I think this is the best web page. I have ever seen. Before I found it, the only thing I knew about JSON was that it is considered an alternative to XML. I spent maybe three minutes browsing this page… mostly reviewing the syntax diagrams… and learned everything I need to know… for now. The fluff to content ratio is pretty damn close to 0.

• I really want one of these. I bought a NSLU2 a few months ago and got it up and running with the Unslung Linux firmware but I haven’t had time to get it fully functional. This little guy looks like even more fun though!
• I’m teaching myself Python at the moment and find Dave Kuhlman’s page to be one of the best collections of beginner/novice info… if you already have a background in programming.
• I need to read this primer on Distributed Version Control a couple more times to be sure I fully understand it but at first glance it seems to be an extreme version of a developer isolation model. We attempted something like this on a past project and it failed miserably (mostly due to our inability to force timely sharing of changes… developers can be stubborn).
• … and finally, the obligatory xkcd reference.

MediaMonkey now rules my digital library. Well, *music* library at least. Over the past few months I’ve tried a few different apps for managing my music but finally settled into MediaMonkey with good results.

Favorite features:

• Browse files based on tag properties. It’s similar to the iPod’s menu system listing tracks by artist, album, year, etc.
• Keeps my tags in order with the Auto-Tag from Amazon option ^[1]. This works 90% of the time and occasionally requires some manual intervention but it’s quite handy.

  

• Keeps my filesystem tidy with the Auto-Organize Files option. I love this. It renames files and directories for me using a standard path structure and based on the tag properties.
• No more iTunes! They’ve got a plugin that does a great job of sync’ing my iPod. But… and it’s a big one… it doesn’t handle video ^[2].

I started converting TV shows to mp4’s for the daily commute (more on that later). But the MediaMonkey iPod plugin doesn’t support sync’ing videos. There are a bunch of stand-alone iPod managers out there but what’s worked best so far is Winamp. Yup, Winamp’s iPod plugin handles video with no problem. Just right-click an .mp4 file and select “Send to iPod” ^[3]. Done and done. It’s a pain having to use two different apps but this setup works without too much trouble.

Notes:
1. I’ve played with Picard and like the idea for updating tags but it’s still too finicky for me.
2. The other downside is it only runs on Windows, no Linux support.
3. For some strange reason, Winamp forces you to specify a specific folder on you hard drive for each iPod video category: Movies, Music Videos, etc. Make sure you set this up in Preferences -> General Preferences -> iPod Support -> Audio & Video -> Folders. Otherwise everything will be dumped into the Music Videos category on your iPod.

Update 2-Oct-2007: I forgot to mention that the default mp3 encoder included with MediaMonkey will expire after 30 days so you might as well install the LAME encoder immediately. Download it here then copy lame_enc.dll to the top-level MediaMonkey install directory (for me it’s C:\Program Files\MediaMonkey\).

I owe my new web hosting company a big apology. I signed up for namecheap.com’s new and very cheap (<$3/month!) basic hosting package last week but never received a response with my account details. After a half dozen emails and posts to their support center and various hosting forums it turns out that Gmail was flagging their responses to me as spam. Damn. I never check that folder.

One of their support guys got me all straightened out and even bumped me up the pro package for my troubles. It turns out they responded to all of my support requests almost immediately and have been extremely helpful working out the remaining kinks; shell access wasn’t enable by default and they run sshd on a non-standard and apparently not documented port.