automaticable

Have you ever wanted to set up a subversion repository on your home computer? Whether it be for a new software project, versioning your personal documents, or any other reason, there are many benefits to using version control. Some free websites that will host your project for you, such as SourceForge or Google Code, but it’s often necessary to have a little bit more control.

I set up a subversion repository for a new project the other day, and the process was relatively painless. I’m using a standard Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 desktop setup, with OpenDNS and DD-WRT for port-forwarding, and without an Apache web server. Keep reading to host your own subversion repository server.

Continue reading “How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy”

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Happy Download day everyone! This is an exciting thing on all ends, because not only is this my first techy blog on good ole automaticable, but today is the Firefox 3 Download Day!! There’s many plans going on, the biggest of all, of course, is the ability to pledge to download the new update today, in the next 24 hours, to be apart of the Guinness Book Of World Records 2008! That’s right, with the new release of Mozilla Firefox is trying to have the most downloads in a 24 hour period. When I pledged, just moments ago, there were 1,683,932 other pledges just like mine! So head on over to www.spreadfirefox.com and make your pledge today! While you’re there check out some of the other cool things happening. You can plan an office or school Download Fest where you all meet up on your lunch breaks and download the new Firefox 3, join some of the great Download Day groups on Facebook, or Myspace, or become a campus rep for Firefox! All of these things are very exciting and I want to encourage ALL of our automaticable fans to head on over and make the pledge to download Firefox 3 today and be apart of the magic happening all around the world!

Before I get started with this review, I want to apologize for releasing it a day late.  I’ve been a little unmotivated to write this review, and I think that sentiment stems from the type of album Death Cab For Cutie has released.  I was asked to describe the album in 4 words or less, and the only response I could come up with that seemed fitting was “Good, but not great.”  It is definitely more complicated than that because I actually do like the album, so make sure to read on for a full analysis of Death Cab for Cutie’s “Narrow Stairs.”

Continue reading “Review: Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs”

I love seeing films on opening night, and with a movie as good as Iron Man it was a great experience. The audience was really excited, cheering and clapping whenever something amazing happened. Normally I am not into the whole audience interaction thing in movie theaters, but I think Iron Man was the perfect film to play along with.

So what made the movie so good? For a film based on a comic book, Iron Man took itself very seriously. There were no emo dance scenes a la Spiderman, anyway. Serious does not mean boring or dry though. Iron Man was funny; actually, it was hilarious at times. Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect match for this military mogul: smart, confident, and drunk. Speaking of smart, I don’t think there has been another comic hero movie where the main character’s super power was his smarts. At least not like Downey’s character, Tony Stark. Stark is an engineer capable of building amazing power sources the size of tennis balls out of scraps in a cave. He is an expert with computers, soldering, metalworking…pretty much everything needed to make the most powerful suit in the world. Convenient for him, huh?

I highly recommend this movie. It is action packed, but doesn’t focus on the explosions or fight scenes. As I mentioned earlier, it is also really smart and funny as well. I think those are the three elements that make for a great action flick. In the end Iron Man is about the struggle we as Americans go through having the most powerful military in the world. The best defense is a good offense, but what happens when our offense falls into the hands of our enemies?

Well, It’s official, there is another reason why the Nintendo Wii is almighty. Today I had the urge, the urge to splurge, so you know what I got? I bought my girlfriend Mario Kart for Wii with an extra steering wheel. I want to start off by saying that the fact that the Wii incorporates a steering wheel to play mario kart is just AMAZING in itself.  It brings a whole new sense of awesomeness to the game. Being the stubborn person I am, I didn’t bother reading the little instruction manual before I started playing the game because I’ve played so many different Mario Kart series that I’ve realized how to do just about everything. I was wrong this time.  There’s so much more you can do now with the Wii version that you were unable to do in any other version of Mario Kart, so take the time and read that manual and learn all the cool tricks before you play!

I’m now going to go through a list of Pros and Cons of the game from my point of view and at the end give my final opinion on the game and if you should buy it, or just mooch off your friends.

Pros:

• Automatic Drafting for those of us who were never good at it in the other versions
• An actual steering wheel instead of just a lousy controller
• Mario Kart against people across the world via internet
• Incorporation of tracks from previous Mario Kart versions
• More tracks

Cons:

• Automatic Drafting: Although it may help those who don’t know how to do it, it makes it too easy
• No co-op Grand Prix
• The mini-map while racing is a little larger than I’d like, and haven’t figured out how to get rid of it yet

In my opinion, I loved the game. I think it is a GREAT upgrade from both Game Cube as well as N64. I have played I think every version (except DS) and I have to say that by far Mario Kart is the one game that Nintendo will never stop making, and you basically can’t screw up, you can only make it better. For those of you wondering if you should buy it, I HIGHLY suggest it. Also pitch in and buy a few more of those steering wheels.  They’re only ten dollars more and will add a GREAT deal more fun for those around you wanting to play. So go out there to your local Best Buy or Toys-R-Us and get Mario Kart for Wii today! You won’t regret it for a second!

BillShrink is a new startup that allows you to enter information about how much you use your cell phone, and compares plans from carriers in your area to find the best price.  You can enter in details like how many minutes you use, the number of phone lines you require, and even your most frequently called numbers, to take advantage of free mobile-to-mobile.  The best part is that you can simply upload your cell phone bill, and it’ll fill in all the details for you.

This seems like a really cool service to me.  I also appreciate that it ranks plans not only based on price, but the service coverage in your area.  We’ve posted ways to save money with online services before, but this is the best one I’ve seen for the cell phone service market.  I’m stuck in a 2-year contract now, but I’ll be sure to check this out next time I’m looking to change my cell plan.

[ via Techcrunch ]

We ran out of coffee here at the house, and my roommate picked up some Folgers French Vanilla to replace it. I’m generally not picky about my coffee; our last batch was store-brand French roast (I do like French roast though). So the point is, that this new coffee is pretty amazing. Actually, it tastes only slightly above-average to me, but it smells like candy when you brew it. Every day around 8 AM, our house smells like sweet deliciousness. Perhaps I’m one step closer to having productive mornings.

What kind of coffee do you drink? Are you picky? Do you load it up with sugar and cream, or take it straight-up black?

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.

GrandCentral has been in the news a lot recently, as Google finally moved its newly-acquired startup from closed-beta to open-beta. Using GrandCentral, you can get a new phone number that intercepts calls and does all sorts of cool things before forwarding to your current number. And now that it’s open, anybody can sign up to give it a try. I’m in the market for a new cell phone, and so I was looking it over to see if it’d be the right time to test it out. It has a lot of cool features, but overall I think it’s not quite ready. Here’s the breakdown:

What’s Useful

These are the features that really make GrandCentral a useful service. This isn’t a complete list of features, but the rest are more novelty in my opinion.

• Forward your GrandCentral Number to multiple lines: This is the most basic use of GrandCentral. It gives you one phone number to use as a “virtual number” to use as you wish. Have it ring just your cell phone. Or your house phone too. Or your house phone, cell phone, work phone, and Pizza Hut– the options are limitless, and potentially ridiculous.
• Number in Your Code: When signing up, you can choose from a list of numbers in your local area code. That way, your friends won’t have to call long-distance to reach you.
• Visual Voicemail: This was all-the-rage when the iPhone came out, was the ability to see your voicemail on your phone. GrandCentral takes it a step farther, and puts it online and in your email as well. Similar to Gmail’s philosophy, never delete a message, so you can come back to it and search through later.
• Caller ID: Caller ID is offered as a basic service on most cellphones, but GrandCentral takes it a step further. It’ll maintain your address book online, which makes searching easy. When you get a call from an unknown number, you have the option of letting it through, or “screening” them for their name first. Even better, GrandCentral does some automatic “spam filtering”, to keep the unwanted salesmen out. If this is anything like Gmail’s spam filter, it could be a killer feature.
• Customizable Caller Groups: They’ve explored all sorts of options with this one. Once you assign your contacts “caller groups”, you can customize the way your service based on each group. Have your house phone ring only for your family, automatically send your ex-girlfriend to voicemail, and set a special voicemail message that your co-workers will hear.

What’s Fun

GrandCentral offers some other fun perks that aren’t necessarily deal-breakers either way, but they’re neat to play around with.

• “ListenIn” on Voicemail: When you get an incoming call, you can send the caller straight to voicemail, and then listen to the message as they record it. Fun, and a little creepy too.
• Change Your Ringer: Any cell phone has the ability to change-up your ringtone. But with GrandCentral, you can also customize the “ringer” that people hear when they call you. Choose from a few different nationalities, or have “NY Voice” harass callers as they wait for you to answer. Before Google acquired GrandCentral, there was also the ability to upload or record your own– we’ll see if this feature comes back.
• Switch Phones mid-call: While you’re talking to a buddy on one phone, you can switch the conversation to another phone with the click of a button. The use case they give is if you’re talking long-distance on your cell phone, but want to continue the conversation on the home phone when you get home, to save a few minutes.

What’s Lacking

For me, these were the deal breakers that I just couldn’t live without. I hope GrandCentral and Google are working together on these features, because they will truely have a useful service once they’re implemented. But without them, I can’t imagine committing to a GrandCentral phone number.

• No SMS Support: That’s right– if you plan on giving out your GrandCentral number to all of your friends, make sure they know that it’s not possible to text message you, or vice-versa. Of course, if you don’t like paying the premiums for text-messaging service, this could be a blessing in disguise.
• Outgoing Calls Display Physical Phone Number: Imagine you start using GrandCentral and tell all of your friends to update their phones with the new number. They’ll start calling you with the “virtual number”, but there’s no way that you can call them using this number (except from the website). It would be a little confusing if all calls from you came in on some old number.
• Can’t “Port” Existing Numbers: If you want to start using GrandCentral, you have to commit to using their phone number. This means telling all of your family and friends to update their contact lists and start using the new number. It might be even more confusing for them when they accidentally call your old number, and it still works. Also consider the fact that once you start using a GrandCentral number, you’re locked in– no “switching” this number to another service. Everyone knows that Google isn’t “evil”, but what if they started moving some of these features to a premium-membership paid service?

What’s to Come?

Like I mentioned before, I sincerely hope that the lacking features above are changed, to make GrandCentral really useful. But there’s also a few others that we could tack on, to really make it a killer service. And with Google backing it, I think some of these may already be in the works.

• Forward SMS To/From Email: I’m not a fan of text-messaging in general, but I certainly wouldn’t want my incoming messages to just disappear. I think it would be nice, and completely feasible, for GrandCentral to “intercept” text messages and send them to email instead, where you could similarly reply to them. Added bonus that it would be free.
• 100% Free Calling: Google has already rolled-out the free GOOG-411; why not make GrandCentral calls toll-free as well? GOOG-411 is completely ad-free, but I don’t think users would mind listening to a short ad before voicemai in return for free incoming and outgoing calls. Of course, I hope this would be optional as well.
• VOIP Integration: Right now, you can have your GrandCentral number dial your cellphone and your house phone. Wouldn’t it be cool if it would dial your computer as well, using Skype (or something less proprietary). Answering calls while you’re at your computer anyway would be convenient, and save you a couple bucks.
• GPhone Compatible: Now that Google is officially entering the cell-phone market with Android, it’s almost a given that we’ll see slick integration with GrandCentral and it’s other services. I imagine we’ll see an integrated visual-voicemail interface and advanced caller-id and screening, but what else could they roll out?

All-in-all, I think there’s a lot of cool things that are happening with GrandCentral. But, it’s still young, and it has a ways to go. Keep checking up on it, because with Google fostering it, I think we are going to see a lot of neat things happening.

When I am working away from home, one thing I hate is not having my media accessible to me, especially my music. Over the past few months I have taken the time to test out a few solutions to this problem and have had varying results. Below are the 3 streaming media players I have had the most success with:

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.