My birthday animation.

Zabel Corn Candy Animation.

Click on the empty box.

Play Podcast using mplayer Ruby and zenity

The following updated to previous post uses the program ffprobe to get the name of the podcast. Also uses clases. Just because. #!/usr/bin/ruby require 'find' #this ruby script lets you access and play your podcasts or any mp4 file from your usb device mounted #in the directory: media in a Linux system (maybe Ubuntu). Notice i have my Ipod directory hard-code. #You can hard code yours or modify this script to pass the directory as a paramter. #Provecho. Javier Isassi MYDIR ='/media/Javier\'s Ipod/iPod_Control/Music/*/*.mp4' #first extend the String class with a method to strip quotation marks or any character for that matter. class String def strip_str(str) gsub(/^#{str}|#{str}$/, '') end end class PodcastPlayer def initialize(dirname) @pcasts = Dir[dirname].sort_by{ |f| File.ctime(f) } @pcastStr = "" @_pcast = "" @titles = [] @idx = 99 end def getPodcastTitle(p) album = "" podcastInfo = `ffprobe -v 0 -show_tags \"#{p}\"` podcastInfo.each do |l| l.chomp! tokens = l.split(/=/) if tokens[0] == "album" album << tokens[1] end end album end def play if @idx != 99 cmd = `mplayer \"#{@pcasts[@idx]}\"` end end def displayPanel @pcasts.each_with_index do |p, index| album = getPodcastTitle(p) if album == "" tokens = p.split(/\//) @pcastStr << "\"#{index}.- #{tokens.last}\"" << " " else @pcastStr << "\"" << "#{index}.- #{album}" << "\" " end end #puts "da string is #{@pcastStr}" @_pcast=`ans=$(zenity --width=120 --height=500 --list --column \"Podcast\" #{@pcastStr} --separator=\":\"); echo $ans` if @_pcast.chomp! == "" puts "goodbye!" else @idx = @_pcast.scan(/\d+/)[0].to_i puts "idx is now #{@idx}" end end def start displayPanel play end end myPcast = PodcastPlayer.new( MYDIR ) myPcast.start

Another way to play your media in Linux using Ruby and Zenity.

Ruby Code below. #!/usr/bin/ruby require 'find' #this ruby script lets you access and play your podcasts or any mp4 file from your usb device mounted #in the directory: media in a Linux system (maybe Ubuntu). Notice i have my Ipod directory hard-code. #You can hard code yours or modify this script to pass the directory as a paramter. #Provecho. Javier Isassi #first extend the String class with a method to strip quotation marks or any character for that matter. class String def strip_str(str) gsub(/^#{str}|#{str}$/, '') end end #the following command reads all my podcasts and puts them in array called pcasts from oldest to newest #powerful ey? pcasts = Dir['/media/Javier\'s Ipod/iPod_Control/Music/*/*.mp4'].sort_by{ |f| File.ctime(f) } #The following routine returns the index in my array contaiing the podcast file location def findPodcast(pcasts,pcast) ix = 0 # the string pcast comes riddled with quotation marks and a newline character at the #so first with strip the quotation all as one-liner pcastClean = pcast.strip_str('"') #let us now search each element for the sub-string pacastClean, here I use regular expressions pcasts.each_with_index do |p, index | if p =~ /#{pcastClean}/ ix = index end end ix end #The following routine creates a string using the pcasts array for use with zenity..more about that below def createString(pcasts, pcastStr) pcasts.each do |p| tokens = p.split(/\//) pcastStr << "\\\"" << tokens.last << "\\\" " end end pcastStr= "" #create the string to use with zenity createString(pcasts, pcastStr) #this is zenity. A program that creates quick and easy GUI menu's to make your life a bit fancier. #Comes standard with most Linux distributions today. pcast=`ans=$(zenity --width=70 --height=500 --list --column \"Podcast\" #{pcastStr} ); echo $ans` #blast the new line at the end of the string pcast.chomp! #Now that zenity let me select the podcast I want to play, I call findPodcast to return the index, I could just #have put the whole string in zenity but looks messy, not withstanding that APPLE makes us all a favor by #mangling the names of the files inside the ipod. ix = findPodcast(pcasts, pcast) #Presto I have a file location. Now I play this file using the program mplayer which also comes with any #Linux distribution. You couls use VLC or whatever media player you fancy. if pcast != "" cmd = `mplayer \"#{pcasts[ix]}\"` end

The happiest place on earth.

No, it is not Disneyland, it is Costa Rica. http://www.happyplanetindex.org

A few weeks ago Bill Maher let Obama have at it for not doing enough. It rings true. The only thing that Bill doesn't take into account is that when it comes to fixing the world, people have to listen to what you say. To have people listening to what you say, you have to be on TV.

Computer Glitch Stops Flight at O'Hare Airport

And while we are at it, some field validation software doesn't check for not properly escaped characters. From chicagotribune.com