Guitars, Technology, and Life

As is probably evidenced by the 3 articles I posted in quick succession today, I am indeed back to updating my blog. I will probably start documenting some of my more eccentric hacks and configuration files here, simply for future reference for both myself and anyone interested. I may also start reviewing some of the software I use daily (and also get into a review of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I'm pretty much addicted to at the moment). We shall see what I get done while I'm on semester break.

I do also plan to start documenting useful practices/websites for guitar, as well as a review of aLaska Piks (fingerpicks) once I get my batch. Once I get my hands on some of the new Ernie Ball Cobalt strings (as well as a pack of Earthwood strings), I'll also put a review up, comparing them to my current strings (Ernie Ball Coated Regular Slinky (0.10"), and Ernie Ball Coated Acoustic (0.11")). I've also ordered a glass slide along with the strings (though the Cobalts aren't in stock yet, and are effectively delaying my order until their arrival), which I will compare with my current steel slide. I also hope to find a decent audio recorder at some point, which I will also review (possibly with sound clips - we'll see how it sounds!).

Outside of Guitar & Technology, I also hope to bring some of my Japanese/Mandarin practice to my blog. I'll aim to review/discuss books and software I find useful for practicing those languages, and possibly also write a brief introduction or so to either language. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to post them in the comment section below.

I sincerely hope this post doesn't become like the last "and I'm back" post, though I can't make any promises. I think I've come up with a fairly varied series of topics, meaning I will probably not run out of stuff to write. Once I figure out a decent method for posting code snippets on blogger (trying out one on my Custom Dates post), I'll also probably move some of my scripts over from pastebin. Basically I'm hoping to turn this into a hub for my technological, musical, and language-oriented knowledge. Once I've cleaned up my github a bit, I'll also be posting a link to it here, since it should offer the most up-to-date scripts and settings.

Custom Dates

In this month's Full Circle Magazine I wrote about some tips and tricks I use (Command & Conquer), but I felt I would share this small script here as well, since others may find it useful.

The idea behind the script is to create a time display in a different locale (in this case, Japanese). I've ignored the "usual" format for dates in Japan, opting instead for the usual display (Day, date, time), and as such I had to format it a bit differently with date. The script is as follows:

 #!/bin/sh 
LC_ALL="" LC_TIME=ja_JP.UTF-8 date +'%A, %-d日%B%Y年 %H:%M' 

This script does require you to generate the ja_JP.UTF-8 locale (or, at least, it was required for my system). Since it varies from distribution to distribution, I'll leave that unexplained for now. I essentially make sure LC_ALL is set to nothing (messes up the custom locale otherwise), and then I set the locale for time to Japanese. Then I print out a formatted date of day, date, month, year, time. I was forced to add in the Kanji for day and year, as it wasn't filled in by date itself (no idea why). However, it results in a nice clock, and offers me a bit of practice in Japanese.

Theme Overhaul & Update!

Well, now that there's the ability to customize templates, I've made the entire blog a little wider (lets you guys read my code snippets fully). Also, I've gone with a layout and colour/background combo that appeals to me. If you guys have any complaints about any elements of the blog, leave me a comment and I'll take it into consideration (I can't promise every complaint will be acted upon, but the major issues should be resolved). Consequently...if you like the blog like this, let me know!

I'll be updating the guitars post in a few days once I get to my third guitar, for anyone interested. I am also currently learning Japanese and have learned a few things (SCIM, anyone?), which I'll be posting up here soon (I can also post up a link to my vocab list for anyone who's interested - just leave a comment).

Looking forward to getting some feedback,
Lswest