LazaX

Colorado in October, 2004

Here are the pictures from our last trip to Colorado.

AutoPlay Rip CD using AudioGrabber

AudioGrabber is a great free software for ripping audio CDs, and it supports MP3 and OGG formats.

When I insert an audio CD, Windows XP gives a list of options: to play CD, rip it with WMP, rip with Real... Below is a registry file that adds an option:
    "Rip CD using AudioGrabber"

You need to save the text into a file "audiograbber.reg", change the path to AudioGrabber (e.g. "C:\\Program Files\\AudioGrabber\\audiograbber.exe"), and double-click the file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoplayHandlers\EventHandlers\PlayCDAudioOnArrival]
"AudioGrabberRipCDAudioOnArrival"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoplayHandlers\Handlers\AudioGrabberRipCDAudioOnArrival]
"Action"="Rip Audio CD"
"Provider"="AudioGrabber"
"InvokeProgID"="AudioGrabber.RipCD"
"InvokeVerb"="Rip"
"DefaultIcon"="C:\\Programs\\Multimedia\\AudioGrabber\\audiograbber.exe,0"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioGrabber.RipCD]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioGrabber.RipCD\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Programs\\Multimedia\\AudioGrabber\\audiograbber.exe,0"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioGrabber.RipCD\Shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioGrabber.RipCD\Shell\Rip]
@="Rip music from CD"
"MUIVerb"="Rip music from Audio CD"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioGrabber.RipCD\Shell\Rip\Command]
@="\"C:\\Programs\\Multimedia\\AudioGrabber\\audiograbber.exe\" \"%L\""

Motorcycle Diaries, City of God, Man on Fire

If you are in the mood for watching Latin American movies, here are some recommendations.

Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta) is starring Gael García Bernal as young Ché Guevara embarking on an 13,240 km journey with a friend around South American continent on a motorcycle in 1951-1952. As the young medical student goes further away from Buenos Aires, his focus shifts from school and girlfriend to the perenial problems of the continent: poverty, exploitation, injustice, and diseases. Bernal's performance is outstanding! My only objection is that Ché is portrayed as short, slim young man of frail health, which stands in contrast with his photographs and legend.

City of God (Cidade de Deus) narrates the story of the housing project for poor built by the government on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The movie shows the brand new settlement of Cidade de Deus in 1960's with a handful of kids committing petty crimes. The narrator explains how, in a span of two decades, those handful of kids caused complete demolition of the town, numerous casualties, and created a place where police is too afraid to enter (there was a very nice National Geographic article a copule of years ago). The economists will see this as an unsuccessful experiment in government with good intentions flocking a lot of poor people into the same area. I wonder if the downward spiral was unavoidable - if Zé Pequeno and his friends were never born, would there have been a handful of other kids to start a drug ring and eventually ruin the city?

The third move, Man on Fire [imdb] is actually a hollywood movie starring Denzel Washington. As it is also a true story (supposedly), and as it speaks of kidnapping and corruption in Mexico, it deserves to be on this list of Latin American movies. It takes place in the modern day (1990's). Good action flick.

Version Control: Subversion

I tried using Subversion for version control at home on my Windows box. There is a Windows add-on TortoiseSVN that appears when right-clicking a file or directory. However, Subversion/TortoiseSVN did not work out for me.

I needed a simple one-machine repository without a need for remote access.

The problem is that TortoiseSVN keeps the repository in the same directory where your files are in ".svn" directory, which is bad for many reasons. I think I configured it to store the repository under a separate directory tree (which was created).

The other problem is that right-click menus give a bunch of options are I did not understand. At the same time, it did not offer Diff, and History/Log on directories, but only on individual files.

I also tried Perforce. I was always lost in that program. Part of the problem, as is the case with Subversion, is that they decided to rename terms "Check In" and "Check Out" that are used by 99% of the developers.

The software that I really loved is StarTeam by StarBase. The company was later bought by Borland, and I don't know how much they changed the software. It was great, but also very expensive (I used it at work).

SourceSafe is quite bad, but still better than anything else that is free.

Bajaga

Here are pictures from Bajaga's concert. For those who don't know, Bajaga is one of the best Serbian pop/rock poets.