7May2008
Posted by Matthieu under: Linux; Music
We just moved to Providence, RI and I started commuting this week. 1h15 one way to Watertown, MA if there is no traffic or accident… that leaves me a long time to reflect on the meaning of life 
.
In order to make this commute bearable I definitely need some good tunes… and unfortunately I don’t find any of those on Boston area radio stations (except perhaps WERS which has some good stuff). I can listen to my iPod… but it can get repetitive as I am not buying as much music as before, and I start to know my collection.
So I was thinking of a way to be able to listen to my favorite radio station: Radio Nova. The problem is that it is a French radio and my antenna is not powerful enough to get the signal 
.
The solution was to record the radio from the web broadcast, make it available as a podcast and sync my iPod in the morning before leaving for work. Et voila, a few hours of music, news and French speaking people… everything that will help get over my morning grumpiness!
And with the time difference between France and the US it even feels like live radio, I get the morning news almost at the time it was broadcast 
On a technical level this is how it works:
I setup cron jobs on my web server to record Radio Nova stream from the web, using streamripper. Then I inject some meta data in the recorded file with id3v2. And finally the file gets published as a podcast thanks to DirCaster. In the morning I sync up my iPod with the podcasts that were recorded earlier in the night and I’m good to go.
I’m not really sure how legal it would be to make these recordings public, so I won’t do it, but if you’re interested leave me a comment and I’m sure we can work it out.
26March2008
Posted by Matthieu under: WebSite
I have been working for a while on updating the style of my website… so here it is!!! I still have a few things to work on but it looks nice enough to switch.
24January2008
Posted by Matthieu under: GPS
I’ve just reinstalled my computer recently and I was trying to make my Magellan MapSend Worldwide software work with my eXplorist 400… without any luck, until I realized I had it patched before. The problem is that Magellan’s website doesn’t have the patch available anymore 
Luckily I found it on this site
I decided to make it available as well in case it becomes unavailable at www.nextdestination.com.au.
Here is the decription of this patch:
MapSend WorldWide BaseMap Patch 1.30. This patch adds the ablility to make WorldWide BaseMap regions for eXplorist 210, 400, 500, 600 and XL GPS receivers and it fixes issues with XP Service Pack 2 for any owner of WWBM versions prior to v1.10.
Click to download MapSend WorldWide BaseMap Patch v1.30
11January2008
Posted by Matthieu under: Travels; Vacations
Here is a tentative schedule of my two weeks in France in February/March:
- Feb 21st: Leaving Boston (20:35 takeoff)
- Feb 22nd: Arriving in Paris (12:10 landing), nap and travel to Bordeaux (train?) to meet Pascal
- Feb 23rd: Day in Bordeaux (Football game?)
- Feb 24th: Driving to Pau and spent the afternoon with Max?
- Feb 25th: Driving to Girona, find a cheap hotel near the airport
- Feb 26th: Flying to Fuerteventura
- Feb 27th: Surf, beer and tapas
- Feb 28th: Surf, beer and tapas
- Feb 29th: Surf, beer and tapas
- Mar 1st: Flying back to Girona, and driving back to Bordeaux (or Pau?)
- Mar 2nd: Traveling back to Paris
- Week of Mar 3rd to 7th: Working from mum’s place
- Mar 8th: Flying back (15:50 takeoff) to Boston (17:50 landing)
Budget plan:
- Flight BOS-CDG: $452
- Train Paris-Bdx: 104 € / Flight 110 €
- Gaz+Parking: 100 €
- Flight Girona-Fuerteventura: 86 €
- Hotel (+food?) Fuerteventura: 150 €
- Food: 100 €
- Fun: 100 €
20December2007
Posted by Matthieu under: WebSite
I just realized my blog has been hacked for at least a week I think the spammer used some php injection to modify some files on my file system. Some of my permissions were a bit ‘loose’.
I’ve find some useful information on how to clean that mess on Kakkoi: How to Removed Wordpress.net.in Spam Injection.
Stoopid spammers!!!
4September2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Travels; Vacations
We flew from Boston to San Diego to meet Pascal on the Friday night. Then, Saturday morning, we took the train to San Ysidro, crossed the border by feet, took a cab to Tijuana’s airport and grabbed a rental car. That was relatively painless and only 1h30 after leaving San Diego we were driving on the road of Baja California.
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1August2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Music; Travels; Vacations
I went to visit Sofra in Mountain View last weekend. We had a blast. Saturday while Sofra was at work I walked around San Francisco’s harbor and took an hour boat tour going under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz island. It was nice except for the f#@*cking seagull that dropped a guano on my shoulder 
.
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9July2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Fun
Just started watching Futurama over again for the 12.308th time and I still love it. This is the best show ever. I’m just cracking up at Fry answering Gunter (the monkey): “I don’t like you” in season 2 episode 2.
9July2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Travels; Vacations
Trip :August 10th to 19th
Rent a car in Tijuana airport (11th/19th)
AWD (4×4) ~570$
Normal car ~300$
- Friday 10th:
Flying to San Diego, meeting friends and spending the night there.
- Saturday 11th:
Taking the trolley to Tijuana and picking up the car. Driving to Tecate, maybe visit the brewery and spend the night there.
Hotel tips (El Dorado, Rosita Inn)
- Sunday 12th:
Driving through Valle de Guadalupe (Vineyards), maybe stop at a few wineries. Then keep driving till Ensenada and spend the night there.
Casa del Sol (rooms 63$/night for 3)
- Monday 13th:
Drive to Bahia de Los Angeles (long drive ~8h), then relax on the beach.
Villa Bahia (casitas 85$/night)
Camp Dagetts (casitas ??$/night)
Villa Vita (rooms ??$/night)
- Tuesday 14th:
Kayak/Snorkeling/Relaxing around Bahia de Los Angeles. Maybe fishing trip?
- Wednesday 15th:
Kayak/Snorkeling/Relaxing around Bahia de Los Angeles
- Thursday 16th:
Driving to San Ignacio (~4 1/2 h), spent the rest of the day and the night there. (Can drive late afternoon if we want an extra day in Bahia)
Casa Lereé (rooms 35-65$/night)
Desert Inn (rooms 72$/night)
Ignacio Springs B&B (yurts ~70$/night)
Or
Only drive to Guerrero Negro. (Malarrimo hotel (55-60$/night) + trip to caves)
- Friday 17th:
Day trip to the cave paintings in Sierra de San Francisco.
- Saturday 18th:
Long drive back to Tijuana (~11h). Drop the car, go back to San Diego for the night.
- Sunday 19th:
Chill out in San Diego, maybe surfing or bike/kayak/snorkel and take the plane at night to Boston
- Monday 20th:
Early arriving at the airport, maybe a quick shower then back to work 
2July2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Linux; Tutorial
My web server runs debian but the FFmpeg debian package is not compiled with MP3 nor AMR support. So I had to get my hands dirty… good old fashion compilation of sources
If you want to use these instructions you will need to have a c compiler, subversion and all the decompressing tools (gzip, bzip2, tar) installed.
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13April2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Mac; Tutorial
It took me a little while to figure out how to use the built-in bluetooth from my MacBookPro in Windows XP that runs via Parallels, but I found a way to do that. Hopefully these few notes will help other who would be in the same case.
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1March2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Miscellaneous
Today I had a very good surprise, my desert got delivered . I received an edible arrangement of fruits from Kristy for my birthday. The basket was made of pineapples, grapes, cantaloupe and honeydew melons, apples, and strawberries. Some of the fruits were dipped in chocolate mmmmm.
I loved it… and already ate half of the basket .
31January2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Photo; WebSite
So I finally caught up with all my old pictures… well at least the digitized one hehe. I’ve published pictures for years 2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000 & earlier.
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24January2007
Posted by Matthieu under: Photo; WebSite
Ok just added my pics for 2004. You can check the public pictures here and all the pictures here (Password required 
). If you need a password please use the Account request form.
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27December2006
Posted by Matthieu under: Cooking
Update :
Here it what it looked like from the inside and with decoration
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