Clueless Wonder

Streaming Music From iTunes

brdweb — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:45:57 +0000

So I’m going to be changing jobs next week. As part of the switch, part of my workweek I’m going to be in an environment where I won’t be able to have my iPhone or iPod with me. That is unfortunate as probably 50% or more of my day is spent listening to different podcasts while I work.

I found PulpTunes by searching on Google. It seemed to solve all of my problems! Then I realized that there are some features that won’t work for me, namely you cannot set the port to be less than 1080. That is a non-starter for me as my work has almost every non-standard port blocked. I needed a way to make it use port 80, which is the standard port for web pages.

After searching the forums, I found that the mod_proxy module for Apache would do internal port forwarding for me. For a quick and easy install of Apache on my Mac I turned to the free MAMP install. It’s far and away the quickest, cleanest way to get Apache running quickly on a Mac. After Apache was installed, I needed to ensure that the proxy modules were loaded by ensuring that the following lines were in my conf file:

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

I then needed to add the following lines at the end of my conf file to pick the port and alias to forward. In this case, the default port of 15000 for PulpTunes and using the same name for the folder alias.

ProxyRequests Off ProxyPass /pulptunes http://localhost:15000 ProxyPassReverse /pulptunes http://localhost:15000

After this, I restarted Apache to invoke the new settings. Next up was ensuring that port 80 was being forwarded to the internal network ip address of the machine I was serving from. To also clean things up a bit, I used the free Dock Dodger program to remove PulpTunes from my dock, only showing in my taskbar.

Now I can access all my my music from just about any internet connected machine! There’s a user account feature in PulpTunes so that I don’t get just anybody using up my bandwidth, I can access my playlists, and even rate the songs. It’s a great solution and I suggest you try it.

Coconut Crusted Chicken

brdweb — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:51:28 +0000

Yummy coconut crusted chicken for dinner here tonight! Super easy meal, shredded coconut, corn starch, Panko bread crumbs, egg white and red pepper flakes. Quick brown in the pan and then right in the oven.

Friday Night is Poker Night

brdweb — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:33:39 +0000

Had a good time last night hosting a nice little poker game for some friends. We actually were able to generate enough interest to start off the game with 9 seats filled with the 10th coming in just a little bit later. We played a cash game instead of what seems to be the normal Sit-n-Go’s in this area. Blinds were just .05-.10 and the max buyin was $20 so it made for a nice game. At those stakes of course it’s still going to be a wild, loose, and friendly game but a $15 or $20 bet will at least make you think a bit more than if you bought into a tourney for $5.

I will need to get at least a few more chips if I can make this a monthly game as after a few people went busto and re-bought I was running low. Also need to ensure that I have more small bills available for the cashing out at the end of the night. I was fine this time since I was up a good amount and just rounded everyone else up a bit when cashing out.

My plan is to build a nice tabletop this winter but I will probably at least buy the speed felt for it sooner rather than later. Using our granite table in the dining room worked, but it was too slippery to use my good plastic COPAG card set. Overall it was a good time had by all I would say and next month we’re going to try and do it again. Can’t wait!

Cats Spotted in the Snow

brdweb — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:00:50 +0000

Yesterday Apple released the latest version of Mac OSX, codenamed Snow Leopard. Being the geek that I am, immediately after work I ventured to the Apple Store closest to work and purchased it. Between last night and this morning I have successfully upgraded both of our machines with very little hassle.

For Stephanies’ MacBook, I just upgraded from the disc and it looks like every one of her programs is working without a hitch. For my iMac I chose to do a wipe of the harddisk and install from scratch since I tend to mess around with my machine so much. A few of my programs didn’t want to work right away but the majority already have an update out to fix any issues.

I also was able to reinstall most of my programs and all of my settings from my Time Machine backup. What a timesaver and great backup system that is for Apple users! Overall, you don’t really see a difference visually other than your applications menu, which now has full-size icons and just adds a scrollbar to see everything.

Overall, for the price of $29 for an individual license, or $49 for up to 5 Macs in the same household, it’s a bargain and any increase in speed or reliability is worth it.

Stop the Rain!

brdweb — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:31:20 +0000

So we’re in the middle of yet another big rainstorm here in the metro D.C. area. This is the most consistent rain that I’ve seen in the 4 years that I’ve been here. In the grand scheme of things it’s probably a good thing as we’ve been short of rain the past few summers but it really does tend to put a downer on things

Mary’s Bonfire 2009

brdweb — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:41:55 +0000

Just a quick video of some of the great food that we had during the big bonfire at Mary’s place this year. Can’t wait till next year!

Mary’s Bonfire 2009 from Jason Mitchell on Vimeo.

First Golf Game of 2009

brdweb — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:42:26 +0000

Well today was the last day at my current job. Tomorrow I start my new contract position. Should be an exciting change of pace even though it’s still within the same organization. Anyway, it being my last day I was able to get out of the office early and it’s in the mid-60s outside. What else was I going to do but hit the links!

I went to the closest course to home, which is Pinecrest Golf Club. It’s a little 9 hole muni course run by Fairfax County. I had heard good things about it’s value and layout so I wanted to give it a shot. The good: decent layout, nice mature trees, opportunities to use the driver, cheap green fees. The bad: they had just aerated the greens this morning, poor shape of the fairways and tee boxes. I realize that they haven’t fully been able to work on course conditions and it IS a muni anyway, but I was a bit disappointed in that.

Since the beginning of the year I had only gotten to TopGolf twice and hit in our full-swing simulator upstairs once as well. This meant I wasn’t too worried about results today and just wanted to enjoy myself. Overall I played better than expected, especially with my putting and the times I used my 3 wood off the tee. I was able to drive the green on a 240 yard par 4 and it felt good! Anyway, check the results on my online scorecard on this website. It updates every time I input a round into my scorecard software on our Mac.

ShamrockFEST

brdweb — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:41:55 +0000

This weekend some friends and I will be attending ShamrockFEST, which is a big indoor/outdoor music/drinking festival held near St. Patricks’ day every year here in DC. We’ve all signed up for the VIP passes as you might actually get a chance to sit down, there are more covered areas (weather won’t be the best) and it includes all your beer for the day as well. It’s also going to be a birthday celebration so it’s going to be a fun party regardless. If you’re going to be attending as well, let me know so we can meet up.

Chimay Ale

brdweb — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:07:46 +0000

Just opened up a bottle Chimay Ale (Red). In case you haven’t heard of it before, Chimay’s origins reside with the Trappist monks of Chimay Belgium. It’s made from historical methods and ingredients even though they use modern technology alongside. Some friends had gotten it when we were out this past week and it was the first time I had tried it. Fairly appalling was the price at the bar. $28 for a 750ML bottle, or roughly double or more the price of a regular beer.

I happened to see it at a wine store this weekend when Stephanie and I were walking around Annapolis, MD after going for a drive with the top down to enjoy the nice weather. I decided to purchase a bottle after seeing the much more reasonable price of $10.49. For an occasional drink of a special variety for about the price of a bottle of wine, this is good value in my opinion and I’m looking forward to trying more of the Chimay offerings.

Obama Dances with Soldiers

brdweb — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:16:08 +0000

Just catching up and uploading some more of the video I took during the Commander-In-Chief’s Ball during the inauguration. This one is of President and Mrs. Obama dancing with two lucky servicemembers.