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So I picked up a laptop the other week and like any other technogeek I wanted to see if Apache would run on the version of Vista on the new computer. This version was Home Basic, but seemed to do the job. Here’s the steps I took to get it running:

NOTE: These instructions on for educational purposes only. I do not hold any responsibility for any fowl things that happen on your computer. I also don’t take responsibility for the fall of music sales due to file sharing networks. Please make sure you have admin rights on Vista before you start.

1. Grab a copy of the Apache installer apache_2.2.4-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi. I downloaded to a directory I could easily navigate to in the Command Prompt (see step 3). I saved it in c:\setup.
2. Turn off the User Access Control (UAC) in Vista. If you’ve used Vista for 25 minutes you’ve come across it. That’s the program that keeps asking you if it’s OK to install a program, or delete a file, or take a leak (OK maybe not the last one). Here’s how to do that:
1. Start > Control Panel
2. User Accounts
3. Click “Turn User Accounts Control on or off”
4. Uncheck “Use User Account Control”
5. Click OK
6. Restart Windows (this one’s important).
3. Once you’ve rebooted head over to “Command Prompt” and run it as Administrator. In my time with Vista I’ve found that going to Start->Search and typing in “Command Prompt” works. Now right click on the shortcut and select “Run As Administrator”.
4. Now navigate to the directory you’ve saved the .msi file to.
5. Type in “apache_2.2.4-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi” and let the installer do it’s thing. You will be prompted to put in some data, but that can be changed in the httpd.conf file later.
6. Windows will try to block port 80 (the default port) for Apache. When prompted by Windows Firewall say “Unblock”.
7. By default Apache will run pages out of the “C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs” folder. If you want to change this, like I did, create a new directory on your PC (I used C:\www\) copy all of the files in the “C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\” directory on move it to your desired directory.
8. Now open up the file called “C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf” in a plain text editor.
9. For the sake of speed I used a “Replace All” function to change all my settings. Replace “Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2″ with “your_directory“. Again I used “www”.
10. Now head to your directory and open the file in “your_directory\index.html” in a plain text editor. Where it says “It Works!” change it to read something else.
11. Although you can restart Apache in the Vista Program Menu I just decided to restart the computer. Heck, I had 15 updates running before I had to reboot anyway. This one’s your choice.
12. Open up a web browser and type in “localhost” in the address bar. The text you changed “It Works!” to should now be showing.
13. Sit back and relax. While your doing that, think of some more devious things you will be doing after you get this running.

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A few months ago I thought I would be able to get a radio automation system up and running. After some initial trouble with some bad CD burns I was able to order a CD from the nice folks at Ubuntu.

Campcaster was my first radio automation system of choice. There seemed to be plenty of support (including video tutorials) for setting up and running a station on Linux.

Before I list the problems I had with the program I just wan to say that I have about 15 years of radio experience and about 8 years with radio automation systems. I know what needs to happen at a station and with a station’s automation system.

Here is the list of issues I had with Campcaster automation:

• Lack of Control- There was very little way to control what was getting played out of the system. You can not stop airplay of something and get something else going.
• Scheduling- This is the main problem (for me) in the whole system. There is no integration within the software to bring in schedules (music, traffic) into the system. I was only able to find a 3rd party script that had to run through a command line. The only way to create a schedule for a day was to create a list of audio carts to play out in Campcaster’s web-based browser. This took quite a while on the playout machine. It is essential that 3rd party logs/schedules can get imported into the system.
• To build a log you have to start building the “Scratchpad” song by song. Once you have an hour in a “playlist” you must then schedule that playlist in a day. Then you need to load 24 playlists in a day, 7 days a week. With an average of 15 songs an hour, you can see how this solution would not work in my situation.
• Before a playlist could be scheduled it needed to be “locked”. This is just another step in a fairly repetitious and time-consuming process.
• Audio output- Once the “Studio” program was shut down the audio still played out in the system. There was no process visible on the Ubuntu system I was working on. This makes me feel a little nervous. I don’t like hearing things getting pumped through my PC without seeing any program doing it.
• Instability- After about 60 minutes there would be no audio coming out of the system. Since there was no program to look at there was no way to troubleshoot what went wrong. The playlist that was playing was over 60 minutes long (more like 90 minutes).

Although the promise of an easy-to-install open source Linux automation seems promising, Campcaster just doesn’t deliver.

The next program I will check out and review is “Rivendell” from Salem Radio Labs. This too is a open-source Linux automation system.

This is how your mouse really works on your computer, not matter your operating system.  The animation explains it in fine detail.

I have decided to tinker (yet again) with Linux. This time I have chosen the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. This time I have chosen to install Linux on my Powerbook G4 550. I also wanted to leave the current installation of OS X on the computer. How could I do that?

The Live CD which is available for download from a number of ways. You can download from an FTP or HTTP server or use BitTorrent to download. The Live CD allows you to test-drive the operating system without writing any data to your hard drive. This is good if all you want to do is test-drive.

Install will require you to partition your hard drive and use unallocated space to make a new “virtual” drive on your computer. This can all be done on the Live CD. A few easy steps and the operating was installed. Upon reboot I was confronted with a menu that allows me to choose from Linux, Ubuntu, or an optical disk.

If you plan on installing another OS onto your computer make sure to do two things.

1. Make sure to back-up all of your data
2. Make sure the Live CD you download is for your computer. My PowerBook requires a PowerPC disk while an Intel disk is required for most PC’s using windows.

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I’ve done some research into radio automation systems. Two of then have struck my fancy. The first involved the use of the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. I have dabbled in Linux before, but with little success. The Ubuntu distro comes with a live cd, which enables you to test drive the operating system without writing any data to your hard drive.

I’ve stumbled into Campcaster, which is built with a very easy installation of Ubuntu. There were three files that needed to get downloaded and then installed using a built-in package installer for Linux. I’ve also found the program called Synaptic that can check for updates. This works like the System Updater in OS X.

The first process in seeing how well Campcaster works will be installing Ubuntu onto my computer, which works on the PowerPC processor.

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Although it may seem obvious, you may now know this.  You can send a message to someone’s cell phone through your AIM client on your desktop.  All you have to do is add the person as a buddy.  Simply put +1 then the cell phone number, add as a buddy, and simply send a  message.