Hope everyone out there has a blessed Christmas!
Music: Mishal Moore - Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas
Text from here.
Images found using Google.
Video compiled using only free and open source software (Kdenlive, The GIMP, KDE 4 and of course Linux!)
Poor art and video directing by yours truly :)
No copyright infringement intended.
It seems like Ubuntu will be getting a music store integrated into the desktop music player! The Ubuntu One Music Store! Specifications and details have not yet been published but a Launchpad project page has been created.
It is about time Linux users, and especially those in less favored countries, have a decent and well supported route to acquiring high quality music legally. Many would suggest running iTunes in WINE. But I have no intention of supporting a service that does not support my OS of choice. Then there is the Amazon music store which does not sell outside the U.S.A. Other online stores I have looked into have a rather limited library of content, and most of the time I do not find the music I am looking for.
I am looking forward to seeing how this store and project develops. Will there be DRM? I surely hope not. Will it be limited to Ubuntu users? How large will the library be? Will it offer free content? Will it use free codecs? Will it provide a new and unrestricted platform for independent artists? Will it offer more incentive for people to switch to Linux? So many questions... A meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at the UDS. Let's wait and see.
More power to you Ubuntu and Canonical!
I have been looking for a couple of days for a way to record the output of my speakers directly to a file i.e. record what I hear. An easy good quality solution was one I found here. Since I modified it slightly to suit my own system, I thought I'd document it both for myself and others.
I am using an Ubuntu Itrepid based system which has been modified to use ALSA as the sound architecture. This is in fact the pre-release Beta of Linux Mint Fluxbox CE.
This is what I did:
1) Edit /etc/asound.conf and added the following at the end. This creates a device which copies another.
2) Restart ASLA with:
3) Get the 'numid' of the 'Capture Source' and the Item number of the 'Mix' device (you will have to go through the long output)
The part you are looking for looks something like this:
4)Then set the copy device to copy the 'Mix' device (5) by running this:
That's it!
When you are ready to record run this in the terminal
The output file will be a large wav file.
To encode it to a good quality mp3, run:
Enjoy!
This is a song that has really got into my system. It is by Zambian artist General Ozzy. It is great to see Zambian musicians putting out some top notch work! I suggest you get ready to dance because without further ado, I present Potential!
Hi everybody!
I haven't posted since October last year. That's quite a decent amount of time. No excuses really, just laziness I suppose and nothing much to write about. Not like I have something important to write about now either. Just thought I'd do one of those obligatory, space filler posts. But its a bit of a fun one all the same.
Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year filled with blessings, joy and success! 2007 for me hasn't come with too many changes. Romania has joined the E.U. as of the 1st of January but that really doesn't imply much for me. Being an Indian citizen I am still locked within the borders of Romania. I envy the Romanians though who can wander all the way till England without so much as a stamp in their passports. Come to think of it, where's the fun in that? No more bragging rights for passports filled with an assortment of border stamps and visas.
On another front one of my best friends just turned thirty on the 21st (or dirty thirty as he preferred to call it). Notice my careful choice of words to avoid petty squabbles between my other best friends, some of whom frequent my blog. No offense people. Anyway, a very Happy Birthday to him and another friend whose birthday is also on the 21st. You both know who you are. Wish you both all the best for 2007. But still, thirty! That serves as a poke-in-the-head reminder of how old I'm getting. Wonder when I'll realise it though.
Coming back to the title of my post. Playing the guitar has been a hobby of mine ever since our parents got a tiny guitar for us on one of our trips to India. I was eight years old back then. And I'd like to think I've progressed since then. Sometime last year my young brother kind of challenged me to learn 'Stairway to Heaven' by Led Zeppelin. I have learnt quite a bit of it. But Playing a song that has been referred by some to be one of the (if not the) greatest guitar tracks of all time is by no means an easy feat. The guitar work expertly rendered at the finger tips of Jimmy Page is nothing short of magical.
As I said, I have learnt quite a bit of the song and have recorded myself playing the bits I know. So, for lack of a better post, I present you with 'My Rendition of Stairway to Heaven'. A few points to mention before we get to that. First, my microphone is not the greatest in the world, so the bass is pretty distorted. Especially when I hit the open A it resonates like crazy. Do yourself and your speakers a favor and turn down the bass before you play this file. Secondly, don't wait for me to do Jimmy Page's solo at the end. It's not there. I'd need a better guitar and an extra set of fingers for that. Thirdly, I kind of got bored playing the middle bit of the song which is a little repetitive. So I skipped a bit in the middle. Fourthly, the file is in the Ogg Vorbis format (.ogg). This is a an open, patent-free format providing higher quality at lower file sizes than the popular MP3 format. It should play on Winamp (Windows) and most Linux audio players without fuss. Otherwise, I would say I did o.k. Oh well, enough of my rambling, here it is.
One more thing. Actually two. I'm hosting the file on a third party free file hosting service. If the link does not work please let me know and I will change it. And, please leave some comments of how bad you think I sound.
Till my next post... Take care y'all!
The Indian National anthem, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950. It was first sung 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. The complete song consists of five stanzas. The lyrics were rendered into English by Tagore himself.
NATIONAL ANTHEM OF INDIA
" Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya He
Bharat Bhagya Vidhata
Punjab Sindh Gujarat Maratha
Dravida Utkala Banga
Vindhya Himachal Yamuna Ganga
Ucchala Jaladhi Taranga
Tubh Shubha Name Jage
Tubh Shubha Ashisha Mange
Gahe Tubh Jaya Gata
Jan Gan Mangaldayak Jay He
Bharat Bhagya Vidhata
Jaye He ! Jaye He ! Jaye He !
Jaye,Jaye,Jaye,Jaye He "Translation of The national anthem- Jana Gana Mana In English Thou are the ruler of the minds of all people, dispenser of India's destiny. The name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sind, Gujurat and Maratha. Of the Dravid and Orissa and Bengal. It Echoes in the hills of Vindhyas and Himalayas, mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea. They pray for your blessing and sing thy praise. The salvation of all peaople is thy hand, thou dispenser of India's destiny. Victory, Victory, Victory to thee. The Jana Gana Mana was composed by Shri Rabindranath Tagore and first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on December 27th, 1911. It was adopted as the National Anthem of India on 24th January, 1950 by the Constituent Assembly. The first stanza( out of five stanzas) of the song forms the National Anthem. |