Space Cake Break on the Titikaka Lake

I have enjoyed the music of the German combo De-Phazz - "the Godfathers of Lounge" - since I came accross their first album, Detunized Gravity, in the end of the 90s, and have been listening to them since then. I also had the good luck to catch their live act at the Babylon Club in Istanbul, where it became apparent to me that they had really been able to achieve the sweet feat of combining warm, mellow, groovy electronic samples with the immediacy and spontaneity of a live jazz band, something that many have attempted, but only a few have succeeded in doing. Almost all their albums have been great in their way, and they had many hits in the not too hardcore club scene. But the album BIG of 2009 is - in my perception - by far their greatest. Together with the Radio Bigband Frankfurt they have re-produced a well balanced collection of some of their biggest hits and some less well known songs, reinterpreting their ingenious melodies and grooves in a subtle but very enticing way. The music is very rich and multi-layered without being heady, always groovy and always jazzy, and the excellent recording and production quality make this a gem for all soul jazz and lounge music fans. Go out and buy it right now!

The ideal music library application

Here is what an application that organizes my music collection should be able to do (and that iTunes currently can't do):

• Import tags from MusicBrainz
• Normalize song volumes using Replay Gain
• Work well together with iTunes:
• Exchange selection and playlist info
• Access the files at their current location, i.e. the iTunes library
• Export low res versions to a folder
• Work on all platforms (or at least on the Mac)

I don't believe that I'll ever get around to implement all this, but who knows, hope springs eternal :-)

PS: For the export task, I have found this script

"Archive and Next" in Gmail

True timesavers among Gmail's keyboard shortcuts:
'[': Archive and move to the next newest message
']': Archive and move to the next newer message

Open MacVim tabs from command-line

Change the mvim script as follows to open files in new tabs instead of new windows when starting MacVim from the command line:

1. Add the following line to the top of the file, below the commented section:

   tabs=true

   
   
2. Replace the if structure at the bottom of the file with the following:
   

   # Last step:  fire up vim.
   if [ "$gui" ]; then
   if $tabs && [[ `$binary --serverlist` = "VIM" ]]; then
     exec "$binary" -g $opts --remote-tab-silent ${1:+"$@"}
   else
     exec "$binary" -g $opts ${1:+"$@"}
   fi
   else
   exec "$binary" $opts ${1:+"$@"}
   fi

Tip'o'the hat to Web Expose for this information.

Moving the shell cursor around

• ctrl-a: move to front of line
• ctrl-e: move to end of line
• ctrl-w: delete word before cursor
• ctrl-r: search past command history
• up/down arrow: page through previous commands
• alt-b / alt-f: move backward/forward one word (without deleting)

More details can be found in the bash reference.

Bash remove non-empty directory

rm -r foo

Using xmllint in (Mac)Vim

To reformat XML documents in Vim:

:%!xmllint --format --encode UTF-8 -

More details here.

Shell script for replacing multiple partial strings in multiple files

I wrote a very simple script to handle a complex replacing in a lot of files. Use with care!


#!/bin/bash

# This script replaces multiple partial strings in multiple files

for n in strpart1 strpart2 strpart3
do
exec perl -pi -e 's/firstpart${n}secondpart/newfirstpart${n}newsecondpart/g' *.htm
done


Burst of creativity

I made a drawing today.

and another test

Just testing :-)

Hello World :-)