This is just a reminder that Off the Charts is back for the new year, casting at the regular time on Monday night (8pm-midnight or later, CST). This will be the third show of the year, and the theme will be Healthcare Professionals a/k/a "Doctors or Nurses". Hope to see you there!
Off the Charts is back! I'll be casting tonight (Sunday) starting at 8pm Central time. Be there or be square!
I was reading my e-mail and newsletters as I often do, and came across a reference to this blog entry: http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2014/12/15/how-not-to-let-the-crazy-in.html
I admit, I kind of skimmed it, but a few sentences jumped out at me. The author, Charlie O'Donnell, said Get rid of the people and relationships that drain you. Some people improve your life, others drag it down. Addition by subtraction when it comes to your social circle can be a very powerful thing. I believe that. In a nutshell, that's why I don't like negativity. That's why I won't reconnect with our old friend Dave from Iowa who I wrote about a couple of posts ago. I'm not talking about occasional negativity. I'm talking about the people who always complain, for whom nothing is ever right or good or possible. Or people who want to hold you back because somehow your potential success threatens them. It drains you. And most of the time, people that live in the land of negativity aren't looking to get out. It's as if complaining or being miserable or being a victim is what makes them happy. I don't get it. Sadly, many of them seem unaware that they have gotten themselves into a bad place. I'm fortunate in that most people that surround me are generally pretty positive. That includes the Gilsters, my Off the Charts friends who join the cast week in and week out. You all have been very understanding of my need to take a break. (Getting a little off topic now. Sorry!) Don't let friends or associates interfere with you being what you want to be or doing what you want to do. Do what you can to not let that happen. This is a techy post dealing with the subject at hand. Skype continues to screw around with its UI. More often than not, the changes seem to be for the worse: they either remove a useful feature or they add eye candy at the expense of information density. I found updating from Skype version 6.21 to either 6.22 or 7.0 introduced some of these undesirable changes. I was able to roll back to version 6.21 by uninstalling the newer Skype and then installing the older version. However, that then caused Skype to start nagging me about the availability of a newer version. "How to get Skype to quit doing that?" I wondered. Here's the answer. It's a multi-step process. The order isn't particularly important. I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro. If your OS is different, these steps might not exactly apply to your situation. Also, in Step 4 you need to be able to add and update a Local Group Policy which I think requires a Pro version of Windows. #1 - Stop the SkypeUpdate service. To see if this service is running, bring up Task Manager (a right-click on the Windows Taskbar is one way to do that). (See picture below.) If it is stopped already, you are done with this step. If the service is active, right click on the SkypeUpdate service line and select Open Services. This brings up the Services window. Scroll to Skype Updater, right click it and select Properties. Set the service to Disabled. #2 - Set Skype to not automatically update itself. Open Skype and sign in. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced tab, and under that, Automatic Updates. Make sure Automatic Updates are turned off. (See below.) It is possible that this setting controls the SkypeUpdate service covered in step #1, so maybe Step #1 is redundant if you turn off updates here. #3 - Now we're going to have fun. If you are not completely comfortable editing the Registry or are not confident that you know what you are doing, please do not do this step. Open RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies. There, create a key called Skype. Click on that key and create a key under Skype called Phone. Click on that and create a DWORD value called DisableVersionCheck. Set the value to 1. See image below. This is what it should look like when you have finished this step. (Yes, there are different ways to add this key. Feel free to use your favorite method.) If you did this right, when you go to Help in the Skype menu, the item "Check for Updates" will be greyed out. #4 - Almost done. As mentioned earlier, I believe you need a Pro version of Windows to do this step. Quit Skype if you haven't already. Locate and download the file Skype-v1.7.adm . I found it at http://download.skype.com/share/security/Skype-v1.7.adm . I found this link from a thread from September 2012. There may be a newer version of this file, I don't know. This worked for me today, so I'm going with it. Open the Local Group Policy Editor by opening the Run box (Windows key + R) and typing in "gpedit.msc" (without the quotes). Hit enter or OK. The Local Group Policy Editor will open. Navigate to User Configuration and then Administrative Templates. Right click on Administrative Templates and select Add/Remove Templates. In the Add/Remove Templates box, click Add... . For me, that opened to This PC > Local Disk (C:) > Windows > Inf . You can either move the Skype-v1.7.adm file to that folder and open it from there, or navigate to wherever you downloaded the adm file to (most likely the Downloads folder) and open it there. That should place the Skype-v1.7 in your Add/Remove Templates box. See image below. Close Add/Remove Templates. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Classic Administrative Templates (ADM) > "Skype" > "Phone" > "Other". In the right hand pane you should see three settings, the middle one being "Disable new version checking". Highlight that, then go to the top menu and select Action > Edit. In the edit box, set "Disable new version checking" to Enabled. The window should look like this: Click OK. Your Local Group Policy Editor window should now look like this: #5 - There is one more step you might have to take. Skype might already have downloaded an update that it keeps nagging you to apply. It did for me. Assuming you don't want to apply that update, in File Manager go to your Temp folder. One way to do that is to open your Run box (WinKey + R) and type in %temp%. For me, that opens C:/Users/(username)/AppData/Local/Temp. If you see a file there called SkypeSetup.exe, delete it.
That should do it! Remember, when you want to update Skype again, you will have to go and reverse some of these actions. That is the main reason I am writing this blog entry - so I remember how to undo what I did to my own PC. To undo, in the Registry, set the DWORD value to 0 instead of 1. That should let you manually update Skype. In the Group Policy Editor, you may have to set "Disable new version checking" to "Disable" or "Not configured". This took me way too long to research and figure out, but I got tired of Skype continually wanting to update itself after I told it not to in the Skype Options. I don't like it when I can't have my PC working the way I want it to. Maybe someone else will find this information useful, too. I received another Friend request from our old friend Davesharon from Iowa. For those who may be interested, you can check out his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/davesharon to see if he has changed. To my mind, he hasn't. Sad.
So many records, so little time. Isn't it the truth? I stumbled across a blog by that name today, which you can access here. I've added the blog to my References section which appears in the right-hand column of this page. I love the guy's profile photo:
Friends, I'm sorry to say tonight's Off the Charts cast will be the last for awhile, hopefully for just a little while.
Last night, I discovered a problem with my headset microphone. It has a short or something, and it isn't working. It's emitting a loud hum, making it unusable. I do have a back-up microphone, the "Bob Barker" model I've used in the past. It's not hands-free, so I don't want to use it on a regular basis. I have kind of a Rube Goldberg set-up. I use an inexpensive mic with a 3.5mm jack that I plug into my netbook. The netbook serves as an amplifier. I route the speaker output of the netbook to the sound card input of my desktop PC. The results aren't great, but it has been good enough for my purposes. The problem is, not every cheap-o mic has worked, and it takes me awhile to find another workable one. I have specific needs, namely, I need to be able to hear what's going on in the household, plus I need to be able to hear the cast in real time. That means I need to have at least one ear open as I listen to the cast through external speakers. That limits the type of headset I can use. I don't want to just start buying replacements without a relatively high confidence they will work adequately. I tried a USB headset, and the results were unsatisfactory. The USB introduced a slight delay between the mic and the speaker, making it impossible for me to talk naturally. I went through this exercise before when my previous headset went kaput. It took quite a bit of time to get set up again. This is absolutely the wrong time of year for a project of indefinite time-commitment to pop up. Yes, the simple solution would be to just buy another identical unit to the one I have now. Problem is, I don't remember what it is it or where I got it. The headset itself has no identifying information other than an unfamiliar and unhelpful logo that kind of looks like a "CA". I spent two hours searching for a replacement last night and got nowhere. I can't afford to get bogged down with this problem right now. What I'd really like to do is come up with a less jury-rigged system that gives better sound quality. Right now, too much background noise comes through when I'm talking. But that will take even more time and for sure will cost more than another $5 or $10 headset. Result: After tonight, I'm going to suspend casting until I can get myself set up again satisfactorily. At this point my guess is that I won't resume again until sometime in 2015. If anyone needs some unused themes, I have plenty I'd be willing to share. As I've observed before, nothing is permanent on the internet. Changes often happen unexpectedly and suddenly. I'll still be around Vaughnlive some, just not casting. To you all who have stuck with me for months, or in many cases years, please know I really appreciate your support. These Monday nights wouldn't have been so much fun without your great participation and encouragement. A special nod to Martoon, Maxine, and Jen, who week after week perform the unglamorous duty of keeping the ne'er-do-wells out of chat, and who have been anchors of the webcast. You're the greatest. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause. Personally, this has been a great experience that I hope to resume when things get straightened out. Best wishes to everyone. Back in April, I used Alexa to look at the usage patterns of a number of video-streaming websites. At the time, the focus was on the dwindling trend at Justin TV while most of the other comparable sites were showing steady or increasing popularity. As we know now but didn't for sure know then, JTV was circling the drain before disappearing altogether. I thought it would be interesting to see how Vaughnlive has fared since then. As a reminder, here is the chart from April 2014: You can see that Vaughnlive had a strong rise from unmeasurable obscurity in early 2013 to the 22,792nd most popular website globally in April 2014. That's a pretty impressive rise, albeit from a low base. Here is what Alexa reports today: Notice that these two charts overlap from November 2013 to April 2014, although the left and bottom scales are different and the newer chart smooths the data. For some reason, between April and July of this year, popularity tanked, going from the 22000 range to the 50000 range, and even dropping lower around the end of May. Then in August, the effects of the JTV closure can be seen as VL popularity crossed the 20000 mark. Since then, it's been relatively flat, if not slightly down. Given Mark's and Lynn's comments over the past few months, that surprises me a little. I thought the trend would have been upward. Nonetheless, Vaughnlive is more popular than it was 7 months ago, and way more popular in the US, rising from 16,749th place to 9,670th. It could be that other statistics more meaningfully describe the current State of the Vaughn.
You can get up-to-date charts on Vaughnlive and many other sites yourself anytime by clicking over to Alexa.com. I'm pretty sure only a select few read this blog. To those of you who do, I'm appreciative. Here's a little bonus for you supremely dedicated Gilsters.
Besides webcasting and messing around with my music collection, I like to read, and I like to remember what I read. Plus, as some of you know, I'm a list-oriented guy. So, to that end, I've been using the web site Goodreads to keep track of the books I read and what I thought of them. Generally, I like to read about history, social science, politics and public policy, culture, music, business and economics, science and technology, and baseball. Most of what I read I get from the public library. If you click here you can see what I've read over the past few years. Once you click that link, if you then click the word "view" on any book line, you will be able to see my sometimes overly-verbose review of that particular book. So for those one or two of you who aren't getting enough of my writing here at the OtC Blog, there's another repository waiting to be seen over at Goodreads. Oh, by the way, it's not a "Gil" endeavor, if you know what I mean (wink, wink). I'm not on stage there like I am on VaughnLive. I mainly do the Goodreads thing for my own benefit, but a few people over there seem to like it and so I've garnered a few fellow bibliophiles as followers. I don't read as much as I'd like to. There are only so many hours in the day of course, and I have a lot of interests that vie for my time. I figured I would share this other interest of mine with you -- my webcasting friends. |
AuthorGil is the host of the "Gil's Channel" webcast on Vaughnlive.tv. References
These sites are particularly helpful when it comes to learning about and tagging music. Some are blogs. Others are labors-of-love reference sites. And to be complete, I'm including the well-known sites I use often.
45 RPM Records of the Ohio River Valley 45cat (7" vinyl database) 45worlds (non-7" singles db) The "A" Side (informative blog) Album Liner Notes (reference) Allmusic ASCAP Repertory Search (db) The "B" Side (informative blog) Billboard Hot 100 (historical) Blues & Rhythm (magazine) BMI Repertoire Search (db) Both Sides Now Publications British Dance Band Encycl'p'a Bullfrogs Pond - #1s by Date. Bullfrogs Pond - Artists. Bullfrogs Pond - Yearly Chart. Classic Jazz Online. Classic Urban Harmony. The Cosimo Code. The Database of Popular Music. Dave's Music Database. The Dead Rock Stars Club. Discogs (database). Donald Clarke's Music Box. The Doo Wop Society of So Cal FAU Recorded Sound Archives. Garage Hangover (60s 45's) HeyPally's 78 rpm Page. It's Psychedelic Baby (blog) The Jazz Archive Site. JazzBiographies.com Jazz Discography Jazz Downloads (1917-1955) JazzStandards.com Jeff's 78 Labels Label Discographies Lyrics.net (searchable lyrics) Marv Goldberg's R&B Notebook Music VF (US & UK hits db) Noal Cohen's Jazz History The Online (78) Discog. Project Rhythm & Blues 50s Oldies Man Rock & Country Encycl & Discog Second Hand Songs SESAC Repertory Search (db) Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Hvn So Many Records, So Little Time Songbook (Doc's Songbook) Soulful Kinda Music Spectropop Express Spirit of Rock Webzine Tony's Rock & Roll Links Traditional Music Library (ref) Tredwells Music Centre The Vocal Group Harmony Site Wikipedia YouTube Archives
October 2020
|