For portability, I made it cross platform, and have tested it on Windows XP, Mac OSX, and Ubuntu 9.04. Some of the debugging text seems to be a bit buggy, but it otherwise works. It’s just a stand-alone commandline executable, so you’ll have to run it from the command prompt. (I can’t be bothered to build 3 different GUI front-ends for the different OSes, even though GTK is an option)

I’m not currently posting the source code, and I don’t currently have access to my Ubuntu installation & binary executable, so all I’m posting for now is the Win32 & Mac OSX binaries.

Download:
audiostreamer.zip [610KB, Win32]
audiostreamer.tar.gz [37KB, Mac OSX 10.5+]

Here is the commandline usage:

usage:     audiostreamer.exe <type> <port> <hostname>
<type>     specifies whether we are running as a server or client
           Values: 's' (server) or 'c' (client)
<port>     specifies the host/port to listen on (as server) or to
           connect to (as client)
<hostname> specifies the host to connect to (as client). No effect
           as server

I made use of portaudio, libpthread (win32) for this project.

Audiostreamer will use your default input (For win32 – I haven’t implemented ASIO support yet, so it uses your WAVE input. For Mac OS, it should take your default CoreAudio input – I haven’t actually tested audio input on Mac OS)

Audio is streamed through the TCP port of your choosing. You NEED a fast network connection for this, or you may experience buffer underruns. Make sure you forward your port if needed (through your firewall/router)

Let’s say you have 2 files which are supposed to be identical, but each of them is MISSING a chunk from the whole file. An example is that you’re downloading 2 torrent files, one downloaded the 1st half, but the other only has the 2nd half. They both have the same file size, though.

This tool for Win32 will allow you to merge them:

DOWNLOAD HERE (585KB)

WARNING: I didn’t spend much time on it, so it’s very basic – doesn’t even have an icon or taskbar entry. In fact, it may be buggy and may crash. Who knows?

Enjoy =)

Download it HERE

Hail to the King

You came to us a man, in very nature God
Pierced for our iniquities as You hung upon the cross
But God exalted You to the highest place
And gave to You the right to bear
The Name above all names
That at the Name of Jesus we should bow
And every tongue confess that You are Lord
And when You come in glory for the world to see
We will sing …

Hail to the King, in all His splendor and majesty
Hail to the King of kings, Lord Jesus, our God

We eagerly await the coming of the day
When the glory of the risen King will shine upon the earth
Then rival thrones will fall before the Lord of all
And hail supreme authority in the true and living God
That at the Name of Jesus we will bow
As every tongue confesses You as Lord
And when You come in glory for the world to see
We will sing …

Hail to the King, in all His splendour and majesty
Hail to the King of kings, Lord Jesus, our God

You can listen to it HERE!

Ignore the vocals =D And I could have spent more time on it, but, the hymn still has the same content either way!

Because He Lives (Bill Gaither)
God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!

And then one day, I’ll cross the river,
I’ll fight life’s final war with pain;
And then, as death gives way to vict’ry,
I’ll see the lights of glory and I’ll know He lives!

When you have to carry two 22kg speakers, one in each hand, it can quickly become tiring! I quickly realized that it has all to do with your hand grip – since your arms are just down by your sides – it’s your hands which carry all that weight!

So, what better way to train carrying equipment than [besides carrying equipment..] using… handgrippers? Frankly, I don’t know! I found these: Captains of Crush hand grippers, which seem to do the job nicely! Already, carrying equipment is much easier, after spending over a month with the No. 1 and No. 1.5 grippers!

Happy gripping, and happy carrying equipment!

(Btw, yes, I’ve had to carry equipment from our storage room to my dorm, which is… 915 meters, according to google earth)

On Bended Knee

Visit the link for more information on the album!

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” ~ Matthew 28:19-20

We are on God’s mission, to reach out to the unreached with the Father’s love. One thing which I have realized throughout the year is that – it doesn’t matter where we are, we can still shine God’s love and we ARE on mission all the time!

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” ~ John 13:34-35

Why are we in Christian community? What should Christian community look like? Sometimes, it may be hard to figure out. But thing I know for sure – we should be in community to love one another – and just not any love, but love which SHOWS all men that we are followers of Jesus Christ. When people look at our community – it should SHOW. Community should be a form of witness.

“… for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” ~ Philippians 4:11b-13

Something which God has been teaching me slowly, and something which I still have a long way to go – we will face many circumstances, both good and bad. However, a lot of the times we feel that we only need to turn to God in dire times, to let go of the bad things to God. We many times pray for the things we want to get rid of, like a bad habit, or the problems we see in our community. And indeed, we should!

But one thing I have learned recently – we have to let go of the things we WANT to God, the things we want to hold on to. Take Abraham for example – who got his only son Isaac, and when God called him to sacrifice his son, Abraham did what was right – to give his only son back to God, to let it all go into God’s hands.

When we surrender everything into God’s hands, He can bless us so much more in return, and we can find true peace in all circumstances, even if we do not fully understand everything. Which leads on to my next and final verse for now:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:11

We cannot ever understand what God’s plan is, or why he allows certain things to happen. However, we can only trust in His perfect hands, that he will make everything beautiful.

As the Lord is our shepherd, we do not need to know the destination, but let just follow him step by step, trusting in Him, and surrendering everything to Him!

If you want to read a bit more, I also wrote a bit more of what God has been teaching me in my latest album preface, which you can listen to as well!

2008 has been an adventure, filled with many surprises, both good and bad, unexpected twists and turns, and ups and downs. I do not even know where to start describing the year, and in ways, I don’t think I can do so at all!

But, even in my short reflection of the year, there has been one thing which has remained constant in my life – the love of God, giving me hope and encouraging me. I have learned so much throughout the year – things which will change me for eternity.

A lot of things I do not feel I can share openly – but one thing I will want to say, looking forward to 2009, seeing what the new year brings – I have no expectations of good or bad things, for I do not know what the future holds, but I can trust in the Lord’s love, which endures forever.

Through all circumstances, God can teach us and change us. It doesn’t have to be through bad things, nor good things – but in ALL things.

So, with the Lord as my shepherd, I look to 2009, to see what new things God can teach me!

Blessed be the name of the Lord, who has brought me through 2008!

I decided to write my 2nd plugin to counter this, it seems to work on my single google talk account, in that it keeps my proper status message when going idle. I have no idea whether it works with other types of accounts, or with multiple accounts, if you test it, please tell me the results!

You can download it HERE [keepstatusonidle.dll, 525KB].
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Installation steps
Before anything, make sure that you’re running version 2.5.0 of Pidgin or higher.

1) Download the file and place it in your Pidgin plugin folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Pidgin\plugins). Note: You could try %APPDATA\.purple\plugins folder alternatively.
2) Select Tools > Plugins from the Pidgin menu.
3) In the Plugins window, tick the checkbox for “Keep status message on idle”

You’re good to go! If anything seems amiss, you can delete the dll file!

Refer back to my post on manually editing and compiling pidgin source code to get rid of the problem for more details on what I did previously.

I decided that the old way was messy, and recompiling all the time didn’t make much sense. So… I decided to write my first pidgin plugin to deal with the problem! Unfortunately I only have my windows computer with me right now, so it’s only win32, but the source should compile on other platforms as well. Contact me if you want the source!

You can download it HERE [leaveconvo_notify.dll, 526KB].
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

(NOTE: It only works on jabber accounts, e.g. google talk)

Installation steps
Before anything, make sure that you’re running version 2.5.0 of Pidgin or higher.

1) Download the file and place it in your Pidgin plugin folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Pidgin\plugins). Note: You could try %APPDATA\.purple\plugins folder alternatively.
2) Select Tools > Plugins from the Pidgin menu.
3) In the Plugins window, tick the checkbox for “Left conversation notification”
4) Click “Configure Plugin” and select your preference. (You probably want to uncheck the option)
5) Now you can close those chat windows and not worry about your friends commenting about it!

Yay for Pidgin! Hopefully it works, being my first plugin. Just delete the dll file if something goes wrong!