When I first became interested in digital audio workstations (DAW) and computer-based music, I wanted to mix and sample and loop and sequence and make drum patterns and effects and this and that and the other thing. I was all over the place and wasn’t accomplishing much of anything until I decided to [...]]]>

Conectiv

When I first became interested in digital audio workstations (DAW) and computer-based music, I wanted to mix and sample and loop and sequence and make drum patterns and effects and this and that and the other thing.  I was all over the place and wasn’t accomplishing much of anything until I decided to focus and start with the basics:  beat-matching and mixing with a turntable.

While a computer certainly isn’t required to achieve these simple goals, a computer-based setup makes getting started easy and more affordable.  My technical expertise lies more in the digital domain than the analog one, so the ability to hack, re-program, and re-wire a digital system  was also very appealing.

I did some research and decided to use Torq software as the basis for my bedroom DJ setup.  It lets me beat-match on my turntable using time-coded vinyl through M-Audio’s Conectiv device (which also provides 2 audio input channels and 2 output channels) and mix using an X-Session Pro USB-MIDI control surface, which provides a tactile way to control Torq’s internal mixer and transport controls.  The Conectiv package also includes a licensed copy of Torq 2.0, making for a nice little setup for very little investment.  Finally, Torq will re-wire into Ableton Live if I want move beyond playing music and start to make my own.

X-Session Pro

This setup has worked well (mostly – still some bugs in the Torq software but no show-stoppers) as I “practice and n_joy” the many fine videos produced by the DJ Tutor.  These videos are vastly superior to any other DJ How-To video I’ve ever seen.  Most YouTube DJs are more interested in showing-off their egos than explaining what they are doing.  Each DJ Tutor video uses a well-framed shot that highlights the controls and actions, and ellaskins uses humour and sound teaching techniques to produce videos that are informative, entertaining, and always end with the catchphrase, “Practice and N Joy”.

Good advice for anything, really.

String hashMD5Password(String password) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, UnsupportedEncodingException { MessageDigest digest [...]]]> This really perplexed me  and took an embarrassingly long time to write such a simple method.  Maybe these notes will save someone else some frustration.  Here is a method to generate an MD5 hashed password to use as the value of the userPassword attribute in LDAP:

String hashMD5Password(String password) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, UnsupportedEncodingException {
MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance(“MD5″);
digest.update(password.getBytes(“UTF8″));
String md5Password = Base64.encode(digest.digest());
return “{MD5}” + md5Password;
}

A few tips that might be of help:

• Code that is almost exactly the same as this is posted elsewhere, without the {MD5} prefix that is particular to LDAP.  Don’t forget it!
• I use Base64 from jcifs.util.Base64 (since I also use jcifs to generate passwords for the sambaNTPassword attribute) but there are several Base64 classes to choose from.
• Your LDAP server may use another form of encryption (CRYPTO, SHA, etc.).  It should be a simple matter to adapt the method above to use other encryption types.

Had I known the following, this would have been so much easier:

• The format of the userPassword attribute is a string containing the crypto-identifier (ie. {MD5}) followed by the Base64-encoded MD5 digest version of the plain-text password
• Verify the output of the java method  by running “slappasswd -h {MD5} -s your_password.  The output of this command should match the string returned by the java method but not the string returned by ldapquery.
• ldapquery returns LDIF, so the userPassword value is further Base64-encoded.

To illustrate these last few points, consider the following:

$ slappasswd -h {MD5} -s test1
{MD5}WhBei51A4TKXgNYuoiZdig==  /* this is what is stored in LDAP) */

$ slappasswd -h {MD5} -s test1 | base64
e01ENX1XaEJlaTUxQTRUS1hnTll1b2laZGlnPT0K /* this is the base64 version of above */

$ ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> -D <bind> -w <passwd>  “(uid=testuser)” userPassword
# extended LDIF
# userPassword:: e01ENX1XaEJlaTUxQTRUS1hnTll1b2laZGlnPT0=

This website has moved to a new server. Thanks to some folks who left some old computers sitting outside a trash compactor, [...]]]> November is also known as Movember.  Due to some intercontinental rivalry,  Andrew is participating.  View photos, laugh, poke fun,  and make a donation on Andrew’s MoBro page – it’s for a good cause.

This website has moved to a new server.   Thanks to some folks who left some old computers sitting outside a trash compactor, we now have a P4 2.8 GHz computer with 3GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive.  This is a huge improvement from the old server, which was the first laptop I ever purchased back in 1998.

Whatever you do with your old PC,  please remember to format, erase, or physically destroy your old hard drive.  Bill, Marcelle, and Sean didn’t, and I had access to their e-mail accounts.  Another nice young fellow from the UK (let’s call him Jethro) didn’t either.   From his computer I quickly learned his e-mail address, telephone number, Whistler address, home address in the UK, government identification numbers, what his girlfriend looks like, and the kinky brand of Internet pornography he seems to enjoy (I mean REALLY enjoy – that computer should have been burned, not thrown in the trash).

Other updates for this month can be found on the Thomson page.

At Whistler-Blackcomb, alpine lifts like Peak, Glacier, and 7th Heaven will remain closed for one or more days for safety reasons until [...]]]> On big snow days, those of us who have to work to maintain a lifestyle of certain standards are forced to sit in our offices and listen to avalanche control set off explosives.

At Whistler-Blackcomb, alpine lifts like Peak, Glacier, and 7th Heaven will remain closed for one or more days for safety reasons until the avalanche risk is minimized.  Live lift status is provided by light-boards on the hill, and those behind desks can monitor live lift status on the Whistler-Blackcomb website.

Knowing which lifts were closed on any given day is very important to ski and snowboard enthusiasts.  If you don’t understand why, I can explain with a story:

Tuesday is a really warm day and the snow is quite wet.  Overnight, the temperature drops, the wind blows 90km/h and it snows 30cm.

Wednesday morning there is 30cm of fresh snow, but Johnny has to work like a sucker, unlike Jill who has the day off.  Ski patrol opens the Peak chair on Whistler but avalanche conditions keep 7th Heaven on Blackcomb closed all day.  Wednesday night, another 20cm falls.

On Thursday, Johnny and Jill both go skiing.  Johnny heads up Whistler to ski his favourite lines from the Peak chair, but Jill knows from watching the light boards all day on Wednesday that 7th Heaven didn’t open.  She heads over to 7th Heaven where she knows there is 50cm of new snow waiting for her.

The moral of the story is that you can miss out on some great fresh tracks by not knowing the alpine lift status. To keep on top of things, you have the following options:

1. Ski / ride every single day.
2. Hit ‘refresh’ on the Whistler-Blackcomb lift status page every 15 minutes from 8am until 4pm.
3. Every night, call everyone you know and ask them what lifts were closed.

Enter a new friend – the friend who you can call anytime and will always know which lifts were closed, not just for today, but for the last 7 days.  Don’t end up like Johnny – use the Alpine Lift Forecast.

At the moment, the Alpine Lift Forecast doesn’t actually predict anything, but it will show you 7-day lift status for all Whistler Blackcomb resorts, which is a good start.

Schematic

To view news and pictures of Thomson:

If you cannot find the Thomson link, make sure you are [...]]]>

Thomson's Room

To view news and pictures of Thomson:

1. Login by following this link or by clicking ‘Login‘ under the Admin menu on the left-hand side.
2. Enter the user name and password that were e-mailed to you.
3. Click ‘Thomson‘  from the left-hand Menu.

If you cannot find the Thomson link, make sure you are logged in. Once you have logged in, you will see a grey bar with the words, “Thomson’s Friends and Family” in the upper left hand corner.

This is a shared login, so please do not change or update the username or password.

Please call or e-mail if you have any problems.