cygweb

I'm in the midst of retooling my main server, Cosmic, to take on some additional storage and hardware. Not all the stuff I want it to do will happen on Linux, so I've decided to put Windows 2000 back on it. Now that Zope for Win32 will handle all my server needs, it was time to make the move. Right now, this site is running on my WinXP workstation, Maestro, using the new Zope 2.61, and Squishdot 1.5.0. Maestro also serves out WCYG.

Once I get Cosmic rebuilt with W2K and the hardware config is finalized, I'll be moving the site back to it. I'm going to attempt to move WCYG there as well. The only thing I'm worried about is that Cosmic may not have the CPU mojo to handle the smooth crossfading that I have configured for WCYG. We'll see.

Not much else happening in the way of geek news. Right now I'm trying to migrate to newer versions of the tools I use for DVD backups. I've completed a transition to the AviSynth 2.5 beta, and right now I'm trying out DivX 5.03. I've also started using VirtualDubMod 1.4.13.

I've moved this site back to Cosmic now, running Windows 2000, Zope 2.6.1, and Squishdot 1.5.0. I still need to get a few things working, but for the most part, everything looks fine! I'll get the right-side blocks back up tonight.

Like many diehard Rush fans, I picked up the new Greatest Hits CD The Spirit Of Radio on Tuesday. I knew what I was getting into, but since I never bought any of the remastered Mercury CDs or Retrospective I or II I figured it would be nice to have my own copy of some of the remastered songs. It certainly sounds nice in the car! A "limited edition" DVD with five videos was included as well, but they are direct lifts from the Chronicles DVD I already have. I listened to Geddy and Alex on Rockline last week promoting the CD and it was confirmed that this was a contractual obligation from their old record company, Mercury (now a part of Universal). Not that many "Greatest Hits" packages aren't record-company driven...
I never thought I'd see the words "Def Jam" on a Rush album.
In the Rockline interview, they confirmed the production of Rio DVD, and said it will probably come out in late spring/early summer. The interview was pretty good, and it's always good to hear what's going on with the band when they're not on the road!
I recorded and edited the interview for my archives - if you'd like a copy, let me know. I hope Bob Coburn doesn't mind. Apparently they'll be appearing on "Off The Record" with "Uncle" Joe Benson on March 2nd. I'll try to get that show recorded as well.

Here in Harrisburg, we got socked with about 2' feet of snow, and it hasn't stopped yet. The first thing I did this morning was dig out our heat pump. Luckily, we're pretty well stocked up food-wise, and the storm doesn't appear to be threating the power lines.

Just about everything is shut down here, but I will still dial into work to get some scheduled maintenance done. This is definitely not the way I wanted us to get a three-day weekend! ;) I'm not looking forward to venturing out into the white stuff again later - luckily, my next-door neighbor has a snow blower and will help us out.

I'll get some pictures up soon!

The snow stopped at about 11:45am, and we were out for about 2 hours digging out. I put some photos here. I'm not looking forward to the soreness I'll have tomorrow...

Unfortunately, over the weekend, my "old faithful" server, Cosmic, bit the dust. I think its power supply is dead, and I've replaced it once before. Since I refuse to put any money into it (it's a home-built dual P2-300 machine I put together about 5 years ago), I'm going to disassemble it and try to sell some of the parts.
For giggles, here's a parts list:

I should be receiving my copy of the new and first Office of Strategic Influence CD in the mail today or tomorrow. It's a side project of Mike Portnoy's, and reunites him with former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore. I usually enjoy the side projects of members of my favorite bands; I'll post a followup if it's a stinker. (But I highly doubt that.)
Also, the current incarnation of Styx has a CD called Cyclorama coming out today. I haven't checked out Styx since purchasing the Return to Paradise DVD (a 1997 concert). The current lineup includes James Young, Tommy Shaw, Larry Gowan, Glen Burtnik, and Todd Sucherman. I know of Larry Gowan from his association with Rush's Alex Lifeson in the 90's, but I haven't heard him with Styx. I thought Todd Sucherman was a great drummer after seeing him on the Paradise DVD. I'm probably going to pick up the new CD later this week, after the roads clear up a bit and things are more normal. They've got three of the songs from the album available for download as 160kbps MP3s; I've checked them out and they're actually quite good. I've been a casual fan of Styx since my dad shared his LP of Paradise Theater with me back in the 80's.
I've added some band links to the "Quick Links" block on the right. The local band I have listed, Weapons For Peace, has a new CD out that I'm currently listening to called Individual Revolution. Pretty cool stuff! It's very hard rock - I hesitate to call it "metal" because the vocals are quite melodic. Recommended!

WCYG is back, changed to port 443. You can click on its block title for the URL to the stream. I've kind of slimmed down the playlist and format for the time being. Let me know if it's working OK for you, if you're listening.

Enjoy!

Update@11:30a 24-Feb-2003: I suspect my Icecast2 server is acting up - it's looping random samples when someone connects to the stream. I'll try to fix it tonight. Thanks for telling me about it, Don.

Update @8:30pm 24-Feb-2003: I couldn't find anything wrong with the Icecast2 server and upgrading to a newer version just caused me problems, so I've switched it back to port 8000. Let me know if that doesn't fix things.

Just got the scoop from Slashdot, in this article. The Xiph Foundation has agreed to write and maintain a version of firmware for the upcoming Neuros Digital Audio Computer. This means native Ogg Vorbis support for what looks like a pretty cool portable audio player. Those of you that know me know that I am a huge Vorbis fan. I need to read a little more about what they are planning to deliver; if it looks good to me, I'll probably pick one up.

I'll admit I haven't taken an active interest in the day-to-day news surrounding our president's initiative to possibly invade Iraq. Several things confuse me regarding UN policy towards Iraq.

Based on a report by Don last night, I think WCYG is streaming fine now. I upgraded the firmware on my Linksys router (it was 1.5 years old); perhaps the newer firmware more efficiently handles uploading.

I will probably hunker down this weekend and get some custom WCYG bumpers recorded, so stay tuned for those. I'm still limiting the playlist for the moment, because I've heard that people have seen the SQRsoft Crossfader crash Winamp with certain MP3's; they don't know what causes it. So I'm mostly using my own song rips or other "trusted" rips (thanks, Don) for the time being. The instance of Winamp running WCYG has been up for about a week now without crashing, so things are looking good. I still need to move that instance of Winamp to my main server - hopefully that won't cause any problems. The crossfader sounds great, but it can eat up a lot of CPU time.