Creating an iPod playlist in Amarok
The one thing I love about mp3 players is that you can just stick it on random and it’s like having your own jukebox. But what about when you want to play only certain songs? Or play only those certain songs on random?
Well, that’s when you need a playlist. Amarok does it’s own playlists, but that’s to create a playlist of songs that are on your hard drive. This tutorial is on how to create a playlist for your iPod using the songs that are on your iPod.
First things first (I’m assuming you already have songs on your iPod and you’ve used Amarok to do this) connect your iPod to the PC (it should auto-mount, most new distros recognise iPods) and load up Amarok. Click the DEVICES tab (down the left side of the screen) then click the CONNECT button at the top left of the window:
You should now see a list of all the songs, and albums, that are on your iPod. At the top of that list are two red folders, Podcasts and Playlists.
I’ve read tutorials that say you should right click on songs/albums and add them to a playlist, while the options are there to do that, it showed nothing on my iPod. After much searching, and trial and error, I found that dragging and dropping is what worked for me. So, first of all, lets create a new playlist.
Right clck on Playlists and choose ‘Create Playlist’:
And give your playlist a name, I’ll make one for AC/DC.
There it is, but it’s empty. If the playlist had songs in it, it would have that little + symbol beside it, like my Metallica playlist has. Let’s put some songs in there.
To add songs, simply open out your artists and albums (by clicking the + symbols beside them) and drag the song titles up to the playlist.
All I did was drag ‘Rock N’ Roll Train’ up, on to ACDC, and let go. Keep doing that to add songs. If I click the + symbol beside ACDC, I can see what’s in that playlist so far.
TIP: Holding down the Ctrl key lets you pick several songs to drag up in one go.
But what if I want them to play in a different order? Simply drag them arounf within the ACDC playlist.
To keep your playlist on your iPod, click the DISCONNECT button (top left)
And to be extra safe, right click on the iPod (on your desktop, I’m using Ubuntu 9.04) and EJECT it.
Done!
uShare + Xbox 360 = media streaming goodness
I have an old Xbox (with modchip) that I FTP video to, and use as a media player, but I decided to try and get streaming media working between Ubuntu and my shiny Xbox 360. Wow, what a to-do! It’s not exactly rocket science to get it working, but it took a lot of trial and error, Googling, and other smart peoples blog posts, before I finally got it working. Here’s how I (eventually!) did it:
First, install uShare. You can get it from the Ubuntu repos. As of writing, it’s at version 1.1a
Ok, now to configure uShare using sudo, so:
sudo gedit /etc/ushare.conf
You need to find the following entries, and make sure they look like this:
USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_DIR=/path/to/your/media
ENABLE_XBOX=yes
DANGER! DANGER! You must make sure there are no spaces in those entries (before, or after, the equals) and the ‘yes’ MUST be in lower case. No, I’m not kidding. I had ENABLE_XBOX as ‘YES’ and it just would not work until I changed it to ‘yes’. Also, complex names in the USHARE_DIR seems to make it show ‘No videos found’. Rename the directory, or copy your files to another directory. It might be the use of a space that causes this, not sure.
Not sure if this is 100% necessary, but several posts in other blogs have said that the ENABLE_XBOX option is a bit sporadic, so it’s best to hardwire uShare to force an Xbox compatible startup. So we need to edit another uShare file:
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/ushare
…and add this line at the beginning of the script (I put it after the comments):
USHARE_OPTIONS=-x
My PC has several eth options, I use eth1 for my original Xbox, so didn’t want to tinker with it, eth4 is for my router, so that left eth3. So to bring up eth3 (in my case):
sudo ifconfig eth3 192.168.3.1
Now we need to restart uShare using the init script:
sudo invoke-rc.d ushare restart
NOTE: do above command twice, I know it seems crazy, but the second time I run that command it gives me a warning, but it works fine. If I run the command only once, the 360 can’t connect to my PC. Might just be a quirk on my PC.
Also do the above init to refresh your file listing. You can enable the web interface if you want to refresh files, but the init command works just as good. Remember to run it twice though!
OK you’re done.
Turn on your Xbox 360, go to My Xbox, across to the Video Library, and click. You should, in the next screen, see ‘ushare’ at the bottom of the list. Click it, and it should connect to your share directory. Voila! If you have mp3’s in your share dir, then come out of the video library and go in to the music library, they are all using the one share directory.
Playing AVI/DivX/XviD seems to be a bit of a problem. But one poster on the internet came with the simplistic solution of just renaming .AVI files to .WMV. Works like a charm!
NOTE: The above might work even if you have a PS3 as there are no changes made on the 360, only in installing uShare and configuring it in Ubuntu.
Full Circle magazine #24 released!
Full Circle
Issue #24
Full Circle - the independent magazine for the Ubuntu Linux community are proud to announce the release of our twenty-fourth issue. http://fullcirclemagazine.org Don't forget to give us a Digg/Reddit/Slashdot vote!
Five Minute Chocolate Cake - in a Mug!
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE CAKE
4 teaspoons flour
4 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons cocoa (NOTE: I used Hot Chocolate instead, tastes better)
1 egg
3 teaspoons milk
3 teaspoons oil
3 teaspoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil, and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for three minutes, on high (time is for 1000 watt microwave). The cake will rise to the top of the mug, don’t panic!
Allow to cool a little, and tip onto a plate if desired.
Sounds gross, but it’s actually very nice. I just tried it, and it worked a treat! Yummmmm! 
Business, and Post, cards - good ol’ VistaPrint
Got my pet/animal/wildlife portrait business, and post, cards today from VistaPrint:
Yay! Business cards, postcards, stickers, stamper and free business card holder. Snazzy!
I’ve used VistaPrint before for business cards (I have ones just saying that I’m an ‘artist’ on them) but this time I decided to just spend a little bit extra and put some decent images on there. I think they look pretty good, don’t you? Top left is the (open) business card holder with business cards in there, the card holder was free. Top right is the stamper with my name, and URL, in it. Middle right is one of the ‘address’ labels, but I’ve put my name, email and URL on it. And bottom is the postcard with four images on the front and one on the back (not shown). All in all it cost about £45 (incl P&P, by courier) for:
- 250 business cards
- 140 stickers
- 1 stamper
- 100 postcards, and:
- a business card holder.
This blog will still have some art related stuff in it, but it’ll be more tech related (which is where it gets most of it’s hits from) and the pet/wildlife portrait stuff will be in the root of the URL (http://ronnietucker.co.uk) which also has a link to here via a ‘Tech Blog’ link.
A werewolf, a polar bear, an elephant, and a Tmobile G1
Well that’s an unusual mix of things, but all to be found right here!
Three new pieces of artwork, and one tech/geek review. Let’s start with the artwork:
American Werewolf
As you can no doubt guess, this was inspired by the werewolf design used in the ‘American Werewolf in London‘ movie.
Polar Bear
… and last, but not least:
Elephant
So, I’ve been kept busy lately. As ever, all (and more!) are for sale in both my Etsy, and Boundless Gallery, stores.
On the geek front, I’ve been busy playing with my T-mobile G1 (aka: Google phone). £200 for a phone, ouch! But honestly, it’s money well spent. I’ve never been so impressed by a mobile phone, the things it can do are just amazing. Read my review of it to see what I mean…
Also, keep an eye out for my work appearing on the front page of Boundless Gallery on Sunday (tomorrow). Seems that I’ve been chosen to appear in their ‘Discover an Artist‘ section. From Boundless:
You will be among the artists and galleries featured on our “Discover an Artist” section on Sunday, Feb 8, 2009.
Each day we select a total of fifty artists and galleries to randomly appear on the homepage in the “Discover an Artist” tab. Artists are displayed five at a time and change every time the page is loaded, so each artist appears in about 10% of homepage views.
These fifty artists are also shown with up to three of their works on our “Discover an Artist” page. The artists are listed in a random order which changes hourly throughout the day.
Ubuntu, SDLmame and Wahcade - a match made in heaven
With my new computer roaring like a Tiger, my old computer is like a kitten demanding attention. Thus it is now connected to my TV (via tv-out) running Ubuntu and is functioning as a MAME machine! Yay!
Retro gaming goodness ahoy!
How did I manage this? Funny you should ask, I’ve written an article about it right here.
Gorilla (but no mist) - ink and watercolor
I’m on a roll! Another ink and watercolour painting, and this time it’s not a Tiger!
Gorilla - Ink and watercolour.
Happy Holidays! - I got you a present
Since it’s the festive season (presents and all that jazz) I thought it’d be nice to do a painting, but put it up on the site for people to download, print out, and put on their walls. My present to you, the visitors. So, here it is:
Tiger profile - ink and watercolour on cartridge paper
If you click on the preview image (above) it’ll load up a much larger, more detailed, scan of the original. Click print, frame it, and pass it along to your friends if they want one! If you want to make it look extra colourful, try printing it to photographic paper, the colours always look better on photo paper.
Merry Christmas!
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