Music to my ears…

And music is contained in this post. The two big topics are Boards of Canada – Trans Canada Highway and some new mixes I’ve stumbled upon.

BoC’s new cd isn’t supposed to release until June 6, but preordering paid off since I got mine yesterday (actually was shipped a week prior). It’s a short EP, but it is still pretty impressive. Dayvan Cowboy appears here as well, but I love the track so I don’t mind. The tracks in the middle follow the more recent and more aggressive style of BoC seen on The Campfire Headphase. I love that style but can hear some of the slower and bass-ful track style that I think was most prevalant on Boc Maxima (or maybe that was Geogaddi… I get those two mixed up since I got them both at the same time). I think it’s a wonderful ep that is completely worth the cost. Warp Records is the producer. Visit that link to find and purchase. Warp also has a downloads site, but I cannot remember the address.

If you listen to di.fm’s chillout channel, you might have caught a mix or two from Helix. I was interested, so I tracked down his music page. All of his mixes as well as some from a couple others are listed there. It looks interesting, but getting the downloads can be a bit annoying. I will probably contact him soon and propose adding the mixes to my mirror. The mirror listing might also might undergo an overhaul to add pagenation. We will see.

Programming and Movies

Since I have done a lot since I’ve updated, I decided to break this into two posts. This one is about basically everything except music.

Well, my job is looking at making some web applications with me heading the project. Luckly, I got the department head to agree to load Zend Studio Corporate for me and one other person. This should be fun. Doing this makes me want to push off any major coding projects that were going to take my free time. I’m going to be coding about seven to eight hours per day. I don’t think my free time should be taken up by that too. I might change my mind though. This means any ideas that I’ve said about zpProjects are on hold probably until after summer.

See “Movies” in the title and wonder why it’s there? I guess I’ve never posted about movies before since I really don’t watch many. I finally got my dvd of Elephant’s Dream. I bought the dvd since I know Jan Morgenstern of Wavemage Productions. It was expensive, but I like supporting artists (I always send extra to Cardamar for the cds). I really was impressed. Jan did an amazing job on the sound and it was a pretty cool short. It is available for download from the above link. Consider buying a dvd to support the guys if you like it.

I also was given a short movie to process. This consisted of Windows Movie Maker and iMovie (the second was my final choice). This is a non-artist’s view of both.
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Tired Update

Well, I have a connection to the internet again. First thing I accomplished: fixing an error in my osCommerce hacking. If you are using my files, ensure you go to line 23 in order_info.php and change it to:
if(!tep_session_is_registered('customer_id') && $cart->show_total()==0 && $cart->show_weight()==0){

That just makes it so that if a person is not logged in already, it allows them to check out if they have free stuff. Before, it would set the person up the same way even if they were logged in.

I haven’t made any real gains on my other project and have been ill, so this will have to be it for now.

Internet Problems

This is a quick post to say that I have basically lost connectivity to the internet except through my blackberry. Email still gets to me and I might turn on google talk if anyone wants to message me. Other than that, no updates will come to any project I am working on until this is resolved. I’m currently borrowing internet to make this post.

Name server keeps giving me problems. I think i’ll remove cvs and install subversion and see if that helps. If not, I might have to downgrade to php 5.0.5 instead of 5.1.2. This will all happen once I have a connection. For now, I’ll just restart bind from my blackberry when it goes down. Sorry for the problems.

osCommerce Source

If anyone is looking to set up an online store that supports free shipping and purchases, downloads, an event calendar, visible products without stock, and all the perks of osCommerce, this code is for you. Let me just warn you, though: the zip is kind of big. It’s about 48 mb. I could have taken a couple things out to make it smaller, but I left them in so that there was a demonstration.
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Zimbio is Live!

It is true! Zimbio went live today. If you have not had a chance to experience this site, it is really something to behold. I expect it to become much more useful now that more people are using it. Just search for PHP to see the one that I run when I have time. Sign up, contribute, enjoy!

My internet has been crazy tonight, so I’m currently backing up my osCommerce installation, then I will export the database, then I will zip it all and upload and post. For now, it’s processing. I might be dead tired tomorrow (very long test), but I will do my best to have it uploaded for use.

I have canceled my ideas for making a searchable file database. I will release my code to make an index file (it’s horribly hacked together late at night when I just wanted something done, but maybe it is enough to answer someone’s question on how to put together an index…) in the next couple days. My next interest is going to have to do with the Zend Framework, Smarty, and a variety of other ideas. Stay tuned as more materializes there.

You’d think I wouldn’t be distracted this much…

Well, I’ve been distracted. I generally think that a post about my cds is now just too late. Here’s a really short description:
Psymeditation from Organic Records is some excellent chill that starts of very strong and somewhat dwindles towards the end. It has at least 3 or 4 really good chill tracks and the rest is decent. “Yours to Enjoy,” the first track, is most excellent. Still a good investment.
The Mirror Formula by Xerxes is outstanding. I have to say that the title track (that was added to the cd version. It’s not in the hellian.org version) is fabulus. It even takes what seems like a boring beat and makes it marvelous. I have but one complaint in the album: The final track is a weak conclusion. It’s not remarkable and doesn’t seem to close very well. This also might be my thoughts because I want more, but I think the final track could have been better. The rest must be heard to understand its excellence. Cardamar Music is sold out. Check the releases page on cardamar.com to find other distributors that might have a copy left.

What has taken my soul (as it seems) is osCommerce.
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