I just wrote my first ever AppleScript to solve a problem I’ve had for some time. As I’ve mentioned several times before, I use the MPD music player on my HTPC to play music through my amplifier while controlling playback using my laptop or mobile phone. This works like a charm and I’ve been really satisfied with this setup — until I fell in love with iTunes’ Genius function.
I use iTunes on my MacBook and mainly at work, either listening through my headphones or streaming music to the office speakers using our AirPort Extreme. As my library is rather diverse, I like to use Genius to get an ad hoc playlist of similar songs to avoid the “shuffle all, press next until a good song comes along” selection method. Needless to say, Genius has worked fabulously. However, when I come home and start playing music through MPD, I’m back to the shuffle all hell since I can’t be bothered creating playlists manually.
So this got me thinking: Is there any way I can use iTunes Genius together with MPD? The answer is yes, and the tool I used is AppleScript.
Continue reading ‘Getting iTunes Genius into MPD’
Hangover. Major hangover. The local vodka we had last night was either too impure or too plenty, or both. It’s the first day of the new year and our last day on Gili Trawangan. Today’s activities are kept to a minimum, we need to eat and Outi wanted to do some tanning on the beach. And since we’re leaving early in the morning on the 2nd, we need to make all preparations today. But that’s already more than our (or especially Fredrik’s) physical condition allows.
Continue reading ‘Gili T – Last days of the year and on the island’
As we mentioned before, there are no motorized vehicles on the Gili Islands, the only means of transportation are your own two feet, bicycles and cidomo (the horse-drawn carts). We tried out the cidomos yesterday on Gili Meno, but the horses didn’t seem to enjoy their position, so today we decided to rent a couple of old bikes (24h for 80.000 rupiah / 6 euros) and make a sight-seeing tour around the island.
Continue reading ‘Gili T – Going Round and Round and Round’
Life here on the Gilis is easy. You get up, get breakfast served to either one of your balconies, go to diving school or out snorkeling, take a nap before dinner, go out to one of Trawangan’s many excellent restaurants, have a few beers and watch the sun set behind the island’s only ”mountain”. There’s really not much you can do on an island not much bigger than the Suomenlinna sea fortress outside of Helsinki. The sea is everywhere and that’s what offers the most activities.
Continue reading ‘Gili Meno – Turtles and a leaking sack’
The day had come. We retired early yesterday to have time for a good night’s sleep before the early wake-up and banana pancaces with mixed fruit juice on the ”breakfast balcony”. With satisfied stomachs and skin smelling of sun lotion, we packed our backpack and headed for school, scuba diving school. At the time of writing, the first day of our PADI Open Water Diving course has been successfully executed, earning us a couple of beers and some quality time with the laptop. And we can’t wait to go back to school tomorrow.
Continue reading ‘Gili T – In the Depth of the Deep Blue Sea’