Alternate.org

…And I know we’ve talked about Apple a lot lately, but god-damn if I just didn’t fall in love with whoever put together Darwin Streaming Server. Jesus christ on a stick.

After puttering around with Shoutcast, Icecast and some streaming servers written in PHP for a client, I came across the mother of free streaming server technologies: DSS4.

First off, this is totally dorky tech-talk but you don’t have to be a dork to understand the implications of what I’m trying to do, which is put together an internet radio station for Milehighhouse. Pretty cool, and totally useful. Anyway, it’s not a secret that I develop on MacOS X, and so I try to get anything I’m going to use live working first on my development machine. Duh. So I download the official MacOS X port of Shoutcast. And there is one. I install it, get the server running…. and look online to see what else I need.. and you need WinAMP. A MacOS X version of which there is not. Cool. So they ported the server but not the required client to get the stream working.

Then comes Icecast, which is actually worse… Their versions wouldn’t even compile on Darwin and required libraries I couldn’t even find.

Then comes the almighty Darwin Streaming Server. Which (due to my download of QuicktimeSS requiring OSX Server) I installed on Linux. What did I have to do? Type “./Install”. That’s it. The rest was web-adminstered, with a web interface to fucking die for. My client will be able to drag and drop from a list of files on the server to a playlist pane, click save, click play and voila. Another MP3 stream. Why has this technology not gotten more press? Apple simply blows anything out of the water in this arena, and it’s running on a platform other than theirs, to boot.

How come no ‘insider’ info on this one? Heh.

“Mac… has a level of simplicity and transparency in operation that allows it to get out of the way and just let me work. That’s something Windows never does.”

It took this guy this long to figure that out? Haven’t we all known that for years? Link via submission.

Apple released MacOS X 10.1.4 today. Use the Software Update feature in your system preferences.

(First off, its good to know that I can break alternate if I want to. Sorry ’bout that.)

Since I don’t have a personal weblog, every couple of months I feel the urge to share strange experiences in my life on this Maccentric site. I know it’s a little odd, so bear with me. It’s somewhat rare.

So I’m sore from my Shaolin Kung Fu class. We stood in Horse stance for like 30 minutes and my thighs are killing me, but now I have a cool trick for how to get out of a chokehold. It is odd for me to attempt to reference “my Shaolin Kung Fu class” with any semblance of a straight face. I’m sure you all can understand. Secondly, and mainly, yesterday I did my ambulance ride along for my EMT-B class. By the way, I’ve wanted to be a paramedic for a while now, and this is how you go about doing that in San Diego. It was horribly boring, and incredibly fascinating at the same time. I was with American Medical Response, the biggest private amubulance company in the US, and essentially a medical taxi service (their words).

Highlights: I met a woman who went in for a colonoscopy and had a stroke. I helped lift a 493lb. psych patient. I tried and failed to take the blood pressure of a young girl who had a massive head trauma (ambulances on freeways are loud and bumpy). I learned the ER entry code for the biggest hospital in San Diego. I tried and succeeded to take the blood pressure of a woman with a broken hip (our last call, so I felt accomplished).

I have to do eight hours in an ER as well, and by luck of the draw I got the biggest and busiest trauma center in San Diego. Oh, and for spring break my girl and I went rock climbing in Joshua Tree and I couldn’t use a certain foothold because there was a rattlesnake there. I just think my life is rather interesting right now, that’s all. Thanks for listening, good ol’ Internet. You’re always there for me.