Michael Ledford

The times they are a-changin'

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 01:40:29 GMT

That about sums it up.

This afternoon I gave my two weeks notice to my current employer. I have accepted a very cool position at a local software company doing Mac OS X development.

As well, I plan on changing from LiveJournal to my own site managed 'bloging' software.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

A message for GoogleBot.

Wed, 18 May 2005 05:28:54 GMT

Please add http://www.vci-atl.com/ to your crawling list.

The company is called Value Concepts, Inc. I guess it doesn't really matter why I ask, but rather that I have done so in a polite manner.

So thank you, oh wise GoogleBot. May you forever crawl my sites.

Michael

What a difference two months make.

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 15:29:51 GMT

The past two months have been extremely stressful for me. I would apologize for not writing sooner but I'm sure all will understand.

So it all started the beginning of February. When we had a pretty bad wind storm come through Atlanta. The winds were howling through with gusts up to, and I would be surprised if they were over, 60 MPH. Unfortunately, our house is totally exposed on the south-west side with hardly any wind break. If you have lived in Atlanta long enough you know most of our storms and bad weather and wind come from the south-west.

Well, that morning we lost approximately 40 or so shingles from our roof. So I took the day off and with help from my father-in-law and dad, by the end of the week in the cold and wind we replaced every torn off and broken shingle.

Then about a month ago, I had just purchased our brand new lawn mower and was ready to tackle the bermuda grass that needed to be scalped from the year before. It was fairly windy that day. And for some reason I stepped back during a gust of wind and looked up at the south-west facing roof. And poof... lost 20 shingles while I was standing there looking.

So we've been getting estimates and quotes to either replace that side of the roof or the entire roof. As you can imagine it's a bit stressful to think that we might need to drop that much money so soon. But I figure it's an investment and it's best to get it taken care of.

Of course during the past month we had our refrigerator stop working. And have a swarm of termites invade our house. It seems that our house was due for a "booster" treatment, from the company that already held the bond on the house, this month. But given what I've seen around the house, I wouldn't go with that company if my life depended on it.

So we defrosted the refrigerator... back to working normally.
Termites... we have received several quotes and have chosen to go with a very reputable company that will install the Sentricon system and also spot treat the current infestation on our house with Termidor.

It's been a crazy stressful time. And I hope everything will get back to "normal" soon.

Listen to the music!

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:09:44 GMT

I'm a part of a monthly music club where someone comes up with a theme and then someone tries to come up with a track list that maches. The whole idea is to expand other's musical disc-ology as well as experience. Here is January's tracks that are available on the iTunes Music Store as an iMix.

Early Morning Dreams Sleep Furiously (Link Requires iTunes)
Total Songs: 10
Date: January 31, 2005

Happy New Year!

Mon, 03 Jan 2005 15:03:20 GMT

Hello and Happy New Year. OK, I'm only 3 days and 10 hours late... but I guess it's better than nothing.

I have had a wonderful two weeks, my boss gave me two weeks off at the holidays. So while it sucked to have to wake up and come in to work it's better than having to come in around the holidays. So April and I are very thankful. It's been like a second honeymoon just two short months after getting married.

Anyway, I'm back in the saddle and ready to get going on another year. I feel 2005 will be interesting for sure, I guess we'll see how it develops.

Hit and Run...

Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:07:57 GMT

This weekend... this weekend was pretty bad.

I went out with a group from church to see Oceans Twelve. The movie, isn't so great. They took the wonderful plot from the last movie ripped it out and replaced it with humor and hoped no one would notice.

On the way home from the movie I was stopped at a light when all of a sudden we heard the sound of skidding tires behind us. Next thing we know we were hit in the rear. It lurched us forward a good bit. Stunned and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do next and angry that someone just hit me. I started to think about pulling over to the left hand turn lane one lane over. When the teal green 92-94 Civic Hatchback (seemingly manual) squealed his tires across all lanes of traffic (3) to the right with his lights off down the cross road.

Not only was I hit, I was hit and then the person didn't even have the courtesy to stop and own up to it. Coward.

Luckily, there was only about 0.5% damage to the vehicle. The bumper didn't crack. There only appears a minor scratch. The only "serious" damage appears to be in the metal struts that hold the bottom of the bumper. The were bent in like this.. '/' by about 1/8" to 1/4". So my bumper barely look like it's leaning in... where before it was perfectly up and down straight.

There goes my perfect 10 year driving history with no accidents. Although I didn't cause this. It still sucks.

But we are very blessed, we are OK. The car is OK. All I know is the hand of God must have been in front of that car. Because I know we were whacked pretty hard.

On top of that this will be the first year I won't be sending out Christmas/Holiday cards to friends. :( There is just so much going on. But, I will be on top of the game next year! With the new married life and wife... there is little time to do a lot of things right now. And people seemed to be just plain rude this weekend while out shopping.

Anyway, everyone take care.

MythTV... floored.

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 14:06:32 GMT

You've heard me talk at length about my MythTV box that I have built. Last night I did a small "upgrade" to my setup.

All I have to say is... ^*&#*#! This thing rocks.

So what did I do? I enabled multiple frontends and used a pre-built Mac OS X package that allows me to use my MythTV box on my OS X machine. And the scary part... it works. It works well. OK, it's awesome and amazes me. As a friend would say, "It rocks my face off!"

I was able to watch pre-recorded videos with no problem. I was able to watch live TV with no problem.

Now there is a caveat in here... My MythTV linux box only has an 802.11b USB network interface. The laptop has an 802.11g card. With previously recorded videos the network didn't have much problems. Sometimes the video would slow down but the audio always appeared to stay constant. The MPEG video has a bit rate of 3500 bps burstable to 4750 (I think, I have forgotten how I have set it up.) The linux box only has a USB 1.1 interface so I don't know if upgrading it to 802.11g would help or not. I could move the router to the cabinet and try cabled ethernet, but currently I think knoppmyth has some problems with the built in NIC on the motherboard. Knoppmyth is the linux distro that I'm using that keeps me from having to build the machine from scratch and saved lots of time getting the machine up and running.

Also, I tested LiveTV on the TV while watching a previously recorded video on the OS X frontend. No problems. Now I can watch something else if April decides she has to watch that program she already taped.

Wow, very cool. And all for free.

Freak of a browser...tab...grrr

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:20:27 GMT

I was in the middle of a long post and accidentally closed the browser tab. *sigh* Maybe I'll write it later...

Let me sum it up...

Lots of thanksgiving food.
Things are going well.
Uploaded honeymoon pictures.
Email for access.

Michael

Disappointment or Hope?

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:25:24 GMT

So it would seem not everything ends the way you want it. But from disappointment and a swift kick in the rear you can usually find hope. And that is what I think I have found. Hope in myself. In the last two years I have wondered if I am big enough for the task, strong enough, and smart enough. You can have all sorts of people tell you to go for it but it doesn't seem to help. No excuses anymore! I choose to find hope and not let it find me. So that is what I am going to do. I have a wonderful support team and I'm sure the journey will be hard and difficult.

So feel free to ask what I'm talking about. When you do I'll be sure to answer you, "I'm choosing hope."

Vote smarter, not harder!

Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:24:07 GMT

April and I went out to Loco's last night with some friends and I had mentioned to a couple of people a website that is non-profit and non-biased that is designed to help get to the heart of the matter when it comes to candidates and what they stand for based on historical data. I decided I would get this out to more than just those people.

This morning while trying to use the site it has been very slow and even non-responding. But I hope each one of you try and use it for at least our federal and state officials. The site is called vote-smart.org.

The best way to use the site is the following.

1) Go to the US Post Office link provided here and find your zip+4 zipcode. http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

2) Go to http://www.vote-smart.org/ On the left hand menu you will see a text box that says "Enter your 9-digit ZIP code:" Enter in the zip+4 code you just received from the USPS into that box and click "go". This should bring up any information that have about the elections for your area.

Again, as I write this the website appears to not be working. But remembr this later in the week and try it out. There is a lot of information and you can decide how you want to vote next Tuesday. Be informed!

Best wishes,
Michael

The BobbyBlackWolf Show

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:27:02 GMT

So, I'm posting this mostly for the benefit of Mr. Bobby. I guess I could have just left a comment, but really what fun is that?

So this morning when I came into work I sat down and fired up iTunes. Last night I was all ready to Hijack audio from a live stream. Then Bobby crushed my ambitions with telling me he archives the radio show in mp3 and I could listen to it whenever. So fine! I saw the previous two URL locations and through my genius was able to figure out the numbering pattern he encrypted at the end of each file. Well, OK, it was simply the date... but just think maybe half of America might not be able to figure that out. OK, enough self boasting. (I just need to make myself feel better right now.)

I listened and was fairly entertained. Considering I'm not a gamer. Bobby knows this, well except for those 3 times I crushed him on his Dreamcast playing football. ;-) But it was interesting to hear about Camel Spiders. Which I then went and looked up... I think those things will give me nightmares. It was also interesting to hear one guy call in, who it sounded like he was beta testing EverQuest 2. I remember Bobby was hooked on this game while in school.

So I'm trying to decide if I will listen live the next time and call in. But I won't be talking about games. Heck, I would waste time talking about anything else. ;-) You did say several times, "Call in and talk about *ANYTHING*".

We'll see, but it was great to hear the person I used to bug at the front desk of our dorm again.

Plus the next show will be talking about that cool drum game that my wife might want. Now I just need to buy a PS2.

Back in the swing of things...

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:07:25 GMT

I haven't written anything since I got back from our honeymoon. We made it down to Jamaica and back safely. The weather was very humid down there this time of year. But we survived sitting out by the pool, or in the pool. It was so nice and relaxing.

As far as the wedding goes, it was beautiful and special to both of us. We are planning on putting up pictures soon. I have a domain that I've been waiting to use for my family. WIth that domain I'm interested in putting family tree information..etc...etc.

So I'm back in the swing of things back. We're slowly getting things situated and setup at home. Thank yous go to everyone who helped make our day very special!

Wedding...

Sat, 09 Oct 2004 16:08:45 GMT

Today is a very wonderful day. In exactly 3 hours I will marry my beautiful fiancee, April. I've been fairly silent about this except to friends. I have a few things to say...

I love April very very much. I could have never imagined someone like her would ever come into my life. I thought that I might never feel love as deeply and fervently as I do. But as a good friend of mine said last night at the rehearsal dinner. May this time be the *least* that you love each other. And that you will find new depths and grow together.

Thank you to everyone and to my best man Chris. You all have made this time so special to me and April.

I'm not all that nervous. Just rushing around making sure everything is OK.

Well, off to get married. :D

I love you all,
Michael

MythTV the final frontier.

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:35:49 GMT

Well, last night I hooked everything up and now have my MythTV box up and running at the new house. Thanks to the fact that I couldn't get DSL at the house and had to opt for cable and cable modem everything works perfectly right now. My capture card has a tuner inside it that changes the channel for me so I don't need an external tuner. Also if I get another capture card no equipment to buy, just split the cable and let the new tuner do it's thing.

One thing I am a bit concerned about is the enclosure that the computer is housed in. It doesn't get much air flow and I'm concerned about heat build up in the cabinet. Maybe I just need to make an exhaust hole in the back to let the hot air out. There is a small space in the cabinet door that can allow small amounts of new air in... does anyone have suggestions for this? I don't like to think that it could be a fire hazard... I think that would only come into play if the power supply over heated.

Other than that I'm looking forward to coming home tonight to see how it recorded what I set up. The one this is, I think TiVo has better AI for recording programs. I wonder if Myth will record a program that has already been recorded based on it's title and description.

Let me know what you think!

Yessss....

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:21:51 GMT

Yesterday I finally received high speed Internet access at my home. For the past two years after I had graduated I have been on a dial-up account. I have been waiting and waiting until I could finally get high speed like I did in college.

Let's do the math on my new service.

~43 MB in 2 minutes. = 44032 Kb in 120 second

Solve for rate:

44032/120 = 366.9333 Kbps

Now let's take the theoretical fastest speed this service can go... 3 Mbps

3 Mbps ~= 3000000 bps

3000000 bps ~= 375000 bytes ps. (8 bits in a byte. 3000000/8)

375000 bytes ps ~= 366.21 Kbps

As you can see, I went right to the limit of my service's ability. Any inaccuracies are because of timing issues.

But I must say, this is awesome! :) And I saved money too, actually lots of money. I'm excited.

Doctor...

Mon, 13 Sep 2004 17:33:39 GMT

I went to the doctor this morning. I told him of some problems I've had over the past month with vertigo and dizziness. I told him when the last spell hit I decided to go to a drug store and take my blood pressure and everything was fine.

It could be just stress... or it could be an inner ear infection.

So I guess to be on the safe side and the family history of early heart disease he has taken some blood work and set up and appointment for a stress test and an echo-cardiogram. It seems a bit much, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. I know I need to increase my level of exercise.

Of course I don't think my insurance will cover much of the test. Some people are worried about that and finances. But if he says it must be done then it must be done. I don't mean to worry people... no need for that yet.

Prime time and ready to shine!

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 19:18:51 GMT

Good friend, Dennis Estanislao, has launched his new website ForwardAnimation.com. Graduating soon from the AIoA I would highly recommend him.

If you might know of any work he might be capable of doing please feel free to contact him.

Thinking it over, two years ago.

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:00:38 GMT

A few months ago my sweetheart and I went to see a cute movie, yes one of those "chick flicks". Actually I don't mind them at all. I'm a romantic so most of them are romantic and I like seeing them, except Princess Diaries 2. I do draw the line there.

The point, I heard this cool song and just had to buy it on iTunes Music store. It's by Dana Glover called Thinking Over.

Right around two years ago is when I knew I had someone very very special but I wasn't sure what I should do. While at the time marriage wasn't in the picture I can say that this song feels like an accurate description of what I was thinking and going through.

I hope you enjoy it.

----------------------------------------------------------

I've been searching for reason and I'm running out of time
I can feel that it's the season
Time to make up my mind

And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things

Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things

Am I ready for forever
Oh, God, show me a sign
Cause if we're to be together
Then it's got to be divine

And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things

Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things

He wants to marry me, carry me far away
He wants to love me for life
He wants to be with me every morning I awake
He wants to hold me thru the night

Father, which way should I go?
I cannot clearly see
And, oh, I love him so
But only you know if he's the one for me

Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things

And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said

Oh, is this where I wanna be?

Thinking over the things that you said

Splish, Splash...

Tue, 17 Aug 2004 03:05:34 GMT

This evening I went to a new home appliance and electronics store here in Atlanta. H.H.Gregg has a good atmosphere with courteous staff to help. I was there to purchase a washer and dryer for the new house. Which I did with a little help. Using 24 months same as cash it was a no brainer.

The washer was the Whirlpool LSQ9659P and the dryer was a Whirlpool LEQ9858P.

Hopefully these will serve well for the next 20 years or so and if I have any problems I will be sure to write about them here.

And the train rolls on. We have delivery scheduled for later this week.

Oh the joys, Oh the sorrows.

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:39:05 GMT

I think this past week I have a full understanding of the joys and sorrows of home ownership.

It started Friday night when I went by to check on the mail. Well, I couldn't check the mail. Why? Because from the previous night till then, someone had run over our mailbox and post with their car. Before they did they took out a part of my neighbors as well.

So, went to Home Depot on Saturday night and dropped a lot of money. First there was the mailbox and the mailbox post. And we had already decided to repaint some of the very yellow interior that is in the house so we bought two gallons of primer with a hint of the color we want in it and all the painting supplies we needed.

Earlier in the day I spent around three hours mowing the grass, and that was with two people with two lawn mowers. I don't plan on the grass ever getting that high again so hopefully it won't take that long again. But in the process I found about 6 mounds of fire ants in our yard... or rather they found me and I received about 11 fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) stings. Unfortunately I didn't know about a non-poisonous way to kill the ants, so I just bought some Amdro to kill them.

On Sunday I totally completed a video for an upcoming event. Went to the house and installed the new mailbox. Which reqired me to go back to Home Depot and pick up a 50 lb. bag of play sand to raise up the existing hole and fill in around the post. Play sand is amazingly cheap at around $2.38 for 50 lbs. I was happy about that. After the mailbox was finished I pulled out the Amdro and sprinkled around each mound of fire ants to feed them the poison. Then went to the laundry mat and cleaned all my clothes.

Wow, I had a very busy weekend. Tonight my parents and I are heading to a store to check on washing machines and driers. No more going to the laundry mat!

Whew, I'm tired.

Home, sweet home.

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 05:27:49 GMT

Today was yet another step in this wonderful thing we call life and "growing up". Today at 4:00 I went to help sign the papers and officially bought the first house.

It was the end of a long two and a half month journey that began with me looking for houses all over the place. The house is a great starter home just a little under five years old. It's approximately 1600 square ft. 3 bedroom, 2 full bath house. It's on approximately .5 acres of land with a beautiful front lawn. The exterior of the house is 10% brick on the front of the two car garage and the rest vinyl siding. While not exactly what I would want, 100% brick, I must keep in mind that this is a starter house.

We received an excellent price for the house compared to the market around the house and since it doesn't sit in a sub-division there are no association fees or covenants to keep later when the property possibly turns into rental.

The closing was a bit anti-climatic for myself. As I had worked very hard for the past three weeks to ensure that the closing was as uneventful as it turned out to be. Considering this was our first purchase and we did it all on our own without the representation of an agent, I think we did ok. I had done my homework and then some. It may sound trite but much of what I have done financially with my life has lead to this point today and I'm proud that we are now building equity instead of just throwing it away on some rental property.

So, now I wait for the seller to have the allotted time to move out and then begin the next step... and the next. This is a very exciting time. Nothing like the thought of being able to come in to home, sweet home.

In the secret bowels of the Tiger.

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:38:03 GMT

I was pointed to an entry in a blog this morning. Of course I know the answer to the problem or rather the question placed here. Thanks to DShadow for sharing his knowledge with me.

Let's just say that it is very very interesting for Developers.

Of course to be able to decipher this you need a little bit of developer knowledge and access to a box running the new Mac OS X Tiger developer preview version.

Sick and tired...

Wed, 14 Jul 2004 17:21:33 GMT

Well I haven't had time to write about it but since Friday I've been sick and under the weather.

On Monday I made an appointment with the doctor and the quickest I could get in to him was today, Wed. at 10:00AM. So I went in and he told me it was bronchitis and loaded me up with medications. So now I have an inhaler, cough suppressant, and anti-biotics.

Now back at work I feel like junk on all this. *sigh* Oh well.

Stability, kind of.

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 13:15:54 GMT

Coolness, I finally achieved some stability on my MythTV box early this week. I've just been too busy to write about it. All this using the default KnoppMyth distro.

Turns out that the default X driver frame buffer supports some things that the TV out card in certain situations doesn't like. Therefore there is a replacement X driver that you can find at at this location. Or you can download a precompiled binary here. If you don't trust the pre-compiled binaries you can find the source available here.

The resulting object file is placed in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/

Upon doing this I was able to bring the program guide up on top of live TV which previously before would cause the system to freeze.

The developers of ivtv working on the PVR-350 support are working very hard and lately have had a lot of success. I'm looking forward to when that driver is stable and closed caption and picture in picture will be available soon. I've found a small problem with my thought process on what I want to do with this box. I would love to help out the developers but I also need a stable box to record programs with and use everyday. I guess I could put another hard drive inside the box and install on to that one as my development drive only the case doesn't have room for another hard drive. What to do? Well I don't want to partition off the existing hard drive as then I will be decreasing the amount of storage for the production side.

Oh well, I'll think about it and maybe it will come to me.

Crazy Nickels is just that...stupid.

Wed, 16 Jun 2004 18:37:36 GMT

OK, so I work in the Stone Mountain area. I read Bobby talking about a new arcade so I thought I would check it out during my lunch break. I don't know what I expected... but I wasn't expecting the $2.50 entrance fee at the door. I mean really, what's the point if I want to come play during my lunch break to plop down two and a half bucks to play a few games for a nickel?

As was pointed out in another blog as well as what Bobby had already said, DDR and other games are still a dollar to play.

So what did I do when I stood at the door reading the $2.50 entrance fee sign on the door. I stared at it for a second contemplating why in the world they would do something so inane. Especially for a lunch time workers crowd. Then I turned around and left in my car.

Maybe the crazy owners will figure out some kind of special... but unless I'm staying for about 2 hours or so I find no point in it. And hey, at least you could discount the expensive machines a bit more. 50 cents maybe? Or why not the same amount as all the others, assuming all games are 50 cents, at a 10% normal cost. Then it would take two nickels.

Silly people.