So what did I do instead? I got violent, because violence solves everything!  I banged my iPod against my shifter in my car three times and tired it again just to see if it worked, and by golly it turned on, no more sad face and my music was playing!**  I about shat my pants I was so excited!  Now granted, it froze up every once in a while and gave the sad iPod face again, but no worries, do the simple solution again and it works!  Now after about three years, it doesn’t freeze up anymore.  It may not work the first time, but keep trying and it will eventually.

After some investigation on to why this works, it turns out that in the older iPods there is a small connector cable that becomes loose from the hard drive through normal wear and tear.  You’re simply just knocking that cable back into place so the hard drive can be read properly.  I have had this same iPod for 5 years now, and it works wonderfully, and have not needed to buy a new one.  Nothing flashy with it either, it is the generation 4 iPod, right before it switched over to color and became more complicated.  Now, would I LIKE a new iPod? Sure, but I would only really want one if I didn’t purchase it, and it was atleast 20 gigs like the one I have now is.

So before you go out and spend a whole lot of cash on a new iPod because you think you’ve lost yours forever, try this and see if it works!  Any questions, comments, feel free to ask!

**Automaticable, Apple, and the poster are in no way liable or responsible for any and all damages caused to your iPod, Car, or self, or anything else when trying any and all “violent” techniques in hopes to remedy the sad iPod face from the MP3 player.  Reader and User try these techniques AT THEIR OWN RISK.

• On the Go: Syncing your Data
• Bring New Life to Your ipod: Go Old School

By default, Ubuntu Hardy Heron uses PulseAudio for audio mixing, which disables surround sound by default. I just bought new 5.1-channel speakers, but I was only heard sound coming from the front two. Disappointed, I went searching for the answer in the forums. If you want surround sound on your Linux setup, keep reading below..

Like I said above, Ubuntu now uses PulseAudio by default, so it dictates the kind of output you’ll be getting from your sound card. Luckily, PulseAudio makes it very easy to enable surround via a simple configuration file. I followed instructions here for editing via the command-line, but using a GUI should be just as easy.

• Press Alt-F2 to open a “Run” dialog, and type “gksudo nautilus“. This will give us a file-browser with administrator privileges.
  

  Warning: With this file browser we have access to do almost anything to our system. Follow these instructions carefully, or things could get bad!

• In the file browser, click on the “File System” icon on the right. Then navigate into the “etc” folder, and then “pulse”. This is the folder where our configuration file lives.
  
• Make a backup of “daemon.conf”. Do this by selecting the file, copy it, and then paste it in the same directory. Right click the new copy and rename it “daemon.conf.bak”. This is just in case things go wrong– it’ll be easy to revert back to the original settings.
  
• Now we’re going on edit the settings file. Double-click on “daemon.conf” to open it in a text editor. Remember that we have administrator privileges, so be very careful of the changes you make!
• Find the following line in the file, it should be towards the bottom:
  

  ; default-sample-channels = 2

  First, remove the “;” character to “uncomment” the line. Then change the value from 2 to either 6, for 5.1 surround sound, or 8 for 7.1 surround. For example:

  default-sample-channels = 6

  
• Save the file and exit the text editor and file browser. This is important so we don’t accidentally make more changes with administrator access.

That’s it for the hard part. For the changes to take effect, you will need to restart your computer. Afterwards, there is a simple command that you can use to test your surround sound. Press Alt-F2 to start the “Run” dialog, and enter the command:
speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6 -l1 -twav
or to test 7.1 surround:
speaker-test -Dplug:surround71 -c8 -l1 -twav

This will play a sound from each speaker telling what channel it is set to. You should hear audio out of each one. If you don’t then you may have some of the channels disabled. Check them with the volume manager:

• Right click on the volume meter in the panel and press “Open Volume Control”.
  
• Make sure the “ALSA” mixer is selected. Go to File, Change Device, and select the one that contains “Alsa Mixer”.
• By default, many of the channels are hidden. Select Edit, Preferences. Make sure you have at least the following selected: Master, Front, Surround, Center, and LFE (and Side if using 7.1 sound)
  
• Now, make sure none of the channels are muted under the “Playback” tab. If they are, un-mute them.
  

  Then use the test command above to try again.

At this point you should have surround sound working via the test command. However, some applications may also need to be setup to use surround sound. Rhythmbox should play music using surround by default. However, Totem Movie Player needs to be configured for it. To do so:

• Open Totem Movie Player from the Applications menu under Sound and Video, Movie Player.
  
• Select Edit, Preferences, and click on the “Audio” tab
• Set the “Audio output type” to your surround-sound preference. For example. 5.1-channel.
  

Other applications or webpages that use Flash may not use surround sound correctly. You can test if an application is using surround sound using the PulseAudio volume meter. To do so, press Alt-F2 to open the “Run..” dialog, and enter the command “pavumeter“. You should see sound in each channel.

I’ve been very happy with my surround sound so far. What experiences have you had? Did these instructions work for you? Are there any other applications you’ve found that don’t work with surround sound? Post in the comments.

• How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy
• How-to: Use Your Ubuntu Computer as a Music Alarm Clock

Mayday Parade is reminiscent of my high school love of pop-punk; they are easy to listen to, rock out fairly often, have a few emo tendencies, and most importantly, infuse their music with fiery intense passion. I think that last point is why I enjoy them the most. Lead singers Derek Sanders and Jeremy Lenzo don’t just sing lyrics like most bands out there. They have some serious energy backing their vocals, and it shows.

Another aspect of this band that I really enjoy is the fact that they have 2 lead singers. Neither singer dominates the other and both have very unique vocal inflections, though they compliment each other very well. Maybe I am a sucker for duets or something, because I absolutely love bands that feature more that on vocalist, and Mayday Parade can pull it off with the best of them.

Even though I consider Mayday Parade a pop-punk band with a matured sound, they also slow it down and sing some amazing lyrical ballads. Their song “Miserable At Best” is made up of simply vocals and piano. They leave their guitars, keys, and drums behind to belt out one emotional tune. I can’t even tell you how many times I have listened to this song, it is so good. It is personal, passionate, and super emo. It is also another great duet, which is obviously a signature of the band.

I wish I could comment on Mayday Parade’s live performance, but sadly I haven’t had a chance to see them perform. I only discovered this band a few months ago and since then they haven’t toured through Atlanta. The next time they will be in town is on Warped Tour 2008 in July, so hopefully I will be able to catch them then. In the meantime I’ll keep playing their album repeatedly since I seriously cannot get enough of this band.

Check out Mayday Parade’s website here. You can find them on Myspace here.

P.S. Doesn’t their album art rock? I love that style, and it really embodies the feeling of A Lesson in Romantics well.

• Review: Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
• Review: Panic at the Disco – Pretty. Odd.

3 years after their hit album Plans, Death Cab For Cutie has released an album that I feel lacks style and originality, but is still successful as a DCFC album merely because Ben Gibbard and crew are amazingly talented musicians.  Each song still has that Death Cab flair and none of the songs are generic radio hits, so at least some credit is due.

I think my favorite part of this album is how Ben uses his voice.  He has realized that his is more than just a voice, it is an instrument.  In the first track, “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” Gibbard’s vocal inflections add more than just pitch and tone, he is another instrument in the band.  Of all the songs, I think this first track, though an introduction song of sorts, is the most interesting.

Much of the rest of Narrow Stairs is simply a reflection of their old work.  One nice surprise in this aspect is that it is not a copy of their most recent work in Plans.  The influences for this album reach much further back into history to their 2001 release of The Photo Album and their album released in 2003, Transatlanticism.  At times Narrow Stairs is astonishingly similar to Death Cab’s previous work.  For example, the song “Long Division” seems to mirror a great song off of The Photo Album, “We Laugh Indoors.”  I speak mostly of the guitar riffs when I make this comparison, but even the structure of the song is too similar.

What I really enjoy about Narrow Stairs is the same thing I love about every Death Cab For Cutie album: I can play this album in the background while doing almost anything and it is not distracting, but it is still good quality music.  Though this CD may not stand out as one of the shining stars in DCFC’s repertoire, it is still classic Death Cab and any fan of the band will surely enjoy this album thoroughly.

In the end, my prediction of this album is not quite as enthusiastic as when I reviewed Panic at the Disco’s Pretty.Odd., but is still positive.  This doesn’t seem like much of a radio album, so I think Death Cab For Cutie’s popularity will wane since their last album, but any fans they created with Plans will stick around to see what DCFC has in store in the future.  At the very least, this album will not turn anyone off of the band.  It is easy on the ears and will be an interesting listen to anyone who hasn’t heard Death Cab’s mellow but intricate sound before.

• Review: Panic at the Disco – Pretty. Odd.
• Give in to Pop-Punk: Mayday Parade

My solution here has been to go old school with my ipod.  I wiped out the contents of my ipod completely and imported all of my favorite music from high school and a bit from the first year or 2 of college.  So far it has been absolutely wonderful.  Putting my ipod on shuffle keeps me on my toes not knowing what is coming next.  Most of these songs I literally have not listened to in years, so it is really good to hear them again.

There are definitely some downsides to this though.  Back in the early years of online music sharing, quality recordings were hard to find.  Many of my favorite bands were introduced to me through super low quality recordings, and many of these albums are so old and obscure that I doubt that will ever change.  Because of this I have been having volume issues, with lower quality tracks requiring a higher volume to rock out to.

Other than volume issues and some really bad songs slipping in here and there, I feel this has been a good decision.  I don’t know how long these songs will last on my ipod as my musical tastes have changed a bit since high school, but for now it is a good thing.

So automaticable, what are your strategies for keeping your music fresh?  I would especially appreciate tips from anyone who has an ipod with limited space like mine, though the same idea can probably be fixed through different playlists on larger ipods.

• Review: Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
• Give in to Pop-Punk: Mayday Parade

• SEO Project- Review: Gibson Guitars
• Give in to Pop-Punk: Mayday Parade

Put away your dance shoes and take a seat; this is not the Panic you were expecting.

Panic at the Disco, who aptly changed their name to exclude the “!” after Panic, has come out of left field with their new album, “Pretty. Odd.” Instead of the dance-rock that skyrocketed them into stardom in “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” Panic has decided to take a more indie approach to their sound. Gone are the days where my inner 13 year old girl can belt out “Shotgun wedding!” and dance to the old electronic breakdowns that were my guilty pleasure from the old Panic! All is not lost though, as this album is a solid release from this band that came out of nowhere to swoon teen hearts.

After my first run of “Pretty. Odd.” I was disappointed. I am accepting of a band when they decide to change their sound, but not a single song on this album reminds me of “Fever.” After my initial letdown, I forced myself to run through the album a few more times to see if it had redeeming qualities, knowing Panic at the Disco wouldn’t dare release an absolute dud of an album. I’m glad I did, as now I enjoy the album thoroughly.

Enough about what Pretty Odd is not. This album is a step towards the indie/classic rock scene, with obvious influences from the Beatles and The Beach Boys. These influences show up through slow acoustic melodies and paced rock ballads. One of the most surprising things to come out of this album is the fact that Panic has 2 vocalists. I’m not talking about backup vocals, there are 2 lead vocalists. Ryan Ross’ new sound is as opposite as “Fever” and “Pretty. Odd.” so it seems like a good time to introduce him. His voice is more stereotypical than Brendon Urie’s, which is expected because of how unique Brendon’s voice is in the first place. Ryan is featured significantly in 4 songs from the album and does an impressive job. Though his voice is very plain and sounds like most emo vocalists, he shows more control and musicianship than most. Like the album as a whole, it took me a few runs to appreciate his vocals, but now I feel he fits in the mix perfectly.

Because this album is less poppy and such a turnaround from “Fever,” my prediction is it will receive less radio time but will build a stronger core audience. There are fewer hits on this album because they moved away from the dance and pop scenes, but overall this album is more focused and solid.

The best part about the new album? Now I don’t have to roll up my windows to sing along to Panic at the Disco. Before they were purely a guilty pleasure, but this new album lends them more credibility in the music scene. So give it a couple of plays before you judge it too harshly and “Pretty. Odd.” may just be one of your new favorite albums.

• Review: Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
• Give in to Pop-Punk: Mayday Parade

Anywhere.FM: Anywhere.FM allows you to upload your music from your home onto a server and then stream that music to any computer with internet access. The interface is clean, fast, and fairly customizable, and uploading your music is a cinch. It takes some time to get started since every song has to be uploaded to a server, but you have the option of uploading your favorite iTunes playlists first so you can get started listening while the rest of your library loads. Once you have music uploaded you can instantly start streaming your music. Anywhere.FM also integrates many social features so you can easily find people with similar music libraries and listen to their streams. This web-app is still in beta, and for good reason. I had a few issues with playback skipping or stopping completely. This is kind of a deal-breaker since I would expect the streaming to be fairly consistent knowing the files are hosted on their own server. All-in-all, not a bad service, especially since it is free (for now).

Jukefly: Similar to Anywhere.FM, this works-anywhere music player is still in beta. The main difference (and it’s a big one) between Jukefly and Anywhere.FM is with Jukefly you do not have to upload your songs to an independent server; they stream directly from your home computer. Obvious downsides to this are that your home computer has to be running the server so you can grab your music from it, and if your network at home goes down you’ve lost access to your files, but it is also nice to have instant access to your music and know that someone somewhere doesn’t have all of your uploaded files on their server. The interface is a bit clunky and loads slow at times, but it looks more polished and has more potential than Anywhere.FM in the long run. A quick and easy install of the Jukefly server will get you up and running in minutes.

Orb: I am fairly new to Orb so my experience is limited, but I’ll give you my opinions so far. Orb is a full-fledged media center that allows you to access not only your music, but also your pictures, movies, and documents from anywhere you have internet access. Orb also integrates with your digital TV tuner, so you can schedule and record live TV and stream those shows as well. Much like Jukefly, you install the Orb server on your home computer which lets you stream your media anywhere else. The interface is very clean and fast, and looks very similar to Windows Media Center (they might be a Microsoft affiliate, I’m not 100% sure though). One of the best features of Orb (and the main reason I installed it) is it integrates seamlessly with your Wii, Xbox 360, or PS3. Since I have a Wii I can comment the best on the integration with that. Orb has its own interface specially built for the Wii, so navigation is simple with the Wiimote. The quality of the streaming music was high and there was little to no wait for the songs to buffer before playing. On the other hand, video on the Wii was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that it is almost useless. Because the Wii has to transcode the video before it is played, it lowers the frame rate of the video significantly. Luckily, playing the streaming video on another PC does not have the same issue. A cool bonus for Orb on the Wii are Wii-specific games. Orb has a ton of flash/java games in its library, most of them are popular browser games already, but it is nice to have additional games that support the functionality of the Wii specifically.

To sum this all up, Anywhere.FM and Jukefly are both decent, but I wouldn’t recommend them as your primary music player until they both get a few more releases published. Orb, on the other hand, seems like a great way to stream your entire media library across the net, as well as add a little more functionality to your video game console.

I’ve only covered 3 streaming media players here, so if you’ve had any experience with anything similar, let me know in the comments. I am always looking for new toys to play with.

• Last.fm on Ubuntu
• Rockbox

1. The first thing you will need is to create a playlist. I used Rhythmbox, since that’s where I store all of my music anyway. Create a playlist with songs you’d like to wake up to. When you’ve got enough, save it in .m3u format, somewhere where you’ll find it later. I put mine in my home directory.
2. Next, we’ll need to make sure we have all the tools for the job. We’ll be using cron to schedule our tasks, amixer to set our volume, and mplayer to finally play our music. To make sure you have each of these installed, issue the following command:
   

   sudo aptitude install cron alsa-utils mplayer

3. Next, we need to actually add the scheduled task. First I’m simply going to give you the commands, and I’ll explain what’s going on afterwards. In a terminal, enter the command:
   

   crontab -e

   Note: this will open your default text editor, which if you haven’t set it, will probably default to vim.

4. Go to the end of the page by pressing Shift+G. Then start a new line pressing “o”. Once you’re there, type in or paste the following line:
   

   30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

5. Press “ESC” to stop typing. Then enter the command “:wq” (no quotes) to save and quit. If everything went well, you should see the line:
   

   crontab: installing new crontab

Cool, you’re done! Now, let me explain what all that was, so you can go back and customize it on your own. Remember, any time you want to learn more about a command, you can use the “man” command. For example,

man crontab

to learn about crontab.

So first of all, we used “aptitude” to install a few packages from the Ubuntu repositories. This is probably familiar to you, or you may be using “apt-get”. They are basically the same, but “aptitude” has a few advantages– you should switch to using it if you haven’t already.

Then, we used “crontab -e”. Cron is the name of the task scheduler in Linux, and this command opens up our own personal “scheduled task list”. You can always use “crontab -e” to edit your tasks, or “crontab -l” just to view them.

Now, on to that crazy line I had you type in:

30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Each entry in your personal crontab has the following format:

minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week command

So, in our case, our “minute” is 30, “hour” is 7, day-of-month is * (any), “month” is * (any), “day-of-week” is 1-5, and “command” is… the rest of that. This basically means that we’ve scheduled our command to execute at 7:30 am on Monday through Friday. Changing these options should be self explanatory. Now, let’s pick apart our “command” one part at a time.

/usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\%

First thing to note, is that it’s a good idea to use full paths for any command you execute from cron. To find out the full path to a command, use

which {command}

In this case, we’re using amixer, which is a utility for changing the volume on your computer. I set mine to 35% to wake up to, but you can use anything. Also note here that we can’t use simply “35%”, because cron uses ‘%’ as a special character. Therefore, we preceed it with ‘\’.

Next thing to notice is “&&”. This essentially strings two commands together– it won’t start the next command until our first one has finished. So, onto our next command:

/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e …

This is actually another compound command. xterm is another terminal that we are going to launch our music alarm in, so we can easily shut if off in the morning. We set all sorts of parameters to make the terminal look nice, but the important one is following the “-e”: that’s the command we will run in the new terminal:

/usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Ahhh, finally, this is where we finally play our music. mplayer is a command-line music player with a very basic interface, and easy controls. You can run this line in a normal terminal now to make sure it works. We use the parameters “shuffle” to randomize our playlist, and then “-playlist …” to tell it what to play. Make sure you change “~/.alarm-playlist” to your own location.

And we’re done! At this point you should have a fully-functioning music alarm clock. Now go back and tweak it out with preferences that work for you.

Bonus: Move the alarm clock command to a shell script, and keep increasing your volume every minute or so.

• How-to: Enable Surround Sound on Ubuntu Hardy
• Bring New Life to Your ipod: Go Old School

One of the most useful features is the free streaming radio. Last.fm creates dynamic stations with music from your musical profile, music similar to a particular artist, or from a tag. There are many options for listening to these streaming stations on Ubuntu, and I’d like to compare each of them.

Last.fm Official Client
Last.fm has released their own client for listening tostreaming content from the desktop. It’s a pretty full-featured interface, as far as you can go with a streaming radio client. Also, it has access to much of the content that you would find on the website.
Pros

• Full-featured desktop client
• Artist bios and profiles
• Access to your Last.fm profile

Cons

• A little bulky
• Closed source

Installation

sudo aptitude install lastfm

Last-Exit
Last-Exit is a lightweight alternative to the official client. It offers all of the basic functionality, and cuts down on all the frill. It’s a good substitute if you are having trouble with the official client.
Pros

• Lightweight
• Open-source
• Integrates well with the GNOME desktop

Cons

• No album art or advanced functionality

Installation

sudo aptitude install last-exit

Rhythmbox Last.fm Plugin
If you are already using Rhythmbox for the rest of your music needs, then the Rhythmbox plugin is a great option. It offers all of the Last.fm stations, through the Rhythmbox interface. It doesn’t have the artist biographies that the official client does, although it does integrate album art.
Pros

• Rhythmbox integration
• Already installed with Rhythmbox

Cons

• Bulky if only used for Last.fm

Installation

Already installed, enable it in the Rhythmbox Plugins dialog.

Last.fm Website
If you prefer not to install a desktop client, you can always stream radio through your web browser. All it requires is a flash plugin and a Last.fm username.
Pros

• No need to install a client
• Well-integrated with the rest of the Last.fm website

Cons

• Requires leaving your browser open

Installation

None

• Review: Streaming Your Media
• How-to: Mount a Network drive in Ubuntu