Thursday, January 14, 2010

House Concert: Tania Opland and Mike Freeman

WHEN: Saturday, January 16 8:00 p.m. (Alaska time - midnight Eastern)

WHERE: The Wheat Palace / Listen online



Bio / Info

Quick Description: This international duo from Seattle & Ireland - originally from Anchorage & Manchester (UK) - have been captivating audiences for more than a decade with an engaging, international repertoire: songs and melodies from North America, the British Isles, Eastern & Western Europe... on more instruments than any sane musicians would ever chose to tour with. Opland plays hammered dulcimer, five-string violin, recorders and ocarina. Freeman adds guitar, octave mandolin and djembe (Gambian hand drum).


Tania Opland And Mike Freeman, one from Anchorage (AK) and the other from Manchester (UK), met in Norwich (UK) and now live in Suquamish (WA) and Inistioge (Irl), because anyplace else would be too easy to spell. We spend way too much time in airports and airplanes, but other than that are enjoying our life of nonstop travel and music.


Mike Freeman

Mike Freeman's roots are in Eastern Europe, with grandparents from Russia, Roumania and Hungary. Born and raised in Manchester, England, he spent many years in Norwich working as a designer, cabinet maker and teacher before moving to County Kilkenny, Ireland. He has played guitar and percussion with an assortment of bands, accompanied Middle Eastern and African dance troupes, performed at countless festivals throughout Britain, and featured on recordings in the roles of musician, arranger and producer. Mike's main instrument is the Gambian djembe, from which he draws an amazing variety of sounds, but he plays everything from dholak and darabouka to bones, bodhran and congas, and composes tunes on guitar and mandolin.

Mike has also built a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic as a dance caller and concert M.C., with a charming, irreverent stage presence.


Tania Opland

Originally from Alaska, Tania Opland has travelled extensively in the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Britain. She now lives on an Indian reservation in Washington State, her vast repertoire reflecting the diversity of the communities whose music she has shared. She has appeared on radio and television in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Uzbekistan, Scotland, Ireland and England. Her five solo albums have received excellent reviews in acoustic music magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

From early classical training on piano, cello and violin, Tania moved on to explore many different fiddle styles and a wide range of wind instruments, and even to experiment with such exotic instruments as chang, gidjak and doira, giving her a style rich in techniques and traditions. She still treasures the unusual blond violin, a handmade instrument by Eskimo craftsman Frank Hobson, which she has played since she was nine years old, but has recently switched to a c.1920 German violin converted to five-string for concert work. Other instruments include an early handmade Larrivee guitar, Flatiron octave mandolin, hammered dulcimer by Dusty Strings, Kiowa Native American flutes by Allan Guffey and Stellar Flutes, and a tiny ocarina by Clayzeness Whistleworks.


Find out more from their Official website


Monday, January 04, 2010

New Years' Fireworks

SUNGRAZING COMET:  Today, a bright comet is approaching the sun for a perilous close encounter, and it probably will not survive.  The comet was discovered by an amateur astronomer monitoring images from NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft.  The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has a good view of the comet's approach and images are being posted on http://spaceweather.com.

FIRST METEORS OF 2010: The annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Jan. 3rd around 1900 UT (2 p.m. EST) when Earth passes through a stream of debris from shattered comet 2003 EH1. The timing of this northern shower favors observers in eastern Europe and Asia.  Bright moonlight will interfere with the display, which can reach 100+ meteors per hour under ideal conditions.

Sunspots galore

2009 is ending with a flurry of sunspots.  The month of December has had more "spotted days" than any previous month of the
year by a significant margin, and all of the month's sunspot groups have been members of new Solar Cycle 24. Could this herald an end to the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century? That remains to be seen. Sunspot counts and trends are shown on today's edition of http://spaceweather.com.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Protect your PC

It is critical that you provide basic protection for your personal computing environment to protect your com¬puter and any confidential data you may have on your computer.

As a general rule of thumb, it is strongly recommended you perform the following actions:
• Keep your computer desktop firewall turned on.
• Keep your operating system and other software patches up-to-date.
• Keep your antivirus software and antivirus signatures up-to-date.
• Perform regular (at least monthly) checks for adware, spyware, and other malware using a reputable utility.

Desktop Firewall and Anti-virus software or subscriptions can be purchased online or from computer resellers.
Here are some of the leading desktop firewall and antivirus software vendors. In many cases, vendors offer an Internet Security suite that combines a desktop firewall, antivirus, and sometimes other protections into a single package of tools made to work well together and provide better protection.

McAfee
Store - http://home.mcafee.com/Store
McAfee Threat Center (Virus Information) - http://vil.nai.com/vil
McAfee Avert Stinger Tool - http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger

Symantec
Store - http://shop.symantecstore.com
Norton Viruses & Risks - http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response
Norton Removal Tools - http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/removaltools.jsp

Trend Micro
Store - http://store.trendmicro.com
Trend Micro Threat Encyclopedia - http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com

CA
Store - http://shop.ca.com
CA Global Security Advisor - http://www.ca.com/securityadvisor

Kaspersky
Store - http://usa.kaspersky.com/store
Kaspersky Virus List - http://www.viruslist.com

In addition to these leading commercial products, there are some very good firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-adware pro¬grams available for free on the Internet. Most free versions include updates, but any further support would require the person to upgrade to the commercial version.

Free Internet Security suite (firewall/anti-virus/anti-malware):
COMODO - http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php

Free firewall programs:
Agnitum OUTPOST Firewall Free - http://free.agnitum.com
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall –
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm

Free anti-virus programs:
AVG - http://free.avg.com
Avast Home Edition - http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Free anti-spyware programs:
Spybot - http://www.safer-networking.org
SuperAntiSpyware - http://www.superantispyware.com
ZoneAlarm Spy Blocker Toolbar - http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/spyblocker-download.htm

Free anti-adware program:
Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoft.com

Free anti-malware programs:
Malwarebytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org
AVG LinkScanner - http://linkscanner.avg.com
Revo Uninstaller Freeware - http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html


TIP
Don’t get popped by the pop-ups!
While browsing the internet, you may come across a pop-up window or ad that claims that your computer is infected with viruses, Trojans, etc., and offers to scan your system for free.
In most cases, these are scams trying to get their own malware, Trojan, or virus implanted into your system.
Close the “warning” and scan your own system with the software you installed or one from our list.
Surf Smart!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Ruby 1.9.1-p376 released

Uh oh, it's upgrade time again. Monday, the official Ruby 1.9 maintainer (Yuki Sonoda, a.k.a. Yugui) announced a heap overflow vulnerability in Ruby 1.9.1 and, subsequently, the release of Ruby 1.9.1-p376 (patch level 376). As the current production level release of Ruby, this is a crucial upgrade - unless you're still using Ruby 1.8.x, which isn't affected at all.

As well as fixing the vulnerability, Ruby 1.9.1-p376 also includes over 100 bug fixes on the previous release, none of which are particularly interesting. You can check this release's change log to see if anything affects you.

If you want to download Ruby 1.9.1-p376 now, the following URLs will work direct:




Friday, November 13, 2009

Ruby Programming Class

I have enrolled in a Ruby Programming Class at rubylearning.org - http://www.rubylearning.org/class/
The class will start next week and I can do the work from the office, because I am actually taking the class to assist me in automating some of the manual processes regarding record keeping, DMCA related notifications, and the resulting follow-ups.

This will be the new programming class I will have taken in a decade and I find myself excited. Time to learn another language.

The class is taught by Satish Talim. Satish is a Ruby hobbyist with over 31+ years of software experience. He spends his days promoting Ruby, teaching, and helping companies set up their subsidiaries (what he calls BOT - Build, Operate and Transfer). He has been working with Java since its beta days (1995).

RubyInside honored Satish as Ruby's Top Teacher in 2008.

RubyLearning was the winner for the Shorty Award in Education.

More details about the Instructor - http://satishtalim.com/

Friday, October 09, 2009

Easy to forget

I am finding it easy to forget where I am, too easy.
Recently, I have started working at my Alma Mater - the University of Alabama. Campus sits in the middle of most everything, so much it blends into the backdrop. Being on campus is not strange, though I graduated in 1992, because my wife has been attending classes until last August.

Now, I have an office in a newer annex of one of the older buildings on campus, one where I attended classes when I was in school. My window views a nearby building over an alley, so no students enter my awareness during a normal day, and though I take the stairs, instead of taking the elevator, and sometime see a few students in the hall, they easily slip from my mind as soon as I reenter the "office space" and leave the "institutional yellow block walled hall."

I am finding it way too easy to forget that I am sitting on campus, surrounded by students, classes, instructors and professors. I need to take my wife's advice and get out for a walk during lunch. The exercise and fresh air would be good and it would remind me where I am and for whom I am doing this job.

Note to self: Bring sneakers to the office.



Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Loading my Bookshelf

I started at the University of Alabama, as Information Security Analyst, last Thursday. I was thinking about it that night and came to the realization that, though I have had cabinets that locked and offices without doors, this was the first time I have had both an office with a door that locks and locking desk drawers - AND I have shelf space for books.

For several years, my wife, as she progressed through her Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees, amassed more and more books into her reference library, utilizing every bookshelf in the house and acquiring new ones. Meanwhile, I have had only a couple of shelves of space on which I could keep books. The result was that I massed gigs of ebooks and PDFs into a digital library too vast for me to easily read. Now, I have the space and opportunity to bring my library out of the corners and into the light.

Here are the book titles I have selected to begin the loading of my office bookshelf: