KW1606 – Storytime: Joplin Edition
Aug 11
A quick mini-podcast this week inspired by the Knightwise.com community and a discussion over on the Discord.
LINKS
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
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Run your own Audible service with Prologue
Aug 05
I love to listen to audiobooks when I have the time. Nothing is more enjoyable than being sucked into a story read by a good narrator and tearing through the pages of a book with the tips of my earlobes as I’m mowing the lawn or working out.
There are plenty of ways to do that on your phone of course and some are more tedious then others. You can download the audiofiles to you phone and use some kind of audio player (tedious) OR subscribe to an audio book service like Audible to ‘stream’ your books to your mobile device. (While they nickle-and-dime you into poverty one month at a time for books you don’t really ‘own’).
For a while now I have been looking into a way of streaming the audiobooks, documentaries and podcast series I have on my home server. A valid alternative was of course Plex. The reliable home server for streaming whatever content you have to whatever device you have. I played around with the standard ‘Plex’ client but was a bit annoyed at the fact that it’s not optimised for audiobooks. While out and about it would lose the connection to the server and forget the place I left off in the middle of the audiofile. (Not handy).
But by some serendipitous googling I came across “Prologue” in the App store: A fully fledged audiobook client for Plex . It’s quite easy to work with: Install it on your phone, log into you Plex account and point it at the folder where your audio library resides. It will index the audiofiles per folder and bob is your uncle. The free version of the app even allows you to either stream OR cache your audiofiles locally for those moments where your connection might be a bit on the spotty side. Additional features also include variable speed settings and all the dingdongs you expect from an audiobook player.
In short: I love this: It gives me the functionality and convenience of a streaming service like Audible but still allows me to “own” my audiobooks. But who says I need to stop there. Prologue is perfect to stream that downloaded collection of a podfaded podcast, or that audio rip you made from a Youtube documentary. The possibilities are plentiful. Get Prologue in the Apple (and Android) store today.
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Lifehack: 3 secrets of resilient people.
Aug 03Yesterdays workout at the gym had me on the prowl for a new ‘random’ podcast episode about no particular topic. I had just re-installed the Google Podcast app in order to be able to cast my podcasts to my office speaker, when I came across a Ted-Talk daily talking about the 3 secrets of resilient people. Resilience is something we need these days. I look towards the south, where only a few miles away, towns were swept away by flash floods and people lost everything in the blink of an eye. It takes resilience to pick yourself up and continue. Lucy Home, the speaker of this short but powerful speech was a trained resilience therapist an thought she had it all figured out, until she lost her daughter in a fatal car crash and had to “move on” with her life. She gives a couple of valid insights on how to “train” your mind and your mindset to be able to “bounce back” from adversity.
One tip in particular stood out: How to deal with the perception of ‘Danger’.
To paraphrase: our minds are much better attuned to “registering and remembering” danger than happiness. It was essential in primitive times when danger was close and lethal. Today we are bombarded with sensational news of danger all around us: Newspapers going for scary headlines, the next “ohmygod” clickbait around the corner. Our reptile brain however is unable to distinguish ‘perceived’ threats from ‘actual’ threats and is (on a subconscious level) afraid of ALL the things we read online. I come back to the age-old mantra of “curating the library of your mind’ and trying to tune the information streams you consume so they don’t ruin your mood (or your perception of happiness) and it was pretty cool to find topic touched on in this very short but informative TED talk. Have a listen and ask yourself “how resilient am I?”
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KW1605 – Data and the Erosion of Privacy
Jul 14
On this week’s walk Knightwise presents some food for thought about how we manage our private information online, and how those managing our social networks manage us as a result.
LINKS
- Its Me App
- Hot Pink Slippers
- Flickr 30k Dataset
- Don’t use ISP DNS
- DNS
- DNSSec
- Firefox
- Brave
- Protonmail
- Joplin
- NextCloud
- Belgian Trains
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music Credits
- Anima – Rain Dance [Free Music Archive]
- Metre – Waterfall [Free Music Archive]
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KW1604 – Linux for a Living
Jun 02
For two decades the era of “Linux on the Desktop” has been just around the corner. This week Knightwise takes us through a discussion of how he’s using Linux to drive some tasks for work, and how the pandemic-driven changes of 2020 might have helped push more Linux to the forefront.
LINKS
- Linux Distros
- SUSE Linux
- Ubuntu Linux
- College Linux
- ‘s Herenelderen
- Davinci Resolve
- Canva
- Audacity
- OBS
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music Credits
- Mindseye – Yellow Taxi Under a Blue Sky [Free Music Archive]
- Jason Shaw – Fat Caps [Free Music Archive]
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KW1603 – We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Transmitters
May 15
Podcasting has always been a way for those who don’t otherwise have a platform, to get out and share what’s on their mind, share their knowledge and experiences, and do it without having to buy your own small-town radio station. This week Knightwise takes us on another walk through the Belgian countryside to tell you why you should record your own podcast.
LINKS
- Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code [Wiki]
- KW Classic Episode – The Fort of Eben Emael [YouTube]
- The Internet Archive – Podcasts
- Transmitters?!
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music Credits
- Blue Dot Sessions – Take a Tiny Train [Free Music Archive]
Related Posts
KW1602 – Retro Computing
Apr 26
This week on the podcast Knightwise takes on the topic of retro computing. Whether virtualized or involving the resurrection of old hardware here are some ideas to put some older tech to use for you in 2021.
LINKS
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music Credits
- Ketsa – Retro Metro [Free Music Archive]
- Zeta – Bird Song [Free Music Archive]
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KW1601 – Letting the iPad Pro Work for You
Apr 11
Welcome to the first episode of Season 16 of the knightwise.com podcast. Picking up where we left off at the end of Season 15 with a show about the iPad Pro and how KW puts that to work on a regular basis.
LINKS
- The iPad (Wikipedia)
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music: Tri-Tachyon – Nanophage [SoundCloud]
Related Posts
Indiana Online: Digital archeology on the BBS.
Apr 09Maybe its because i’m getting older but, for some reason I just love to play around with old technology. It might be a sign of age and nostalgia, it might be the direct result that the current digitital landscape is just too damn distracting and high-paced to get anything done. A lot of people go towards Yoga and Mindfullness to “slow things down”. I drag up an old computer or an older piece of tech to get my mind out of the ratrace from time to time.
As a result I’ve been toying around with BBS’s lately (Bulletin Board Systems). Ancient tech from before the internet existed. It was Jason Scotts documentary on the BBS that got me curious about this tech that existed even before I even got my very first computer. It was interesting to watch how people used limited technologies to build communities and create art. Pure nostalgia. Or was it ?
Lately a new BBS documentary has popped up on Youtube explaining the art and the allure of BBS and how they are coming back into fashion. The high paced/low privacy of modern Social Media outlets has reached a level of frustration with bold older users and younger digi-peepz that they turn away from the Facebooks and the Twitters and are going ‘back to the bbs’. The great thing about the new documentary is that it does not talk about “the old days” but instead shows you what BBS’s are still alive today and how to connect to them. I am actively following the documentary and have even managed to “get online” onto one of the BBS’s and have been enjoying reading and replying to messages of total strangers.
Aside from the soothing command-line-only interface there is another allure to the BBS: Anonimity. The freedom of talking to strangers about a variety of topics without knowing anything about them. Opposed to Facebook that takes away the myth of anonimity straight away by exposing your every detail. So it’s an interesting passtime. Just like the first forums, ICQ and IRC, I get to sit behind my “Knightwise” avatar and shout at the world. I’ll keep you apprised of my adventures as I use my monstrously heavy specced gaming machine to connect to a 40 euro Raspberry Pi in order to dail into an obsolete piece of tech. Enjoyment lies in the little things they say.
Links
Jason Scotts documentary: https://youtu.be/Dddbe9OuJLU
Related Posts
Windows finally gets a decent command line.
Apr 07
I love spending time in the terminal, but you guys know that by now. The clean ascii interface helps me focus and keeps my jittery mouse-hand away from clicking yet another random site filled with modded transformer toys and loose whatever concentration I have left.
There are multiple command line apps you can find all over the place. The best are found on Linux distro’s, you can find some cool ones on OSX (iTerm2) but on Windows it used to be a little disappointing. Now I know working with command line applications feels like you are going back to the 80’s, but that doesn’t mean your command line interface app should look like that. I mean, type “CMD” in Windows and be Marty McFried back into the time of Windows 95 because that was the last time the Windows command line interface got an upgrade. It looks old, feels old and acts like a geriatric citizen who just had his sleep meds.
If you say “use putty” instead i’ll scream. That app also hasn’t seen the light of modern-day interfaces in 15 years and reminds me you install from some Windows 98 Shareware Cd Rom. Frustrated I have found a worthy alternative in the form of MobaXterm that lets you at least tweak the interface and provide you with handy tools like saving your session keys and doing X-forwarding. Nice!
But I got my hands on the new Windows Terminal Preview. The next iteration of the Windows Terminal command that gives you access to multiple terminals at once. Powershell, classic terminal and a direct link to your WSL installation of Linux that you put on that machine. Each terminal instance to be tweaked with your favorite settings, colors and setups. Love it !
For old farts you can even add some retro effects should you want to but I advise against it. All it lacks is an easy keyboard shortcut (CTRL-ALT T) to open up the terminal window and I’m good to go. So if you are on WIndows and want a stab at the terminal, go right ahead and try your own copy of the Terminal Preview here.
Links.
Find out more HERE.
