pagsz's Journal: Ramblings of an Idiot (21st Installment)

Well, it would seem that the Ramblings of an Idiot series has reached the age of twenty-one. It is now old enough to legally drink. But, if you've been reading any of the RoaI series, you'd know that it's been fall-down drunk since it was one.

1. Ogg Vorbis (Old, July 19): So, Ogg Vorbis has reached 1.0. I've gotta admit that's pretty cool. Congratulations to all those who worked hard to make it a reality.

   I've considered over the past few days (since Ogg Vorbis went 1.0 on Friday) whether or not to switch over to Ogg. My CD player (RioVolt SP90) recognizes MP3 and WMA files, but not Ogg. I wasn't sure if I should start re-ripping all my CDs to Ogg, knowing that the resulting files would be unplayable on my CD player. What I ultimately decided was to re-rip everything to Ogg after saving all the old MP3s to CD, that way I'll still have them available for the player. I haven't ripped any CDs in a while (I haven't bought music in a long time), so I shouldn't have to worry too much about ripping CDs twice (once for the PC and once for the CD player).

2. Slashdot (Old, July 19): While the fried-fan/foe-freak thing has been in place for a little while now, I must admit I hadn't been paying much attention to it. While I was reading through the FAQ today (see my update to Karma System Change), I clicked through on this link: http://slashdot.org/my/fans (will show your fans, not mine). I noticed that two people had marked me down as a friend. Who knew? Thankfully, no foes yet.
3. Mozilla: As I am writing up this waste of time of a post, Mozilla 1.1 Beta is downloading. Still got about an hour to go on the download (torture, thy name is dial-up).

   Switching from IE to Mozilla has been great. I haven't seen a pop-up window in ages. I love tabbed browsing. And so far, Mozilla has proved to be more stable than IE 6 was. With IE 6, I experienced regular crashes. Mozilla hasn't crashed on me in over two months (RC2, when attempting to open a PDF file).

Well, that's enough stupidity for today. I've got a little bit of "work" to do, what with saving all my MP3s to CD and then re-ripping the original CDs to Ogg.

Update: 09:47 AM -- Wednesday July 24 2002

#1: That is, all the CDs I can find. A lot of the MP3s on my computer are from my brother's CD collection. He doesn't keep good track of them. And a few of them are scratched to hell. Whatever I can re-rip to Ogg, I shall.

Also trying to figure out the best Quality setting to use. I want the files to be of comparable size to the old MP3s, and of course smaller is better. I think I may end up using something in the 5.0 - 5.5 range.

#3: Mozilla 1.1 Beta installed and running smoothly. Only one minor complaint: the swapping of Open Link in New Window and Open Link in New Tab. I keep opening new windows when I want tabs. Oh, well, I'll just have to get used to it. Or get used to middle-clicking. Otherwise no problems.

Update: 09:24 AM -- Thursday July 25 2002

Corrected the date for the first update, Wednesday was the 24th, not the 23rd. I gotta pay more attention (at least I spelled Wednesday right, I often have it as Wednessday). While I'm here . . .

#1: Project Burn MP3 CD has been completed, resulting in six CDs worth of MP3s. I left some off, the ones I don't really like all that much in the first place. Oh crap! I just realized I missed some files that I wanted. Oh, well, I'll just have to burn one more CD. Then Project Burn MP3 CD will be complete . . .
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I've settled on a Quality setting of 5.25. It results in files of comparable size to the old MP3s (but up to a MB smaller).
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One more note: I re-ripped Jimi Hendrix's first album, Are You Experienced?, and the resulting files are much cleaner than the old MP3s. The distortion is gone; they sound so much better. Thank you, Ogg!