Monthly Archives: October 2009

DSL frustrations

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Our DSL internet cut out again suddenly late this morning, and nothing helped again, until I got my hubbies Treo Stylus to push in the reset of the modem and voila it all connected through my router just fine again. This is frustrating since I never had to do this with our old modem. I must say here that in all the instances of this happening there is always a DSL light on the modem, there is something going on too ’cause if I do connect it directly to a computer the “internet connected” icon comes alive, though there IS NO internet. In each case it’s a “can’t connect” with a PPPoE type login from network connections in Win XP.

I get the feeling that on the windstream end they have sent commands at my modem, trying to control it, for whatever reason. I don’t know that, just feel that something like that big brother sort of thing is going on. It’s simply put, not a re-boot of the router needed, not a re-boot of the modem needed, not a re-boot of the computer needed. It’s one thing that works, decent Treo Stylus pushing in of the reset of the modem. I have had two events in one week, and this time I carefully tried the least thing to the final push in of the reset on the modem. It’s just as before, jump through all the rings as many times as one wishes, but nothing resolved until reset was properly pushed in.

The thing is, the internet is properly fast as it should be before and after and all the other time. It’s just this BAM it’s gone and won’t reconnect until that one thing is done. Shaking my head.

Last.fm dump & Libre.fm import

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I looked at the issue of the Python methodology of getting my Last.fm profile data to my Libre.fm profile today. I can happily say I have completed this task already.

I followed the instructions on the Wiki about it. It wasn’t as straightforward as that, since I use Windows Vista. Most of the instructions are geared towards Linux users. I got the correct Python install for Windows. That was easy enough. Then when that was installed I had to use cmd to set the path to Python, to make it easier to use. That much I got easily.

Then came the understanding of how to run a Python script, which I eventually did get going, the lastscrape.py which is the first part of the job, the getting of the information from last.fm. That was a bit heady, all that info streaming in the small black cmd window. I was mostly frazzling myself over what was to come, the worst part, the “deleting duplicate entries” deal. I haven’t done this sort of work before, and doing it from instructions not really meant for Windows users was frustrating, and searching the web for help, as directed from the libre.fm wiki, had me still not knowing what to do. I finally gave up on that angle and searched for a Python script to do the job. I found something, and I fiddled around with getting it to run, and finally did. It re-ordered the results, but that didn’t seem to matter, as everything uploaded fine, but I can’t tell on my profile if the dates go back to 2005 or not.

My biggest struggle after the duplicates thing was to get import.py to work. I ended up having to type the full path to the script and to the file, I guess whatever I did in the beginning I made work to make it easier then, but that was pre-29,313 tracks dumping from last.fm, I hadn’t written it all down, as I SHOULD have, thus I can’t be sure as to what I did that was different beforehand.

I did get the import.py to work though, it went fine for 7,386 tracks, then errored. I found a blank line in the file right there. The only thing I had on hand to open the file and jump to a specific line was Firefox (view source) where the “jump to line …” command is available. It worked out fine. I copied the remainder and put it into a new text file, and gave it a new name, then started the Python import script again. It works for 16,198 tracks, then hiccupped again, but this time I couldn’t find anything in the file where it stopped, that seemed to indicate anything … so whatever. I just did what I did before, copied the remainder of the file that wasn’t uploaded yet into a new file with a new name and re-started the Python import script. That part was 5,729 tracks.

The total tracks that uploaded to Libre.fm were 29,313. The dump included a couple of days of multiscrobbling, so I deleted those from the top of the dump before deleting dupes and importing it to Libre.fm.

Overall:

  • Last.fm reports that I have 29,817 track listens.
  • Libre.fm reports that I have 29,359 track listens.

    • That’s a difference of 458 tracks. I’m not sure if it’s real or not. Absolutely my top several artist show the biggest discrepancies, on last.fm my The Cure listens is at 4,057 while the same group at libre.fm is 3,985 listens, for instance.

    I figure I’ll make a comparison chart for myself tomorrow. It’s just one of those weird things I like doing, charting things. I used to make index cards of my last.fm stuff as it changed week by week. In the old days I’d keep lists of songs on the radio, and their ranking with the weekly top whatever shows. It’s cool to look at data that changes. I guess it’s not everyone’s thing, to be so into it, I have to admit that I’m overly into it. FWIW, so I’m tyring to push myself into some kind of coding stuff, learn something new & useful on the computer, as I’ve been wanting to, but just haven’t. This little exercise in Python scripting use had awakened my PHP understanding wishes, my desire to use SSH into my websites but haven’t done it, setting up a dual-boot with Linux on the second boot portion … being able to write programs for solutions to things I’d like is what I want, to make a nice script that would take my rockbox .scrobbler.log and submit it to as many services as I want easily. That would be great. How about things to aide putting music on a player, moving certain data, solving wishes and desires in how things work. Not waiting for others to do it.

    I’m there. I guess so since I put myself on libre.fm the day I truly looked at it, and got myself multiscrobbling that very day, and just a couple of days later I’ve gotten my data moved to the new service, while it remains at last.fm, I can multiscrobble as long as I want to. I just need to get my rockbox problem solved, so that I can multiscrobble. I made myself not look into that, to write this tonight instead. Which is good, since tomorrow some of the fuzzy details right now would be only even fuzzier.

    Libre.fm & Songbird & Last.fm & WMP

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    I signed up with libre.fm yesterday. I did struggle to get WMP going with it. I did find a modified last.fm plugin for WMP which was fixed to scrobble to libre.fm. It and the real last.fm plugin could run at the same time in WMP. But I wasn’t able to get the libre.fm one to actually successfully scrobble to my libre profile.

    I was struggling around the ‘net, and I can say I know I did modify my “hosts” file as described on one page about getting it going (my mind is overloaded, I’m not sure which page that was now but it was simply about putting the audioscrobbler ip into windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file) and I did notice that WMP tracks had scrobbled to libre.fm at some point. Either before that or after. But the point being it still works, and I un-modified the ‘hosts’ file and it’s still working. Thus far. FWIW. I realize now that the first place I found about “how to scrobble to libre.fm” was that Turtle page. It was beyond me what to do about it, I did also see the Client Support page and was still in WMP mode, so I was looking for a way to stick with WMP (since I have Vista and use Media Center some, but I’m not stuck with having to.)

    During all that I started to consider Songbird (I have a slight recollection of downloading it in an earlier version before, like a very early version, and totally ditching it) as a media player since they seemingly are on the way up, as was Thunderbird & Firefox when I switched to them (so long ago, it seems.) I downloaded it last night and couldn’t make it do what I hoped it would. The Last.fm plugin alone wouldn’t even work.

    I found more info today after searching more and more. I changed something in the Songbird config file to not challenge things it thought weren’t compatible, and had it successfully install an older last.fm plugin that was modified to scrobble to libre.fm.

    Then I looked at the Client Support page and understood it fully, though I had looked at it before, just wasn’t learned enough about it yet. I had Songbird, took out all the last.fm/libre.fm anything that I’d installed in it, then loaded in the order from the Client Support page about Multiscrobbling with Songbird: the libre.fm modified one, then the other one linked that will send scrobbles directly to the official Last.fm Client (i.e. the one WMP sends scrobbles to.) I have “always” had the Official Last FM client installed, which is an essential part of Multiscrobbling with Songbird.

    I now have two online profiles, and am scrobbling to both.

    I ponder over how I can get my last.fm data and import it to libre.fm now, but it’s python scripty so I haven’t sat down to tackle it yet. I don’t know what to do about it, and also I do want something that will send my scrobbles from Rockbox to both services, and if I had to pick one it isn’t a choice, since last.fm is the only thing I have to submit to (I currently use qtscrobbler) so both these things have me not sure about where to go from here, for now.

    I have thought of finding another something but hadn’t found what I wanted, happy enough on my end with Last.fm, how I use it, but definitley if I can have a more independent online profile, I’m all for it, but I do not want to leave the last 4+ years of accumulated listening data lost, nor do I want to move all that and then listen only to via libre.fm scrobbling, but then where do my Rockbox scobbles go … I really do like Last.fm, listener pages, being a top listener, or recent one, or something, but some artist pages are so bogged down bieng so popular, I’m lucky to show up on any of them ever, nearly always show up on something more independent, but what’s it matter. Thing is, in May 2005 Audioscrobbler was one thing, then they were Last.fm, then they were … are now but are not but … I’m looking for a way to make it work out for the best.

    Thing is, I got two of my children into Rockbox & Last.fm recently, so this is something I’d like to see happen, switching happily, for good, soon.

    Windstream Doesn’t Tell you to RESET modem

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    [This is a historical look at what happened, didn't work, and what ultimately worked in my "home network" setup (router controls DSL modem PPPoE login & connection to internet) that had always worked, then suddenly didn't, and now works again.]

    Late yesterday morning all of the sudden we had no internet connection. I lived with it, knowing it sometimes goes south, but comes back later (internet connected).

    Hubby on phone (conference call) most of that time, and finally wanted internet in afternoon, so he called Windstream for help.

    Usually I have to reboot the router or something if it doesn’t automatically connect after awhile, and doing that didn’t help. Turning it all off then on again didn’t help. I wasn’t about to connect the modem to my computer. I hate messing with all that junk when it’s not really the router that is at fault ever.

    Yesterday the router was blamed by Windstream, it being the router’s fault we couldn’t connect and they wouldn’t help. Hubby did connect the modem to his laptop after awhile and it wouldn’t work. The person on the phone tried all the things to see if it was connected and obviously it’s such that many people are not savvy as to what it means to be connected, & I do know some about it. I find tech help over phone tedious, not helpful to those who are at the end of the line who have a clue.

    In the end it was just that the LAN ethernet port was disabled on hubby’s computer. Enabling it, the modem connected. So Windstream immediately said they were done. Adios! But that’s not our usual setup. The whole affair was, the modem wasn’t connecting through the router. Phone Service –>Modem–>Router–>wireless signal to computers. This is the usual setup. Our computers look to the router for the internet. Our computers have nothing to do with connecting. Just the router connects & sends us our internet ability.

    I set it all back up as usual, and the modem wouldn’t connect with the router controlling it. So I tried the rebooting and all that to no avail. I reset the router too. Nothing would work to make the internet come back. We had another modem before just a few weeks ago, our original DSL modem from ALLTEL back in the day. When we upgraded to 12mbps recently the phone guy gave us a new modem. It worked fine until yesterday late morning.

    The newer modem is similar to our older one, lower model number than our older one, in fact. But new, branded Windstream, Siemens Speedstream 4200. The tech at Windstream had hubby do all the stupid stuff to see if internet would work with doing this and that, and jumping through hoops with NEVER ONCE saying to push in the RESET button thing with a pen, or whatever. (I know, why would they?)

    I was trying to make ICS work to have modem connected to desktop computer LAN then distribute the internet through our wireless home network, which is part of the router, the good old router that always works but wouldn’t seem to work with modem successfully any more. Home network was just fine though.

    I did get that internet distributed, but it was flaky, I couldn’t stand it. It worked on desktop mostly, sometimes on networked computers, but not always without re-doing the network setup on the desktop. I had enough of that and re-put everything back with router between the computers and modem. It still wouldn’t work to connect internet.

    Then I spotted the little hole on the modem and sayed “What the heck, why not …” and voila! I loaded my router status page and it was INSTANTLY displaying connected information. The thing is, the information in a modem is branded, and reset puts it back to factory, like how you got it originally. If it’s been tweaked by some employee somewhere, that’s not going to be a killing factor of getting online if you reset. The thing about it is, it works or it doesn’t, and eventually you’ll get something done that will help.

    Get your customers the information they need. Don’t do anything except check to make sure everything plugged in correctly, lights on, then RESET the stupid modem with the RESET push in thing, not the power on/off button, the RESET. I say this from the bottom of my heart, RESET is there for a reason, and this inane going over all the possible scenarios and not getting to the bottom of it is purely not helpful, obviously I use their signal to distribute on my network differently than they will support. So, if modem connects with laptop, it’s fine. Goodbye! Yet it’s absolute that we didn’t call in the first place to get the modem hooked up to the computer. We have an unsupported setup, doesn’t mean I want them to help with the router. I just know that if my router was routing everything just fine on my network just not getting the modem to dial up, it’s more like the modem was connected all by itself and my router couldn’t deal with the signal coming into it’s WAN port. [Fully know that we never connected to the modem with a browser. Never used the modem as router.] Your disdain for home networks being between modem and computer is evident, understood, but not acceptable without first RESET of modem. That’s the FIRST thing to do. We won’t call for help again, that’s for sure. You know why. It’s always the signal is down, or it’s something we have to figure out ourselves.

    Stryper 25th Anniversary Tour

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    My husband and I went to see Stryper in Atlanta a few days ago, Wednesday, October 21, 2009. The whole show was really good. I really liked their opening band, Manic Drive. I’d not heard of them previously, and found their show super, so we got a couple of t-shirts & their latest CD after the show from their booth.

    Stryper was fantastic too. It’s the 3rd time I’ve seen them, which isn’t as much as I would like it to have been. My first was in 1988 Sept. in Disney World “Night of Joy” event. My friend and I went just for them, though I’d been to other NoJ events before that. That year it was precisely Stryper that I wanted to see and that was that.

    I never did have friends interested in Stryper like I was, and being an introvert wasn’t one to find ways to get to concerts unless people I already knew would want to go, the internet not being a way to connect to others back then … sigh.

    So I went through the mid-80′s with that one Stryper attendance, and then finally in 2005 I got to go again, when they released a new album and toured again after a hiatus. This year they released another album, and I wasn’t able to get it until just this month. I didn’t listen to it a lot, but loved it the first listen I gave it. I didn’t plan on attending the concert, things being tight of late, but mentioned that the concert that I knew would be in Atlanta had changed from what I last knew and it was to be that coming Wednesday. I said something about it to my husband and he initiated interest in seeing if there were tickets available. There were.

    So we had a date. It was tiring, but fun. It was exhausting, but worth it.

    I have some horrible cell phone pictures that I have to sort through, tag, and load up somewhere online, so I’ll make a Page here about it when I get that done.

    Thinking through Windows 7 Upgrades

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    I’m going over things trying to decide if I can put Windows 7 on my old laptop and on the Desktop computer. I know I can, I just am not sure yet if there are enough drivers for essentials of graphics & internet connectivity yet.

    My Desktop has been around for a long time, in computer years.

    Athlon 64 3000+
    Abit NF8-V mb
    (The mb has Nvidia nForce3 250 GB chipset)
    2 MB Corsair DDR (1mbx2)
    ATI 7500 AGP
    DWL-G520M wireless adapter

    Those are the specs that pass and don’t pass muster with Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and online Windows 7 Compatibility checking.

    In the Advisor I’m told my wireless adapter won’t work.

    Online in the Compatibility area of Win 7 search for it and it’s compatible.

    That’s just the icing on the cake for this affair. My main concern is the nForce 3 chipset, which I’ve read here and there about the same sort of chipset & ATI AGP and Win 7 troubles as I’m thinking I could have. Yes my desktop is “old” but it runs decent, stable as Win XP is. I don’t want it left in the dark ages, and when it comes down to it, I cannot afford to leave it there but can’t afford to upgrade anything except software soon. Hardware, like motherboard, the spiral begins, ever more quickly spinning downward at the thought of changing the MB to get a different chipset. No way. I have to make this setup work.

    So it’s my business to attend to organizing the files in preparation for moving things around to eventually install Windows 7 in a dual-or-triple boot situation. Win 7 & Win XP, maybe some Linux flavor added in (I have been leaning both ways for years, maybe, maybe not …)

    The old laptop is an HP Pavillion dv5 which they say on their website is supported as Win 7 upgradable, though they as of yet have no Win 7 Drivers.

    I do know that my laptop came “Vista compatible” back in the day. Vista wasn’t out yet. Anyhow I have run Vista Upgrade Advisor on it in the past, it was OK to upgrade.

    Running the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on my HP laptop was similar to my desktop, complained at my graphics processor.

    But since my HP laptop is a manufactured product, unlike my desktop which I put together piecemeal, and HP says they’ll have drivers, then I’ll have to go with, sure, you will or Vista drivers will work or … I’ll just have to dual-boot the laptop too, just to be sure it’ll work.

    Fun fun fun. Moving files, cleaning up. Backing up. Joy, joy, joy. Which reminds me, I need to back up my websites too.

    Windows 7 Upgrade Family pack is avail. for $149 and it’s exactly what I can use. I hope the pricing stays around until I can do it.

    Just Read Twilight

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    I just read the book “Twilight”, finished it in the middle of the night, actually. I’ve had the books, all of the books currently in the series that are out, for quite some time, and just hadn’t picked them up to read. I actually have the movie on Blu-Ray, and haven’t watched it yet.

    What started it for me was looking for books on audible.com I found the first book, Twilight and liked how it was described and the audio sample was interesting enough, so I purchased it. I was listening to it when I had my older phone, the Palm Treo 755p, using Audible Air, but never finished it, deciding I loved it as an audio book but wanted to read it first, then listen to it again, finishing it that way.

    Since June 6 I’ve had a Palm Pre instead of my Palm Treo, and the Pre isn’t capable of using Audible Air, I have been hooked on using that program and can’t stand the thought of having to use another device and be married to loading from a computer hook-up or listening via my computer … ugh.

    For some reason I haven’t figured out, I just never picked up the book to start the reading of Twilight until just the other day. It was nice to read it, even though I listened to the audio book about 3/4 of the way through before, and found it very read-able and getting to the ‘new to me’ part was great.

    I know it’s categorized as a Young Adult book. I tend to enjoy many books in that category, and also feel the need to read some of them before allowing my children to possibly read them. Like this series, I haven’t let them yet read The Golden Compass, etc. or Maximum Ride … books I really like, but feel they aren’t “old enough” to appreciate what needs to be considered while reading them. I guess I’m mostly taking this from a perspective of Young Adult being something that has an older young adult and a younger young adult categorization-able-ness. (My children being homeschooled and shielded from some things that many children may not be.)

    I know, for instance, I would have loved to read something like Twilight when I was 11, but I won’t even let my 13 year old son consider reading it. I see 16 to 18 more-so a better age for that. My daughter is 10, nearly 11, she also I would prefer to wait to read these types of books. I was in public school and knew things at 7 years of age that my children, three of who are older than that, have no clue about. Thankfully. There is time enough for many ideas to be understood, maturity can bring much information to it. It doesn’t need to be given out throughout childhood. Like any subject, don’t teach it until the child is ready to really receive it, forcing math concepts on a child, for instance, when they don’t get it and pressuring them when they aren’t ready, when waiting for signs of maturity in that receptive area would bring about an ease in understanding and receiving said information. So it goes in everything, allowing what is right for each child as they grow, when they are ready, and books are highly subjective. My idea about the ones above I mentioned are that they have some good themes to talk about, but shouldn’t go into a child’s mind until some level of maturity is evident, and if it means they don’t read them until they are adults, there is no harm. Better no harm than harm. Amen.

    So then, I really do like many sorts of literature, and haven’t read a lot of vampire stuff, though I have held a fascination with the subject matter since I was small. I am not widely read in any area, just a smattering of this and that, but I can say I find the Twilight vampires to be very interesting, even though some people online think it totally out-of-line that they sparkle in sunlight, and aren’t burnt up, like other vampire stories make them out to be like. :Rolleyes: