Create and customize internet radio streams with Pandora

I recently upgraded to an internet-ready Sony Blu-ray disc player which I found out after getting it home that it required a NetGear wireless to wired adapter, not included. Total cost: around $170. I don’t have a 3-D ready HDTV, but if you do, you should definitely get a Sony 3D Blu-ray disc player with Wi Fi.

Step two, I created an account at Pandora.com, the leading free online music streaming sites. I really like Pandora’s smooth Flash-based UI, though you may prefer Slacker. Either way, the Sony BD player works with Pandora, Slacker, and a few more online music sites, in addition to video sites Netflix, Hulu and several others, and you can also interact with your account from your smart phone or tablet.

My favorite part about Pandora is the easy way your stream grows in intelligence and becomes better with age. Here’s how it works:

1. You add a few artists or albums to “seed” your channel.
2. You can like or dislike music streamed on your channel.
3. Pandora adds to your original seed artists, other similar artists that other people like, who have the same artists in their channel seeds.
4. You can make as many streams as you like, or at least plenty to suit the gamut of musical tastes.
5. And, you can easily share your channels.

Here are a few of my Free Internet Radio Stations… created and shared for your streaming enjoyment.

Hawaiian Radio

AmbientRX

Best of Trance

80′s Radio

One more point aboutthe Sony Blu-ray player. Their on-screen user interface is good, and the small, lightweight remote allows you to listen to your Pandora station through your home entertainment center in glorious 5.1 surround sound. The quality is amazing! That’s not even to mention streaming movies and tv shows from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and more straight to your HDTV.

Good stuff.

How to see previously viewed ads on Facebook

Here’s the scenario… you were surfing on Facebook, you saw an ad, you clicked on it, saw the coolest site and forgot to bookmark it to check out later, and now you can’t find it again. Searching on Google doesn’t help. So where is the ad you saw before so you can click on it again?

Facebook Advertising is highly targeted to your likes and interests, and millions of really terrific businesses and organizations run ads on Facebook for that reason, so why doesn’t Facebook make it easier to find ads that Facebook thinks you may like?

The Facebook AdBoard actually shows you the ads you have seen before*, ads you liked, and you can see if any of your friends liked them, too. You can also see Facebook Sponsored Stories. What a great way for businesses to get involved with their fans! Too bad they’re so buried in an impossible-to-find link.

There is no information about how to do this that I could find in the Facebook Help files, so I wanted to keep this info posted somewhere I could find it again.

Thanks to this Question and Answer on Yahoo! I found where you can go to see the Facebook Ads that have been shown to you before.

Login to Facebook and then visit Facebook Ads Adboard to see the ads that you may have seen recently.

* You just may not remember having seen it, but it was counted as an impression on the Facebook Advertising platform. Still not finding your previously viewed ads after visiting the AdBoard? You may be able to find the ad by viewing the files in your browser cache too.

Cool 404 Pages

Google 404 Page

GitHub 404 Page

Facebook Facial Recognition Fail

Facebook recently upgraded it’s image upload feature to include facial recognition.

The idea is, when you upload pictures that contain your friends, Facebook can help you tag the photos by identifying facial features.

I recently uploaded a gallery of flower photos I shot when my wife and I visited Kula Botanical Gardens in Maui, Hawaii. I laughed when I got this screen and I thought you might enjoy seeing why.

Kohana 3.x in 10 Minutes

Prerequisites:

This guide assumes you have already completed:

• Apache, PHP & MySQL in 10 Minutes

So you have a LAMP/MAMP/XAMPP stack? Great!

Now we’re ready to create our first Kohana project.

1. Download the source from www.KohanaFramework.org
2. Extract the zip file and move the directory it to your  web directory
   1. On Mac OS X: ~/Sites/* (subsequent references will use Mac notation)
   2. On Windows (wamp): C:/wamp/www/*
   3. On Linux (varies): /var/www/*
3. Rename the directory to kohanasite.dev
   1. Remember the full path to this now
   2. something like /Users/yourname/Sites/kohanasite.dev
4. Create an htdocs directory inside this directory
   1. Your hdtocs will be at the same level as Kohana folders application, modules and system.
   2. Remember the full path to this now
   3. something like /Users/yourname/Sites/kohanasite.dev/htdocs
5. Drag index.php into the htdocs directory
6. Edit 3 lines of index.php
   1. where it says $application = ‘application’; change it to $application = ‘../application’;
   2. where it says $modules = ‘modules’; change it to $modules = ‘../modules’;
   3. where it says $system = ‘system’; change it to $system = ‘../system’;
   4. save and close
7. chmod or chown application/cache and application/logs to be writable by Apache
   1. open terminal, and cd to your application directory
      cd /Users/your-name/Sites/kohanasite.dev/htdocs
   2. chmod the two directories
      chmod 0777 cache && chmod 0777 cache
   3. or chown it to apache, wheel, www-data or whoever owns httpd process (ps aux | grep httpd)
8. Create a VirtualHost entry in your Apache config.
   1. Depending on your install, this might be in httpd.conf or…
   2. on my Mac it’s at /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
   3. E.g.
      sudo vi /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName kohanasite.dev
DocumentRoot "/Users/your-username-here/Sites/kohanasite.dev/htdocs"
</VirtualHost>

   4. save and quit (type :wq and hit enter)
9. Edit your hosts file to point to this site locally
   1. E.g.
      sudo vi /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   kohanasite.dev

   2. save and quit (:wq)
10. Restart Apache
    1. sudo apachectl restart
11. Move example.htaccess to htdocs and rename it to .htaccess
    1. Note, because it’s a “dot file” it will disappear on a Mac, so use terminal:
       mv ../example.htaccess .htaccess
12. Now test your site at http://kohanasite.dev
    1. It should say Hello World!

Congratulations! You now have Kohana 3.1 running locally.

Finishing up…

Let’s enable some of the modules that come with Kohana 3.x

1. Open up application/bootstrap.php
2. Scroll down to the modules section
3. Enable the following modules by removing the double slash in front of the module name:
   1. auth
   2. cache
   3. codebench
   4. database
   5. orm
   6. userguide
4. Save the bootstrap file and refresh your browser to make sure you still get hello world

Next up… How to build a simple CMS using Kohana.

Apache, PHP and MySQL in 10 Minutes

Whether you want to start developing web applications for the first time, you’re wanting to make better use of your local computer or a virtual machine to streamline development, create a development or staging server, or just checking back as a reference for a new platform, welcome to…

Apache, PHP and MySQL in 10 Minutes

In this guide you will find the resources needed to build a web development environment on the platform of your choice

1. Choose Your Platform – Mac, Windows or Linux.
   1. Mac OS X Instructions
      1. Easy - Using MAMP
      2. Intermediate - Using built-in Apple Apache
   2. Windows Instructions
      1. Install WampServer
      2. Install XAMPP
   3. Linux Instructions
      1. Install LAMP stack on CentOS/RHEL
      2. Install LAMP stack on Debian/Ubuntu
      3. Install LAMP stack on Fedora
      4. Install LAMP stack on OpenSUSE
      5. Install LAMP stack on ArchLinux
   4. CPanel
      1. CPanel comes with Apache & PHP already installed, so here’s how to customize your install
      2. Note – make sure your config comes with WHM (Web Host Manager)
      3. Many ISPs call this a Reseller account
      4. How to use the EasyApache script
   5. Plesk
      1. Plesk comes with Apache & PHP already installed, so here’s how to customize your configuration
      2. Parallels Plesk Apache Configuration Guide
2. Install any PHP Extensions you might need
   1. The one PHP extension that Kohana requires you that doesn’t come by default (See Kohana 3.1 in 5 minutes) is mcrypt:
   1. Pluging mcrypt into OS X
   2. Enabling mcrypt under WampServer
   3. Install mcrypt for php under Linux
   4. Install mcrypt under CPanel
3. How to create a VirtualHost
   1. Find your Apache Config file
   2. Find your Apache VirtualHost config file
   3. Sample VirtualHost container
   4. <VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName website.dev
DocumentRoot "/Users/username/Sites/website.com"
</VirtualHost>
   5. More from the Apache VirtualHost documentation
4. How to edit your hosts file
   1. hosts file information
5. Start Apache
   1. Start Apache
      1. Mac OS X:
         1. Terminal
            1. sudo apachectl start
         2. or start Web Sharing in System Preferences
      2. Windows
         1. WampServer – start all services using the taskbar tray icon
      3. Linux
         1. Debian/Ubuntu
            1. sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 [start | stop | restart ]
         2. Fedora
            1. service httpd [start | stop | restart]
         3. ArchLinux
            1. /etc/rc.d/httpd restart
         4. OpenSUSE
            1. apachectl [start | stop | restart]
6. Test your install
   1. Go to http://localhost in your browser
   2. Are you seeing the Apache start page?
   3. If so, you are done. Congratulations! You just installed a web server.
7. Install MySQL
   1. Mac OS X
      1. Installing MySQL on OS X
   2. Windows
      1. Installing MySQL on Windows
   3. Linux
      1. Installing from a binary
      2. Build MySQL 5.5 from source

Now that you have a development environment, why not install a fantastic web development framework, such as Kohana.

Ready for round two? Kohana 3.1 in 10 Minutes

Git Resources for Subversion Users

I’ve been using Subversion for years, but lately I’ve been thinking it’s time to get into Git more. Plus, A lot of new GUI tools are out there and some of the older ones are still there, too, so maybe Git has matured enough for production use.

Why would I want to use Git?
Flavio sums it up quite nicely:

What’re the advantages?
Since Git is a distributed revision control system (while svn is a centralized one) you can perform commits, branches, merges… on your local working directory without being connected to internet. Next time you’ll be online, you will be able to “push” your changes back to the central svn server.

In a tech video from Facebook, one of the things they mention is that their developers us Git on local workstations for managing changes, and Facebook overall uses Subversion for managing the source tree centrally. I thought it was interesting that Facebook, one of the most advanced, largest and high-powered software applications on the planet, uses both Git and Subversion. Here’s an article about Using Git and Subversion Together.

I’ll be posting links to the resources I find here.

Three Part Intro to Git Series

1-2 hours • First, take the Git Crash Course.

2-4 hours • Next, read Git for Subversion Users, Part I and Git for Subversion Users, Part 2. These two articles at IBM.com give you a really good overview of the main differences between Subversion and Git.

4-6 hours • Finally, you should read Pro Git. This is an awesome free online book about Git.

After you complete these you should be a total Git.

How to install Memcached Memcache PHP on OS X

This Guide is the best resource I’ve found yet. I had to also look up how to fix pear installation errors.

Wolfram|Alpha Implemented My Suggestion

We have received your feedback regarding Wolfram|Alpha.

The issue you reported has been fixed on the site. See http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24250+is+75%25+of+what%3F

Thank you for helping us improve Wolfram|Alpha.

Best wishes,

Delores
The Wolfram|Alpha Team
www.wolframalpha.com

Input: 50 is 75% of what?
Name: Salient Digital
Country: United States
Occupation: Web Developer
Organization:
Id: 109996
Date Received: 2010-08-03 22:07:45
Message: Can you make it solve this input?

`50 is 75% of what?`

‘what’ = var x;
‘of’ = operation ‘*’; // times
50 = x * 0.75
50/.75 = 33.33

Adobe Excuse the Interruption, but…

Okay, Officially I hate Adobe worse than Microsoft now. Get ready for this, guys…

I just got my computer back from being repaired (1), during which time I had a loaner computer from Fry’s Electronics. I’ve been working from a Time Machine backup on the loaner computer (2) and now have my original restored laptop with a fresh motherboard back again (3).

I launch Photoshop to edit some vacation photos, since I haven’t seen the computer they were on for the last 20 days, and I’m greeted with this:

Excuse the Interruption from Adobe

Bullsh!t. Two other computers? How about my old one, a loaner and my repaired one (new motherboard surely generates a new Gestalt value which Creative Suite thinks is a new computer, which technically it is.) Okay well, I’ll try the “I already have deactivated the other computers” option and see what it does.

Excuse the Interruption from Adobe

Oh come on! What’s ridiculous is that I’ve only ever used this serial number on two computers. I formatted the loaner before returning it and now don’t have possession of it. Oh is some offshore call center person going to get an earful from me.

Welcome to 2011.