Getting rid of Google’s new background image
For those of you who, like me, are very annoyed by Google’s decision to force a large background image onto their search page, I offer a workaround. For your convenience (and mine) I’ve created a tiny (203 byte) white image, which conforms to Google’s specifications. You can grab it here:
http://benjiflaming.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/white.png
Save it to your computer, upload it to Google, and search page loading times are more-or-less back to normal. Enjoy!
New e-mail list
As you may have noticed, I’ve finally set up an e-mail list, to which I’m sending out monthly updates regarding my creative activities. New subscribers are automatically sent a link which enables them to download a free MP3 of a special solo banjo performance (a short suite of melodic highlights from my new CD; arranged, performed, and recorded specifically for the list.) You can subscribe at http://benjiflaming.fanbridge.com/
The solo banjo CD has arrived….
…and so has open source media production! After many strange and wondrous adventures, my solo banjo CD is finally available. I’m very pleased to say that all production work was done with free and open source tools under a free and open source operating system. This included recording, editing, mixing, mastering, photo retouching/editing and color correction, album layout/artwork, the editing of the liner notes, and all the other fiddly bits that I’ve forgotten about. I did manually convert the final result into a CorelDRAW file, simply so that I could ensure that the duplication company had a file which would accurately reflect my design in their own working environment, but this was done after the creative part of the process was already completed. The end-result is now available for $15.
Introducing: BenjiFlaming.com
As you may have noticed, much of the former content of SoloBanjo.com has been moved to BenjiFlaming.com. This new site will allow me to post various geeky tidbits, links, or pseudo-philosophical musings, without cluttering up my solo banjo web site.
PyOrganizer
Some of my free time over the last month or so has been spent writing a piece of financial/budgeting software, which quickly began expanding itself (as my projects often do), and is now attempting to become my personal über-organizer. The program, currently named PyOrganizer, is written in Python, using the GTK+ bindings (PyGTK), and is licensed under the GNU General Public License. I’ve not yet packaged it into a release, but the unstable work-in-progress is always available in the Subversion repository accessible from the SourceForge.net project page.
