filling me with hope.

Along with that hope is responsibility. With kids its all eyes on you. I have to set the example for her to keep that hope, innocence, and peace.

Game on dad, they’re watching.

Sunday Funday (1st of many)

2011-04-25T21:48:00.001-05:00

What a day! Little windy but warm and fairly sunny.

Decided to take Kate out and about to play today. Started with the park by the prison. Or as Kate likes to call it the park with the two yellow slides since that is indeed an accurate description.

The excitement for both of us came though when we went to play park by the river and to Pontiac’s famous swinging bridges. I’ve never walked across them and neither had Kate. A first for the both of us and a fun time.

On this windy day the bridges were in full swing. Brave little Kate was less scared than I was. Had to carry her over the first time. Second time was just holding her hand. By the third time she was running across by herself (I was obviously close behind). Saw a couple of ducks on the way which Kate could not coax to quack at us despite her insistent quaking at them. Their response was to ‘shake their booties’ as Kate would say. The day ended with swinging on actual swings and a billion trips down various slides.

Email Software Google Follow Up

2009-12-18T22:37:00.003-06:00

Last post I wrote about the new version of Thunderbird.

Now that all my emails over the past 5 years have been indexed and downloaded I was able to play with it a little more.

The key feature that I'm loving is the search. Previous versions only allowed searching within a folder. In other words you had to be in the folder you were searching. Now search is global. Its able to search through all folders. Pretty handy when you have hundreds of thousands of emails and can't remember which folder a particular message may have been dumped to.

Also there are filters. From the search results you can narrow down to a folder, filter by if it was to you or from you. Also by attachment or particular email address.

Invaluable resource, plus its pretty fast. Just over a minute, assuming much fast with less messages.

Been uses Google Chrome solid for 2 weeks now. Had one complete crash. Seemed random and hasn't happened since. I don't like not having a search bar but for my development work and also db admin tools I haven't needed a search bar. It seems much much faster than Firefox. Especially on start up. Fires right up where Firefox takes a minute. Auto complete of favorites and previously visited sites is nice. Just type a few letters and it starts auto filling like Google search does. Firefox also has this. A problem I have been having however is sometimes it wants to hang on changing addresses. For example I'll have multiple tabs open and pick one to go to a new site. Lets say going from a db admin panel to gmail. I start typing gmail and it props I hit enter and it sits. I click the arrow to load a page and it sits. Have to click home and try to start over or close the tab altogether. Very annoying but doesn't happen that often. Because of these little things I'm not sold on it yet, however its still cool enough and fast enough I'm continuing to use it. Going to give it another week or two before committing. I'll keep you posted.

Also switched to Google DNS. Very disappointed. Easy to set up, simple access your router or computers network and change the dns servers to Google's servers. However, it was significantly slower than my ISP DNS. I've dumped it and have gone with OpenDNS. I'll do my next post on OpenDNS. Awesome fast tool for DNS. Plus it has filtering. So if you have kids and want to filter content this an amazing and easy to set up tool. Again more details in the next post.

Christensen out..

Email Software

2009-12-11T08:39:00.002-06:00

When it comes to email I use Mozilla Thunderbird. Its free and easy to use. In my opinion the two most important factors.

Just last night I updated to Thunderbird v. 3. I plan on doing a full review but for the moment a quick recap.

Cool things in version 3:

Tabs. Now when you open an email it opens in a tab like Chrome and Firefox. Its taken me a while but I really dig tabbed anything anymore.

Search. Now you can search all folders and every email. Very handy, at least for me. Before you had to be in the folder you wanted to search. Now you can search all folders globally. I have hundreds of thousands (don't think I've hit the million mark yet, but not really counting) so a global search is really handy.

Sync: Now in imap folders and email are synced with the local computer so you can work offline. Not all that cool since I'm online all the time anyway, but with a local copy if something happens to the server all is not lost, but since I'm running said server its pretty safe.

I'll have more in days to come. Right now the sync processing is taking for ever on first install since I have so many emails. I keep every email I send or get for record keeping. I can go back to any email ever. In today's business world you can't be too careful so I keep everything.

I've also decided to give Google Chrome and Google DNS a try. Been using Chrome for a whole week and will write up how it went and if I will stick to it in the next post. Same with DNS.

Christensen out..

Format War

2008-01-22T10:09:00.000-06:00

HD-DVD or BluRay? That is the question. Well for some people it is. Which one will win - when will it be over so you know what player to get? This is as big as VHS vs Beta Max.

Actually its not. It has been going on for too long so here's what you do. Buy a dual player. That's right a high definition DVD player that plays both HD-DVD and BluRay discs. Then buy whatever movies you want in whatever format that movie is sold in. Boom done - consumer has nothing to worry about.

I'm Guessing You've Done Something Illegal

2008-01-15T09:39:00.001-06:00

The RIAA is trying to make the case that ripping your cd's to any other format (ie mp3) is illegal even if you legally own the cd. What they are saying is that it is a copyright infringement because you bought the cd in cd format. Any modification such as ripping is breaking copyright laws. In other words even if you own it you have to use it in the format you bought it in.

Lets break that down. The RIAA wants to increase record sales, primarily physical cd sales because that is where the most money is made. To do that they say if you want to use a portable device (and who doesn't?) you have to buy it in a portable format(mp3). How will that increase cd sales? You're saying if I want to use a Zune and not get fined or go to jail I need to buy it online in the format I want it in. Yeah that will make me buy more cds. The RIAA really doesn't have a clue.

Writer's Strike - No 24

2008-01-15T09:22:00.000-06:00

My favorite show, Fox's, was supposed to premier last Sunday. However, it did not due to the writers strike. Fox wanted 24 to air straight through and get get cut short like Heroes. Some episodes have been made but not the whole season.

This kinda pissed me off. One its my favorite show and two the writers. I do not believe they should get paid for dvd sales or or profit from the shows being online. The reason is simple - they do not own the material. Fox or whatever broadcasting company hires writers to do a show. The company owns the rights to the show they are simply paying for content. They say Mr. writer here is x dollars for that episode. Once the episode is done the company owns that episode and can do whatever they want with it. Its like any other job. If you're on an assembling line making a car you get paid to make the car but you don't own the car when its done. You don't get a cut of the sale of the car. You're paid for your service. When the service is over, so ends the transaction. If you want to get a cut of all sales then be the owner of the idea. Write and produce your own shows.

Personally I think that is where things are heading. With podcasts taking off I can see writers making their own shows and putting them online. More power to them. In the mean time broadcast companies should dump the writers and get new ones. Quit messing with the strike, fire them and hire new non-union writers. I've watched every episode of 24 I bet I could write an episode. (Fox call me).

Wii

2007-12-31T09:53:00.000-06:00

Played the Wii for the first time over Christmas. Very entertaining gaming system. I played Wii sports for 4 or 5 hours. Have to admit I'm a little sore from it. I wouldn't consider it a workout but you'll get tired.

Windows Live goes Live

2007-12-08T19:36:00.000-06:00

Windows Live (www.live.com) is out of beta and now live on the web. The key features are a new messenger, a social network called spaces, a downloadable photo gallery, and a search engine.

The messenger is the next update in the messenger line. Nothing big here. Just a new MSN messenger.

Photo Gallery - The photo gallery has many features. It allows you to edit photos while looking at them. It has a red eye removal feature I though was pretty neat. Everything else is just like Google’s Picasa2 which is what I currently use. At this point I will not be switching. Many of the options are Vista specific and since I do not have Vista there is no benefit in switching.

Spaces - Spaces is Microsoft’s social network. It is very basic. Its a blog and photo gallery. Not a whole lot to it. It is similar to Yahoo! 360. I will use it for basic info but since it does not support ads I can generate revenue from I will not blog heavily there.

Windows Live is also a search engine. So far it seems pretty good. This site comes up first when searching for Matt Christensen so I can’t complain.

Vista Anyone?

2007-12-04T10:51:00.000-06:00

Well Vista has been around for about a year now. I for one have not made the switch from XP. To be honest I don't plan to either. When you compare what's right with XP to what's wrong with Vista there is just no reason to switch right now. Especially if you're an IT director considering changing your whole infrastructure.

For starters let's look at what's right with XP. For starters, with latest service packs and updates, XP is just as secure as Vista with all its security enhancements. So security is not a reason to switch. XP is also easy to use and very familiar. Familiar is important to the average computer user. If the design and layout is totally new its like starting over. There is a huge learning curve at this point with Vista.

Now lets take a look at what's wrong with Vista. I have had limited experience on a Vista machine, however that experience has not been good. The machine I was on was a high end machine. Lots of ram, big fast processor, etc. Would have been blazing with XP. However, running Vista this machine was slow. If I didn't know better I would have not have guessed it was a new computer but rather an old computer that probably should not have made the upgrade. There are software compatibility issues. Software I have developed with Visual Studio and the latest .net framework do not run properly on Vista. This is probably the biggest issue in large companies/organizations. They do not want to upgrade and have all their software break or have to go out and get the Vista ready version. That adds to the cost of the upgrade. Add it all up and Vista becomes very expensive and what do you get for it? There there is the problem with the versions. There are four versions of Windows Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate). Which version is for you? Which version will run the best on my computer? Which version has what features? Very confusing.

In conclusion, Vista is just not there yet. We'll have to see what happens with the first service pack however there are somethings that just can't be fixed with a service pack.

Handheld Devices in the Classroom

2007-11-28T15:03:00.000-06:00

When I was in education all the rage was technology in the classroom. The rage wasn't technology in general but rather hand held devices or palm pilots of some variety. Although I have been removed from a classroom for a couple of years now nothing has changed. PDA's do not aid in learning.

I'll start with the devices themselves. In my experience there was a company that offered up devices as part of a grant. The device was nothing more than a palm pilot with a full keyboard built in. Actually worse than that because the screen was smaller. It reminded me of an old electric typewriter. These devices were supposed to revolutionize teaching. How? Good question. No one knew. I was looked down upon in these camps or meetings when I would put down the devices. I was seen as a downer or pessimist when in reality as a problem solver I was looking for answers. A palm pilot will not increase test scores unless the answer key is on it. In the sessions we had to learn how to integrate these devices into the classroom we basically learned how to install drivers and beam things. We learned how to teach how to use the device not how to use the device to teach.

In reality as a business man I saw through the grant. The company that offered up the devices was using the grant group as beta testers. As a technologist they were eager to hear my likes and dislikes on the device so they could go back to the lab and make changes based on me. "Mr. Christensen would you like it better if it was wireless?" Part of the grant was a requirement for such opinions and updates. Hand helds in the classroom is a marketing scheme for technology software and hardware companies to make a buck on an unsuspecting consumer. Generally schools do not know anything about technology so they are easy pickings. Some one comes along and offers an article saying hand helds will raise your scores and boom you've just sold a bunch of hand helds.

Now for the education part. I have ready many studies and reports on this topic. All give good examples of how they are used. But those examples do not show in aid in learning or test scores. They show a convenience factor. Like the science student that uses a device to measure the air in a lab for its content. Its a tool. It didn't help you learn about air just tell you what was in it which you should have been taught before going to the lab. Some students use the palms to track food intake for nutrition tracking. That's great but you could keep a journal. Again not learning just more convenient.

I have yet to see how these devices help educate children. They generally learn the device not addition material. I don't know how to make these devices useful in teaching or learning. I didn't have a technology device in my programming classes and those were for how to learn to program a computer. I do not see this as a solution to teaching, learning, or low test scores.

Dude where's my order?

2007-11-26T11:11:00.001-06:00

Ever wonder what happened to the "Dude you're getting a Dell" guy? He's a waiter. Engadget reports. Check out the link here.

New Vista Commercial

2007-11-26T11:10:00.001-06:00

Two Awesome Freeware Picks

2007-11-22T01:39:00.000-06:00

Need to completely wipe a hard drive? I mean really wipe it down? Well dban is for you. Google dban to find links to download and installation instructions. It has department of defense level deletion and its free. Just be sure to back up before running this program on and drive you care about. It can not be undone. Remember just hitting the delete key does not remove your data. It just removes the data’s address. If someone really wanted your data they could get it. Not with dban however. It really erases the data.

Second is a iso burning software. I recently downloaded Ubuntu Studio to do some audio video work. Since I don’t want to spend money I picked Ubuntu Studio which has some pretty powerful software and its of course free. I would love to use a mac for my projects but I have not seen what makes a mac so expensive. If Apple is reading this feel free to send me an macbook and prove me wrong. Anyway the download for Ubuntu Studio was 800 plus mgs in the form of an iso file. All I had was software for burning iso’s to a cd not a dvd. So I went hunting around and found ImgBurn. Its free and works great. Google it and download if you need to burn a large iso file to dvd.

Writer's Strike

2007-11-16T11:37:00.000-06:00

So Hollywood's writers are on strike. Why you ask? Well they are unhappy that they are not getting a cut of profit from new avenues of distribution including season dvd sets and full online episodes.

My take on this is that its ridiculous. Writers sign a contract and agree to a salary. When its time to review that salary (yearly I assume) then ask for more money. Don't strike because the company you work for is honoring the contract you signed and agreed to. If you don't like your salary get a different job. You don't strike you quit. I can't believe tv companies are putting up with this. Writers are not honoring their contracts that should be grounds for firing. Bring in replacements - I'll write some episodes. Time to move on Hollywood. Good thing about all this is I'm watching less tv now.

Cut School Technology Costs

2007-04-24T09:52:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest costs for schools is software. Software can be expensive on its own, and then add in that you need a license to cover all the machines that will use it. So why not use free software?! Microsoft Office is expensive. Openoffice is free and just as good if not better. Why use a Windows server when Linux is free? Ok Matt you say but Linux is hard. I don't know Linux. Ok, maybe you don't. But can you read? Sure you can, so search Google for everything you need to know about Linux. The Linux community is great at providing free help. Just hop on a forum and read. Why buy something that is free? By switching to OpenOffice and a Linux server running Apache web server you could host your school’s website and create/edit just about any document for free. Not including of course the cost of the machines. Email is another big source of problems in schools. That can be eliminated for free as well. Google has a service for education organizations (school, universities, etc) where they will allow the use of your domain for a gmail account. For example matt@someschool.edu would be a Google account email. Then you have the sophisticated spam filtering and search powered by Google and you can check your email anywhere at any time. Not to mention no mail server to maintain. The last source of technology frustration is teacher homepages. IT or web developers usually can not keep up with all of the demands of every teacher wanted their own personal page on the school’s website. There is no need for that. If you switch to Google mail then you will automatically get a Blogger account. Now every teacher now has an easy to manage blog. Also Google has a web page builder giving every account an easy to design/update personal webpage. Now all a tech guy needs to do is maintain a list of personal web pages on the school site. This would free up IT to do more important jobs like clearing paper jams. With these minor steps schools can make technology more manageable and cut costs significantly

Privacy and Media

2007-04-23T01:38:00.000-05:00

Today I saw a news story on MTV that boggled my mind. It was a VT student complaining about the media not giving students privacy especially him. This student taped the events of the VT murders from his dorm room, posted it on youtube, and wrote about it on his blog. A blog on the world wide web. The student then agrees to do a story on MTV about lack of privacy from the media when his website got tons of hits and media began contacting him about it. If you do not like the media invading your privacy then why not decline to do a media piece on tv? Also, did he really think his site would not get attention? He had a student perspective on the biggest slaughter in US history. Here’s a tip - If you want privacy, do not post personal videos on youtube and write personal information on a public blog.

Careful What You Post

2007-03-23T00:36:00.000-05:00

I recently signed up for facebook. One of those everyone is doing it so why not me. It’s really a good site. I like it much more than myspace. It has allowed me to reconnect to my old friends from Bradley. The advantage over myspace is you need a college email address to sign up. This helps cut down on spam accounts that are there just to get you to go to their porn site. Anyway the point of this article has to do with some pictures I saw on many profiles. Most involve underage drinking with underage or barely legal girls doing things you would see on Girls Gone Wild. With that being said this article is to provide some advice. We live in a world where Google is a verb. I’ve heard of blind dates googling each other before hand. More importantly is that companies go on sites such as myspace and facebook when checking on a potential hire. If your potential future boss sees a picture of you with a beer in one hand without a shirt in the middle of a pack of half naked college girls your chances of getting the job will shrink fast. The internet is a free public place for personal expression. However, too much personal expression can be a bad thing. Do not post anything on any site you do not want everyone to see. You might want your friends to see you chugging a beer but you don’t want your boss or maybe your family to see it. More than likely everyone you would want to see it probably saw it live when it happened anyway. The moral of the story is behave on the internet.

Bit Torrent Goes Legit

2007-02-26T09:41:00.000-06:00

Starting today Bit Torrent will offer legal downloads of movies and tv shows. Tv shows will go for 1.99 and episode, 2.99 for HD. The tv shows are then free to keep forever. Movies will be available for 3.99 for new releases and 2.99 for older ones. Movies will only work for 30 days. All downloads must be viewed with Windows Media Player. Although the library is currently small it will include hit shows such as my favorite Fox's 24.

Google vs. Microsoft - Round 1 Office

2007-02-26T09:39:00.001-06:00

Google is taking on Microsoft Office by launching its premium version of Google Apps. The idea is to steer big business away from office. Google which is generally free will offer the premium version of Google Apps for $50. At first this seemed like a deal breaker for me since Google is known for being free. However with the high cost (sometimes $300/liscense) of MS Office $50 does not seem so bad. Personally I would go with OpenOffice and not pay anything to either one. I am a big fan of OpenOffice. I use if everyday. For my uses its equivalent if not better than MS Office.

Smoking is Bad - Don't Sue!

2007-02-20T23:18:00.000-06:00

Big tobacco is always in the news for one lawsuit after another. A recent news story caught my attention and upset me. A woman was suing a tobacco company for close to 80 million dollars because her husband had died of lung cancer which developed due to a life long smoking habit. The case states that her husband was not aware that smoking had health risk or that her husband was mislead into believe that smoking was not harmful. Seriously, what human being does not realize smoking is not a healthy habit? Big tobacco might skew its statistics but they have never claimed smoking is good for you. If big tobacco has to pay millions for each person that dies from smoking they will soon be out of business. So what many of you might say. Smoking is bad and we’ll be better off without tobacco companies killing people. True. I do not like tobacco and wished no one smoked. However, that is not the American way. We live in a capitalist environment. If you want to stop companies then don’t buy their product. No profit is what controls big business. The government should not have the power to shut down an industry. Let the markets make the decisions. What’s next? Suing Little Debbie for making the youth of America overweight? Suing Budweiser after an accident or arrest? Where does it end? Again I do not like smoking. I think it’s a bad habit, but if we sue every company that makes a product that is not 100% healthy for us there would be nothing to buy.

New Ads = New Low

2007-02-20T00:25:00.000-06:00

Mac has introduced a new ad criticizing recently released Vista. To me this is a new low for Apple. Are they really reduced to this almost childish bashing? The ads do not display what a mac can do but rather point out something that they hope users do not like about Windows. That's like saying vote for me I'm not Bush. There's no merit. You can't convince me you're better by bashing the opposition. Don't show me what they do wrong, show me what you do right. The latest video is included below.