Besides listening to tunes, you can also participate in the “game” played by listening, recommending and performing other actions on the site. You get points, go up levels, and unlock more features from the site. Quite fun!

And since this is nothing more than a Flash app on a website, it is, of course, compatible with just about every browser and operating system including Linux.

You’ll also notice I’ve added my radio here on the linuxdave.com homepage. If you want to hear what I’m listening to, check it out!

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
require DBI;

my @dbi_drivers = DBI->available_drivers;
print join(”, “, @dbi_drivers), “\n”;

It looks like a lot at first, but after everything is installed and setup, it is a very fast and very easy process.

You need a few things:

* A newsgroup hosting server account at newshosting.com
* A newsgroup client (to actually get the files).. I use GrabIt

Detailed instructions:

1) Go to newshosting.com and sign up for one of their accounts. I like the unlimited 14.95 plan. The “retention” time is simply how long the files are available on the servers for. For example, if someone posted a movie 60 days ago to the newsgroups, you would be able to get it with that plan, but not with the 45-retention day plan. I find everything I need with the 45 plan though.
Also keep in mind that most DVDs are between 4 and 7 GB, so the 10GB plan just seems to restrictive to me. After signing up they will send you an email with all the info that you need to get set up.

2) Go get Grabit. Make sure “Associate GrabIt with NZB Files” is checked when installing. When starting for the first time:

* News (NNTP) server: (they sent this to you in the email)
* Check “requires username and password”
* Enter username/password sent in email

Thats it!

Now lets get some files:

3) Now, you can use Grabit right now to browse and download the groups and files if you want, but there is a much easier way of getting what you want. They are called NZBs. NZBs are just files that tell GrabIt which posts to download in order to build the movie/game/whatever you want. The best site out there right now for this is newzbin.org, but it costs a few bucks. This site is just a community of people that create these NZB files and uploads them to make our lives easier. Sign up for an account, add some “premium credit” to it for a few bucks, and go ahead and search for a music CD or movie or something. After clicking on the item you want to download, you’ll be presented with a list of files that will be downloaded to build what you are looking for. Simply click “Get Message-IDs” and rest should be automatic: Grabit will start its thing, and the download process will start. At this point, make sure Grabit is using all 8 download streams. That is the maximum number of download streams you can have with newshosting.com. Note: you won’t see that “Get Message-IDs” button unless you have premium credit and an account.

4) After the file has been downloaded and uncompressed, the latest version of Grabit will automatically run the parity check and unrar it for you. You should see a directory with your files in the GrabIt Download folder!

Lots of times the files that you’re getting will simply be images of the DVD or CD that it came on originally. If you aren’t sure how to deal with these, doing some googling will help. Generally the easiest thing to do is just to burn the image back onto media (DVD, CD, whatever). If you’re just looking to watch the movie/Tv show on your computer, I’d suggest getting a divx version of the show if it is available on newzbin. The quality will be fine for most computer monitors, and it will take a tenth of the time to download.

If you need a decent video player to play files that you download, I highly recommend getting VLC Media Player.

Wait! I came here because I use Linux, LINUXDAVE!

Well, if you use Windows, you can stop reading here, you’re done! If you use Linux, this process is the same with one minor change…

Unfortunately, GrabIt only works in Windows. We will need to replace it with two programs, one to download what the NZB specifies, and one to do the parity check (thats what all the .par or .par2 files are for).

Pan is an easy-to-use GTK+ client for Linux. As for installing something to do the parity check… this is a one liner in Ubuntu:

apt-get install par2

I won’t bore you with the details on how to use these. If you’re using Linux, you should know how to read man pages by now!

VLC Media Player also works great in Linux for playing videos!

Let me know if you have any questions about newsgroups in Linux or Windows.

apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 apache2-doc php-pear
apt-get install msyql-server mysql-client php5-mysql
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Done!

Your apache conf files are in /etc/apache2/
PHP ini is in /etc/php5/apache2/
Your web root is /var/www/

Enjoy!

root@web02:~/apache_1.3.37# ./configure –prefix=/usr/local/apache
Configuring for Apache, Version 1.3.37
+ Warning: Your ‘echo’ command is slightly broken.
+ It interprets escape sequences per default. We already
+ tried ‘echo -E’ but had no real success. If errors occur
+ please set the SEO variable in ‘configure’ manually to
+ the required ‘echo’ options, i.e. those which force your
+ ‘echo’ to not interpret escape sequences per default.
+ using installation path layout: Apache (config.layout)
Creating Makefile
Creating Configuration.apaci in src
Syntax error — The configuration file is used only to
define the list of included modules or to set Makefile in src
options or Configure rules, and I don’t see that at all:
`$(SRCDIR)/apaci`
default
default
no
no
no
yes
no
default
no
default
default

This was because of some shell script files using the wrong interpreter. Just do this to fix it:

rm -f /bin/sh
ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

The jeeps are lined up, ready to go:

The first hill:

Randy’s Jeep:

Stuck in the mud:

Yellow Jeep!

Going down:

Randy putting his thoughts down on paper. I think he is suggesting that everyone bring their kids next time.

Check out the rest of the Jeep pictures!

And now for some videos from the event:
Yellow Jeep! [avi / 4.5 MB]
Stuck in the mud [avi / 3 MB]
Randy Sliding into a tree [avi / 38 MB]

The park owner doing crazy things in his jeep:
Park Owner 1 [avi / 11.6 MB]
Park Owner 2 [avi / 15.2 MB]

Check out the rest of the pics from that night!

This year, we took a 3 day trip to Chicago for St. Patrick’s day. Staying at the Palmer House, we were right downtown. But we weren’t in the hotel very long. We watched the MSU game at the Gin Mill, the famous MSU-themed bar. We had deep dish pizza for dinner twice, took a stroll down Navy Pier, and wandered about with our remaining time. Great trip! Check out the pics!

Chicago Style Pizza at Reno’s East:

A stroll down Michigan Avenue:

Navy Pier:

Randy and some friends at the Gin Mill:

Check out the entire Chicago Album in my gallery!

Bells is the creator of one of my favorite microbrews, the Two-Hearted Ale:
“India Pale Ale style well suited for Hemingway-esque trips to the Upper Peninsula. American malts and enormous hop additions give this beer a crisp finish and incredible floral hop aroma.”

Here are some pics from the trip:

A smashed up piano in the corner of the pub:

A wide selection of microbrews:

They even had a dancefloor!

Check out the entire Bell’s Brewery photo album.