I could have edited it all out, but it would have been really time consuming–the CMS I’m using had each one in its own element–so I needed a quicker, more programmatic way to deal with it.

I needed to replace text within a bunch of elements using a regular expression.

To do it, I used a bit of jQuery magic:

$('span').html( function (foo,oldhtml) {
var content = oldhtml.replace(/\(.*\)/gi,"");
return content;
});


To walk through this:

$('span').html( function (foo,oldhtml) {


Here we get all the html/code inside each span. Then we open a function with foo as the index (no clue what this means, it’s just what the documentation says) and oldhtml is a variable that lets us manipulate what used to be in there.


var content = oldhtml.replace(/\(.*\)/gi,"");


Here, we make content a new variable and use replace and a regular expression that looks for anything that’s in parenthesis and removes it. The .replace function is a regular Javascript function, not any fancy jQuery nonsense.

Of important note here: the regular expression does NOT go in quotes, but the “replace it with this” string does. Also, you have to escape the parenthesis because if you don’t, you end up grouping.

The rest of the code just dumps out the new, manipulated string; and because we’re using the html() function, the returned string is what ends up as the contents of the original selected span.

Got that? Good.

I enjoy it, but one that’s always drove me crazy–if the web app serves up a .csv, but labels the extension as .txt or serves up a .tsv (ie. tab-seperated) and calls it .txt or .csv or any sort of mismatch like that, you get an annoying error, something like:

The file you are trying to open is in a different format than specified by the file extension…

Here’s how to turn that stupid error off (courtesy of msdn.com):

Basically, you have to add a new key to the registry (open regedit.exe and browse to the right spot, see below. Note: on my computer, I had to put it in …/Excel/14.0/.… instead of 12, because I have the next version up, whatever it is (Office 2011?)

• Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Security
• Create a new key:
  • type: 32 bit DWORD
  • name: ExtensionHardening
  • value: 0 = Disable check; 1 = Enable check and prompt; 2 = Enable check, no prompt deny open

By default (ie. if they key doesn’t exist), the value is set to 1. Translation: it’s always going to ask you.

Create that key, restart Excel and you should be good to go!

I recorded this album of folk songs together as a Christmas present for my family this year.

With the exception of Whether or Not, a Waterdeep song, these are all traditional American folk songs.

These recordings are released under a CC-BY-SA license—you’re free to copy, redistribute, remix or otherwise use these works as you see fit, however, if you release your work publicly, please link to this page (and I’d love for to you contact me and let me know.

Download the Music

• Goodnight Micah in .flac (highest quality)
• Goodnight Micah in .mp3 (moderate quality)

Track List

1. Waltzing Matilda
2. Keep on the Sunny Side
3. Froggie Went A’Courtin
4. You Are My Sunshine
5. John Henry
6. I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
7. Oh Susanna
8. Pay Me My Money Down
9. Oh My Darling
10. Whether or Not
11. Hard, Ain’t It Hard
12. This Land Is Your Land
13. Goodnight Micah

Further Ramblings

I recorded the album at church, with the totally awesome Audio-Technica mics we’ve got for the choir. They sound pretty freakin’ awesome, very warm and flat. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to record all the songs in the same room, which is why some have some great, natural reverb (the sanctuary) an some don’t (the library).

I pointed one mic at my guitar and one in front of my mouth and gave it all I had. It’s no way for a professional to record, but since I had no intention of laying down any other tracks to go with these, I didn’t even bother with a click, let alone making sure the vocals didn’t bleed into the guitar mic and vice versa.

Interestingly, I had to split the tracks apart (I recorded in stereo with each mic on one channel) and repan them to center things a bit–out of the box, it was panned to hard left and right.

Overall, I’m mostly pleased with it. There’s a bit of an obvious flub at the beginning of Froggie Went A’Courtin, which will drive me crazy forever (until I get chance to re-record it perhaps), but otherwise, it’s not too painful.

Today, I queued them all up and hit play–I figured I’d share the results with you.

The Sleepy Turtle’s Brother You’re So Kind

Well, they don’t call them the Sleepy Turtles for nothing–this is slow, uber mellow music.

It’s not bad, actually. It has a sort of shoegaze-without-the-wall-of-fuzz feel to it, like Starflyer 59 meets Rich Mullins with a little bit of Sufjan’s Christmas albums thrown in for good measure.

The production is full of weird string stuff, mandolins, dulcimers or something, with some wavery keys in the background–it’s really not a bad sound, but something about it is rather familiar: Jars of Clay’s second album, perhaps, without the perfect melodic hooks and nailed-to-the-wall songwriting.

And it’s really the songwriting where this album falls down–the songs aren’t bad, but they’re largely forgettable.

Vespers

Tell Your Mama

First and foremost, this girl(s) can sing. Her voice is just great and the harmonies they pull off are spot on–she’s accessible in a Natalie Merchant sort of way (unlike Over the Rhine, for example, who have gorgeous, operatic vocals), but without any sort of forced quirkiness or twang.

Overall, this is fun, pleasant indie/folk/Americana. Very Five O’Clock People, actually.

The title track really solidifies this–this is some twangy, mandolin-and-slide kind of stuff with some solid drums backing it up.

I also pulled down a single from their new album, The Vespers 2, called “Will You Love Me.” This is even better–a sort of banjo + quiet female vocals thing, that occasionally drops into a rolling upright bass and shuffling drums gait. Very cool.

Ryan J. Lane’s The Blue Book

Ok, this is some crazy stuff. I’ve like Ryan J. Lane for a while, having found some of his stuff on Noisetrade a while back.

This album is also pretty dang good–lots of bizarre noise stuff, mixed with folksy strumming guitars and banjos.

“Would You Show Us” throws a Danielson-style curve ball at its straightforward lyrics, making the lyrics “Jesus, would you show us what it means/ to be a loving human being” tiny and overborne by bizarre effects and noisy loops, turning what could be a really boring Christian lyric into a heartfelt wondering whether the whole idea is even possible.

The record continues with similar bizarre and interesting production that really makes it a worthwhile listen.

Elliot Road’s The Dust Covered Man

This is some seriously twangy, close-harmony old-timey kind of stuff. Overall, it’s not half-bad–the musicianship is solid, the vocals are solid and the harmonies are about as old-timey as possible.

The only real problem is that it’s a little heartless and not nearly haunted enough. As somebody who sings this sort of music, I can vouch for this being the hardest part of singing this sort of music–you have to make either sing-along style fun, or Johnny Cash-style haunted/melancholy.

And this album certainly isn’t sing-along fun–it’s much too depressing (in the most positive sense of the word) for that. But while it borders on frighteningly retrospective at times, it doesn’t quite cross that line into really great.

That said, if you’re looking for some good new old-timey music, this is certainly worth the listen–it’s got a ways to go before it gets to great, but it’s worth your time. The fiddle work on here isn’t amazing–there’s no virtuoso displays–but it’s solidly well-done.

I’ll also bet their great to see live–I think they’d make the perfect show to see in the fall, sitting out on the lawn of some Park District building somewhere.

Jill Andrews’ “The Mirror”

From a production standpoint, there’s nothing amazing about this record. It’s simply another smooth, peaceful slightly poppy record. I don’t know what you’d classify it as: it’s not jazzy like Norah Jones, but it’s not painfully recognizable as “pop” or “folk” or whatever.

But the songwriting here is really pretty solid. Particularly “Wake Up, Nico,” the second track, which nails the loneliness of a parent travels a lot to the wall–the music, lyrics and melody all work in sync to be both tender, happy and sad all at once.

“Another Man,” late in the album, also brings a great, hooky melody without being cloying.

Ben Harris’ “Train Station Blues EP”

This is a pretty raw, one guy and an acoustic kind of deal.

While the first song isn’t particularly memorable, the title track, makes up for it with a truly haunting chorus of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ at the end.

The third track, “Welded to Mine” is also pretty dang good–the acoustic guitar doesn’t need any flair to carry a nice folksy, almost Dylan-esque melody and one of the most peaceful mandolin solos I’ve ever heard.

I’d be curious to hear more of Harris’s stuff, particularly if he’s going to flesh some of these songs out with a big, more full sort of band.

Dirty Guv’nahs’ “Youth Is In Our Blood”

When I first played this album, I posted the following on Google+:

Sounds like an pop version of the Black Crowes. Not bad–they’re pretty talented, but it’s a bit more radio-friendly than I really enjoy.

That opinion still stands. It sounds like Nickelback got in a fight, nay–a civilized discussion, with the Black Crowes. And Nickelback pretty much won.

If you’re into that whole radio-rock thing and want a little dash of Southern rock infused into it, you might give this a try.

Otherwise, I’d say skip it. It’s not bad, it’s just radio-friendly, which is most often not what I want coming out of my speakers.

To change those pseudo-programmaticaly, I wanted to use a math in a substitution in vim, namely n-1 (where n=the fiscal year in the code).

As it turns out, this is really pretty easy (as this page points out). Here’s how to do a math substitution (note, I’m going to use underscore as a delimter, so this is easier to read):

1. Find what you want to substitute and group it like you would if you were rearranging stuff, ie. use parenthesis:
   :%s_\(2010\)10
   (or more accurately):
   :%s_\(^....\)10 (ie. grab the first 4 characters at the beginning of a line)

2. Tell vim that you want to replace it with a calculated value:
   _\=

3. If you’re going to make a string together with your math, you’ll have to concatentate any strings together with value. Use ” . ” for this (with your strings in quotes):
   'Fall ' . (ie. stick the string “Fall ” on the front of what we’re doing to do next)

4. Do the math, using submatch(1), where the number in parenthesis cooresponds to whatever you grouped in the beginning. Just like throwing in \1 or \2 in your substitution, you can use submatch(1) or submatch(2).

   The submatch is your original value. Throw the whole calculation in parenthesis and put it after your concatenating dot, and you’re done:
   (submatch(1) - 1)_g

To sum up in copy and paste friendliness:
%s_\(....\)10_\='Fall ' . (submatch(1) - 1)_g

Or broken up (with each section on its own line) for clarity:
%s
\(....\)10
\='Fall ' . (submatch(1) - 1)
g

A couple notes:

• I have no idea what happens when (1) is a string, rather than a number.
• I also have no clue how far you can take this or what the syntax is for more complicated math operations.
• I hope I never have to find out.

To get prepared, I did just a bit of research and, more importantly, wrote up a 3 page usage and configuration handout.

This was the first time, I’ve ever had an Apple-esque instinct: I wanted to ignore some options and just make it simple.

A Multitude of Ways

See, there’s a multitude of different ways you can use Google Voice. With texting alone, you can choose to send/receive messages via:

1. the Google Voice web UI
2. the Google Voice app for Android
3. via your phone’s native SMS client
4. via email
5. via the Google Voice extension for Chrome

The latter, by the way, is my recommendation for anybody who wants a good way to do a lot of texting without using their phone a lot.

All those options have advantages and disadvantages, differences signficant enough that the route one person takes wouldn’t work very well for another.

For example, I forward all my texts to my phone and use my phone’s SMS client. That works great overall, but if I initiate a conversation via text, it’ll come from my “real” phone number, not my Google Voice number.

For me, that’s not a big deal–I don’t mind confusing my friends a little bit. But in a professional/sales/recruiting atmosphere, that’s not really acceptable.

The Apple Instinct

Once you start introducing all these option, it becomes really difficult, really quickly to describe to someone how to set something up–for every option above, there are 2–5 different setting s that have to be changed in two or three different places, applications to install, and extensions to applications.

It gets hairy pretty quickly. And when presenting that to users who don’t enjoy that sort of tinkering, the benefits that something like Google Voice can provide get lost pretty quickly.

As it turns out, most of my audience were excited and were tinkering and trying things out before I finished presenting.

But I didn’t know that’d be the case going in, so I wanted to make it as simple as possible. And I found myself wishing there were fewer options, wanting to cut some things out so that the end users would be less confused and the product benefits more immediately obvious to them. I had the Apple Instinct.

1. His position on ethics is either stupid or poorly articulated. He says that ethics are private, but then immediately turns around and say [the sharing of code resulting from the GPL] is “just very fair.“

   Some people (most? all?) would say that “fairness” is an ethical issue.

   This nonsense about ethics being private smells pretty strongly of a reaction to fundamentalism that is, in my opinion, equally fundamentalist.

   It’s the kind of ridiculous “private spirituality/ethics/etc” that gives relativism a bad name. Ethics are nothing if they’re not public–they’re the way we treat each other.

2. His opinion on Tivoization is interesting:

   Don’t think that just because it runs open source you should control the hardware. It’s open source. If you want to make open hardware, make open hardware.

   I’m not sure how I feel about this (I think I disagree, mostly because I belive that if I own the hardware, I OWN the hardware), but it’s an interesting and coherent point of view.

3. His opinion about the Android fork is right on:
   

   I think forks are good things, they don’t make me sad. A lot of Linux development has come out of forks, and it’s the only way to keep developers honest — the threat that somebody else can do a better job and satisfy the market better by being different. The whole point of open source to me is really the very real ability to fork (but also the ability for all sides to then merge the forked content back, if it turns out that the fork was doing the right things!)

   Replace references to Linux with Gnome and Android with Unity and you’ve got my exact opinion on the whole fiasco. I’ve never understood why people complain about forking in one breath and say “competition is good” in the other.

   A fork is simply a recognition that the original code (and the developers) failed in some way.

   The argument about whether there’s wasted effort in a fork is often a misdirection: if the project hadn’t forked, you wouldn’t necessarily have twice as many developers in the single project. A lot of those developers would find other projects to work on where they’re not just ANOTHER developer.

   And like Linus points out, you can always steal code from the other open source fork for your origial project, if it turns out they’re doing better work than you are.

Linus is an interesting character, and this interview is no exception. I’m curious how others react, particularly to that ridiculous “ethics are private” nonsense.

Nobody was really like Robert Johnson. Not even close.

But some of these albums were pretty decent, particularly Josh Garrles and Landon Sheely. Here’s 5 mini-reviews.

Carl Thomas Gladstone

The Abolitionist Hymnal

Overall, pretty lame. The instrumentation is very strummy, nothing interesting in the instrumentation. Sounds like either an electric plugged straight into the board or a inexpensive acoustic, also plugged in. At the same time, there’s a lot of hesitation and

Lyrics and melodies are a bit too simple and easy, feels like home-written church music.

Summary: Not recommeded.

Josh Garrels

Love & War & The Sea In Between

Possibly the most eclectic album I’ve ever heard. Tracks vary between pop rock, a full-on (and very listenable) hip-hop/rap track, and a banjo and slide-driven country tune, with several soulful, funky things thrown in for good measure.

And they’re all suprisingly decent songs. Perhaps a little heavy on spiritual/Christian themes in parts, but not overwhelmingly so.

Musically, it’s solid, with great production values. This guy can sing (and rap) great–he’s got this great, full, almost low voice, with a great range.

Josh Rouse

Summertime: Noisetrade Sampler

This is nice indie pop/folk/etc. It’s the kind of thing you can put on during a dinner party and everyone will like it.

It’s just nice. It’s not incredible or awesome or anything like that.

>Landon Sheely

2009

This is rowdy, chaotic old-timey music, mostly banjo-driven. It’s kind of fun and crazy and grating–it sounds mostly like 3–5 guys learned several songs, then got a little bit drunk and set up some mics and recorded an album.

Overall, it’s not bad. The one thing they did well is keep the production sparse, empty and raw. It’s no Rick Rubin, but it’s in the right family.

Not sure whether this is something I’d return to on a regular basis, but I have a sneaky suspicion that underneath the shouting, not-on-the-beat handclaps, and the almost grating vocals, there’s some decent songs–there’s a reason there’s 5 guys singing along.

Update since writing these paragraphs (but before I actually posted this): I’ve looked up Landon Sheely’s site and he’s got a couple other pages of music–at a quick glance, there doesn’t seems to be too much overlap.

Mark Mazzu

an untitled Noisetrade sampler

After listening to the rough and tumble Landon Sheely stuff, this album is rather disappointing–it just doesn’t have a lot of energy. It’s all peaceful, simple worship-style pop.

It sounds very much like something recorded in somebody’s basement, acoustics plugged straight in with some nondescript keys/strings in the background. Everything is played or sung well–Mazzu’s voice is smooth in a Andrew Peterson sort of way, but it has a bit of an amateur feel to it, like it’s trying to be a serious album but is really just something some guy recorded.

The lyrics, too, are a bit empty and easy. Simple Christian worship-type stuff, but nothing particularly unique or challenging.

Overall, this album really isn’t bad. It’s just not very interesting

Conclusion

I found myself following up on Josh Garrels eclectic, sprawling awesomness and Landon Sheely’s bizarre, frenetic old-timey-ness. The other artists I found largely forgettable. Josh Rouse is clearly incredibly talented–his stuff is great to listen to, but it’s not particularly captivating.

That inclination to follow-up and learn more are pretty good indicators of how interesting the music was, how good it was, whether or not it moved me and, more importantly, whether or not I wanted more.

And I’m looking forward to playing/hearing more of Landon Sheely’s chaos.

I mean, it’s perfect: more than enough storage space. When I push stop, it automatically marks my place in the mp3, and then restarts at that EXACT spot when I turn it back on, long battery life. Everything I need to listen to hour and a half (or longer) podcasts on my 20 minute commute to work and back.

Now, though, I’ve got an Android phone. This should be better. Granted, I’ve got less storage–I haven’t replaced the 2GB SD card that came with the phone yet. And battery life isn’t great. But remember, we’re talking about a 20 minute commute, and I have a car charger for anything longer than that.

AND (this is where it gets good), I’ve got unlimited data. Unlimited. It’s not screaming fast, but it’s 3G, so with a bit of buffering, it should be able to keep up with a normal mp3. I would think.

What I OUGHT to be able to do is this:

1. Install a podcatching app.
2. Import my podcast aps from Google Reader.
3. Have it cache a few episodes on wifi.
4. Stream anything else I want on demand.
5. Bookmark the place I’m at in the mp3 when I get out of the car.
6. Start playing the same mp3 at the same spot when I get back in the car, whether or not I’ve restarted the phone, killed the podcatching app, etc.

I can’t find a podcasting ap that does more than 1–3.

Using Subsonic was ok, but it tended to forget what episode I was listening to, and couldn’t be relied on to start back up at the same spot at all–it had no bookmarking support at all. The only time it would restart in the same place was when the app didn’t die between uses.

Google Listen thinks it knows what I want to listen to when I get in the car. It’s constantly making suggestions, none of which are EVER the mp3 I was in the middle of last time. Moreover, it often bombs out on ogg feeds and other such corner cases.

I’m not going to pay $7 for doggcatcher when I own an mp3 player.

My next attempt is MortPlayer + Google Reader. It looks promising in the bookmarking department (thankfully), but it only has local file playback–no streaming/subscription capabilities at all.

You would think this wouldn’t be so hard–it seems like my requirements aren’t so crazy. But maybe I’m a weirdo.

I’ll be trying out several of the other podcatching apps in the Android market over the next week or so–if I find something decent, I’ll post a review.

Unfortunately, OS X’s Finder is just about the only bearable file browser out there that has Miller Columns. Dolphin, for KDE, has an implementation that dumps they keyboard friendliness and the intuitive file browsing. I forget the details now because I purged them from my memory–trying to use Dolphin’s Miller Columns UI was too painful.

Recently, however, the Elementary Project released Marlin, a GTK file browser with Miller Columns. And they actually work right.

Ok, “work right” is an overstatement–Marlin’s still very much in beta (alpha, even), but the overall implementation is solid and the UI design is solid (the edges are still pretty rough, although I have a sneaky suspicion that has more to do with GTK2 vs GTK3 incompatibilities than with their UI design).

I think the Elementary team copies a bit too much from OS X as a general rule. However, I’ve been stumped as to why, when Linux offers about 8000 file browsers, there hasn’t been a single one that a) looks like it was coded in this century (I’m looking at you, GnuStep) or b) works correctly. Marlin might not be finished yet, but it’s on its way to solving that very problem.

PS. It’s really very fast. Why Nautilus is so much slower than this, I’ll never understand. Wait, let me rephrase: why Nautilus is so ridiculously slow, I’ll never understand.