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22 January 2007

We Hesitate to Bring This Audio Program to Your Attention

It would force you to download a new multimedia studio complex.



I had to struggle several hours recently because the crew here (moi) strayed from the path of voluntary simplicity. Itried to download too much BloatWare playing with audio and game downloads for your blogging enjoyment.

We can look down our noses (but rarely do) at the REAL videogame and MP3 junkies. But we look up to them, at least the ones here in Montréal.

The reason we don't look DOWN at these addicts is because the big operators, the pros, have taken residence here over the past decade and they are HQ'd in the finest of some 6 or 8 of the tallest buildings along The Main (St. Lawrence Street). So in terms of these leading-edge game coders, to look at them at all we have to look UP -- WAY UP above the 6th floor :)

But here at CPE we play games as well, when not solving all the world's problems writing our flowing prose.

Games we like are mahjong, solitaire in the Windows plain vanilla flavor, Go, Scrabble, dominoes and strategy board games with four players. Not too much electronics, but often on a computer. Sometimes on a real table with real human 'warm-body' competition.

Today, though, I had to reload new copies of old games that we erased because they had become too addictive to accomplish anything else. (I tried to find whatever was out there for free.) Some 'law' about 'you get what you (don't) pay for' kicked in . . .
. . . so two thirds of the downloads we tried were total bloatware, taking over the computer and going online to rack up scores -- and even stupider nonsense.(Later I will share one address that offers fine, slim versions of nice games - but I'm not certain how to get them in English (though advertised as bilingual) and I just take the French stuff as it comes. I will check that out later to blog on it.

The more serious project that was so rudely interrupted by bloatware relates to my idea of sharing audio files on this blog. You could be convinced, I think, that listening to performance poets and even dead poets (including T. S. Eliot) is fun and educational.

Audio literary performances for enhancing the reading experience, not replacing printed books, can and should be a powerful niche that online publishers should explore. Enhancements, both visual and auditory, not substitution on a monitor screen, is a better fit than a big move into e-books for reading on plasma screens or tiny cell phones.

Trying to listen to bookmarked readings I have, I was surprisingly obliged, for the first time in months, to upgrade RealPlayer to hear the stuff that used to work on older versions of software. The download took forever. And then it took over the computer.

How? By forcing, I'm not joking, by forcing Firefox Mozilla down the same line with the newer version of RealPlayer (TM).

Although I have nothing against Firefox's Mozilla browser, I do not want it. Not now anyhow. But NOW I certainly have something against RealPlayer - for all the bloat and for trying to jam a new browser down my throat.

Finally, if anyone knows a more user-friendly way to share a few audio clips for poetry readings through this blog, let me know. I would like all this to be much simpler for every single user and not pressure anyone to face a bloated download like we juat did. I would like it to be a mere click away.

Why isn't there something that runs straight off the blog for sound files?

Perhaps all of us should choose the leanest, simplest audio player (one that comes with the operating system) instead of stuff that imitates a broadcast station's studio monitor all jam-packed into a tiny corner of the screen as the sound screams out of the speakers.

Come on, Linux freaks, have your go at convincing of Open Source approaches.

Post your Comments.

I am nearly ready to take the Linux plunge (one more time)!

2 comments:

Neath said...

I have a copy of Ubuntu on CD but haven't worked up the nerve to go for it yet. Seems you have to create a dual boot, so you don't lose windows, and I still have this fear that I will end up with nothing somehow, like will all my photo/writing files switch over? How does that work?

Will look for a "thin" audio player.

Neath

Blogaulaire said...

Hi neath. Sorry my post had so many typos.

Been there, done that. I did the dual boot for Linux and Windows. It was long ago. The machine didn't even belong to me, that's why it had to be dual boot.

It was 'a learning experience' and took up loads of time trying to learn the basics. But I ditched it, just like I ditch games -- when I start to be addicted.

I checked out several pages and the blog roll at your Walking Turcot Yards blog. I joined on Canadian site just as a thumbnail viewer for my pics and to keep up with urban spaces photo folks in the UK -- seems they are connected.

Too bad the site has a chat room! Real idiots and gamers seem to have taken over that niche.

I'll email you the site address and name and some response to the work. You are not registered I noticed but you do like one of the members 'cuz you say so in a post.

WTY is looking great in the new layout. I hope you did not lose any photos. I think you lost your profile page and made it into an ABOUT page. I'd like to hear about your approach. My profile is a bit too idiosyncratic I'm afraid.

Good thing you have some older pics of TY before they tore down the sheds. The turnstile (round house) for the trains just blows me away.