Hardcore cleaning time!

Ripping

“Why open source?” you say? Well, I have this nagging dread that the programmers tuning the MP3 ripper in iTunes are going more for filesize optimizations, rather than the pinnacle quality that I’d prefer as an aspiring audiophile. Lo and behold I’m directed to the fine program Exact Audio Copy which works in concert with the LAME MP3 encoder. The beauty behind these programs is that while commercial software like iTunes may be written by very skilled general programmers, the gents behind EAC and LAME are nothing short of the most hardcore of harcore audio geeks constantly tweaking the code to make sure every nuance of your music remains perfectly intact.

Using the programs are fairly straightforward, though I recommend selecting the “Secure” copy method for your CDs which will test your tracks before and after extraction to be sure you’ve got the most accurate rip possible. To setSecure mode go to the ‘EAC’ menu > ‘Drive options…’ > ‘Extraction Method’ and check ‘Secure Mode’ and the first 2 options, but do not modify the C2 option since some drives don’t support it.

Additionally, if you’ve got a CD that’s in bad shape then Secure mode won’t work since the laser might follow scratches and dust instead of the actual tracks. You can tell if the CD is too damaged for Secrue if it takes hours to rip and doesn’t make any progress. Using the burst mode [also under 'EAC' > 'Drive options...' > 'Extraction Method'] will force the laser to read around the track, and past any blemishes. This method might result in poorer quality rips, but it usually works where Secure fails. Make sure to listen to your songs after a Burst rip since a really badly worn CD still might not yield any better quality than what you can download from the internet.

Tagging

Now onto the one aspect of the process that used to give me nightmares… Back in the olden days I tried organizing my MP3 collection with a more uniform tagging scheme, but I was bereft of the appropriate tools and ended up burning myself out very quickly editing tags one at a time, by hand, using Winamp. *shudder*

Enter MP3tag, the savior of metadata editing. Very easy to get into and use, offering automatic detection and correction of tags using free online databases, but still including many powerful tools for generating tag information based on filenames or other tag fields. Regular expressions! ’nuff said.

Denouement

I hope this was helpful to you aspiring rippers out there, and be sure that you keep your newly sharable digital music library under tight lock and key, because sharing music without paying a royalty to a bloated, archaic music empire is totally wrong and stuff…

FIGHT THE POWER!

The first thing you need to do is enable the transparency:

1. Right click on your ‘My Computer’ icon and select ‘Properties’.
2. Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and click the ‘Settings’ button under the ‘Perfomance’ section.
3. From here you have 2 options:
   • Choose ‘Adjust for best appearance’ which will give you all of the visual tweaks XP has to offer, but may slow your computer down.
   • Choose the ‘Custom’ option and be sure that ‘Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop’ is checked off.
4. Hit the OK button until you’re back at the desktop. Windows may pause to work on the changes for a minute or two, but afterwards you should have a spiffy look to your desktop!

Now if you still don’t have some fancy looking icons on your desktop there may be one more setting you need to alter:

1. Right  click the desktop and selecet ‘Properties’
2. On the ‘Desktop’ tab click the ‘Customize Desktop…’ button.
3. On the ‘Web’ tab be sure that the ‘Lock desktop items’ checkbox is not checked.
4. Hit the OK button until you’re back at the desktop.

Now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. ^^
References: entity.cc and annoyances.org

Well screw that. If you’re anything like me you’ve gotten use to the sparse, less than user-friendly UI of LE and you actually know what you’re doing. So, in the hopes that it will help more people avoid scrounging around the internets like I’ve been doing these many years, I offer the hallowed WS-FTP LE installer in the version unencumbered by redirections to ipswitch.

Download (about 700k)

Now be mindful of the original license [only to be used for personal or educational use, etc, etc] and enjoy one of the most lightweight, unfriendly, and useful FTP app out there.

PS: I’ve since been directed to OldVersion.com which offers many older versions of awesome programs like WS_FTP

There are a few methods of getting your PSP ready for HomeBrew but the majority boil down to the fact that you have to have a really old version of firmware, or one of the magic batteries which have just been released. The method I’ve used, and am about to outline, only requires that you have a PSP with firmware up to, or including version 3.50 and a copy of Lumines that is not the Greatest Hits version. [it's patched] You shouldn’t have a problem finding a copy secondhand on eBay, on the used shelf at your favorite gaming store, or in a bargain bin god knows where.

I must admit that I was entirely lost trying to find out how to even get started on this, so I turned to my good friend Shoota who helped me out with… well, everything. Without him and this thread from SomethingAwful I probably would have given up again. My working theory is that the guys that develop this stuff don’t fully grasp that even other technically minded people [such as myself] get lost pretty quick due to a general lack of written instructions outside of the files that are packaged with the programs. Anyhow, props to Shoota and SA for the help.

Before we begin, please make sure your PSP’s language is set to english, as it may cause problems if it isn’t.

First: Upgrade your PSP to the version 3.50 firmware

1. Download the file linked above
2. Rename the file to EBOOT.PBP
3. Transfer the file to you PSP in the folder /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/
4. On your PSP go to the game menu, select your memory stick, and run the firmware update.
5. Et Voila! You now have firmware compatible with the HEN Downgrader.

Second: Downgrade your PSP to version 1.50

1. Download the 3.50HEN/Downgrader as well as the 1.50 firmware
2. Unzip the downgrader to wherever you like and open the Downgrader_HOWTO.txt file.
   • Try to follow along with this file as much as you can as it is the most informative.
   • Before you begin with the actual downgrade I recommend backing up the data from your memory stick to your PC and reformatting it. This will give you a clean slate and make sure you have the proper directory structure.
   • If you have downloaded the extra content packs for Wipeout Pure they may throw off errors while backing them up. Just delete them from the stick and download them again later.
3. On your PSP go to the Settings menu > System Settings > System Information. If all has gone according to plan you should now have version 1.50 firmware! This will allow us to load the custom firmware we need to get HomeBrew applications running.

Third: Custom Firmware Ahoy! This one gets a little strange as the program will create the custom firmware on the PSP itself using the official 3.52 firmware and the 1.50 fimware. Right now is a good time to format your Memory Stick again so we don’t have any of that extra clutter.

1. Download the 3.52 M33 Firmware program and the 3.52 firmware.
2. Inside the M33 archive there will be a folder named “1.50only”, copy the two folders inside [kxploitpatcher and kxploitpatcher% to your PSP in /PSP/GAME/
3. Now in the game menu go to your memory stick and run the kxploitpatcher program and follow the directions. Don't worry about the corrupted data, that is the kxploitpatcher% folder and it's supposed to look like that.
4. Take the 3.52 firmware file [unzipped] and rename it to 352.PBP and move it to the M33CREATOR folder.
5. Take the 1.50 firmware file from earlier and rename it to 150.PBP and move it to the M33CREATOR folder.
6. Now you should have 3 files in this folder, 150.PBP, 352.PBP, and EBOOT.PBP. Move the entire M33CREATOR folder to your PSP in the /PSP/GAME150/ folder.
7. Now run the M33CREATOR ‘game’ file from your Memory Stick. This will munge the 1.50 and 3.52 firmwares together to create the 3.52 M33 firmware update. Be patient, it will take awhile.
8. Run the 3.52 M33UPDATE ‘game’ that was created in the previous step. This will load the created firmware that you can use to run HomeBrew apps, as well as make use of all of the features of the 3.52 firmware. Woot!

Now you should have a PSP that is fully ready to run the menagerie of wonderful homebrew applications and emulators that are out there in the wilds of the internets. The general method of getting HomeBrew apps to run is to place them in the /PSP/GAME150/ folder. Check out that awesome thread over on SomethingAwful for a good list of HomeBrew apps.

Another downside you may encounter with this particular method is if you have any lines in your paper that do not contain any altered punctuation the line height will not be changed and it will be closer to the line above than the others in the paper. It may not stand out as evidence of tampering, but it will interrupt the flow of your document and make it more difficult to read.

and that concludes my rant on typographical conventions for the night. :3

As far as lengthening your papers, you can try these tricks I used:
[note: I use OpenOffice so these may named slightly differently than MS Word, but I believe they're in the same places]

• Increase paragraph spacing, aka space before/after each paragraph. [Format>Paragraph>Indents & Spacing]
• Increase the line height. [Format>Paragraph>Indents & Spacing]
• Increase the character spacing. [Format>Character>Position]
• Increase the margins. [OO:Format>Page MS:File>PAge Setup]

Aside from that, the best things you can do are:

• Make sure you maintain proper paragraph structure. Most people who don’t do this end up with large “wall-o-text” paragraphs which inadvertently sacrifice paragraph spacing. Bonus: your writing is more structurally correct and easier to read.
• Expand your vocabulary. I had an English teacher that was constantly on our asses to have our characters-per-word ratio at a certain level and graded us on it. A thesaurus is your friend, but avoid slipping big words into your writing just for the sake of using a big word, you’ll come off pretentious.
• Avoid contractions. A bit of a sub-note of the point above, but not only are the non-contracted versions of words like “you’re”, “they’re”, and “isn’t” longer, but most papers are expected to be written in the ‘professional’ style where contractions should generally be avoided.
• Make use of section/topic headings. These tend to be more useful when writing something like a science paper where they are less out of the ordinary. They will add extra line breaks, and you may also increase the font size for the headings without overtly looking like you’re trying to increase the length.

… oh right, my blog and all. Welcome! Unlike the main page of Savagenoodle.com, I’ve finally decided to post something [anything!] here, and it seems it will be a blog-ish thing. I’m hoping to stay away from the usual emo-ish day-to-day ramblings that usually get entered into any blog I attempt, but maybe the occasional hike picture or major event note will worm it’s way in.

Aside from that crap up there, I’ll mostly try to blogify on the status of Savagenoodle and its subdomains, as well as other things relevant to my interests.

I suppose that will about cover it for now, I don’t want to go off on the usual rambling tangent.

The last couple things I can add are what I’m currently working on…

1. Migrating the Hokuten forums to phpBB3 RC3. [ooh shiny and Web 2.0-ish]
2. Putting in some hours at FFXIclodepia.com learning the ropes for a wiki.
3. Trying to make some Joomla skins install on the Savagenoodle main page. [dammit]
4. Further contemplating what to actually do with the Savagenoodle main page. :/

Cheers! ~Fubes