Archive for March, 2008

Leopard (OS X 10.5) Apache, MySQL, Virtual hosts and MacPorts

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Even though I’ve had Leopard installed months ago, I just grew comfortable having all the apps and drivers I needed on my 10.4 machine. It wasn’t until this weekend where I took the leap to get things working.

Its been blogged quite extensively and was pretty straightforward (except for needing to use MacPorts to install gettext before being able to install vorbis-tools, then FLAC. I used MacPorts to download mySQL5 (as there wasn’t a PPC 64bit version available) – you have to get the 10.5 version of MacPorts (not available on the home page)

MacPorts-1.5.0-10.5.dmg

There are a few things you need to go through to get MySQL5 running with apache2. Once you’re up don’t forget to change your socks (its all talked bout in the links)

The biggest stumbling block was getting Port based Virtual Hosts functioning, and after scouring the same responses, I found the answer. I know a little more about apache now :)

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Earth Hour 2008

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Earth Hour colours
Originally uploaded by spiritquest

We took part in Earth Hour today.

Between the hours of 8-9pm, we shut off all non-essential electrical appliances / lights. This initiative is being run throuh the WWF and originally started out in Sydney.

Check out www.earthhour.org

I had planned to use my wind up Freeplay Radio (the Original Design, I’ve had it for over 10yrs) and it went mad just before 8, and kept unwinding itself at warp speed, creating an uncomfortable whizzing speeding up sound. It was as if it had been given a life of its own, and I thought it would explode !

What really happenned (I am guessing) Is that a spring mechanism or cog has gone inside, I will investigate tomorrow.

SO the evening was full of candles, a diff wind up radio playing classics accompanied by a nice home cooked Indian meal.

Very relaxing. I think as well as saving energy, this sort of activity helps to wean me off an unconscious dependence on technology and electricity.

It was nice !

Bass Pedals

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

My Pedal Set Up
Originally uploaded by spiritquest

It was a couple of weeks ago that I took this picture. I’ve always been deliberating over my bass sound. And the most ‘bass oriented’ move i’ve made in years, outside of fitting new pickups and active system on my bass was buying the Bass-Drive (MOSFET) distortion unit from Fulltone.

A dude that worked in a music shop on Denmark Str (London) put me on to it.

After falling in love with the growl I get from this stompbox, I decided to invest in a proper inline Tuner and you don’t get better than the TU-2.

So After much umming and ahhhing, I decided to plumb in the Voodoo Vibe that I’d picked up from Roger Mayer himself, that was a surreal event, well a little surreal. I met Roger Mayer at th train station, and he handed me over one of the devices in person. I paid cash. That was strange :)

So that’s my sound for now, I ‘ll go into the details of the sound themselves later, but I run the TU-2 into the Voodoo Vibe, take the Left Channel out into the Bass-Drive (I can’t afford two amps for stereo, hey I’m not that good) then run the line into the amp.

Check out my last.fm radio stream

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

My Last.fm widget for favourite streamed tracks. (more…)

My Last fm. Taste

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

I Joined last.fm yesterday, and I must say there are a lot of functions for music discovery within the sites social structure, I’m very pleased with the service so far, still trying to get around the navigation thogh. however some really interesting scripts written by third parties:

eg.

http://www.last.fm/user/spiritquest/journal/2008/03/5/665918/

I also signed up for an artist account, and secured ‘Spirit Quest’ – so I’m going to upload my demo (heheh) well it will be an incentive to work on the tracks properly and get it done properly :)

Catching up, Cobwebs are forming

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Flickr photo, I found of cobwebs with dew on them

Well I just never get round to updating this blog !

What with social networking, bad clients, and an avalanche of work, I’ve just been crap at getting any news posted.

So what’s been happening:

Well a lot really, but I’ll do a quick rundown of my most memorable events, then fill in the gaps and get to specifics later on.

Thanks Flock

  1. I just completed a quick photo shoot for The Chandeliers, Milla is playing bass, got some creative shots at their band practice, Sunday just gone.
  2. Ethical Junction is steaming forward, and there are some great ideas in the pipeline (lots of work), check out Ethical Pulse, there news blog
  3. I am going to breathe some new life into Spirit Quest (complete site redesign from the Ground Up, transcendent approach, thanks Andy)
  4. Band Practice, I’ve taken back to bass thumping again, and i’m loving it .. too much, apart from slicing my finger 2 weeks back, not too badly. We are making progress and should be gigging soon.
  5. I went to Shepperton Studios to cover a 3D day aimed at studios, this was a write up I will be doing for Film And Festivals Magazine, was interesting, and bumped into David Burder and Andrew Hurst (Stereocopic Society guys) whilst there.

They are the basics from my ether-sphere.

I promise to keep this updated …. :)

x

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