The Weekly Rewind

Hello folks, it’s that time again already so I’d better fill you in on events this week:

On Monday evening we did Linux Outlaws after a major delay and some technical problems. We were supposed to start at 7pm (UK) but ended up starting at about 9pm. Thanks to everyone who was so understanding and especially those who waited around for us. For those who didn’t wait, I really don’t blame you. It seems there are some issues with Ustream and audio breaking periodically. The joys of Flash, arrgh! Some people have to keep reloading the page during the show and I’m sad to say it’s hit and miss at best. We’ll keep looking into other solutions and let you know ASAP if we have something. I was looking at Icecast streaming myself a while back but was told by a lot of different people the bandwidth is a killer. If anyone has ideas on streaming solutions or you know a bit about Icecast; please let me know in the comments, it would be really useful. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey Folks, been a while since I updated you on my open source shenanigans but there is something Linux related that I’d like to tell you about. Now first off apologies to those International readers who don’t live in either the US or the UK because this may not be of much interest to you. Feel free to move along and mutter under your breath about my small minded English ways if you like but I thought this was an interesting development. That well known online retailing behemoth Amazon has finally released a version of their mp3 music download service for the UK. It’s been available in the US for some time but we finally get a chance to try it on these shores. As I alluded to before it hasn’t been rolled out any other countries yet as far as I know and I can only assume this is because of licensing issues in different regions, that and the recording industry still having it’s head up it’s ass when it comes to the Internet. It seems to me that the Internet is a truly global market place and it should be treated as such, it’s not as if there are extra shipping costs if I order a download from China or somewhere instead of the UK. Many companies are clinging to their old business models and even fighting change through the courts and the likes of the RIAA. It’s not going away guys sorry, you’ll have to deal with it. The genie is well and truely out of the bottle now so why not give us legal avenues to buy your music without DRM and make some money out of it instead of bitching and crying over the past.

Hey folks, here’s a quick update about how I got on at the Open Source City event in Liverpool last weekend. It was a really interesting event staged at the Mello Mello in the centre of Liverpool, a bar I’ve not been in for years so that was quite a nostalgia trip. It used to be a main stopping point going to and from the famous Cream night club which is just next door. On Friday afternoon I went to see some of the presentations going on.

The first talk I saw was by Daniel James of 64 Studio who was talking about Linux in main stream audio production, obviously a subject close to my heart. He was also showing a new portable studio device he’s been working on called InDaMixx which I was very impressed with. It’s basically a little tablet pc with a custom Linux distribution running and it’s packed with audio tools. Daniel told me that they made their own hybrid distribution for it drawing from Debian and Ubuntu with the 2.6.21 Linux kernel, which apparently gives much better audio performance than later versions. The device is based on a Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC and uses a 900mhz processor. For a relatively low powered device it was really snappy, even when opening programs like Ardour which can be quite intensive. The device is really interesting and I’d love one but I guess I’ll have to get saving up as it’s over $1000 at the moment, even with the weak dollar I won’t be smashing my piggy bank just yet. Speaking of cash, the device is backed my hop hop DJ Cut Chemist who some readers may now, he even invested in it’s development and it’s completely open source. I’ve always loved Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow, Jurassic 5 and so on, so this just makes them even cooler if that’s possible. Head over to the site and check it out for yourself. I hope to talk to Daniel in a future episode of Linux Outlaws and I’m also very interested in getting 64 Studio set up in my own recording studio.

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Also speaking at the event on Friday was Tom Chance from the UK Green Party
who gave a very interesting talk about the history of copyright and the philosophy behind intellectual property. He looked at the differing perspectives of 3 famous philosophers and examined just who copyright laws really benefit, could artists survive in a world without it? Thoughtful stuff. The third and final talk of the day was by James Wallbank of Access Space in Sheffield, a community computer lab with a difference. They only use Linux and free software and they try to embrace all different aspects of the local community to get people involved. James talked about something he calls the Social GPL, applying free software principles to aspects of how we treat people in our communities and I thought it was fascinating. You give a little and you get a little back.

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it over for the live gig on Saturday night where they had bands on such as the Apt Gets playing, great name I have to say. I believe it was very good though and I’m sure a great time was had by all. I returned on the Sunday for a workshop with Daniel James on streaming media to the Internet via Icecast which was very interesting, I believe that’s how the guys over at the Linux Link Tech Show do their live show and I had crazy ideas of Linux Outlaws Live but that’s a way off in the future I think. I also saw Daniel Jones demonstrating a really cool piece of software he’s written which takes the actions of DNA and biological organisms and models them virtually with computer AI, then turns this into a sort of self aware music generator. He’s made it all open source and available on his website so go and check it out.

I had a really great time at OSC and I hope they’ll do more of these events in future, congratulations to Tim, Ross an all the people from Sound Network for doing this and a big thanks for putting in all the hard work. I hope to hook up with them at some point in the future and maybe help out. A great weekend and lots of fun. Let’s hope we can make it bigger and better next year

Dan