I can feel a redesign coming on. Been getting a little sick of the look of things around here lately. Not quite sure what it’s going to change into, but the process has started in any case. For the time being it’s just a few tweaks here and there until I get a spurt of inspiration and find a theme to roll with. Forgive any inconveniences until it’s all over.

Getting sick and tired of reading a tempting ./ post, only to find out that when you try and go to the site(s) that the post is about, it’s been slashdotted and is therefore down for a few days. By the time the site is capable of accepting requests again, you’ve either forgotten about it or found an alternative.

In the past friendly users would mirror the content, allowing you to view a static version of the content. This has now reached a new level with MirrorDot.

And, of course, they have their own feed, so is there even a reason to browse ./ anymore? I know it’s going to be hard to pull myself away from the ol’ white, black & green giant.

Got some tips about speeding up Firefox I thought I should share. They’re pretty basic changes that have to do with network pipelining. If you have any reservations about doing this I suggest a little research on the topic.

1.Type about:config into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which potientially speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set network.http.pipelining to true
Set network.http.proxy.pipelining to true
Set network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to a value of 16. This is the number of requests Firefox will [can] make at any one time.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New -> Integer. Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its value to 0. This value is the amount of time the Firefox waits before it acts on information it receives.

Probably best only to implement these changes only if you’re on a broadband connection, as pipelining has the potential to reduce the speed of modem connections.

Let me know what you think? Any speed improvements? Or better yet, if you have a good reason why these values shouldn’t be changed, I’d like to know.

Update: xen ix made some valid comments about over loading the server with too many connections. It might be a good idea to reduce the network.http.pipelining.maxrequests value to 4, 6 or 8 to prevent annoying any webmasters. IE by default has it’s maxrequests set to 4, so you’re safe from being ban with a value somewhere around that. Thanks xen ix.

...it had to happen. In the last few days this blog has started to be graced by comment spam...damn it. Looks like it time to implement some sort of protection against this. But I'm going to have to do some research first. If anyone knows of a good method, please leave a comment =) and let me know.

Need your Fedora boxen to make music?

Planet CCRMA (CCRMA is pronounced ``karma'') at Home is a collection of rpms (RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager) that you can add to a computer running RedHat 9 or Fedora Core 1, 2 or 3 to transform it into an audio workstation with a low-latency kernel, current ALSA audio drivers and a nice set of music, midi, audio and video applications. It replicates most of the Linux environment we have been using for years here at CCRMA for our daily work in audio and computer music production and research. Planet CCRMA is easy to install and maintain, it can be installed and upgraded over the network from the Planet CCRMA apt repository or its mirrors, or from cdroms you can download from this site.

I found Planet CCRMA while re-checking out Ardour. I gave up trying to get Ardour to run on FC1, but next free day I'm going to give it another go. I might have mentioned Ardour before, but just in case...

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. Produce your own CD's. Mix video soundtracks. Experiment with new ideas about music and sound. Generate sound installations for 12 speaker gallery shows. Have Fun.

Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-linear, non-destructive region based editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a mixer whose capabilities rival high end hardware consoles, lots of plugins to warp, shift and shape your music, and controllable from hardware control surfaces at the same time as it syncs to timecode. If you've been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Cubase SX or Sequoia, you might have found it.

Sounds almost too good to be true eh?

A positive boost for P2P.

“Quantity and quality of P2P technologies are inversely proportional to the numbers of lawsuits issued to stop P2P” 3rd Monty’s Law

You can download a PDF version of the manifesto, or just read it at the P2P Manifesto blog.

This is one.

Wow...it's true...and looks nice. The Mac mini. It doesn't have the specs of a high-end performer, but it'll do for the masses. And at only $499US this 'puter is going to fly off the shelves.

I bet there'll be a big spike in domain name registrations right now. Just imagine all the new Mac mini sites that are going to start up.

I've been thinking about getting a new 'puter to serve the websites I manage. Maybe one of these little guys will be ok. I was thinking about a mini-itx setup, 'cause I need small footprint and low noise, but if the Mac mini can provide all this, and be competitive in price, why not?

I'm wondering if there's a catch somewhere. From the brief look I've had at the site, it looks almost too good to be true. But it seems with the upgrades the price will stretch quite a bit away from $499. I'm going to check out how much a beefed up one will cost.

Damn...and they've release something called the iPod Shuffle as well.

Time to mix things up. Meet iPod shuffle, the unpredictable new iPod. What will it play next? Can it read your mind? Can it read your moods? Load it up. Put it on. See where it takes you. Choose from pocket-size 512MB or 1G models starting at $99 and surprise yourself.

It's going to be a good year for Apple.

Dan Gilmore has finally moved from the Mercury News. His new site is Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism. This is a good [you could also read profitable - nothing wrong with that right] move for him, and I believe I good thing for journalism in general. Now that there is a medium where everyone [who wants to] can be a jounalist, the trade may gain back a bit of respect. And hopefully there'll be a new word invented for what CNN & Co. does.

And just on the new sites topic, you should also check out Pushing String, which is a new blog from one of the inventors of XML. I found this blog via a post on Tim Bray's Ongoing.

...I haven't posted in a while. Things have been pretty busy in my neck of the woods lately, and although I've been struggling to keep my head above water, there's been little Internet time. But the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. But let me break from the metaphors for a while =)

Soon I'll have a break from my current situation and I can enjoy some of the nicer aspect of Niseko's winter [the bad aspects being that the town in flooded with tourists], like snowboarding and snow-shoe walking. It's been snowing everyday for the last 2 weeks and the base is set, so now it's just 2 months [probably a little more] of powder days. You've gotta love those.

The only other intertesting thing that's happened in the last fews week is my latest install of Fedora Core. It was version 3 this time and although I still prefer Debian, FC3 rocks. All those market analysis who still try and tell you Linux isn't ready for the desktop are simply wrong...or behind the times at least.

Of course the bummer with a new install of any OS is that I have to block all the add sites again. Which makes me think that I should just save and import my settings for Firefox from now on. But if I did that I wouldn't be offered the new generation of IM smileys and I'm not sure I could live without that.