Welcome to the second edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

This month I would like to stress how both the human voice _and_ the instrument are essential for making wonderful music. For the human voice part, we have entries from two of my favorite scat singers: Al Jarreau and Bobby Mcferrin and also from a trio of very good african singers. For the instrument part, we have guitar, piano, trumpet and saxophone. Wait no longer to treat your ears to some great music.

[Vocal] Circlesong 5, Bobby Mcferrin
From the album Circlesongs

You surely remember "Don't worry, be happy!" from Bobby Mcferrin. Circlesong 5 is very different. It doesn't contain a single music instrument save for the human voice. It's an amazing work. The entire album is amazing if you happen to like scat singing. The music is smooth and relaxing.

[Jazz] Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, Al Jarreau
From the album Accentuate The Positive

Accentuate The Positive is the latest album of Al Jarreau, a wonderful Jazz singer who masters the art of scat singing. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive shows just how he is good at his craft. His voice gets along perfectly with the other instruments in use and it brings a rare sense of harmony.

[Reggae] Turning World, Eric Bibb
From the album A Ship Called Love

Eric Bibb is a Bluesman and A Ship Called Love is his latest work. This contains many gems but what makes Turning World stand out of the lot is its unmistakable Reggae rhythm and sweet lyrics. I was very well surprised when I heard it. I was used to the Blues from that guy, and I just though to myself "Hey! This ain't Blues, this is Reggae and a very good one".

[Jazz] Romeo And Juliet, Stefano di Battista
From the album 'Round about Roma

A masterpiece that tries, and succeed, in capturing the romance of the capital of Italy, Roma, where the artist was born. This alto and soprano sax player is backed by the Symphonic Orchestra of Radio France. Very elegant music that avoids nicely the trap of being too much sentimental.

[Pop] Tapis Volant 1, -M-
From the album Labo M

-M- shows up for the second time in Wonderful Songs. Tapis Volant 1 is an instrumental song like the other songs on the album and it shows -M-'s proficiency in the guitar. Very nice piece.

[Rock] Planet of Women, ZZ Top
From the album Afterburner

I first discovered ZZ Top when I was 15 years old through my brother Aziz and their Eliminator album. I still enjoy listening to them quite a lot. While I consider Eliminator to be their best album ever, Afterburner is made in the same kitchen. Planet of women has a very nice rhythm if you happen to like these bearded Rock lords: nice guitars, drums and everything to make your car trip on Route 66 a pleasant ride.

[World] Where I Came From, Gerald Toto, Lokua Kanza & Richard Bona
From the album Toto Bona Lokua

Dim light. Smells and noises of the African Savanna. Joy and happiness around the village. Relaxing moment. These are some of the few thoughts that come to my mind when I listen to this song. The human voice plays here, again, a central role with these three exceptional singers who make the experience transcendental.

[Smooth Jazz] Indian Summer, Chris Botti
From the album A Thousand Kisses Deep

Chris Botti is a stylist trumpeter who has a very warm and smooth tone. Indian Summer, the first song on album, has a pleasant spacey/dance sound. Moreover, due to Chris Botti's roots in Jazz (as opposed to Smooth or Soft Jazz), it is not too much on the soft side. The trumpet shows that the Jazz part is still present and strong.

[Smooth Jazz] September Second, Michel Petrucciani
From the album Les années Blue Note 1986-1994

Michel Petrucciani, a french artist who died in 1999, fought Osteogenesis Imperfecta by becoming a powerful Jazz pianist. September Second shows how good he was at playing this instrument, from a Smooth Jazz perspective. Of special notice are the drums who back the piano very nicely.

[Classical] Kashmir, London Philharmonic Orchestra & Scholes
From the album Kashmir: The Symphonic Led Zeppelin

Two weeks ago, one of my coworkers who has a huge music collection, brought this CD with him at the office. As a fan of Led Zeppelin, I was wondering how such a weird wedding would play out. I was stunned by this music. While preserving the original spirit of Led Zep' (OK, Robert Plant not singing so it's not as original as you can think of), they bring a nice classical touch to it. Kashmir is one my favorite Led Zep' songs. And I think that this reprise is almost as good as the original one (yes, yes, Robert Plant not singing but if you put aside this fact...).

As a follow-up to my Mediating Poverty, How So? post, Nick Holland, a very good friend whom I met through our common work on the OpenBSD Project, tells us this:

I wasn't sure if I should hit "reply" or "reply all" on this one. I am
rather proud of this one, so I hit "reply all", maybe someone else can
make something useful of my comments.

I did what Saad is suggesting...

Before I shut down my consulting business, I worked with a small charter
school, about 200 students in the 9th through 12th grades. Charter
schools are an experiment in the US in areas with failing public schools
-- they are publicly funded, but operate very differently from a public
school, typically managed by a for-profit company, typically non-union.
To say they are controversial is a horrible understatement. They have
been a mixed success -- some fail miserably, some succeed brilliantly.
However, they give alternatives to some of our students who would
otherwise have to go to hell-holes we sometimes call schools.

I build them a lab...

* Netware server, pulled out of my basement.
* Netware license, donated by a client of mine who was upgrading in such
a way that the old licenses were "available" (this was verifed with
Novell at the time). Netware 3.2, btw, runs great on 486 and low-end
Pentium systems.
* Tape drive: pulled out of my basement.
* 30 desktop computers, $40 each for PII-333MHz, 128M RAM, 6G HD.
* We got new keyboards and mice because the kids seemed to go nuts over
the idea that they were getting SOMETHING "new" -- even if it was a six
dollar mouse and a four dollar keyboard...which was vastly inferior to
the old IBM keyboards they already had, but we had some money left over,
we went for the grins.
* Windows 98 licenses are available without charge for donated computers
for schools. We may have played a little fast and lose here, as it
wasn't exactly "donated", but close...goodness knows I donated a lot of
time to make it all work.
* OpenOffice
* OpenBSD firewall (used one of their old computers for the FW, misc.
upgrades from my basement).
* Old 10/100 hubs donated by a client
* HP LaserJet 4si saved from dumpster from a client
* donated labor on the part of me, my dad, and a couple teachers

The result was a system which was incredibly cheap to install, very easy
to maintain, very stable, enough spare computers on the shelf to replace
ones in the lab that broke. The teacher I built this with had formerly
worked at a very afluent district in the area, she told me "her" lab was
vastly superior to the labs at her former employer, which were just put
in a year or two earlier with all brand new, very expensive HW and
software, in terms of ease of use, uptime, managability, recoverability
when something broke, and overall satisfaction.

This works. It works really well. I can't tell you how proud I was of
that system. It was the achieving of some goals I've had for over 25
years, and it worked very much as I expected.

There are problems, however.
A number of the students were upset over the fact that their "new"
computers weren't brand new. They wanted new, and didn't care about the
rest. They didn't care about the fact that none of them could type well
or write well, and few of them were even proficient readers.

A shocking number of the students couldn't care less about the age of
the machines, as long as they were Dells. Apparently, Dell has a very
effective marketing campaign, these high-grade IBM machines didn't do it
for them because they were not Dells.

In the US, this "experiment" would never happen at any normal public
school. I've watched the process in my local district, the purpose
there was to spend money and to have pictures of kids in front of Brand
New Computers, not actually getting anything done with them. It takes a
special teacher (which we had), it takes a special school management
(which we had), and it takes parents willing to look for results, not
name tags. That's all stuff that is harder to come by than money here.


All that being said...
At least in the US, computers in classrooms are so poorly used normally,
I have no particular desire to see more of them. The students aren't
learning Internet safety. They aren't learning how to do proper
research. They don't understand what is happening when they punch
something into google and it comes up with "the answer". At "My"
school, we took a stab at a lot of that...but no one else even tries.

Computers or teacher's saleries? I'd rather pay the teachers.
Computers or food for hungry school kids? I'd rather feed them.
Computers or books? I'd rather they learn the idea of good research in
books over typing stuff into google and seeing what comes out.

When I was in school, we were prevented from using encyclopedias,
because of the lack of diversity. Now, we let kids do all their
research "on line", and they have no tools to understand the stuff they
come across..what is good research? What is an authoritative source?
What is an expert opinion? What is a non-expert opinion? What is
someone just bad-mouthing or building up a product/person/idea? These
kids have no clue on this stuff. We did something to help a little by
teaching them web page creation (using Notepad, btw, not an HTML layout
program!), then published it, so they had some idea how little effort
was required, and how anyone could say ANYTHING on the 'net, but I'm not
sure how much of that sunk in. I had suggested that they do a
"wrong-research" project -- "prove" the holocaust didn't happen, "prove"
we didn't go to the moon, "prove" there was no slavery in the US, etc.,
not sure that ever happened, however.

Oddly, for a skeptic of computers in the classroom, I owe my later
schooling to a computer. I'm dyslexic and ADD, without a computer, I'm
functionally illiterate, I can not write by hand. The first time I
turned a paper in I wrote on a computer word processor (in 1983), I was
the first student to do so in my class -- and I nearly got expelled from
school for it, as it was so much better than anything I had ever written
before, it couldn't have been mine. Fortunately, my teacher had enough
faith in my intelegence that she didn't believe I'd ever cheat in a way
that she would catch, and believed me when I told her it was all my
work. However, I look at things now, over 20 years later...and I'd
still probably have the exact same problems in school I had then...the
answer would be sitting all around me, but it wouldn't be available to
help me in the ways I needed help. Twenty and twenty-five years ago,
everyone "knew" computers belonged in a classroom, but no one knew what
to do with them. Today...people still don't know what to do with
them...and they are sucking up huge amounts of education funding.

Anyway..much more I could write on this topic...it is very dear to me,
but I'm way overdue for bed. |-)

oh, btw: well written article, Saad. :)


Nick.

In his From the Editor's column in the August 2005 issue of MIT's Technology Review, Jason Pontin covers Mr. Negroponte's Hundred-Dollar Laptop or HDL. Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of MIT's Media Lab, told U.S. IT industry leaders his hope to build many HDLs starting from 2006 in order to get an HDL in every child's hand since he believes that education is paramount to solve many problems.

Jason Pontin tells us this:

The HDL has a number of other, intriguing features. Since many villages in the poor world do not have electricity, the machines may be powered by either a crank or "parasitic power"--that is, typing. Once turned on, HDLs will automatically connect to one another using a "mesh network" initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. In the mesh network each laptop serves as an information-relaying node. Households that have HDLs will be able to communicate with each other by e-mail or voice calls [...]

Jason Pontin ends up his column by asking if the readers think the HDL (which has its own website now) could be built. I answered him by stating the obvious: the HDL has already been built. Here is my answer:

Hi there Jason,

I've read with great interest your "From the editor" column on the Aug. 05 issue of Technology Review. As such, I would like to answer your question about whether the HDL could be built or not. The answer is pretty obvious: The HDL has already been built and for much less than a hundred dollars. I'd rather call it the LTHDM (Less-Than-Hundred-Dollar-Machine).

There are millions of LTHDM units waiting for people to use them but very few actually think of doing so. Instead they are sent to China and other countries to be dismantled and to contribute to more pollution of the environment. Yes, I'm speaking about your 3/4 years old desktop machine. And the machines of your coworkers, neighbours, friends, family etc etc etc. Just get a look at eBay. There are thousands if not millions of PCs that cannot satisfy the dominant desktop operating system and some of its bloated applications due to lack of RAM, hard drive, processor speed or some other hardware feature. And given the proper structure (local associations, negotating shipment contracts, volunteers to set up the machines and so on), we can really get LTHDM units for a very interesting price.

So instead of offering poor children machines that have not been field-tested, let's ship them our old machines loaded with a *BSD or GNU/Linux free operating system that will run like a charm on them. Instead of concentrating on new technology, let's focus on the real needs of those peoples and in the process, we may spare the environment some troubles.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, Mr. Negroponte should start thinking about how to get the proper infrastructure to buy LTHDM units, test and prepare them (by stripping too-demanding components for his "parasitic power" technology for example) then ship them to the peoples in need. I just don't get it why we have to built new machines while we already have millions of them that will handle the task at hand very well. We can also mesh them in a way that will allow us to have one or two "big iron" LTHDM units in a meshed network while the other are pretty much "dumb" terminals. And we have almost (all?) the technology today to do so and more.

As a final note, we should drop once and for all this "western" view of the World and go ask these peoples whether should we spend a hundred dollars in a computer
and Internet access or in healthcare and nutrition.

What do you think? Let me know at saad@docisland.org.

Introduction
With the release of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Apple introduced a new way of controlling startup daemons using launchd.

Launchd is a daemon/agent manager. To do this, it reads property lists located on system-wide and per-user directories. The property lists are XML files. Too bad for me, I'm quite an old school Unix lover that likes rc.local style plain text files; files that you can find or cook for yourself on every Unix-like operating system whether it's a *BSD or SysV style one. I think XML is an overkill for handling a task as simple as starting/stopping daemons. And don't get me started about a change in the DTD.

What's the solution then to revert to ol' style rc.local? It's simple as creating a property list for launchd to launch an rc.local style script. This rc.local style script will then startup the other daemons such as postfix, dovecot etc.

Speaking about postfix and dovecot, let's use them for our examples below.

Step 1: Create per-daemon scripts
First we start by creating a shell script for each daemon we want to control. For postfix, a script like the following one will do the trick:
$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.d/postfix
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: postfix,v 1.1 2005/06/02 20:30:12 saad Exp $
# postfix -- Control Postfix
postfix_cmd="/usr/sbin/postfix"
case $1 in
start)
echo -n "starting postfix ..."
$postfix_cmd start >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
stop)
echo -n "stopping postfix ..."
$postfix_cmd stop >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
restart)
$0 stop;
$0 start;
;;
*)
echo "usage: $0 (start|stop|restart)"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

For dovecot, we use something like:

$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.d/dovecot
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: dovecot,v 1.1 2005/06/02 20:30:12 saad Exp $
# dovecot -- Control Dovecot
dovecot_cmd="/Data/local/sbin/dovecot"
killall_cmd="/usr/bin/killall"
case $1 in
start)
echo -n "starting dovecot ..."
$dovecot_cmd >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
stop)
echo -n "stopping dovecot ..."
$killall_cmd dovecot >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
restart)
$0 stop;
$0 start;
;;
*)
echo "usage: $0 (start|stop|restart)"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

At this point we have our two scripts in /Data/local/etc/rc.d. Make sure they are executables and that they work by running them before carrying on.

Step 2: Create rc.local
Next we create an rc.local file. Here is an example:

$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.local
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: rc.local,v 1.2 2005/06/02 19:36:39 saad Exp $
# rc.local -- Emulate rc.local behavior as found in OpenBSD or other
# BSD systems. This file is called a boot time by Mac OS X's launchd via
# an XML property list located in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist
locald="/Data/local/etc/rc.d"
# Start Postfix
if [ -x $locald/postfix ]; then
$locald/postfix start
fi
# Start Dovecot
if [ -x $locald/dovecot ]; then
$locald/dovecot start
fi

Before continuing, verify that you can start postfix and dovecot by running this script.

Step 3: Create the XML property list
Now we want to tell launchd to call the rc.local script we just created at boot time. To do this, we need to create an XML property list. This list, which is in fact a file, is /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons is a system-wide directory.

The XML property list looks like this:

$ cat /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist




Label
local.rc
ProgramArguments

/Data/local/etc/rc.local

RunAtLoad




Conclusion
As you can see, we used three simple steps to "revert" back to our old school, nonetheless reliable, way of managing daemons. Besides its reliability, it has the advantage of portability to other systems as well.

For more information about launchd, see the manual pages for launchd(8), launchctl(1), and launchd.plist(5).

Should you have any question/comment about this hack, please send them to saad@docisland.org.

Welcome to the first edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

This month we have two entries from Daby Toure, a new fabulous World Music artist and one of these songs is free for you to download from the artist's page! There are also two French music entries in the Pop/Rock and category.

[Smooth Jazz] People Make the World Go Round, Richard Elliot
From the album Metro Blue

This is one really nice piece of Smooth Jazz...If you happen to like saxophone. This is far from being the first album from Richard Elliot. It is currently on the top charts of U.S. Smooth Jazz radios, among which http://www.smoothjazz.com/, an excellent streaming online radio. While I do prefer Richard's Ricochet over Metro Blue, it is still a nice buy with such a good song opening it.

[Reggae] The World, Sizzla
From the album Bobo Ashanti

Released a few years ago, Bobo Ashanti is a really nice album if you like reggae and ragga. Some of the songs have harsh words, well at least if you understand Jammies, the english slang of Jamaica. The World stands out in that it has a rootish feeling to it and the lyrics are not too bad. I was disappointed by other albums from this dreadlock Rasta fighting for the roots and culture legacy of Jamaica but Bobo Ashanti has nice gems.

[French] Si C'est Bon Comme Ca 98, Sinclair
From the album Comme Je Suis 1992-2004

Sinclair is truly the prince of french Funk. AFAIK, he has a faithful, but small-sized fan base. And I really wonder why since he has every ingredient necessary to be as popular as -M- (see below). I've been to one of his concert 2 or 3 years ago and I really enjoyed it much. While many of his songs could make it into Wonderful Songs, I chose this one because it has, in my opinion, everything that you need to hear from Sinclair: very nice voice, very good rhythm, and funk à la James Brown.

[French] Mon ego, -M-
From the album Live au Spectrum

According to all accounts, -M- is one of the best French musicians of his time. With a weird but nice, monstruous guitar playing and very good lyrics, he is a huge scene monster. While his studio albums range from good to very good, his Live performances are nothing short of flabbergasting ! I was lucky enough to go to his Paris-Bercy concert this year and it's my second best after Ben Harper's. If you love rock music and amazing guitar stunts along with some very curious and enjoyable sounding instruments, get his live albums and if you can affford it, go to the concert. Mon ego will give you a pretty good idea of what I am talking about.

[World] Iris, Daby Toure
From the album Diam

This album is a gem of World Music. Daby Toure, a Mauritanian artist, gives us here his first solo album after he quit touring with the Toure Toure band. While all the songs are very very good, some of them really just stand out...like Iris, a song which lyrics are written in a completely imaginary language. Go out, get this album and put your best headphones to listen to it while relaxing in your bed. Let Daby take you on a wonderful musical trip.

[World] Kia a So, Daby Toure
Free Song
http://realworldrecords.com/dabytoure/

Second entry from Daby Toure in this edition of Wonderful Songs, Kia a So is on par with the songs on the album save for the fact that it is a free download from Daby Toure's official website (see link above). Upon registration you can download it from the Audio/Video link on the navbar. And guess what? There are more free songs and videos on the website! Thanks, Daby!

[Smooth Jazz] Ooh la La, Jeff Lorber
From the album Flipside

This is one of this year's smash hits in the Smooth Jazz category. Jeff Lorber, a keyboard player that mixes R&B with Jazz improvisations along with bebop is a master in his craft. I own a few of his records and I enjoy them a lot. Ooh la La surprised me. I didn't expect something so good.

[New Age] Beams, Agatsuma
From the album Beams

Take a very old Japanese instrument, called Shamisen. Put it in the hands of a prodigy, a true genious who masters it. Add to this electro and you have Beams, the song. The album is very good in that it has it for all tastes: those who like electro, traditional Japanese music, groove ...etc. And the Shamisen as played by Agatsuma produces an extremely interesting sound. Here again, you better have some nice music gear to hear all the subtleties of this instrument.

[Spiritual] Diaphanes, Dhafer Youssef
From the album Digital Prophecy

Dhafer Youssef, a Tunisian Oud artist living in Europe, has created a mystical masterpiece. If you are into so-called "Zen" relaxing music, Diaphanes is definitely for you. It is instrumental only with electro sounds backing Oud but no overwhelming it.

[World] Adarghal (The Blind in Spirit), Abdelli
From the album New Moon

Last but not least, let me introduce you to Abdelli, an Algerian artist from the Kabylie region. He has released two albums of which New Moon is the first. Abdelli sings exclusively in his region's dialect. While I don't understand it, this song moves something deep into me. Maybe because he is using Arabic music instruments such as Derbouka? Anyways, he has a nice voice and the multiplicity of instruments goes nicely with it.

This month, I am inaugurating a new kind of regular entry to my blog called Wonderful Songs.

I love music and I listen to different kinds of it as much as I can afford each day. For a lot of people, my guess is that is difficult to find good music among all that c*** forced into our ears by the mainstream media. I am amazed at how many "trashable" songs are marketed and broadcasted every day as opposed to quality-made ones.

The basic idea behind Wonderful Songs is to share with you some of the best music I came across lately on a monthly basis. As a monthly publication, I will write about ten of the best songs I listened to during the previous month and the artists behind them.

Most if not all of these songs are available on major online Music Stores such as iTunes Music Store. If you are running Windows or Mac OS X, I'd advise installing iTunes so you can listen to 30 seconds of each song before buying it from your favorite online Music Store or the CD from Amazon and the likes.

Of course, music is a matter of taste. So I will try to choose songs from as many different kinds as possible. This way, I stand a good chance at having you listen to at least one of them.

While I listen to many kinds of music, expect to see mainly the following in Wonderful Songs :

• World Music (African, Asian, French mainly)
• Smooth Jazz
• Soul, R'N'B
• Rock
• Vocal
• Reggae
• Folk

Stay tuned! Wonderful Songs, Aug'05, the very first edition is just about to be published.

Panic!
Approximately two weeks ago, I had a very difficult time with my PowerBook powered by Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Without getting into specifics that might annoy you at best, the OS crashed and as a result, I was not able to access some files and directories after rebooting. Everytime I tried to do operations on them, I was welcomed with errors such as BAD FILE DESCRIPTOR.

Restore that backup!
Hopefully, I am a rather savvy user who values his data. When I see fit, I back it up using Rsync to a remote Internet server. So all I had to do was to restore the last backup I did as soon as I have an Internet connection. Not so simple, Rsync failed miserably. It was welcomed by the same error messages.

Disk (In)Utility
I was on the road, my home directory which contained the problematic files and directories was protected by FileVault and the only thing I had besides my remote backups was Disk Utility. While the application detected many errors but was not able to repair them. Oh! Didn't I tell you that it takes some wristling to check a Filevault-protected home directory with Disk Utility?

Apple(No)Care That Much
OK, let's not worry much. I have an AppleCare Protection Plan and they gave me a CD with TechTool Deluxe from Micromat. The feature list of this software is impressive. It will sure help me out of this situation and restore my data.

I booted off the CD and it starts munching something for a looooong time. And then the TechTool control GUI finally appeared on the screen and to continue I had to click on a button. But the mouse cursor won't move. I retried not once but thrice to no avail!?!

Any Other Kid In Town?
After much searching, I found Alsoft's DiskWarrior. It was recommended by MacWorld and many users praized this software. At a 70+ USD price tag, it has to be. Anyways, it was midnight and I needed back those "lost" files badly.

I was very nicely surprised by the ease of use and efficiency of DiskWarrior. Not only, it fixed all the errors on my home directory (which is a sparse disk image encrypted in AES since it is FileVault-protected) but it restored all the missing and not accessible files and directories. It runs fast given that my home directory is approx 40 GB.

Lessons Learned: First Aid ToolBox
After reading lots of documentation about the subject, here is a list of essential items you need to have while on the road to recover from data loss.

Mac OS X Install DVD
This will allow you to run Disk Utility on your current disk and repair it. You can always use Disk Utility while your OS is booted (if you can do that) but you won't be able to use it to repair your running, locked, disk.

Alsoft's DiskWarrior CD
The software version I used won't be of much use to run on your current disk drive if this one is locked by the OS. The CD version is bootable.

A pocket-sized external USB2/FireWire hard drive
You can use it as backup for your important data or as a way to offload your disk before fixing it. If you are an AppleCare Protection Plan customer, you need to have your registration number and their phone number.

CD-R(W)s, DVD-/+R(W)s
and such for backup purposes.