Blake Miller's Blog

Back in 2008, I had posted a tutorial on how to adjusting the crossfader works on the Behringer DX1000. I had messed with VirtualDJ with it but never really got into it. Last new years I was asked to DJ a house party a friend of mine was having. Figured this would be the perfect time to learn more about the DJing profession.

The party was a huge success! Few days following the party my friend and I were talking on MSN and he suggested the idea that I make a 20-30min mix of some dance songs. I said sure but I needed a name. 2 Years ago I got the nick name Bartender Blake because I was behind the bar serving the drinks. So with the help of Google Translator we took Bartender, and it came up with the Kellner is German. That was it, My name was DJ Kellner!

Over the last few weeks I have setup another Blog, Facebook page and Forum. Included in the blog is the podcast! This is where my creative side will be shown.

There you have it. The birth of DJ Kellner.

Well for those of you I don’t talk to on a regular bases here is a little update:

I have graduated from Canadore College and received my “Computer System Technology – Networking Program”. So that’s it, I’m done. Not so much. I have deiced to go back for another 3 years for the “Computer Programmer Analyst”. So this now brings me to the reason for this post, I got a new laptop.

I knew my old Dell 640m just wasn’t going to cut it for the new program. So I order my self a Dell Studio XPS. Here are the specs:

• Intel^® Core^TM i5 540M (2.53GHz/3MB cache)
• Genuine Windows^® 7 Professional 64-Bit

• 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3

This semester at school we have a class called “Second Operating System”. Just like you would expect, we are learning Linux. Unfortunately, the teachers have opted to go with OpenSUSE as the primary OS to teach. First day was to do the setup on either our laptops or the desktop machines the school provides. I opted to install OpenSUSE in Sun’s VirtualBox.

VirtualBox is a great desktop test environment mostly used by programmers to test programs in. It supports Linux and Windows as a gust operating system allowing you to install operating systems on a base Windows install. This means that I don’t have to dual boot 2 operating systems.

After installing openSUSE, first thing I wanted to do was install the Addition tools that come with VirtualBox. This will allows the mouse to flow between the virtual machine and the actual machines desktop freely. It also allows the display to run in “Seamless mode”. Seamless mode run the guest OS right on top of the desktop of the machine seamlessly.

The problem with this is you need to install the kernel source headers. Not a big deal with most OS’s but with OpenSUSE, she wasn’t going to go willing. In Ubuntu when you go to install the kernel source headers it asks you if you really want to do this then enables the correct repositories. OpenSUSE says it doesn’t exist then you have to go hunting for how to do it. So I did what ever n00b does and went to Google and tryed finding a site that shows how to install the files that were required.

Turns out that if you go in about 5 menus deep in the crap thing they call a control panel, there is a spot where you can add the repos. It gives you a nice list of about 20 repos that if you didn’t have any prior Linux knowledge you would have no idea what one to add. So I added all of them.

I ran a repo update using there crappy application manager. It took 30 minutes to check all the repos and 6 of them failed. Explain that to me. :S So after using the search feature found exactly what I was looking for. After that everything installed and ran fine, accept a few things:

1. Seamless mode doesn’t work
2. Internet is up and down (no other VM does this)
3. Installing any application is the biggest pain in the but ever

To conclude, I hate OpenSUSE. I don’t recommend using it at all. They make doing anything twice as difficult as it should be. Why make it so hard?

Over the last few days I have fascinated my ears with the listening pleasure of the vinyl records. 33RPMs that my parents have had in out crawl space for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying like one box full, but 6 large containers full of great music all on a 12 inch disks read with a diamond needle pumped through a amp and into my ears.

Most people would describe the audio quality is less then perfect to my generation. Even my parents are looking at my funny, but it just can’t beat the character of these old records. The sound of the vinyl, clicks, pops, hiss and the small short I have in the turntable, adds to the greatness of this forgotten technology.

Currently I’m listening to Boston – Don’t Look Back. I have gone through only about a dozen of these and I unfortunately keep finding ones I like, so progress is slow through the first container. I have included some pictures I have taken of the record and the stylus playing the record.

Click on the picture for the full size.