There Were Some Events, Made Changes, Making Progess Now

Some Events

I see that there are some gaps in the blogging here and they coincide with some major events.  I had to help a family member and I am now caring for that person a lot.  I also had my own health challenges to deal with.  I'm still moving forward on my music, but my youtube video posting stopped.

I removed all my youtube videos after that big COPPA event.  That event ended the channels that were posting material meant for a younger audience.  Some of them were businesses and they could no longer communicate with their audience.  There was a lot of disruption and threats of legal action and fines was being discussed.  Then it seemed like there was no more discussion of these things for a while, the channels that had to change didn't return, but new posts were still happening like before.  Did I miss something?

Even without the youtube changes, I was not going to be able to continue my video production as earlier anyway.  With the major events that were happening, it would have been nearly impossible.

Sorry About the Dead Links

The links to those videos on this blog are now dead links!  I haven't edited those links in the prior blog entries.  I did mention a few of those videos in this blog, so that's a troubling thought.

Still, I Am Making Progress

I may have made it sound like everything is on hold, and it may have been for a while, but not now.  I am making more progress now than ever before but not with youtube videos, but what I should really be doing and that is music.

My new website for my music is in its infancy and so I'm not even posting the link here right now.  

So I'm back on track and it feels really really good.

Coming soon will be the following things: New original music, new website for only that music, instagram, twitter, FB, reddit posts of music progress updates, music videos for the original music, and live streaming for the performance of the new original music, some original artwork for the graphics for the new original music.

And that is the update.  

To all of you stopping in here and reading some of this blog, I hadn't checked it in a while and I was shocked at the number of views and I had to immediately post and say hello and thanks, and make sure I posted a little update.

As soon as any of the items on the above list materialize, meaning I spent time working on them and now there's content to link to, I'll post the update here also.

See ya sooner - J

I Took Database Idea Seriously

More Database

Yes, I Took Database Idea Seriously

So I used to do a little database development a few years ago.  I don't really like the whole bloated database development application that has built in stuff and you have to pay for it and it has to be loaded up every time you want to look at your data.  Especially since I'm mainly using Linux, I pass on that.

Wow, Python

Python is the answer.  It even has its own built-in database for local data called, SQLite.  It also has its own GUI, graphical user interface components for windows, buttons, entry boxes, the stuff we use all the time on our Macs and PCs, and our KDE and Gnome Linux desktops.  So I dove into Python for my desktop application database and it's really amazing.

Some difficulty getting it up and running quickly, however, because I didn't know how to program it when I started.  So the time required was not just the programming, but learning how to do it also.  That compounded the development time significantly. 

The other thing I did was to start with a less significant database idea during learning rather than my most important data.  January and February were all about the database development and now here in March, 2021, I am using that initial database application and copying the code to get a much faster start on the databases that are more important.

I started with a simple Receipts database application and this was most of the 2 months time.  In only a day, I just began to modify the code for the second database app for Media.  Seeing how fast it is now to re-use my code is also amazing.  Pretty soon I'll have all my databases developed and I can implement them and get organized and efficient.  This is exciting.

I may get into the programming details on another blog rather than confuse this one with that type of info.  Winter is a good time for programming and learning how to program a new language since there's more time without sunlight up here in the cold NY North.

Happy New Year - I Think I Need A Database

Happy New Year 2021

no more 2020

Getting Organized

I think I need a database.  I have a lot of things to organize and I've been using lists, notebooks, clipboards, index cards, but it feels scattered around and I do like databases, so I think I'll make one or more.

What Are All These Things?

What are these things I need to organize?  I have a list of about a dozen things I'd like to sort.

Contacts, music, books, video files - this is a big one since I don't even remember what I recorded with my many cameras or where they are.  Audio clips that I produced or that I purchased and downloaded, or are they still on the cloud?  Locations are also many: disc, flash ram, external disc, SD, in the machine or in a box, etc...and there's more, to be continued.... (and soon...) - J

Paused My Twitch Streaming

I paused my Twitch streaming even though I had been listening to some advice that said to stream

as much as possible.  If one is gaming, then that advice makes sense since the content is the gamer who is gaming and that is a complete package.  I'm not a gaming streamer, however, I am a music streamer.

Music Streaming

Music streaming is different.  I tried to stream the production of my music tracks, but there really isn't much action in that.  It is mostly a static image on the screen with me, the producer, musician, and now streamer is making some comments on the production process.  

 The fact that I am producing and arranging and recording, is actually slowed down and interrupted and distracted by streaming!  So it is not the right content for a stream and especially not a music stream.

Producing Music on a DAW

Producing music on a DAW, a Digital Audio Workstation, is how it is done these days.  Some music is still produced the old ways, but not as much.  Even if it is using all of the old techniques, the final audio will be routed to a DAW, even if it is also being recorded to analog tape.

The process is not that interesting to the final music listener because what they are looking for is the final production, the final mix, the master.  Only some super-fans or other musicians and producers would be interested in seeing this process and that's a very small audience compared to the potential audience on the audio video streaming platforms.  Even I as a musician and producer, am bored by it and not interested in seeing this!  So maybe the audience is even non-existent.  Which is why I have paused my streamingfor now.

I Will Stream Again!

However, I will stream again as soon as I have completed a number of tracks that I can DJ stream, mix, and even perform some improv parts during the stream.  I may perform one of the tracks live.  I definitely will be taking one of the tracks and filtering it as DJ's do.  These "tracks," are then called "stems."  They are produce for this very purpose.  

 

Not so sure I love the format here, I may have to make some changes soon.  I have limited time, I think I'll stick to producing first so I can get back to streaming as soon as I can.  Thanks for stopping in, see you soon on Twitch - Jay Nocats

Jay Nocats

www.nocats.net

www.twitch.tv/nocats_net

 

I'm Streaming Again After A Break During May and June 2020

I was busy adjusting to things, like the lockdown, and making sure I had supplies while continuing care giving full time.  So I took a break from streaming for a couple of months, May and June 2020.  I'm back and it feels good.

Another part of the delay was tech issues.  My FX1600 AMD box didn't boot about a year and a half ago and by then I had it for 3 years or more so I replaced it rather than troubleshoot it.  The replacement had a problem in June and that's when I decided to look into the old one since I was opening up the new one also.

New one needed a replacement video card but old one only needed a power supply, which was only $20.

Repairing both, I now have two working machines which is great since I decided that I have to stream from a different room since I can't stand up and stream from my desk.

I had to test the old FX1600 box since I never

streamed with it and it worked, which was good, although the resolution was only 480.  I might be able to increase that but it's good enough for a start in the new location.

So all of the streams so far were done from my desk, which I think is pretty boring and I can't pick up a guitar easily or use much of my other equipment since my desk is small and full and I have other gear still in boxes in the other room.  I'm looking forward to using more stuff.

The other surprise was that I had about 6 viewers at one time during my, "DJ Beats and Tracks Work" stream.  It isn't many, but it is for me especially since I'm really only still testing and trying stuff out.

The tracks I'm using are my own arrangements of samples I purchased with an unlimited use license which is really great since I'm not using any copyrighted music that would need clearance. 

I really wanted to get set up in the other room and at least test another stream with new setup and new camera angle and I'm so stoked to get that going, but today was a very busy day in caregiving.  I just double checked the spelling of that and found this nice site I have to look at: Caregiving

I noticed it explained things well right at the top.  I'll be blogging on that subject at some point also since I've been doing it for years and I have a few things to share.

My Twitch channel from where I stream is: NoCats_Net on Twitch

The on-demand videos of most recent streams are available there also, VOD, Video On Demand.

That's all for now, I can't believe July 2020 is gone. - Jay Nocats.

Zoom On Linux Mint 17.3 Trashed My GUI Desktop On Bootup -- Technical Post Please Ignore

I had to do a Zoom meeting so I installed it through the browser on my Linux Mint 17.3 installation.  It failed to accept the password and so it didn't work anyway.  But then when I restarted the box, it booted me to the terminal!  No desktop, no GUI, no KDE.

I got a text box with message, "MDM: Xserver not found: /usr/bin/X :0 -audit 0 -auth /var/lib/mdm/ :0.X " and it asked if I wanted to see the message returned so I said, "Yes."

The message was, "MDM: Xserver not found...."

I ran an update from command line: sudo apt-gt install update.

I backed up current xorg.conf file in /etc/x11/xorg.conf to xorg.old.conf

Then I did:  sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg ...it returned, "xserver-xorg not installed" ...which was disturbing, but then I decided I will have to reinstall it, so I did:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver.xorg

That seemed to go well and I restarted the box and I got the desktop back, it was back to the normal boot.

Other things that I tried that may or may not have helped in the process:

sudo Xorg-configure which created xorg.conf.new in /home/john, then I copied it to /etc/x11/xorg.conf, ran startx but got /usr/bin/X: not found.

I also did:
sudo apt-get --purge remove zoom ...and got 138MB disk space will be freed...
 Upon restart, after that, I got the same issue, which was booting up to tty with message "failed to start x server ...would you like to view xserver output to diagnose?"  No/Yes

I ran update to reinstall MDM  ...got back, "already newest version."

The instructions that helped me here came from:
askubuntu.com/questions/21309/how-to-restore-xserver and
forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=235153 and
forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=174357 and
askubuntu.com/questions/237973/boots-up-in-terminal-and-startx-cant-be-found and
forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=105156&sid=283aa6635f639a4a62631b287b644b78&start=20  <-- title on this if this long url doesn't work is, "<SOLVED> Failed to Start the X server" on the linux mint forums....

Needless to say I won't be reinstalling any of that zoom crap on my main production Linux installation machine!

Hope this helps, hope you don't need it.... - J
My Desktop is back!

I Really Gotta Catch Up!

11pm ET, Wed. April 29, 2020 and I Really Gotta Catch Up.

Some stuff has been going on, an understatement, since prior post which was...January!  Everybody knows what, so I won't repeat that stuff.  Other stuff is better.

So the first thing that happened since my last post was that I found a very cool podcast from a podcaster and Twitch gamer.  This guy is amazing, I listened to all of his podcasts multiple times in February.  I'm planning a blog post on him, Nick.  I'll gather his links and post them on the next blog entry here.  He's so good I have to do an entry specifically on him and his expert podcasts.

My Jan. post was about my rediscovering Twitch.  I then listened to Nick about how to run a Twitch channel.  I was in planning stages but one point he made was that you should jump in immediately and grow while streaming.  That made sense so I did.  I actually started my channel and started streaming.

After a full month, however, I had to stop and figure something out since I was kind of stuck on one thing and it needed to change...and then, the virus.

That had me much more busy than usual, and I had to change my channel in some way, and so I stopped streaming but I did start watching a lot.  Sometimes all night, many times all night.  It was a good thing to do since it gave me an idea of the various ways to approach music streaming on Twitch.

I was playing piano keyboards into my ancient macbook using Logic Pro X and multitracking layers of the old song, St. Louis Blues, by W.C. Handy.  There are reasons why I chose this song that I'll get into in a later post.  I can't read piano music well, so I would record the left hand and then right hand for a number of measures of the song.  This took hours since I made mistakes.  I had a few viewers, hardly any chat activity and no followers.  I had a handful of followers but it wasn't generated by my channel stream.  The followers were folks I had chatted with on other streams I was watching.

There is so much more to this, but I have to end it here with my much better idea for my stream, which is to do a combination of DJ mixing with my original music but even before that, with loops and samples.  I have some gear and I am stoked to start. - J.