Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta White Paper

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta White Paper.

Microsoft’s efforts to provide the best Windows experience ever in Windows Vista did not end with its launch. This white paper describes the ways Microsoft strives to continuously improve Windows Vista. It then introduces Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) and describes how the service pack will fit into the ongoing improvement process.

Converting Between Audio File Formats

In a previous post I explained a way to convert a cue/FLAC to mp3. Recently I had to convert a cue/APE to mp3. While searching for ways to do it I came across this post in the aidanhm’s stuff blog. While it has very few posts (the last one in mid February) it does have a few posts that explain how to convert between different file formats (APE, FLAC, WAV,…) and how to deal with cuesheets in Ubuntu.

Since it’s explained there, there’s no point in me repeating it here.

While I haven’t done any of this in Mac OS X, I did download xACT

xACT stands for X Audio Compression Toolkit. It is a GUI based front end (written in AppleScript Studio) for the unix applications Shorten (3.5.1), shntool (2.0.3), monkey’s audio compressor (3.99),flac (1.1.3) and cdda2wav 2.01a32(with paranoia support).

I also looked at this page which explains how to use xACT to convert .flac files to mp3.

UPDATE:  Filipe IMed me about a better option for Mac OS X, Max.

Ubuntu getting Xorg.conf GUI

Filipe IMed me this link. That’s great news – it was one of the most important things missing from Ubuntu (in my opinion).

It is such a pain to configure multiple monitors (4 in my case – xinemara if you’re wondering) at the moment. Until you learn how to do it that is. The Nvidia configuration tool that comes with the drivers was a big help but it is far from perfect – I didn’t use it directly (that wouldn’t work, at least not the way it should) but extracted info from the xorg.conf file created by it.

John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

In case you’re not familiar with it (and also because I wanted to leave the link on this blog so I can easily find it):

John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (Penny Arcade)

The Vista Failure

Back in January I said that I believed Windows Vista would be “usable” in a year’s time or so. After 8 months without any real progress towards that goal (I tried Vista again), I no longer believe that will be the case. I know SP1 will eventually come out but I doubt it can fix something that broken. Instead, maybe by SP2 Vista will be more or less fixed.

So umm if you’re not a gamer and/or don’t really need DX10, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from Vista until 2009 at least (and no guarantees it will be usable by then).

While we’re on the subject I found this Vista Failure Log.

Hellenica Part II

I finished Xenophon’s Anabasis, returned to Hellenica and finished it.

Ignoring Anabasis, I read Herodutos Histories, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon’s Hellenica. They tell tales of the rise and fall of empires: the rise and fall of the athenian empire, the spartan hegemony in the hellenic world and the very short-lived theban hegemony (it lasted less than 10 years, from the Battle of Leuctra until the Battle of Mantinea – which is the last event narrated in Hellenica). How in one moment a state can control others both close and far away and in the next be fighting in it’s own capital for survival – or vice-versa. Fascinating stuff.

Currently, I feel like taking a break from history and reading something else, perhaps drama. I’m inclined towards Shakespeare’s MacBeth. That said, I fully intend to return to history after the interval though I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading ancient greek history or if I’ll go back to roman history or maybe an even bigger chronological jump to 19th or 20th century history.

I’ll leave you with the last paragraph of Hellenica – relating to the Battle of Mantinea (my emphasis):

The effective result of these achievements was the very opposite of that which the world at large anticipated. Here, where well-nigh the whole of Hellas was met together in one field, and the combatants stood rank against rank confronted, there was no one doubted that, in the event of battle, the conquerors would this day rule; and that those who lost would be their subjects. But God so ordered it that both belligerents alike set up trophies as claiming victory, and neither interfered with the other in the act. Both parties alike gave back their enemy’s dead under a truce, and in right of victory; both alike, in symbol of defeat, under a truce took back their dead. And though both claimed to have won the day, neither could show that he had thereby gained any accession of territory, or state, or empire, or was better situated than before the battle. Uncertainty and confusion, indeed, had gained ground, being tenfold greater throughout the length and breadth of Hellas after the battle than before.