I sort of thought this might happen. After playing around with putting tweets on the main page of my blog, I realized it was getting both cluttered and ugly. The two styles are just too different, I think. So instead I put tweets in their own section and am leaving the main page full of only real blog posts. I thought this would be an easy thing to do and generally it was, but it reminded me that the MCP codebase probably needs an overhaul...

Tags: Twitter

Recently, I bought a new 72-pin connector for my NES. Thing works like new (as do the games after a good cleaning). One problem remained, however, and that was how to deal with a failed battery. The old cartridges used a CR2032 battery. Trouble is, Nintendo thought it was a good idea to secure the original battery with pins, making it really hard to remove. According to Nintendo Repair Shop, it is possible to replace the battery directly, but you have to remove the pins.

I found a better way. Some dude in his YouTube video pointed out it is easier to remove the original battery clips (with pins) and solder a battery holder. To do that, I clipped off the original clips with wire cutters and then soldered wires in place which I ran to a small protoboard with a battery holder. I bought both the board and holder from Radio Shack. I secured the board with hot glue. Here is are the results:


I had a minor issue with Dragon Warrior but otherwise it worked great. Oddly enough, I didn't loose my save-games for Zelda II even with the battery disconnected for tens of minutes. Lose my saves for Dragon Warrior though, and I cannot seem to find my original gold Zelda (which was the one that really needed a new battery). Hope I find that. Either way, the replacement was super easy and should make my savegames last another 10 years hopefully.

Tags: NES

I have had the parts for quite some time, but recently finally got around to making a GM5x5x5 of my own. Surface mount soldering was interesting but not as hard as I thought. I did end up having to solder all 3 of my GM5 chips to my GM5x5x5 boards. I ended up using the last one since it was the best. The others probably work but I ended up bending pins while trying to fix bridges (only had one on each). So they do not look all that amazing but are probably functional.

The bigger problem ended up being how to make a case. There were a few options, and ultimately I want to design a case and have it fabbed at Pokono. For now, though, I ended up using LEGOs and designed it from the ground up as I went. The end result, while colorful, is pretty awesome:


I would have liked to have a row of LEGOs on the bottom, but the LEGO 405 piece kit did not have enough big blocks to do that easily. To secure the GM5x5x5 I originally used LEGOs in carefully placed sections jutting down from the top. I thought that might be problematic so, instead, I use hot glue to glue it down to the bottom board. The bottom board was actually one piece I cut into two using a Dremmel.

It didn't turn out bad. Not as pro as fabbed case but good for now. Eventually I want to make a rackmount version but since I don't have a rackmount cabinet at the moment. This works for now anyway.

If you include the cost of the case (ie the LEGOs) and some of the tools as well as extra parts, I still think the GM5x5x5 was cheaper than buying a USB->MIDI interface. I don't know why companies charge so much for those - it's not really anything overly complicated! Benefit of the GM5 though is that I can name my MIDI interfaces my simply modifying an INF file. So suck on that, M-Audio!

Tags: MidiBox, GM5, GM5x5x5

So I fixed searching on the website...again. The problem I had this last time was I wanted to upgrade to a newer version of MariaDB and the version update, again, broke SphinxSE. So I have reverted back to just using the Sphinx API and am happy to report that it is working well. I found SphinxSE to be way cooler but it I just couldn't get it to work without crashing MariaDB. I suspect that it has to do with some update to the storage engine API that breaks things.

I do want to try SphinxQL at some point though. For now, it works, and I think I will leave it alone for a while :)

Tags: sphinx, Stop Breaking It

It has been on my to-do list for some time, but I have finally added Tweets from my Twitter account to the website. I am not sure if I like how I did it though since they are inter-mingled in with my normal blog posts. I wanted to blur the line between the two, even going as far as capturing replies from my tweets as comments and things.

We'll see how things go. I can always decide to do it some other way. As far as blog posts go next on my list is to scrape Facebook comments since a lot more people comment about my posts on Facebook than on my actual site (which is not surprising since it is way more convenient :P).

In other news, the website is now fully UTF8, mostly because of Twitter. So if anyone wants to rock some comments in Japanese or any other non-latin1 language, feel free! I won't know what you are talking about but it will at least look pretty :)

Tags: Twitter

For Landon's birfday and the Mega LAN last week, he asked me to make a DJ Mix for him and it turned out really well! It's not flawless (I made 2 or 3 small oopsies) but it still ranks among my top 5, maybe top 3 of all my DJ Mixes (in my opinion of course). Most of my mixes I broadcast on our internal radio station at work but since this one is special I thought I would share.

Cannot load player since it requires Flash (even though Flash sucks). Sorry :/

1	Carl Sagan - Glorious Dawn (ft Stephen Hawking)	Colorpulse
2	Mellow feat. Terri Pace (Original Mix)	Netsky
3	Bad Red (Original Mix)	Culture Shock
4	The Fountain (feat. Steven Wilson)	Pendulum
5	Genesis	Pendulum
6	Knock You Out feat. Emily Haines (Original Mix)	Tiesto
7	Dont Give A Fuck (Vocal Mix)	Stoneface & Terminal
8	Memories feat. Kid Cudi (Extended Version)	David Guetta
9	Ghosts n Stuff feat. Rob Swire (Original Mix)	Daedmau5
10	Spellbound feat. Cristina Soto (Original Mix)	Tritonal
11	Higher State feat. Jodie Connor (Club Mix)	Bailey
12	Bulletproof	La Roux
13	Find Yourself feat. Sarah Howells (Original Mix)	John O'Callaghan
14	Faces feat. Meighan Nealon (Ben Gold Vocal Mix)	Andy Moor
15	Let It All Out feat. Sarah Howells (Original Mix)	Lange
16	We Belong (Tritonal Air Up There Remix)	Ferry Corsten
17	Still Alive (Paul van Dyk Mix)	Lisa Miskovsky
18	Perfect Sky feat. Maria Nayler (Hodel Remix)	Julian Vincent
19	Still Alive	GLaDOS & Jonathan Coulton

If you like these songs, please show your support for the artists involved by checking out their music. I have provided links above to the common places to get music. Most of electronic songs I purchased from BeatPort and highly recommend them if you are interested in getting the DJ tracks suitable for making your own mixes. Plus, they offer WAV downloads for the audiophiles (such as myself). The exception was Pendulum - I bought the album straight from their website. The album is fantastic so I recommend grabbing the whole thing.

Tags: DJ Sweetums, DJ Mix

A few months ago, Brandon pointed me to a new site dedicated to hosting music called BandCamp. I have been wanting to try it for some time and finally took the plunge a few days ago and have been extremely impressed. It lacks only a few things (such as letting me put in a BPM, though I guess I can approximate that with a tag) but supports a ton of things and does so better than I can do in my spare time.

While I am still feeling things out, chances are I will be moving my music over there. I plan on keeping my Trax section and will likely link back to BandCamp for the downloads. That means there will be another step to download a track but you can pick from almost any format, including 24-bit/96kHz FLAC, something I do not really have the space to host myself. Audiophiles will love that because 24-bit adds so much more dynamic range.

Of course, this may take a while since I have to break out the masters of all my songs, some of which require pulling up some old software, but I think the end result will be well worth it. Fellow musicians wanting a place to put their music should definitely give BandCamp a chance. It beats the shit out of MySpace, frankly.

Tags: BandCamp, FLAC

I finally finished day 1 of the Couch to 5k program. I have been struggling a bit for the best two weeks because of what appear to be shin splints. This morning I opted to try something new and run on a treadmill instead with much better results. Previously, I could only get about half-way before my shins hurt so bad I could hardly walk. Was a non-issue on the treadmill so I will likely continue using it for a while and then go back to outside running. If I am going to get up all early, I would much rather run outside instead of a stuffy gym.

Nonetheless, it's progress! I found the C25k application very helpful as well. Thanks to my step-sis, Bobbi, for pointing it out. Pretty excited to see if it really works for me and I think it will - at least on a treadmill. I really hope I can move to outside running though. I am not actually planning on running a 5k or anything but I do want to get out and be more fit in general. My hope is that I can finish C25k and start so I can start using the MapMyFitness app instead. That app is sweet!

The whole point though, is running and I have enjoyed it much more than I would have thought now that I at least know how to avoid the shin splints for now. Quite a few of my friends are interested in cycling and so am I though since I do not have the funds for a proper bike at the moment, running is a good alternative for the moment. And as far as fitness goes, I can get more done in the same amount of time :)



Tags: c25k, treadmill