Today I got a call from the Canadian Forces recruitment office with a job offer for me. I am so excited about this and can’t wait until I go and serve for my country. My enrollment ceremony is on June 22nd and I leave for basic on July 10th. I am glad that it’s 4 months away because that will give me a enough time to lose some weight and I have started doing just that. I need to lose about 60-80 lbs. before then to be in the healthy range. I won’t be done basic until October 15th and after that I think I will be going to Vancouver for Navy training, but that is just a guess. Oh I should mention that I am going to be doing Naval Communicator. I will be basically working with the ships computers and maintaining communications between other ships and land base.

So I found a new site called Jelli via Lifehacker about a month ago and I think its about time a site like this arrived.

Jelli is 100% user-controlled radio℠, enabling users to take over a radio station using their web browsers. Leveraging the power of the web to reinvent traditional broadcasting, Jelli empowers the community to interact with the broadcast in real-time and determine dynamically what plays on the air. - http://www.jelli.net/about/

Today I am going to take you through how you can start using Jelli and enjoy all that musical goodness. I will be covering how to create a account, how to tune into a radio station, how to control the radio, and how to add some detail to your profile.

Clicking any image will make it bigger.

Create an account

The first time you visit the site you get the landing page. From here you can create an account or login. Setting up an account is just as easy as any other website, just click on the I WANT IN button that is in the green box to the right.

You will be presented with two options. With Facebook and without Facebook. This is totally up to you. If you select the Facebook option then you will enjoy the options to post to your wall and also a quick login with the login with Facebook option on the landing page (if you are already logged into Facebook).

Jelli won’t ask for anything private from you during the creation process. The closest thing to anything private is your Zip/Postal code and your birth year. And these are just to find out where their users are coming from and the approximate age of their users to help form the site better in the future. Continue reading

So up until yesterday I have been using my laptop (with Boxee Media Center installed) connected to my TV via HDMI for watching my movies. This was a pain in the butt if say my mom wanted to watch a movie but I needed my laptop for work (aka play games). So set out to find a way to for my mom to watch her movies an I can still use my laptop. The result a laptop (other laptop) server.

I could have put together a bunch of parts from old broken down systems that I have sitting in the basement to make a cheap tower server that would be loud and take up a bunch of space. But that was just the problem. I don’t have much space for it and my parents would complain about the noise, trust me I have tried. Then there would be the issue of network wires to get to the server.

I remembered that I had a old laptop that nobody would use. In fact it was so old it wouldn’t be the effort to sell. Just clean it up with a new OS and install some software, it was perfect.

Now it is small, it is quiet, it has WiFi and built in battery backup. I can store this thing almost anywhere. Under or behind a couch, under a bed, behind the TV, strapped to the underside of a table behind your current computer. The options go on and on.

My Setup

• Old acer laptop that took 5 minutes to load Windows
• External 320 GB HDD
• xubuntu
• wine
• utorrent (with web gui enabled)
• PS3 media server (because I have a PS3 connected to my TV)
• SSH

I hid mine behind the couch and also decided to put the rest of the network gear there so I can free up some space on my desk.

My hidden network

Continue reading

I want to start the new year with something new on the blog. I’m sure everyone is tired of me talking about myself and things that I do (which is nothing) so I have decided to talk about someone else at least once a month in the new section “Local Talent”. Each month I will find someone in the community with some talent and broadcast to the world how awesome they are.

Jazmin Latter

This months local talent is none other then Jazmin Latter. I found her on Facebook when a friend was tagged in an album, I looked through it and found some amazing photographs.

I asked Jazmin some questions through Facebook so you can get to know her more.

Ben: Have you lived in Oshawa your whole life? Where did you live before?
Jazmin: I was born in London Ontario and have lived in ontario my whole life, but i have been living in oshawa since about 3rd grade or so.

Ben: Is photography a major hobby of yours or is it in the background compared to something else (sports, dance, chess…)?
Jazmin: I wouldnt say that it is a major hobby of mine, simply because my personal camera isnt great and its way expensive, but i do love photography as an art form and i appreciate it a lot, when not a lot of people acknowledge photography as a true art form. It isnt in the background though, more like in the middle next to collecting monkey stuff, which is sad lol but its working its way up there, my dad is a photographer so i guess it runs in the family.

Ben: What do you do in your spare time?
Jazmin: In my spare time i like to do anything remotely artistic, mostly painting, but i do have this new affinity for sculpture

Ben: What career are you currently pursuing?
Jazmin: I am actually applying to colleges and university right now to major in animation for tv, movies and video games, another personal affinity! i absolutely love video games, and i have always wanted to work on one so i thought this would be the perfect line of work for me. Also, i am absolutely enthralled by the new technology coming out for both games and movies (like Avatar and MGS4, etc..) and i would love to get my hands on Motion Capture some time in my life.

You can follow Jazmin on DeviantArt and on Twitter.

Below are some of her photos. You can see all of her work, including her art and sculptures, on her DeviantArt profile.

View More Local Talent.

New year is almost here. I just wanted to say good luck in 2010 and I wanted to know what your new year resolution is. Leave a comment.

My new year resolution is to lose about 100lbs of fat to get into that healthy BMI area and also before I join the navy.

If you need a countdown clock for your new year party I made one for you. Just go to this page and put your browser in full screen (pressing F11 or view->fullscreen). You can adjust the font size using the dark menu in the top left corner.

OK I’m off to the party.