Dark Thoughts

OK, here's another Typo3 modification.

The nbo_podcast extension is a great extension for creating your own podcast, except for one tinsy little issue. It insists on adding the site URL to the start of all uid's (ie file names).

This is OK if you are hosting ALL of your mp3's or mpg's on your server, but sometimes, you have a file size limit, just like I did.

I wanted to host small files on my typo3 server and my large files on another server, but the extension wouldn't let me.

Here's the fix if you want to do this.

In your typo3 backend, go to the extension manager.
Click on the Typo 3 Podcast link (should be under Front End Plugins)
In the dropdown box at the top, select Edit Files
Click on "Edit File" next to mod1/index.php

About half way down in the section that starts with

// Check MySQL ressource

Look for the line that says this

$sourceFile = $this->prepare_url(t3lib_div::getIndpEnv('TYPO3_SITE_URL').($not4 ? $episode['file']['vDEF'] : $episode['file']['vDEF']['xml-value']));

Change it to this

$sourceFile = $this->prepare_url(($not4 ? $episode['file']['vDEF'] : $episode['file']['vDEF']['xml-value']));

Save the file and now the plug in will accept external url's without automatically appending your site URL to them.

There is a small downside to this. You will need to manually enter your site URL for any files hosted on your typo3 server, within the File List, after you use the browser to select them, though this is a pretty minor inconvenience.

Labels: Typo3

Well, I made my way down to the Perth Esplanade on Sunday for Global Gathering.  Caught up with some old mates who I hadn't seen for years, and saw some big name DJ's and Bands.

Here's my quick and brutal review of those acts that I saw.

First up Hook n Sling.  Unfortunately I only saw the end of their set, but I really enjoyed what I saw.  Crowd was pumping and the music was pretty awesome.  These guys seemed to be enjoying playing in Perth. 4 thumbs up.

Next up was Kid Kenobi.  Started well, but started to sound pretty repetitive about 10 minutes in.  Not what I'd call an epic set.  1 thumb up.

Next up was the end of Dirty South, who seemed to have the crowd rocking pretty well.  Not really my cup of tea, in terms of the style of music, but they DJ'd well, and kept the crowd pleased.  Three thumbs up.

Felix Da House Cat was up next, and he's really a stellar DJ.  Pity he didn't listen to the advice of the sound guy who told him to turn his mixer down a bit to get rid of the nasty distortion haunting the audience, so we had this brilliant DJ set let down by overloading his DJ mixer.  Couldn't really deal with the distortion for too long, so had a break to get some food. Four thumbs up for great DJing. Four thumbs down for being a jerk and distorting his set.

Caught the start of the ATB set, and he played a monster set.  I came back a few times later in the day, and he seemed to just get better and better.  There was a very passionate and lively crowd in front of the God's Kitchen stage, and ATB didn't disappoint.  Would love to have been able to catch more of his set, but I was here to see The Orb, so I missed a lot of the action.  Four thumbs up from what I heard.

Next up was The Orb.  OMFG these guys are great.  Dr Alex Patterson and the boys from the Orb really seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, and seemed genuinely happy to be performing.  I've never had the opportunity to see them before, and the hilight for me was definately Little Fluffy Clouds.  The whole set was live and done on the fly, so big respect to The Orb.  The front man, didn't have that much to do, but he interacted with the crowd and kept the punters at the front happy.  Five thumbs up, and wishing that they could have played for longer.  Definitely the highlight of the day.

After the Orb, I was really looking forward to seeing Sasha.  I really like his production and recorded DJ set's but I gotta say.  His set was a serious disappointment.  He didn't seem to want to be there, and left the stage (or was hiding behind the speakers having a smoke) at one point, just letting the CD's do their thing.  Very uninspiring set overall. 1 thumb down.

Took a bit of a wander around feeling pretty uninspired by all tents, and ended up over at the main stage where Mark Ronson was playing.  Very different vibe, but this man is a born entertainer.  Bought a smile to my face and played some fine music.  Four thumbs up.

Went over and caught some more of ATB.  That man is a robot.  Still going strong.

Changed over to Above and Beyond, who I've never really heard before, but it was a mighty fine set, what I heard of it.  Nice uplifting trance, a throbbing dance floor.  Four thumbs up here as well.

Now for the main act, Kraftwerk.  I've never seen these guys live, but am a big fan of their music.  They are an entirely different thing live.  The sounds that these guys generate are simply amazing.  Big, clear, and they really push the sound system to the limits.  I took a wander over to the Gorillaz for 10 minutes during Kraftwerk's set, and in comparison it sounded like someone had turned down the volume and stuffed cotton wool in my ears. Five thumbs up for Kraftwerk.  I've spent a lot of time making music and sounds and damn their sounds are amazing.  Wish I could afford the quality of pre-amps that these guys obviously use. The wall of sound and dynamic range on a sound system of this quality is something to behold.

Gorillaz was pretty darn packed, but had an awesome video show.  Didn't stay long enough to be able to really comment on it, but they had a big crowd so that has to say something.

Overall, it was a great day. Very well organized and great venue set up.  Big thumbs up to all the workers and guys cleaning up the grounds, bar staff and security guys.  Everyone was pretty friendly.  Visible but not in your face.

OMFG, how long has this site been around...?

http://www.typo3wizard.com/en/main.html

If you administer a typo3 site, get over there.  Soooooo many code snippets.  I'm going to go looking for solutions to all those niggly little problems.

I had a toastmasters meeting last night and one of the speakers gave a speech about our troubled world.

Financial markets, housing markets, social upheaval, violence on the streets; it certainly looks like interesting times ahead.

Personally, for me, the world just seems to be spinning around me.  Work is like a tornado at the moment with work on the current job moving at a blistering pace, and no-one really having a grasp on the entire things.

At home, life is in a constant state of flux, with house renovations progressing, and my lovely wife having spent a long time away from home working in remote WA.

Musically the amount of music we're currently pumping out of the studio is frightening.  I think we've finished more tracks in the last 6 months than I'd done in the 6 years before it.

I'm not sure if the world is so much troubled as "sticky". Sure there are some areas of trouble, but by and large they are areas of sticky trouble.  Trouble starts and stuff starts sticking to it, making a bigger chunk of trouble.

Work is sticky, because more and more information is sticking to the chunk that we previously had, and music is definitely sticky with thick wet synthy sounds swimming out of the speakers.

I have to conclude from all of this that the real problem with the world is too much stickiness.  Half sucked lollypops may seem innocent enough (just like cheap home loans did), but when it becomes an obsession, we're all in for a sticky end.

I've recently started taking my dog down to agility at our local dog training club.  She's a pretty good dog when it comes to obedience training, but agility is something different all together.

Satin (that's my dog) absolutely loves agility.  I'm sure it's the highlight of her week.  She's not quite as well behaved at agility as she is at obedience, but maybe that has something to do with all the fertilizer they have just spread over the oval.

Anyway, what's making agility much harder for her than it needs to be is me.  Satin is great at going over jumps, through tunnels, over the walkway and A frame, but it's me that's forever in exactly the wrong spot, which slows her down and frustrates her.

I'm quickly realizing that agility is more about training humans than it is about dogs.  It's as much a sport for the trainer as is is the dog, and I certainly come away from every session with a healthy sweat.

Some of the other trainers spent some time last night showing me how to do the serpentine and the threadle.  The threadle is really really tricky, especially for the trainer.  Once you work out where to stand and when to change stances, and point, and dance, and try not to trip over your own feet, the dog just does what she's meant to.

Here's the threadle...

And here's the serpentine...

It all looks so simple when you see it in a picture, but it's really really tricky. 

Anyway, we got to where we wanted to in the end, so I'm all happy about it. 

Labels: dogs

Well the time has finally come to kick the renovations into high gear at home.  We've had contractors through to quote on the pergola, car port and air conditioning system already. 

I've been down to the shire to work out what's allowed, and what's not, and it's quickly coming up to time to spend some serious money.

One of the immediate problems we had was what to do with the fish.  The fish pond was exactly in the wrong spot, where the pergola needed to go, and the option we were initially looking at was putting in a new pond right next to the house, though this was a bit of a nightmare scenario, what with all the waterproofing etc.

My lovely wife came up with a different suggestion which was just to buy an aquarium to put outside under the pergola, so that's just what we did.

Here's the result.

Labels: Renovations

OK - I've been puting up with the hideous green of the default css style on my news pages for quite long enough. With the old version of tt_news it was easy to reformat the news. It just grabbed all the details from your template.

Since they updated things to benefit from css, it's been much more difficult to reformat things. Actually, it's not difficult to change the formatting, but it's next to impossible to access the CSS file in order to do it, especially, if like me, you don't have root access (or even SFTP or WebDev access) to the sever.

One solution is to change the CSS file in the extension, save it, uninstall the extension, replace the default CSS file and then reinstall from the local extension. Much too messy for me.

A better way is to grab firebug for firefox, and find the CSS file. Copy it to your favourite editor and make the changes you want.

Now for the tricky part. Get rid of all the CR (where you press Enter) and Tab's and replace them all with spaces (yes it takes ages).

Once you've done this, save it as a text file.

Log into typo3 and go to your template by pressing the template button in the left margin. Pick the page where you want to change the formatting. For me, it's the root page of my website.

In the drop down box at the top right (where you select the constant editor etc) pick TypoScript Object Browser.

Follow the tree down to [plugin] -> [tt_news] -> [_CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE]. It's the longest line in the entire template, most likely).

Next click on the [_CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE] heading.

Select everything in the Edit Object Text Box (the top one), making sure to get the entire string. Delete it (or cut and paste it to a document if you want to back it up).

Copy the modified CSS from your text file using Ctrl-V and paste it into the textbox labelled "plugin.tt_news._CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE ="

Press the Update Button.

Check your website to make sure it works.

Just a hint when editing the CSS. Do your text formatting etc in each section below the comments (they look like /*-------------------- Some words --------------*/) The changes you make here will cascade down to the rest of the items in the section.

Make sure you do all the parts of the news (ie List, Single Item, Cat etc) otherwise the changes will only take for a single News page.

My page (http://godlike.com.au) now looks a lot better.

My CSS string is here, if anyone wants to use it as a basis.

/*----------------------------------- clearer -----------------------------------*/,/* prevent floated images from overlapping the div-containers they are wrapped in */ .news-list-container hr.clearer, .news-single-item,hr.clearer, .news-latest-container hr.clearer {border:1px solid #333333; clear:right; height:1px; } .news-latest-container HR.clearer {clear:left; } /*----------------------------------- tt_news LATEST view -----------------------------------*/ .news-latest-container {background-color:#000000; border:1px solid #333333; color:#CCCCCC; font-family:arial; } .news-latest-container H2,.news-latest-gotoarchive {color:#cccccc; padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; /*background-color:#D8FA70;*/ background-color:#000000; font-size:14pt; } .news-latest-gotoarchive {font-weight:bold; margin-top:5px; font-size:10pt; } .news-latest-gotoarchive A:LINK .news-latest-gotoarchive A:VISITED, .news-latest-gotoarchive A:HOVER {color:#cccccc; } .news-latest-gotoarchive A {color:#cccccc; } .news-latest-item { /* IE hack */ height: 1%; line-height: 1.3; /* IE hack end */ padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-latest-item IMG {margin-bottom:5px; margin-right:5px; border:1px solid #666; float:left; } .news-latest-category IMG {float: none; border:none; margin:0px; } .news-latest-date,.news-latest-morelink,.news-latest-category {font-size:9pt; } .news-latest-morelink {height:12px; } .news-latest-morelink A {float:right; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news LIST view -----------------------------------*/ .news-list-container {border:1px solid #000; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-list-item { /* IE hack */ height: 1%; line-height: 1.3; /* IE hack end */ padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-search-form {padding:3px; margin-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-search-emptyMsg{ margin:0px; } .news-search-form FORM {margin:0px; } .news-list-container H3 {margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 2px; border-bottom: 1px solid #333333; background-color: #000000; color:cccccc; } .news-list-container H3 A:LINK,.news-list-container H3 A:VISITED,.news-list-container H3 A:HOVER {color:#cccccc; padding-left:2px; } .news-list-container H3 A {color:#cccccc; } .news-list-container P {padding-left:3px; } .news-list-date {float: right; color: #cccccc; width: 180px; text-align: right; height: 20px; margin-top: -2px; margin-right: -2px; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: normal; background-color: #000000; } .news-list-imgcaption {float: right; padding-top:3px; padding-right:3px; font-size: 9px; } .news-list-container IMG {float: right; font-family:arial; border:1px solid #666; margin-bottom:5px; margin-right:2px; margin-left:5px; } .news-list-category IMG {float: none; border:none; margin:0px; } .news-list-morelink,.news-list-category {font-size:9pt; margin-left:3px; } .news-list-morelink {margin-bottom:3px; } .news-list-browse {text-align: center; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Page-Browser ---------------------------------*/ .tx-ttnews-browsebox, .browseBoxWrap {margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; padding:3px; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox TD {font-size: 10px; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-strong, .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell {font-weight: bold; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell P,.tx-ttnews-browsebox TD P{margin:0px; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell {background-color: #000000; border:1px solid #666; } .news-search-emptyMsg {font-size: 11px; margin-left: 10px; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news SINGLE view ---------------------------------*/ .news-single-item {font-family:arial; color:cccccc; padding:5px; margin-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-single-item H2 {font-size: 16px; font-weight:bold;
color: #cccccc; margin-bottom: 0px; } .news-single-item H3 {margin-bottom: 15px; } .news-single-img { float: right; margin-left:5px; } .news-single-imgcaption {padding:3px; clear:both; } .news-single-category {float: right; } .news-single-backlink, .news-single-backlink a {font-weight: bold; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px; } .news-single-timedata {float: right; } .news-single-timedata, .news-single-author,.news-single-imgcaption {font-size: 9pt; } .news-single-author {padding-bottom: 3px; } .news-single-additional-info {background-color: #000000; /* clear: both;*/ margin-top: 15px; border: 1px solid #666; padding:3px; padding-bottom:0px;} .news-single-related,.news-single-files,.news-single-links {border: 1px solid #666; margin:0px; margin-bottom: 3px; padding:3px; background-color:#000000; } .news-single-related DD, .news-single-links DD, .news-single-files DD {margin-left:20px; } .news-single-related DT, .news-single-links DT, .news-single-files DT {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; margin-left:5px; width:90%; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Archivemenu (AMENU) --------------------------------- */ .news-amenu-container {margin-top:10px; padding:3px; border:1px solid #333; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-amenu-container LI {padding-bottom:1px; } .news-amenu-container UL {padding:3px; margin-top:5px; margin-left:0px; margin-bottom:0px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; list-style-type: none; } .news-amenu-container H2 { color:#ccc; padding:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-amenu-item-year {font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid #666; padding: 2px; background-color:#000000; color:#fff; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Categorymenu (CATMENU) --------------------------------- */ .news-catmenu {padding:5px; margin:10px 0px 10px 10px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-catmenu-header {font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; } .news-catmenu DIV {font-size:10pt; white-space: nowrap; } .news-catmenu DIV img, .news-catmenu img, .news-catmenu-header img {margin:0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; } .news-catmenu-ACT {font-weight:bold; } /* Styles for catmenu mode "nestedWraps" */ .level1 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; border-top:1px solid #666; } .level2 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; } .level3 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; border-top:1px solid #666; } .level4 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; }

Please post a comment if you have any questions or you come across a problem, and I'll do my best to help.

BTW - Typo3 doesn't work properly with Mozilla Firefox 3. I think it's because of this

Changes to character set inheritance

Firefox 3 closes a security bug in frames and iframes that allowed them to inherit the parent's character set. This could cause problems in certain cases. Now, frames are only allowed to inherit the parent's character set if both frame and parent were loaded from the same server. If you have pages that assume that frames loaded from other servers will inherit the same character set, you should update the frames' HTML to indicate their character set specifically.

From here...

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Updating_web_applications_for_Firefox_3

Hope this helps all you typo3 people out there.

I haven't blogged here for a while, mainly coz I'm in Europe doing the honeymooning thing.  My wife and I have been keeping everyone abreast of things over at http://wanderingwalnuts.blogspot.com. Having lots of fun but am missing our puppy and all the nice studio toys.

I hope Jamie is looking after the toys for me and making lots of music with them.

Will post lots more when I'm back home, but till then I'll keep on wandering Europe.

[Listening to: Radiohead - Hail To The Thief - 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)]

I am (or rather was) dog-sitting my sister's King Charles Spaniel.  The dog is not house trained, nor is it trained generally, which makes the experience of looking after the dog, a lot less pleasurable than it otherwise would be. 

While our Border-Collie/Labrador is still a bit naughty at times, she's quite obedient and is house trained.

We don't so much mind that we've got to look after the dog while my sister is going through some difficult times and is trying to find another house.  We can put up with a few holes in the garden and cleaning up puppy mess, it is family after all.

What is a lot more difficult to take however is the trip to vet I had to do last night.  The poor little puppy hasn't been herself for a couple of days, not eating or drinking and pretty much just sitting there being miserable.  It vomited the other night and had diarrhoea, so I took it to the vet.

It transpired that the puppy hasn't had it's shots and has contracted Parvovirus, which is often fatal.

So my sister is stuck with a $1200 vet bill, for a dog that may not survive, and will be in considerable pain, and all because she didn't spend the $60 on getting the dog a couple of needles.

So, my message.

If you are going to get a pet, look after it and get it's fucking shots.  If this is too hard, or too expensive, don't buy a pet!

Labels: dogs, pets

Fluke - Oto - Bullet

I haven't had much time of late to blog.  That's not so good from the point of view of keeping this little corner of the web all up to date, but it is good from the point of view of getting stuff done.

I spent Saturday in the studio with Jamie working on a new remix for Golden Boy.  It's starting to sound amazing, and we're pretty excited about the track, and we haven't even finished adding parts or getting to the mix.

It's the first real chance I've had to try out the East/West Symphonic Choirs, and apart from a few sample clicks it's been amazing.  Wordbuilder is a bit tricky to get working, especially with thick harmonies, but it's worth the effort.

The choirs definitely benefit from some effects (well for our application anyway).  The track is building nicely, and we'll release when we're happy with the mix.  My mate Chuck is going to record some Sax for us which I think will fit perfectly over the top of this pulsing wall of sound that we've built.

Saturday was spent pretty much with 4 hours of effects programming for the choirs followed by another 4 hours of building Kurzweil K2600 setups and Ensoniq SQ80 sounds.  The SQ80 is one very underated synth.  Best hard sync implementation I think I've ever heard, even better than the Kurzweil's.

Sunday saw me being computer tech.  Got 2 computers out the door on Sunday (plus one on Saturday morning).  I think I'm gonna have to start charging for that.  Maybe a carton of Hoegarden's per computer.  That will keep the studio in beer for quite some time.

Anyway the pile of work on my desk isn't getting any smaller, so I'd better get back to it.

Labels: ensoniq, kurzweil, music