I may have mentioned that I was thinking of doing a fresh install of Kubuntu Linux when the latest version, 8.04 (codename Hardy Heron), was released last week. That's okay in principle, but it makes for a bigger job as I would have to do some fiddling to get all the applications I use installed and working again. I thought I may as well try out the upgrade.

The upgrade process went very smoothly. It prompted me about whether I wanted to overwrite some setup files. That was a bit confusing as I am not used to the way it displayed the differences. I didn't think I had applied any special settings and so accepted their versions. After an hour or so I was prompted to reboot. As I feared I ended up at a console prompt rather than the graphical log in screen. This has happened previously. I managed to get KDE working via startx by reverting to the free nvidia driver. Eventually I worked out that I could use an older version of the X config file and got the log in screen back. The second issue was a lack of sound. This was not a bug, but there seems to be an extra fader in KMix that does not appear in my session and it was turned down.

So everything that was working before is more or less back. Improvements include being able to set decent screen refresh rates for all users and having them stick next time. I have yet to test sound recording.

Sunday was the day for the long-awaited Secret Bass recording session. The aim was to record a few songs to put on a CD that we can give to event organisers and to beginners. I arrived to find the Strawbale Studio full of microphone stands along with the actual recording equipment. We had 16 channels available to us and used them all between seven musicians when doing vocals as well. We managed four songs in three hours, which is probably more than some bands do. All were done 'live', with no overdubs, but some may get edited to get the best overall performance. I did a fair bit of singing, but didn't play any djembe. I did dun duns on two and shakers on another. I look forward to hearing the results.

Malcolm has done a write-up with all the technical details.

We used two video cameras to try and capture the event. I have the task of editing them. This will be my first time working with multiple views. I expect I will have to line them up as best I can and switch between them. If I just use the sound from one it should work out. Any hints appreciated.

I've been trying to clear out some old paperwork at home. Anything vaguely important tends to get filed in a binder or chucked in the filing cabinet, but it builds up over time. A lot of stuff goes out of date, so I chucked old insurance documents, TV licences and more. It would be great if we could get by with less of it. I could scan some documents, but that will require working out a way to file it on the computer so that I can find stuff. It would be neat to set an expire date so that something could clear out the redundant items. Any Linux solutions?

I'm looking at ways I can cut down the paper I need to keep. I found out that I can get my next TV licence by email. I already get the itemised phone bill on-line and get a small discount in exchange. I bank on-line and have started just saving the statement pages instead of printing them. I rarely need the printouts anyway. Other suggestions are welcome, via comments would be good.

We just got a new Yellow Pages, so now I have to recycle the old one. Nationally these must represent a huge amount of waste. The thing is that I hardly ever use it. Most services can be found on-line these days. The domestic phone book is even less useful. Why do I need an address book full of strangers? I'm not in it and and neither are many of my friends. I'm not sure you can opt out of getting either book as they just get delivered to every house by default.

I've tried to opt out of some junk mail, but still get a fair bit. It wastes my time to sort it all for recycling. I tend to rip out the envelope windows as I assume they do not belong with the paper collection. I'm not sure that bit of plastic is really necessary. I only keeps the contents slightly cleaner, but why bother?

Don't get me started on the amount of paper wasted at work.

Last night I played another gig with Secret Bass. This was a charity event to raise money for stained glass window at a home for MS sufferers in Essendon. I actually did a fair bit of practice for this one and was somehow more nervous than at previous events. This may have been due to playing before an audience who had paid to be there and in an enclosed space, rather than the open air where I had performed before. We were last (top?) on the bill after Irish dancers, Indian dance from Bizia + students, dinner and the village handbell ringers. The nine of us were dressed up in a range of outfits of varying degrees of 'Africaness'. The set went down pretty well with the audience who clapped along and gave us some loud cheers. There were even cries of 'More!' as we finished the last song, but we had nothing else prepared and it was getting late anyway.

I really enjoyed this performance, even though I made lots of mistakes. I managed to add some solo rolls during one song. One difference to previous events was the sound. Outside the sound just disappears, but in an enclosed space you can really feel it. Some people told me how impressed they had been by the sound and the music. It is not something you get to hear much live in this country. I admit that we are mere amateurs of this art, but I hope we can impress some of the flavour of African drumming. Malcolm has done his own write-up of the event. I'm not sure if any of the photos taken will be available on-line.

We previously saw Björk perform at Hammersmith in 2003 on the Vespertine tour. Then we were about six rows from the front. For 2008 we were back again for the Volta tour. The day was marred by some public transport issues for Tanya. First she had trouble getting a train to London due to signal issues, then her underground train was stopped for a medical emergency. She completed the journey by taxi. This meant that we had to rush a quick dinner in Smollensky's, rather than something more relaxed.

There was a big queue outside the venue, but it moved fairly quick. Some people were obviously a bit over-excited as a couple seemed close to blows over some issue. We went straight to our seats half-way up the circle, not far from where we sat for The Flaming Lips. I thought that Toumani Diabaté, was doing a set, but the stage was occupied by Leila doing some DJ stuff with various spoken recordings and beats. Not really my thing, but I quite liked it when she played Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is and Danny Kaye's Inchworm at the end. This was much better than the noise set that served as support last time and had the audience booing.

The stage was already set up for the main act, but we still had to wait around 30 minutes. Then the lights went down and on trooped her all female Icelandic horn section followed by the rest of the band. Then the lady herself. They launched into Earth Intruders. We got Hunter (one of my favourites) and Unravel, then Toumani came on to play kora on Hope. The next track threw me as I had never heard The Pleasure Is All Mine with a regular band, but it was good. The next guest was Antony Hegarty to sing on Dull Flame of Desire. I don't much like the song and was not that impressed by him, although he does a good vocal vibrato. That was it for guest, despite Björk's remark that there would be 'many'. There were more tracks from Volta and some old favourites. Army of Me and Hyperballad were amazing with lasers firing and some body-shaking bass. These were contrasted by Vökuró (just harpsichord) and Anchor Song (brass). As expected she finished with Declare Independence where everyone rocked out. The audience could have taken much more, but it was getting late.

I'm amazed by her energy. She is the same age as me, but can still rock and still belt out those amazing vocal effects. I wasn't too sure about her costume with pompoms on her hear and shiny frills. She was barefoot as usual.

There was a lot of use of the Reactable to create audio effects. I expect there will be a version you can run on your PC in a few years.

Other reviews and some pictures on Björk's site and last.fm.

I had another musical close encounter this week. I created an account on Orkut to check it out ages ago, but was not that impressed. I had a quick look the other day and saw I had been visited by Joe Elliott of Def Leppard. I guess he was looking for his deceased guitarist.

I seem to have adopted several of Google's products for running my on-line Activities. I have an iGoogle page where I have assembled various gadgets that let me see at a glance what is happening on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and others. I also use it to access my Gmail and Google Calendar. I find that keeping some of my data on-line is convenient when moving between home and office. It might be better on my PDA, but I haven't worked out how to synch PocketPC.

I have a couple of applications for a spreadsheet that I can access from wherever I may be, so I decided to check out Google Docs. The spreadsheet seems fairly capable, if a little slow. I've not tried the graphing options. You can export to various formats, including open ones. This has the potential to be another threat to Microsoft's monopoly, especially where people want to collaborate on documents. Office is far more than more people need anyway. It's amazing how far web applications have come in the last couple of years. I remember being amazed when I first saw Google Maps. Google are trying to get more of the market by providing the Apps platform where they will host applications written by others. There will be costs involved, but it's likely to be cheaper than rolling out your own hardware in many cases and more resilient to load spikes. I'd love to play, but need to find an itch to scratch.

I was just discussing the issues of being a non-Microsoft user with a colleague. It causes me a few issues with connecting to the office from home, but I have something that works. He considers the MS tax to be worth paying for the sake of less hassle. Ironically we were discussing this using the non-free Skype chat, but that's one of the compromises I have accepted. To get some stuff done I have to use a few non-free applications.

At HertsLUG this week Malc was educating us on the OOXML situation where MS have managed to force their 'standard' through the ISO. This seems to have been ignored by sites like the BBC. We still have a chance to make our opinions on this scandal heard by writing to the politicians, but I don't know if this will affect the outcome.

Also at the LUG I had my first hands-on with an Asus EEE. It was slightly bulkier than I expected, but is very neat. I'm not sure I would use the default Xandros GUI, but it seemed to handle the applications well. It even had Penguin Racer and Frozen Bubble installed. I gave the BBC iPlayer a quick try, but couldn't get it to do full screen. I don't really need a big, full-featured laptop, but one of these would be handy for when I'm away from home and want wireless internet and the ability to do various tasks, like photo editing or hacking.

I have a number of things that I want to blog, but have been short of time. Last week I was skiing in France. Had a lot of fun. I may blog more about that. I've almost finished another book that I need to review. Then last night I was at HertsLUG where Malc gave a good talk on the issues with OOXML. I also had a chance to play with an Asus EEE there. I want one.

I am more active on my Twitter account as that is easy to update from web or via IM, but only handles short messages. For the blog I have to compose a post in an editor and FTP it. I like to take the time to think about what I want to say, but sometimes end up rushing it. So if you want the latest news follow me on Twitter. Or just take the RSS feed here for the infrequent posts. Comment if you want to respond publicly.

Oops, too many http in a link there. I'm writing this in nano via ssh.