☭ Kiss my ASCII...

I'd be lying if I told everyone that I wasn't expecting a huge commotion over my little musical notes. As I've always said, "Its the little things that count, you can sit on top of a mountain, but you can't sit on top of a pin"

What does that mean? Nevermind... let's get back to the point ➽ funky characters.

Just cut along the dotted line and keep for quick reference ✄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
This is real easy, whenever you want to insert a funky symbol into text, click on

START > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

Now, at the top of the new window, you can select any font that is installed on your system.

For maximum compatibility, stick with Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, and Arial Unicode MS.

The first three all share the same font set, the glyphs are just customized for the particular font style. However they are just a fraction of the many thousands of glyphs specified in the ASCII standard.

Arial Unicode MS, however, has ⒶⓁⓁ of them. Scroll down the list and pick a glyph that suits your fancy. There are also Zodiac, Middle-Eastern glyphs, and Asian glyphs as well.

It also has a full compliment of musical glyphs: ♩♪♫♬♭♮♯

Just click on the glyph you want and press select. Then press copy.

Now paste it anywhere in the text that you want! Easy!

Now get out there and start publishing with PIZAZZ!

Keep on having fun!

"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"

♫Will the real "Slim SD" Please Stand Up?♫

Hello everyone, yes it's time for another posting.

I have noticed that in my zeal for multimedia entertainment, I have been straying from useful Howto posts. No more. Here is another useful (hopefully) tip.

Ever notice when using a multi-purpose card reader that it always takes several tries to actually find it in the swarm of drives that appears in "My Computer"?

♫One of These Things is Not Like the Other...♫

There are two ways to ID your memory card.

1) Name It

Once you have found your card, right click on its icon in "My Computer" and select "Rename". Enter a new name and press ENTER. That's it, from now on, when you put your media device in any computer, the drive's name will appear.

2) Photo ID

There is more work to this step, but it's worth it.

First surf the net for the icon you want to have appear on your drive. If you can't find one, use icon sofware (such as Easy Icon or Microangelo) to create it. When saving it, give it a simple name, with no spaces, and the extension .ico . Save this icon to the root (not in a subfolder) on your media device. For this example we will call it myicon.ico

Now double click on your drive in "My Computer". Right click in a white area and go to
New > Text Document.

Double click on the file. Enter the following text:

[AUTORUN]
icon=\myicon.ico

Change myicon.ico to whatever you named your icon. Now save and close the text file.

Rename the text file (as before) to autorun.inf

Disconnect your drive safely, and remove it. Now go into "My Computer" and re-connect your media device.

You will find that the icon you saved to the device will now appear as its icon.

This technique can be used on ANY storage media, not just memory cards.

Go on and try it out, and remember to keep on having fun.

"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"

Get Down Mr. Mini-Wheats!

As my multi-media addiction continues to worsen, I provide you with more gifts of multi-media, now with video.

Many of you may not have seen the first video before, but if you listen to 102.2 the Edge in Toronto, you may have heard it on the radio.

Before you press play, I must warn you... you'll probably be playing this at least 10 times before you can tear yourself away.

Now that that is out of the way, turn up the volume, clear some floorspace for dancing, and press PLAY!



While we're on the subject of great jingles, below is the famous "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" commercial. The story of this jingle is interesting, and the commercial itself is regarded as the single most popular advertising campaign of all time. Read more about it here. Some of you younger people may not have seen the commercial, but you may recognize the jingle, which was later written into a full length song. Enjoy!



P.S. If you look up, look waaaaaay up, you'll notice that the quote at the top of this page has a little blue arrow. This blue arrow will play the quote, along with the supporting dialog from the movie Ghostbusters. This, my friends, was the inspiration for this page (at least its namesake, anyway).

Until next time, keep on having fun!

"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"

Of Tags and Chipmunks

Wow! Now that was incredible! My first multimedia post on DCTS and my inbox was deluged with a flood, nay, TORRENT of people asking how I was able to integrate such a tiny, effective little mp3 player into my site.

I was being jostled! JOSTLED, I tell you!

Well my friends, you asked so I shall tell you. Its very simple, the player is PLAYTAGGER by del.ici.us

All you have to do is paste the following code once, anywhere, into your blog's HTML:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://images.del.icio.us/static/js/playtagger.js">
</script>

and that's all. Remove the </script> if you're getting HTML errors. Now, any hyperlinks that point to mp3 files will automatically be prepended with a blue arrow. Click on the arrow to play, and it changes to a red square and the word "playing". Click on the square to stop, click on the word "playing" to pause.

It does have one limitation, the mp3 must be encoded at 11025 Hz, 22050 Hz, or 44100 Hz. Anything else will sound like the chipmunks.

Here are some more music samples, old TVOntario themesongs, graciously provided by TVO Kids' Shows.

Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings

Dr. Snuggles

Readalong

A Bear Called Jeremy

Fables of the Green Forest

and OTHERS...

Enjoy everyone. As always, keep having fun.

"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes... (all appologies to Mr. Bowie)

Hello Stream Crossers!

Some of you may have noticed some slight formatting changes on this BLOG. First of all, the page uses the full width of the window, so you don't have to scroll as much in a full-size window.

Secondly, if you are in Internet Explorer, the boxes have square corners. The rounded corners are now generated vis CSS3, so if you're browsing with Firefox, you should see beautifully rounded corners.

Also, today we will be throwing some shout-outs to other sites of the CREW Family of Blogs. Along with this, we will be beta testing our new integrated MP3 playing software. Please leave feedback about it in the comments section.

First off is "T & M's Voices". A well-rounded radio show, hosted by Tito and Magnum. When they aren't interviewing the elusive celebrity, they invite us into their inner sanctums and share with us the goings-on in their lives. Very funny, very well produced, and extremely well performed. They are a founding member of the CREW Family! Oh, and they have a pod-cast for you to subscribe to. Full instructions are on their site.

Just to whet your appetite for their show, I have linked to their interview with George Bush, Sr. from episode 12 I am not in the business of pirating their transmission, only the first one's free, for the latest episode (#15 as of the date of this posting), please follow the link above to their website.

Episode 12: Talking to the Bush

(Note 2007-02-06: Due to a limitation, this clip sounds like the chipmunks. Don't worry, I've fed back to Magnum, hopefully he will rectify the situation

Second, another founding member of the CREW Family, RadioFreeG and his self-titled radio show. Side-kicked by Super Producer Mummbles, together they serve up a heaping helping of introspectives on every day life and the forces that influence our perception of the world.

As well, RadioFreeG has a pod cast on his site. Here is but a taste of the smorgas-board of contemplation offered by RadioFreeG on his infamous "One Shots" broadcast:

RadioFreeG-Episode7-PoetrySlam

Last, but never, ever least is Leaky Brainpan, a blog run by another founding member of the CREW Family. Insights and behind-the-scenes looks at snapshots of life in the Canadian Armed Forces. Truly a modern classic if I've ever read one.

And that's it. Wow, two postings in a week. I hope that will satisfy some of my CRITICS... hope to be able to keep this up.

I will be back soon with some more computer improvement tips, as well I will be sending out methods for you yourself to add a funky music player to your blog as well.

Until next time, this is Soundwave saying, Keep having fun.

"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"