One of the things I have to do at work it post the Library’s monthly new acquisitions list. I used to just forward the Excel file produced by the Tech. Services department to the webmaster who would convert it to HTML and post it to the web site. Since the Seminary’s website transitioned to a Content Management System that gives me editing access, I got to take over the HTML conversion process. Much to my chagrin, however, I found out that the conversion process involves a lot of manual copying and pasting in Excel, using a formula to concatenate the various fields into the final product, and then a series of search-and-replaces to clean up special characters and blank lines. I had hoped that there was just a program that I could run the file through to format the data with the necessary HTML tags, so that’s what I set out to do.

I’ve long wanted an excuse to start learning PHP, and this seemed like a good problem to solve via a simple PHP web app, so I started Googling for example PHP code for processing tab-delimited text files, handling special characters, and receiving web form input. I also dusted off my copy of the very handy PHP Function Index application, which provides an interface for viewing, searching, and browsing PHP’s documentation. After a few false starts, struggling to understand some new functions, and debugging a few errors, my first PHP application, HTMLified Acquisitions List Generator, was done.

Now I have a simple web app where I can select a tab-delimited text file containing the acquisitions data in the proper order, and the application will spit out HTML code that I can simply paste into the “Recent Acquisitions” page.

Here’s how it works. Whenever you attempt to visit a web page, your browser sends an HTTP request to the server, which specifies the file that you want as well as some other information about your browser and such. If you request a page by clicking on a link, the URL of the document containing that link is sent in the HTTP request. Web servers log these HTTP requests and then log analysis tools can generate statistical reports.

My stats have been publicly available (if you knew where to look), and one of the parts of the reports is top referrers, so I can see where traffic to my site is coming from. The addresses in the referrer report are live links, so when Google’s web crawler indexes my site, it sees these top referrers as sites that I have linked to, which increases their PageRank score. Therefore, if a devious individual can have a bunch of zombie computers make a bunch of bogus HTTP requests with the perpetrator’s site as the referrer, this nefarious person can get a link to their site on mine and thus increase their web site’s rank in Google searches (or perhaps more likely the weight that Google gives to their site when determining the rank of the pages that others may pay them to link to).

I’ve known that this sort of thing has been going on for some time, but the referrer spam that I’ve seen has always been rather light—just a small (though not insignificant) percentage of the traffic on my site. Last night, however, my server was being hit so hard that the server was being overloaded and my web host had to block all web access.

You’ll notice that web access has been restored, although, for now, only if you enter the address directly. Referred traffic is still blocked, so trying to access my site from a link on another site will still be blocked. Perhaps I’ll go in and unblock some of the legitimate sites that I know link to me.

While these pics are kind of fun in an abstract way, it’s not really what I want to get out of my camera all the time. When I got home I popped over to the Canon support website, which suggested that I talk to a tech support rep on the phone before trying to send it in for service. I dialed the number and told the tech support guy about my problem. He informed me that a service advisory has been issued about image sensor problems with the PowerShot A70 (my camera) and that they’ll fix it for free if that’s indeed the problem. So, in a couple days I’ll be getting a prepaid shipping label to send my camera in for service.

A quick Google search turned up this page, which appears to confirm that I am having the faulty image sensor (CCD) problem.

And from Canon’s advisory:

While reports of this malfunction have been rare in the United States, we have determined that it may occur if the product is exposed to hot and humid environments.

Hmmm… hot and humid… St. Louis broke my camera!

Anyway, I present my wiki: SteveWiki

Thus I present to you: My RSS Feed. Subscribe away!

But wait a minute… “Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney…”

So… if he hasn’t actually experienced hearing loss, how does he have legal standing in this matter?

Oh… because the iPod could be turned up by the user to a potentially dangerous volume it’s somehow “defective”, and therefore he is entitled to a iPod that maxes out at an undisputedly safe volume. Riiiiiight…

Four words: Boot to the Head.

I’ve been using pearLyrics for months now. I love it, and I will continue to use it. When will the recording industry learn that this sort of crap only makes people like me seriously pissed off at them and less likely to buy their wares.

However, a more satisfactory solution has recently been made possible. The realm of audiobooks and podcasts have brought to iTunes the ability to add chapter markers to audio files (granted only AAC encoded files). This technology can be leveraged when importing classical music so that a symphony, for example, can be imported as a single audio file, and the movements can be defined as chapters within that file. This process takes a little more work, but the track transitions will be completely seamless, Sound Check won’t be an issue, and movement boundaries will be preserved. The chapter markers are even recognized on iPods.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to the process.

Before we begin, there are a few things that you’ll need:

1. Apple’s Podcast Chapter Tool (a.k.a. ChapterTool)—a command line program that adds the chapter markers to the audio file. Although not necessary, I recommend installing this in /usr/local/bin/ for the sake of simplicity.¹
2. Export As XML Chapters–an AppleScript for iTunes that automatically generates the XML file that ChapterTool will use to define the chapters. Install in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ .
3. iTunes 4.9 or higher

For our example, I will be importing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and conducted by Sir Georg Solti.

Insert the disc and let iTunes download the track info (if available) from CDDB.

Don’t worry too much about any of the tag fields just yet, except the Name field. The names of the tracks will become the names of the chapters, so it’s important that they be correct and to your liking. (Always double-check what you get from CDDB.) In this case, I want the names to be the movement names prefixed with arabic numerals.

Unedited Track Names

Edited Track Names

Select all the tracks that you want to join together, and from the menu bar select Advanced > Join CD Tracks.

Join CD Tracks

Joined CD Tracks

Chapter markers can only be added to AAC files, so make sure that you have iTunes set to use the AAC encoder (iTunes > Preferences... > Advanced > Importing > Import Using: AAC Encoder).

Import Settings

Click the import button and grab a snack.

While you’re waiting for the import to finish (and munching), now would be a good time to create a temporary folder on your Desktop or in some other convenient place that you will use to gather the files that will be fed into ChapterTool.

Before ejecting the CD, select the tracks that you have joined together, and from the menu bar select > Export as XML chapters. When prompted give the xml file a conveniently short name and save it in the temporary folder that you just created. The script will give you the option of viewing the xml file, which may be a good idea to make sure any unicode characters in the track names survived the export.

Find the imported audio file in your library, right-click on it, and select Show Song File.

Show Song File

Copy (option-drag) the file in the Finder over to the temporary folder that you created, and give it a short name.

Open Terminal, navigate to your temporary folder (e.g. cd Desktop/temp), and run ChapterTool. The syntax for ChapterTool is ChapterTool -x xmlfile.xml -a audiofile.m4a -o outputfile.m4a .

Import the file that ChapterTool produced into iTunes. The new file won’t have any info tags, so you’ll have to add the full name, artist, album, etc. info.

When you play the file in iTunes, a new menu button will appear between the track info display and the search box that will show and allow you to jump between the song’s chapters. The current chapter name will also be included with info that rotates through the track info display. When you play the file on an iPod, although it won’t display the chapter names, the progress bar will display the chapter breaks and the forward and backwards buttons will allow you to jump between them.

Chapter Menu Button

Chapter Menu Open

Chapter Info in Display

See also: PodcastChapterTool – Voxmedia Wiki

1. This assumes that your shell knows to look in /usr/local/bin/ for command line programs. To check, open Terminal, type echo $PATH, and see if /usr/local/bin/ is present in the colon separated list of paths that is outputted. If it’s not there, then you’ll have to add it to /etc/csh.login (if you’re using tcsh as your shell), /etc/profile (if you’re using bash), or the appropriate configuration file for your shell of choice. ↩

I think it’s official that Front Row—Apple’s new media center app that’s bundled exclusively with the new iMac (that I missed by a month)—is a hit. Mac users everywhere want it. Now the question is whether Apple will answer the demand by making it available to all Mac users. Will it show up in Mac OS X 10.4.3? iLife 2006? I hope so.

New iMac | New iPod

It was fun being on top while it lasted. Kudos to Jed for being the first to make fun of my now obsolete technology with the above image.