01 November 2007

It's nearly the end of semester 2, 2007

During this semester I have discovered that I need glasses to read, It was a bit of a shock, and I went from excuse to excuse, blaming my diet, blaming the water, or anything else that I could find rather than excepting that I am getting older and that my body is deteriorating, somewhat.

Also, I have been developing a web site for one of my subjects and am discovering just how complex the www can be. I hope to have a site up soonish... that I can use to keep and share files that can be accessed from any connected computer.

04 October 2007

Hosting files and the read/write web.

During this discovery of the web I have been able to access 2 100mb capacity web server space.
GooglePages
and
GoogleGroups

These have been just started today, if you have any tips, please add your comment here.

Podcasting continued

Well, I found a way to upload my files to the net. It is really very simple for me as I have a gmail account, by Google. Google Groups allows up to 100Mb of space and I am still investigating the functionality, I'll get back to this soon.

Now I'm looking for comments and suggestions, so please comment on this work, Thank you!

SweetSunShine-VO.mp3 is the Voice Over with music in the background created on my PC. And Sweetsunshine95.mp3 is the file that the music came from.

Clicking on these links will attempt to download a file

SweetSunShine-VO.mp3 is 4.20 MB (4,407,902 bytes) in size
Sweetsunshine95.mp3 is 5.14 MB (5,400,059 bytes) in size

Here are the links.....



The Voice over, Mp3 Audio Dialog is re-presented here,

"Hi, My name is Glenn and this is my original mp3 audio file.

A sound file is an important feature of communication technology and a convenient way of getting information across to a broad audience.
Having the capability to record and playback audio files on a computer is one of the ways to contribute to the new read/write web. We can set the scene with background music and sounds, write and record a narrative and share it with anybody on the internet.

This original file was created on a pc with audacity by using an existing music track and voice overs.

The tune was edited and imported into audacity and the voice overs recorded and time shifted. Then the music track was modified to accentuate the V.O. and both tracks were mixed into this single stereo mp3 file.


What is an mp3?
The mp3 codec is "designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original"
reference, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3. last modified 21:12, 2 October 2007

The mp3 codec offers a compression factor of up to "14 without noticeably affecting the CD-quality sound" , cutting the size of the average sound file from around 32Mb to 3Mb.
It does this by assessing the program material and leaving out soft sounds that may not be apparent during loud passages, sounds outside the bandwidth of the human ear and by keeping the sounds that are sensitive to the ear.

The MP3 version of the song does not sound exactly the same as the original CD song because certain parts of a song can be eliminated without significantly hurting the quality of the song for the listener. This is called "near CD quality" which is fine for uncomplicated program material.
reference, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mp31.htm


How to create a mp3 sound/audio file
An mp3 file requires the lame codec which is freely available from the internet. According to the Wiki, the aac format is also popular for it's natural sounding. The codec reduces the size of the file while retaining it's main characteristics and message. File size is important in web transfers. Large files take up larger chunks of memory space on servers and take longer to download.

The program used is Audacity, for MS windows. There are some tutorials on the audacity web site to get you started using the program straight away. If you're like me and want some extra tutes, the atomic learning site from the UK (http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/home) may be of assistance.

Audacity is free and open source software which is available over the internet simply for your cost of retrieval and storage. Free as long as, if you share it you supply all the files and documentation that come with the software package. That's it, free!

I hope you enjoy it and I hear from you soon."

Audacity may have a new version, check here..http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ for these files I used Audacity 1.3.3 beta. It has an auto-ducker facility and many other improvements.

Please let me know what you think, Glenn

30 August 2007

28th August 2007, Alice plays Juliette




My daughter Alice plays Juliette in Front Row Theatre's production of "Shakspears Girly Bits". Written and Directed by Leah Pellinkhof. I should note Alice's Full name, "Alice Reif Waller"

"Alice... is 11 years old and in grade 7... She has been involved in drama since the age of 6, attending Fame theatre classes and Harvest Rain Theatre Company. Through Harvest Rain Alice has participated in three MAD kids workshops performing in 'Orphans on Broadway', 'The Great Talent Quest' and 'Wiz-Kidz'. She has also attended Master classes and performed in a Christmas Pantomime called Mathew's Adventure. Alice is interested in costume and set design and also enjoys singing and dancing." (ref. taken from the programme.)

www.frontrow.org.au

28 August 2007

Setting up an RSS feed using edna.

Setting up an RSS feed using edna is very simple. First of all edna is an Education Australia web site (http://feed2js.edna.edu.au/feed2js/) that has many tools and just one of those is a converter. What it does is converts a URL to an RSS java script that can be used to keep up to date with changes on the web site you wish to monitor.

You will have a few options there to choose from before you validate the web address (click the "Preview Feed" button), Believe me this can save you some time, and once you see the
"Congratulations!

[Valid RSS] This is a valid RSS feed.", You're right to go. Click the Generate Feed button to see the java script and you can now paste that code into your web page. I've pasted mine in after Heading 3. At the moment my RSS feed page is very sparse, but I haven't done any graphics work on it yet. More to come.....

15 August 2007

Life Skills, My personal Favourites.

Chow Gar Tong Long
Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu
Sifu Paul Brennan (Brisbane, Australia)
http://www.chowgar.com.au/index.htm

Wing Chun
Lo Man Kam
Master of Wing Chun in Taiwan and nephew of Master Yip Man
http://www.chineseboxing.com/ConttoCBIIziaCas/ContCaseyMore/index.html
Paul Rackermann Lo Man Kam, Brisbane, Australia
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tlkp.dsl/index1.htm


Tong Long UK Home Page || Many Styles represented.
You'll need to register with an operational email address to access these links. (sorry, start at the home page and navigate to the "Video Clips", along the top bar of the home page.) Resources, Video...
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/index.php?categoryid=10
Please Sign in to access these resources.

Philosophy

Sun Tzu, Philosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

Tao Te Ching,
Index to Stan Rosenthal's Translation

http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/ttcstan3.html

The Art of War, Sun Tzu

http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/suntext.html

09 August 2007

Working with RSS feeds and pod casts.

This week I have been developing an audio file as an mp3 to use on my web page (for the assignment). Also I have been discovering pod casts and just how simple it can be to have all of your favourite news listed and up to date right there on my home page (I use iGoogle for this).

Details of getting an mp3 file together.
A pod cast will be developed for a web page that consists of an original music file overdubbed with a spoken dialog. Sounds simple enough, so I grabbed an old song I wrote in the early nineties, and proceeded to edit the tune until I was happy with the length and content. I rearranged pieces of the track to resemble the songs original arrangement without the introduction build up and other dynamics (a bit like cutting your arm off to save your leg). Any how, I'm happy with the result and moved on to the spoken dialog and imported it (Sweet SunShine95_clip) into Audacity, an Open Source sound file tool freely available through GPL. I used about a third of Sweet SunShine to get the end result.

I wrote a quick introduction and body that shares some information about the mp3 file and communications technology. Upon time to record I found that both of my microphones were not giving very high input levels, to buy or hire a powered mic was out of the question, I borrowed an sm58 (http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM58-CN_content) from Larry Cozzie (Larry is a local jazz musician without whom this project would have been delayed , (thanks Larry)) and proceeded to record the parts. I recorded the four parts and used the time shift tool to move them into position. Processing involved using the noise reduction, envelope and equaliser plugins to make the changes. Note on the noise reduction, less is more.

I then simply save the tracks, as an mp3 and backed up the file.

next, how to use it for the assignment.

30 July 2007

Blogging for Education


Hi, I'm Glenn and this is my first attempt at blogging.
In the first instance I am blogging as part of my Education degree, in particular for Communication Technology in Education, run by Mr David Potter of Griffith University here in Brisbane (That's in Australia, folks). The aim of the course is to enlighten us students as to what these tools can be used for as well as how they may be used in a professional sense during our working careers (personal developement and organisation).

I feel excited about writing online, I guess I have wanted to do something like this for quite some time, or maybe I'm nervous about letting it all hang out in public, I can be too candid for my own good sometimes.

I participate online and use the handle, GlennsPref, when writing to forums. These are Computer orientated places, one is an Australian Magazine called Atomicmpc (maximum power computing)http://www.atomicmpc.com.au and LinuxQuestions where I can be found among the Mandriva section http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?f=30. I get satisfaction and a sense of achievement by discussing open source problems and contributing to the efforts of all of those code writers by helping others to setup their systems.

Some other interests I have are Audio Engineering, Music, Electronics and Martial Arts.

More to come later.