The Day the Music Died...

Today I went to rip some of my CD's. Yes I still have CD's, I am that old, actually, older. I still have LP's.

The problem was Media Player kept failing whenever I started the rip process. The CD would play fine so I knew it was not a bad CD. I got an error when ripping started. It was saying it couldn't open a file. What file? I had no idea.

I checked Rip Settings - More options and the Rip music to this location was empty. Hmm, that didn't seem right. Click the Change... button and nothing happened. Click it again. Still nothing. Click it a few hundred times more and still nothing. Click around the options screen and everything else seemed to be fine. Click apply and it says it can't save the options. What?

Time for a quick trip to the internets. I did some digging and went down a rabbit home that had me looking for nodes in Regedit. That is not where I wanted to be and it seemed like there should be an easier way, besides, I wasn't finding the key they had me looking for anyway.

Turns out that Media Player - File - Manage Library - Music was pointing to locations that did not exist. I believe Windows copied that setting from another PC when I first setup my PC. It was pointing to my Surface Pro directory and the Surface Pro was turned off. No wonder it wouldn't work.

I changed it to point to the One Drive, Music folder. Now all my PC's, my phone and my Xbox can play the same music with Groove.

Yay! The music is back.

I'm not a huge fan of Groove. I hate the constant nagging to subscribe. If you know of a good app, that works on Android, Windows 10 and Xbox, let me know. I'd love to switch. In the mean time I will go with the path of least resistance.

Here is a link to the article that finally pointed me in the right direction: Microsoft Answers It is about Window 7 but applies to Window 10 as well.

The Day the Music Died...

Today I went to rip some of my CD's. Yes I still have CD's, I am that old, actually, older. I still have LP's.

The problem was Media Player kept failing whenever I started the rip process. The CD would play fine so I knew it was not a bad CD. I got an error when ripping started. It was saying it couldn't open a file. What file? I had no idea.

I checked Rip Settings - More options and the Rip music to this location was empty. Hmm, that didn't seem right. Click the Change... button and nothing happened. Click it again. Still nothing. Click it a few hundred times more and still nothing. Click around the options screen and everything else seemed to be fine. Click apply and it says it can't save the options. What?

Time for a quick trip to the internets. I did some digging and went down a rabbit home that had me looking for nodes in Regedit. That is not where I wanted to be and it seemed like there should be an easier way, besides, I wasn't finding the key they had me looking for anyway.

Turns out that Media Player - File - Manage Library - Music was pointing to locations that did not exist. I believe Windows copied that setting from another PC when I first setup my PC. It was pointing to my Surface Pro directory and the Surface Pro was turned off. No wonder it wouldn't work.

I changed it to point to the One Drive, Music folder. Now all my PC's, my phone and my Xbox can play the same music with Groove.

Yay! The music is back.

I'm not a huge fan of Groove. I hate the constant nagging to subscribe. If you know of a good app, that works on Android, Windows 10 and Xbox, let me know. I'd love to switch. In the mean time I will go with the path of least resistance.

Here is a link to the article that finally pointed me in the right direction: Microsoft Answers It is about Window 7 but applies to Window 10 as well.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I give up. I held out as long as I could. I just have to move on. We knew each other for a long time. I laughed at your jokes, even the lame ones. You helped me when I was lost. You taught me more things than I can remember. We had endless hours of fun together, but all good things must come to an end.

It was not an easy decision. It was hard, very hard. I believed in you. I put up with you quirks, your flaws, and your uneven temperament. I wasn’t worried that you couldn’t provide me with everything. I knew there were others that had a sleeker body, offered more of the nice little things. The things you did for me, you did so very well, and that was enough. I didn’t need all the flash and sexy looks the others had. But then you changed.

I know, you were trying to improve yourself. I know that you are making progress. I still want to be a part of that but I just can’t make it work. I give up. I’m switching away from Windows phone.

First Google Fiber came to my neighborhood. Who doesn’t want gigabit internet? The terabyte of storage on Google Drive. Recording eight different shows at the same time. I don’t even have eight shows I watch but still, I want it. Two millisecond ping and 900+mb internet speed.

I uploaded 50 gig of photos. Google analyzed them and cataloged them for me automatically. They even ran facial recognition and grouped pictures by the person in them. That is still freaking amazing to me.

Then, I signed up for Google Fi. Why not have cell phone that takes advantage of all that bandwidth? Plus, it is dirt cheap at $20 a month. The only catch, I have to say goodbye to my old friend, the Windows phone. Google Fi only works with the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6 phones.

I loved my Windows phone. The live tiles are awesome. Cortana was my girl Friday. She knew all my old stomping grounds. She knew when I got to the office or when I got home. The Continuum concept is very interesting to me. I like the idea that I can plug my phone into a docking station and it becomes my desktop. I was very excited when I learned that I could install Windows 10 on my BLU HD LTE.

The reality of that upgrade did not match the fantasy. The phone became less dependable. There were more and more odd glitches. Things just wouldn’t work or apps closed down for no reason. At least no known reason. Then battery life changed and the phone would drain itself in half the time it used to. It was getting more frustrating instead of better. I’m sure the new Lumina phones are great with Windows 10. I’m just not ready to spend that on a phone.

 The Nexus 5x that I bought with Google Fi feels so much snappier. There is none of the lag that was starting to show with the BLU. I had access to all the apps that I had on Windows plus many, many, more. The apps on Android are much more polished and refined. The apps for Facebook, LinkedIn and several others were getting long in the tooth on Windows. They were in dire need of an upgrade. On Android, they receive frequent updates. It was hard to set aside my old friend.

Perhaps someday, we will meet again.

Specter Survives KCDC

KCDC 2016 just wrapped up another year with the best turnout ever. Many interesting sessions by some of the brightest local and national speakers were presented. By far, the best value for your training dollar. You should consider attending if you have never been.

Temperatures were the highest so far this year and the walk back to the Kauffman Center was long and hot. After a great three days of learning, I was ready to be done for the day. Once I was back at the garage, I realized I forgot where the car was. Anxiously, I looked up one level and down another, hoping to catch a glimpse of my car. Here I was, walking around in a stuffy garage when I just wanted to be home. Heading down yet another ramp I glanced up and spotted a bit of familiar silver gray. Peering between levels I was thrilled to see that yes, that was my car but now I had to walk all the way back up two more ramps. But wait, why not just climb over the two rails between the levels. How hard could it be?

Halfway over the rail I stopped and looked down. The gap was only about a foot but you could see level after level of concrete and steel that makes up the parking lot. That is when I heard it. A distinctive clunk, clunk, clunk of something falling. I glanced behind me to see that my computer bag had tipped over, spilling the contents. My heart sank when I realized my laptop was nowhere around and that sound was it banging off the rails as it fell between the parking levels.

I rushed to the car and quickly drove down, level by level, looking for my laptop. Finally at the bottom level I spotted it laying open, face down, on the concrete. As I picked it up I dreaded the sight of a shattered screen. Much to my surprise the screen was not broken. The computer booted up and everything worked. The case is now a bit beat up, the metal is pitted and scraped, but it works as good as new. I got to hand it to HP, that Specter is one tough computer.

Specter Survives KCDC

KCDC 2016 just wrapped up another year with the best turnout ever. Many interesting sessions by some of the brightest local and national speakers were presented. By far, the best value for your training dollar. You should consider attending if you have never been.

Temperatures were the highest so far this year and the walk back to the Kauffman Center was long and hot. After a great three days of learning, I was ready to be done for the day. Once I was back at the garage, I realized I forgot where the car was. Anxiously, I looked up one level and down another, hoping to catch a glimpse of my car. Here I was, walking around in a stuffy garage when I just wanted to be home. Heading down yet another ramp I glanced up and spotted a bit of familiar silver gray. Peering between levels I was thrilled to see that yes, that was my car but now I had to walk all the way back up two more ramps. But wait, why not just climb over the two rails between the levels. How hard could it be?

Halfway over the rail I stopped and looked down. The gap was only about a foot but you could see level after level of concrete and steel that makes up the parking lot. That is when I heard it. A distinctive clunk, clunk, clunk of something falling. I glanced behind me to see that my computer bag had tipped over, spilling the contents. My heart sank when I realized my laptop was nowhere around and that sound was it banging off the rails as it fell between the parking levels.

I rushed to the car and quickly drove down, level by level, looking for my laptop. Finally at the bottom level I spotted it laying open, face down, on the concrete. As I picked it up I dreaded the sight of a shattered screen. Much to my surprise the screen was not broken. The computer booted up and everything worked. The case is now a bit beat up, the metal is pitted and scraped, but it works as good as new. I got to hand it to HP, that Specter is one tough computer.

Been a Long Time

by Led Zeppelin

I have that song playing in my head as I write this. I've not been blogging much in the last, oh... five years.

I finally found an answer to my laptop display blues. I have a Lenova ThinkPad X1 Carbon for work and the HP Specter 360 is my everyday laptop for personal use, actually a year old now. It has a great display and there are many more choices now. The Microsoft Surface, Surface Book and the Mac Books, all have displays that go beyond the basic HD that previously drove me mad.

My new favorite is the display I have for my desktop. The Samsung UE590 is a 4K 28 inch LED monitor. I had to rearrange my desk to find room for it along with my dual 23 inch displays. I find the 3840 X 2160 resolution better suited for my use. I often have the screen split showing the code editor on the left and resulting web page on the right. Being able to see the editor and the browser side by side is fantastic. I'll make a few edits, save and refresh the page, all while staying on the same monitor. The additional lines of code displayed allows for much quicker editing. The full page display of the web page is fantastic. I use the other two monitors for throw off items. Email, twitter, etc. Whatever I'm not focusing on will be delegated to the secondary displays. 

If you get a chance I highly recommend picking up a 4K monitor. You will not regret the choice.

Laptop Resolution

What is with laptop resolution these days?

Most everything I see is expressed as 720p or 1080p. Are you kidding? I'm not buying a TV. I want to read text. When a manufacturer advertises a screen resolution I want to see it as 1366x768. Then I know what I'm getting. I know to say, Oh Hell No!

And why don't you see laptops with a display that is better than 1366x768? Is there a decent 15" laptop that displays better this crappy resolution and cost less than $1500 dollars? The price/performance ratio of computing continues to improve. You can buy so much more computing power for your dollar these days, it doesn't make sense why the display technology can't keep up.

The funny thing is that there is a huge segment of the population that just excepts this as reality.




Ok, enough of that rant.