Music Library Guide. Part 2: Organization Structure

Read the first part of the media guide here.

A media library is not only about a media player and a ton of audio files. It’s easy to have files scattered across a hard drive, perhaps a music folder as the one in every Windows system, another one where a P2P system downloads its files, and few files in the received files folder of MSN messenger. That’s the situation of the vast majority.

Although it may be “comfortable” to have files around a disk, it becomes a problem if you need to move the library to another computer or manage it completely. It even gets worse when you use a media player trying to manage by itself the media files, and of course, if you have your music collection in an external disk.

When I started to search for information on how to handle a media library, I found a lot of info on how to perfectly rip an audio CD (with lots of different opinions) along with huge debates on which MP3 codec was the best.

But I found NONE information, on how to keep files organized.

This piece of my guide, won’t be an actual how-to. It won’t be about tweaking software in order for them to work the way you want. It will be more like a guideline, on what to do to keep music files ordered, and prevent your disk from becoming an audio havoc.

Result of a brain fart

So, I was thinking about writing all the shit I really have to throw out of my mind, but I can’t really speak out because I don’t really know who should I speak with. I’m a great listener, but when it comes to speaking, I constantly have it rough finding the correct person to speak with. I should really stop ranting in an emo way and start talking about my Mac.

Yes, a Mac. I have a Mac. Right now. It’s still shining. Actually, I don’t think it’ll stop shining anytime soon. It’s kind of too glossy. And it’s beautiful. I love it how anything material that could not probably get into my life by my own means tends to make me happy. Also, I don’t know if that’s completely understandable, pathetic or just the most shameful thing you’ve ever read in your life.

Anyway, this little bug is gorgeous. I truly love it. Even though it has a little screen which will probably make my life more difficult as soon as I start coding. Guess I’ll have to work that out. What I do know, is that I need a desktop computer ASAP. I don’t want this cute little thing to wear off fast (read: I wont use it 10 hours, daily) so I really need another computer.

I’m not even halfway through the configuration and customization of this lap. Mac is like Ubuntu in terms of customization. There are a few thousand things you can set to work as you want. Ironically, there are only a few Mac users I know who actually use at least some of this worthy features. The usual reason to use Mac is “it’s beautiful!!” or “it doesn’t have viruses”.

My reason is that the little bitch is virtually compatible with the world. Also, it’s not Windows, so, no major flaws, a good interface to work with and a nice amount of software to choose. So I’ll stick to Mac, at least for now. It’s by far the most powerful computer I’ve had in my life, so anyway, if I don’t like it, it’ll always be both Ubuntu/Windows compatible. It would be pathetic, but can be done.

I think I’ll stop it here. Tomorrow I have to take an important decision. This post actually was more than a brain fart. It’s the shitiest thing I’ve ever written in my life.

Estupideces en el ITESM

Este post va en español, porque el contenido del correo en cuestión, está en español. Además, hace años (en serio años) que no escribo en español para un blog.

Esta nota, es realmente un mail que ha bombardeado mi bandeja de entrada desde hace un par de días. Me puso tan de malas, que decidí echarle mierda en este momento, ya que me siento muy enfermo (y cansado porque la toz no me deja dormir) como para seguir haciendo tarea. (Así me sentía cuando lo empecé. Lo debí publicar la semana pasada, pero se me atravesaron los exámenes)

Bien. Primero que nada. Probablemente esto lo redacto algún idiota de preparatoria/profesional del CEM, ya que habla de CCI y un par de cosas comunes entre la jerga estudiantil del Campus Estado de México.

Para los que no tengan la menor idea, el sistema del ITESM, y en particular el CEM siempre ha estado rodeado de elitismo en el que las demás escuelas son una mierda (de hecho algunas lo son) y todos son unos maricas (excepto UNAM/IPN) por no ofrecer planes de ingeniería como dios manda. Por ser parte de la “Cultura TEC“, más de alguna vez mencionas ese punto como estudiante, claro que nunca lo lanzas hablando en serio. Si no hubiera gente estudiando carreras sencillas, el mundo sería un desastre.

El problema, es que la gente confunde el elitismo promovido en el Tec, con  el elitismo impulsado tanto por una sociedad externa como por la sociedad interna de estudiantes. El resultado, es que hay una cantidad inmensa de cosas como esta, aplicaciones pendejas, grupos pendejos en Facebook y demás basura que no viene al caso.

Así que, comenzamos.

Tyrian: Chapter 1 & 2

What happens when your parents go out to have a coffee, your brother goes to the movies and you’re left alone without electricity in your house while it’s raining? (It actually happened…) You tend to… take out that awesome Tequila bottle you’ve been keeping for a rainy day.

You pop it, and then, you have an awesome idea. Let’s take my mother’s laptop, which can handle pretty well for a couple of hours with its battery!!

Then, you realize it’s time to keep on writing that science fiction project based on that awesome game from your childhood. Hell, why not?

Ok. So, this is the Introduction, Prologue and the first revision of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. It’s not completely checked, so, strange words/grammatical errors/bullshit may pop out from nowhere as well. If you read it, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did when I wrote it.

Tyrian: The Story by Gerardo Galíndez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 Mexico License.

Charming women

I love women. I mean, they’re simply a masterpiece. They’re specially cute when they try to do man-related stuff. I truly love them. They’re charming.

Heaven knows how, but as my Facebook account is kind of… fucked up, I had to find another way of having fun. So, I opened YouTube and I accidentaly found a video of this awesome girl shooting a shotgun. The 4chan effect kicked in, and I couldn’t stop watching.

The first video I watched. It’s great.

The type of woman I dream for a girlfriend.

Tyrian: The story

Tyrian is this awesome game I was addicted to when I was kid. About a year ago, I downloaded Tyrian 2000 from a fan page which looks just like an official page, as it’s been released as freeware.

The game was written completely in Pascal 14 years ago. The engine actually handles sprites, so it’s a piece of impresive work. Even though it’s relatively simple to work with sprites, 14 years ago there was no Sprite class or anything similar. They did a very good job, and it was well received.

Recently, I started writing science fiction. I can’t say if I’m good or not, but I do enjoy it a lot. I previously wrote another story, but I didn’t like it much so I left it. Perhaps I’ll write it again, one day. So far, I have written only a small introduction, a prologue and the first part of chapter one for the next part of Tyrian’s story.

Tyrian

As usual, the text is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-Share alike license. Should you like the story and/or have any ideas, feel free to email me, at gerardo.galindez@gmail.com

Random thoughts

So, I’m sitting in front of my desk, my left leg is cramping (I had to hit Merriam Webster for that) as I’m practically sitting on it, in front of me, there are my Engineering Math’s notes, I have to study a couple of useless shit (really, it’s even less useful than knowing random trivia on Star Trek) and I haven’t started to study.

My poor blog was left alone for two months, more or less. Honestly, I haven’t had time, or what I should be saying, I haven’t had time to organize my time and do everything I want.

The Square Nine team was a mess. Almost no one has published anything in three months of existence. About a month ago, I desisted too. I’ll take it again, but certainly not now. In a week, perhaps.

Also, I’m not feeling quite well. I feel hungry all the time and I haven’t slept well (Am I pregnant?? Hell. I’m a guy. Phew…)  I just saw Isabel’s blog “Fue un café” and she wrote a very similar situation. So, she kind of served as inspiration for me to blog. Again.

I really miss this things. It’s unbelievably entertaining to blog, and when a good posts makes it past the huge wall of the blogosphere, after a storm of visitors, anyone feels invincible. I loved that feeling.

I’m in the need of help here. I really have to organize my life. My bedroom’s been a mess for over three weeks. My HDD is also a mess, in all Ubuntu, Windoze, and documents partitions. Also, my media library became a mess after I lent that disk to a random guy who managed very well to break it. That’s why I had to suspend my media library posts.

I don’t know why I’m actually writing this. I guess I really need to clear my mind, before starting again. If I’m succesfull in this week’s goal, restructuring completely this mess, then I’ll blog about it. I really want to. I miss it.

Hell. It’s easier to stop smoking than to keep organized. Time to move.

Thing #4. Team work

I enjoy going to school. I enjoy studying. I enjoy going to school. I enjoy studying. I enjoy going to school. I enjoy studying…

Ok, I don’t. I hate to waste time, and studying subjects that have little, to no relationship with my career makes me mad. Way mad. But I don’t have a choice, so I “try” to like it. Even though, I tend to complain too much about the way things develop. I guess it’s just that I hate lazy people with the idea “you’re the smart guy, so you do all the job”. I really, REALLY, FUCKIN’!!! hate it.

It happened (a few times but happened) during my first semester. It happened again during the second semester, a lot of times. Now, during the summer classes, it’s happening again. Thanks god, there were only a few activities that need to team up, and I worked with a friend, who gets the job done as it should be.

WordPress has no more customers

According to WordPress statics, our dearly beloved blogging service has been left without bloggers. What will happen now without them???

Proof of existence

Don’t worry, WordPress. Chuck Norris will certainly roundhouse kick each blogger’s ass in order for them to use you again. Which reminds me I should be writing a lot of posts instead of publishing senseless content. I saw it, and I immediatly felt the rush to do this. Sorry XD

A poetic, epiphany for a geek

It’s been a curios weekend. I feel extremely anxious and nervous due to the final exams. I know what will happen, but I don’t know yet what to do. It’s a pain in the ass.

Anyway, this post is about a two-stage religious experienice I had this weekend. I was kind of bored, angry, tired and some other things I won’t list here, so I decided that it would be a good choice to practice Java a bit. I launched Eclipse, and took my programming folder. To my surprise, I only had two classes left from the previous course: My actual final project, and the project of the systems engineers from Monterrey’s ITESM campus. As I didn’t know the second, I chose it as it sounded more interesting.

I started coding immediatly the class. Less than half an hour later, I had the basic scheme finished. It was kind of stupid to think that it costed me next to none effort, considering that only the basic scheme of my final project took me more than 5 hours. I felt happy, but at the same time I realized that our campus is the only one that offers a more-or-less complete plan studies, and it features some unique specializations.

Anyway, I really hate the ITESM marketing, so I’ll stop there. I wrote the code of the class, fought a little with an array of objects, and polished the interface. After testing it, I checked all the code, searching for errors. I found a very stupid one, I forgot to close a ‘case’ statement, so the next statements would be executed after finishing the one with the problem.

I opened space within the code to write the last command of the of my class. It was poetical. The last command I wrote was:

break;