I started doing some reading to find a good, cheap wireless bridge that I might be able to use to connect my wired equipment to the wireless network. After a quick session on Google (maybe a little too quick, as it turns out), and after checking the web site for the offerings of the local Micro Center, I bought a Hawking HWBA54G for about $80, including tax, etc. I took it home, followed the setup instructions to get everything ready, then powered everything up. Using the Setup CD provided by Hawking, I easily configured the device for Bridge operation, and then attempted to connect to the internet using my Windows XP system.

It seemed as though everything was copasetic… I connected, could download, upload, browse the web. The connection even supported using Torrents to transfer files, and at a fair speed it seemed. The I discovered my problem… I couldn’t talk to the bridge anymore, because it was off on another subnet, inaccessible to me now. When my Windows machine had used DNS to configure itself, it had moved onto a subnet of 10.0.1.xxx while the bridge had remained on the subnet 192.168.1.xxx.

So, no problem… just change the manual address of the bridge so I could see it, and things should be hunky dory. I used the reset button to return the bridge to the factory defaults, ran the Setup CD again, and then attempted to connect to the internet using my XP machine. But no matter how I cajoled and coaxed the bridge along, no matter how many times I started once again with factory defaults, no matter what I did to try and connect, I never got another connection through the Hawking Bridge. Never. Another visit to Google showed that I was not the only user that had experienced this problem.

So, back to the store with the Hawking Bridge, and then back home with my $80 in my pocket again…..

I wasn’t sure at this point what I would do for connectivity, and started to look at other bridge solutions. I wasn’t keen on shelling out another $80, either. But, as luck would have it, I still had my Linksys WRT54G wireless router with me. I hadn’t really thought much about it at first, since in normal operation it is intended to provide an Access Point, not act as a bridge. However, I remembered reading about the OpenWRT project somewhere along the way, and began to delve a little more deeply into just what might be possible using some open source software from the net.

After visiting several places on the web, I finally found my way the DD-WRT project. This project was originally based on the official GPL Sources of Sveasoft Alchemy, but has moved beyond that. Check the website for more details, or read more about the DD-WRT project at Wikipedia.

To make a long story short, I followed the instructions on the DD-WRT forums for loading the software onto my WRT54G, and setting up bridge operation. Lo and behold, back in business! Since the WRT54G has 4 ethernet ports on it, I plugged in my wired network equipment, turned everything on, and Wowee! Everything was working. My laser printer, which uses Bonjour to announce itself on the network, was immediately available to me when using my Powerbook, which impressed me. I set up my roomie’s Powerbook to take advantage of the laser printer too, so he could stop making trips to his desk to plug in the USB cable to his printer when he wanted to print. Yay!

So far I’ve been pretty happy with DD-WRT, but I’m sorry to say that since I’ve begun using DD-WRT I’ve discovered that some people are not happy with the direction that DD-WRT has been moving. DD-WRT seems to be slowly moving away from a free open source approach to a revenue-generating approach.

I’m already looking at other alternative software for my WRT54G, and am considering trying the X-WRT project. It looks like X-Wrt is following a free open source path, and I hope they continue to do so. If and when I decide to upgrade my connection again, I’ll keep you informed with a new post!

Happy Networking,

Mirth Maker

You can put your own message up on the (now gone) Disneyland entrance sign at the AddLetters website using the Disneyland Sign Generator. Type in your own silly saying, add a Mickey Mouse Icon if you like, submit it, and voila! You’ve got a Disneyland message worth passing around to your friends! Click the button above the image to download it to your machine, then email to the select few who will appreciate it!

Here’s one that I came up with:

Go crazy, try it yourself, you’ll be making mirth in no time! Plus, there are a ton of other wacky sign generators, so don’t stop at the Disneyland sign… try them all!

MirthMaker

I’ve discovered a virtual cornucopia of video out on the web that I hadn’t even realized existed, and all of it is free! But an unexpected benefit from my exposure to all of this was actually from a footnote on a vodcast, giving credit for the music that backed the video production. There was a link to the site PodSafe Audio, which hosts all kinds of music which can be used safely in the authoring of your own podcasts (meaning the RIAA won’t send its minions lawyers to your house to extort ridiculously large sums of money from you, which you don’t have to begin with, just to support their outdated business model).

Hurrah for PodSafe Audio for providing a venue for new artists to share their talent with the world, unencumbered by the machinery of the big record labels. No longer do you have to listen to only what the labels decide is worthy of distribution, you can discover new artists and actually help them in the pursuit of their dreams. Have a listen, find something you like, then tell your friends, heck, tell the world about it!

As I was exploring PodSafe Audio I ran across the music of Brian Sharpe. Brian truly is a soul after my own heart, as he has undertaken the pursuit of his bliss by writing and performing his music his way. According to his bio on BrianShape.com, he began following his bliss fairly early in life, playing in a backyard cover band and taking advantage of open mic nights at coffee houses. As his professional career matured, he enjoyed celebrity as as actor/composer/musical-director, culminating in the writing of music for the award-winning indie film, The Rest of Your Life (I had trouble getting the site to work correctly in FireFox, but it worked ok in Internet Exploder.. your mileage may vary). He has released his first first full-length album, The Usual Stories & Usual Lies. Yay, way to go Brian!

What really got me to click on his link at PodSafe was the list of his musical influences, and especially his the comparison of his music to a some of my favorite artists, including Jeff Buckley and Pete Yorn, as well as John Mayer. And believe me, listening to his music I was not disappointed! If you enjoy the music of these artists, then I know you’ll enjoy Brian Sharpe as well.

Not only can you get a taste of Brian’s music at PodSafe Audio, you can also visit him at at his online store to purchase his CDs. If you’re an iTunes user he’s also available via the iTunes Store. There are links to download ringtones, etc, at his website, if you’re so inclined as well. If you’re a YouTube fan then you can find him there as well, or watch the clip below!

Brian, you’re an inspiration to each and every one of us who aspires to follow his muse! Keep the tunes coming, and you have my wishes for the greatest of success in your career! I hope that sometime soon I’ll be able to take in your music in person somewhere in the DC area.Now that’s some Mirth Making for you!Mirth Maker

I hadn’t seen Martha Floyd in many years at that point, and hadn’t had the opportunity to meet Don either. So, while I had time on my hands, I loaded up the car and headed to Tennessee.

The trip would not have been complete without a few touristy things to do, and Don and Martha Floyd are gracious hosts and great tourguides. One of the things we did was to take a day trip to historic Cade’s Cove.

Nestled inside the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Cade’s Cove paints a great picture of what life was like as an early settler in Tennessee. The Park Service maintains many original structures, and visitors flock to experience frontier life.

We arrived at Cade’s Cove on a lovely, sunny summer day. The park was filled with curious visitors, exploring every home, church, mill and barn. I’ve placed a few photos from my trip in the gallery so that you can enjoy the beautiful scenery too! Please click on the link below to view my gallery of photos from historic Cade’s Cove:

Visit my Cade’s Cove Gallery

Read more about Cade’s Cove at one of the following sites:

Cade’s Cove article on Wikipedia

Cade’s Cove National Park tour

Cade’s Cove on The Great Smokey Mountains National Park Website

What ever happened to Topfer PipeCAD? Is it ever going to be finished?

Fear not, intrepid friend! But please allow me to explain…

I’ve been in the process of moving halfway across the country, and it’s really been difficult to accomplish any software development while things are so topsy-turvy. I’ve made good progress on the software design for PipeCAD since my last release of the software, and have a good approach to printing out detailed reports. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to get my computer systems set up so I can proceed with the implementation!! It’s as frustrating for me as it is for you, dear reader.

I’m currently living in Arlington, Virginia. My plans are to remain in the Washington DC area, although I’m not sure how long I’ll stay here in Arlington. It appears that this may be only a temporary situation, with another move approaching shortly.

But rest assured that I haven’t forgotten about PipeCAD, and do not intend to allow it to languish unfinished for much longer. I hope that you, dear reader, will bear with me as I endeavor to complete the next release of PipeCAD.

Mirth Maker

Problem was that, as with any new tool, you don’t really appreciate how it works until you run into some problem. Since the goal in the end was to be able to share the Higley1000 maps on the web, I suggested that he should simply create a map under Google My Maps, and place all the neighborhood boundaries on that map. By sharing his map, I reasoned, all of his work could be made accessible to the world!

The Higley 1000 Neighborhoods are all created in Google Maps using polygons which trace the outlines of the given neighborhood. Each neighborhood polygon can consists of dozens upon dozens of vertices. As you add neighborhoods to the map, the time it takes for your browser to display the neighborhoods begins to take longer and longer. The delay grew until it became an impediment when using the map editor.

My first thoughts about how to share the maps had roughly followed this progression:

1. display a Google Map at the correct latitude/longitude for the neighborhood of interest
2. add in the Higley 1000 Neighborhoods overlay
3. zoom to highlight the neighborhood of interest

Given my desire to minimize the delay introduced as each neighborhood is drawn, I decided to instead break down the maps that had been created into indiviual neighborhoods maps, so that no more than one polygon would have to be drawn to illustrate a neighborhood outline.

But the catch this time was that it’s hard to do anything with a map you’ve created besides add new stuff or delete something you’ve already drawn. The implication was that all the neighborhood maps that had been so laboriously created would have to be done all over again, but saved as individual maps this time. It would have been a real shame to have wasted all the effort expended so far. So I decided to write a tool that would take the original multi-neighborhood file and split it into individual neighborhood files that could be hosted on the Higley1000 web server. That’s that KMLSplitter does!

If you’ve ever wanted to get your work out of Google My Maps, you know that it’s easy enough to download the KML describing the edits you’ve made on the maps (read this post on Google if you’re not familiar with the procedure to download the actual KML instead of a network link). The resulting KML files can be split into the individual components by processing them through KMLSplitter. KMLSplitter breaks out all the placemark elements into individual files, which it names according to the placemark name which was entered on Google Maps.

KMLSplitter uses the dom4j package to parse in the KML, find the placemarks, and write out files while each contain only a single placemark. dom4j did all the hard work for me, making it easy to implement this tool. If you’d like to try it, just please bear this in mind: this was written in a hurry, as a throw-away (I only later decided to share it with you), and is a little brittle due to lack of attention to exception handling. The program only works on the subset of KML which is used by Google Maps. The program assumes that you have also entered a description for each placemark. Failure to follow these guidelines will probably result in having KMLSplitter crash and burn. If you follow the steps as shown below, though, you shouldn’t run into any problems.

You must have Java already installed on your system to use this program. KMLSplitter doesn’t need any installation, other than to simply unzip the KMLSplitter files into the directory of your choice. After you’ve done that, you can launch KMLSplitter by simply double-clicking on the KMLSplitter JAR file. KMLSplitter will show the following opening screen:

Choose the file you would like to split by using the Browse button as indicated in the following image:

Note that you must use the browse button to select the file, because there are some things that happen under the hood when you click that button.

After choosing the file to split, KMLSplitter will parse the KML, and present the results to the user in a browsable tree. You may examine the results of parsing if you like, to verify that you are working on the correct file.

Next, you need to specify an output directory for the files created by splitting.

When you click the Browse button, by default KMLSplitter will choose the same directory in which the original KML file is located. You are free to choose any other directory, though, as suits your needs.

You may optionally type in a prefix which will be appended to each new KML filename which is output.

Ok! Now you’re ready to split! Click the Split it now! button to split your KML file into the individual placemarks.

KMLSplitter will extract each placemark in your KML file, creating a new KML file for each placemark which contains only the single placemark. The new KML file will be named according to the prefix you have (optionally) entered plus the placemark name.

Additionally, KMLSplitter will create a text file which lists each placemark name and the corresponding filename which was created to hold the placemark KML. Also listed will be the description which was entered on the placemark.

I hope that this program will be of use to others who are using Google Maps. If there is enough interest then I may even come back and do some cleanup on the code to make it a little more robust, or perhaps post the source for the interested reader. Please feel free to leave comments for me about your experience with KMLSplitter!

Last but not least, here’s the download:

KMLSplitter downloadable zip file

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

MirthMaker

View Larger Map

Such was the case with my friend Dan. After years of working as a lawyer in Manhattan, and living in the same small walk-up in the East Village, Dan finally reached burn-out. Having previously visited Hudson, and already having friends living there, Dan decided that a change of scenery would do him good. Armed with his laptop and a broadband connection to the internet, Dan was able to continue on in his current job while escaping to the slower pace of Hudson. While en route to Rochester, NY, I stopped in for a visit with Dan, and was myself quite taken with the town of Hudson.

Everywhere you look there is revitalization underway. The gracious old homes are being painted, remodeled, brought up to date. The downtown is experiencing a resurgence as new businesses set up shop, ready for tourists and locals alike. The imposing brick edifice of the Hudson Opera House along is enough to strike awe in you as you pass on Warren Street.

I enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Earth Foods on Warren Street. The salads were fresh and flavorful, the ice tea very satisfying on a hot day, and the customers and waitresses alike were alive with chatter and smiles. I engaged in a little talk with a local about Apple Computers as well as local attractions while I enjoyed my meal - such a pleasant repast!

Dan spent some time showing me around town, and I was captivated by the way in which the original flavor of Hudson is being lovingly preserved. Even new structures are often designed to reflect the original surrounding architecture, in spite of the extra expense. It all makes for a lovely feel as you stroll the side streets.

As dusk began to fall we worked our way to The Red Dot. This bar & eatery pulls in lots of locals, and has a great feel of a neighborhood bar to it. All kinds of curiosities adorn the walls of the bar, and joviality and mirthfulness abound! The real surprise for me, however, was the patio out in back of the bar. A small fenced courtyard now contain about a dozen tables or so, all nestled with simple but lush and lovely landscaping. The feel I got was overwhelmingly of a small, exclusive Manhattan bistro. The food likewise was terrific! With plenty of great choices, it was hard for me to settle on the Fish & Chips. An appetizer of delicious calamari whetted our appetites before the main course. The service was warm, friendly, and fast. I left the Red Dot feeling full and satisfied.

It was hard to leave the next morning for the next leg of my Big Trip, because I felt as though I wanted to linger a bit more to let my travel-weariness subside. Alas, I had miles to travel ahead of me yet. So I waved goodbye to Dan and headed for the New York Thruway, bound this time for Rochester, NY.

If you get a chance to visit Hudson, then by all means do so! It truly is a jewel on the banks of the Hudson River! But if you can’t make it there yourself, then click on the image to the right to visit my Gallery for more pictures from Hudson.

Mirth Maker

This Google Map shows the location of the Fair:

View Larger Map

Since I was staying within a few blocks of the fair I felt obligated to visit! So my host and I walked over to the Fair on the last evening it was open. Though it was tucked into quite a small space, the fair had probably as many rides as the local county fair where I grew up (Dallas County, AL). There were all my favorite eats, too, like Funnel Cake and Corn Dogs. Mmmmmmm….

The ride in the video clip above made me sick just watching it! Can you imagine being inside one of the cars that crawls along the track as it spins around and around? Everyone was staggering back and forth as they got off the ride… no surprise there!Click on the image to the left to visit my gallery for more shots from the Arlington County Fair!

With water usage restrictions across the state, this summer has taken a huge toll on every living thing. Old trees, overstressed by the lack of water and intense heat, have started dying, leaving brown reminders on the hillsides. Lawns have either perished or gone dormant. Human life has also been lost to the heat. It has been a very hard summer for us all, indeed!

So, what better time to head northward, away from the heat! I’ve been looking at jobs outside of Alabama, and am anticipating moving elsewhere to take a new position. Facing the prospect of being fairly tied down to a new job, I made a big trek up the eastern seaboard, with the goal of visiting as many old friends as I could squeeze in within the time I had allotted for trip.

If you’ve been wondering why there were no new posts appearing on Making Mirth, or perhaps have been awaiting the next release of PipeCAD, then I hope this post will explain my disappearance.

Now, though, my Big Trip is behind me, and I’m going full steam ahead with work again. Over the next few days I’ll be posting a few highlights of my trip. I hope you find them interesting!

Cheers,

Mirth Maker

A SHORT PRIMER ON ORGAN PIPE SCALING

contributed by George Bozeman

Töpfer PipeCAD is becoming a wonderful tool for use in scaling organ pipes, and also a helpful aid in voicing procedures. However, if you are new to the concept of pipe scaling, or are not sure exactly what is involved, this primer will help you.
The Töpfer Normalmensur posits an ideal Principal stop in an ideal acoustic environment. But let us imagine a much smaller environment in which a Normalmensur Principal would be too loud, although of the proper timbre. One could then simply scale the pipes somewhat smaller and achieve the same timbre at a proper dynamic level. Or, perhaps the environment is generally in agreement with Töpfer’s ideal, except that the room is too efficient on the lowest C, and is not friendly to the frequencies around middle C. Then one could devise a variable scaling in which the lowest notes were made smaller in scale, and with a smooth rise in scale around middle C, in order to result in an even dynamic and timbre throughout the compass of the stop. This is the basic rationale behind scaling differences. If one assumes the proportion of the mouth width to the circumference of the pipe remains constant, then the larger pipe not only has a larger scale, but also a larger mouth which gives the pipe greater energy and thus maintains the timbre even though the scale is larger.
Factors Influencing the Speech and Tone of Flue Pipes:
These are the factors of speech and tone to be influenced and how scaling affects them:

• Loudness: The strength of the vibrations. Wide-scaled pipes are capable of greater loudness than narrow-scaled ones. Other factors which affect loudness include the effective wind pressure (the regulated pressure of the bellows, the adjustment of the size of the toe hole and the width of the windway or flue), and the width of the pipe mouth.
• Timbre: (sometimes called ‘tone’, ‘color’, etc.). The presence or absence and relative strengths of the overtones, partials, or harmonics in the tone. Wider scales emphasize the lower pitched partials whereas narrow scales emphasize the higher pitched partials. Higher effective wind pressure emphasizes the higher pitched partials. Lower cut-ups (height of the mouth) emphasize higher pitched partials.
• Pitch: The number of vibrations per second. Basically the pitch of an organ pipe is determined by the number of air molecules influenced by the pipe resonator. Longer and/or fatter pipes have lower frequencies. Colder pipes have lower frequencies. Increasing the wind pressure will increase the frequency. Töpfer PipeCAD will provide several means for determining the proper lengths of pipes.
• Speech: This word has at least two, somewhat different meanings:
  • The transitional sounds the pipe makes when beginning to speak, ‘chiff’, for example;
  • The angle of the wind sheet as it enters the pipe body at the onset of the speech; various adjustments of this can cause the pipe to begin its tone slowly or quickly; hence we use the terms ‘quick’ and ‘slow’ speech. Slower speech encourages higher partial development. This makes it possible sometimes to correct pipes that are not ideally scaled.

  However, speech is not a factor generally considered in the scaling of organ pipes.

• Formant: Coloration of the tone cause by vibrations of the walls of the pipe, rather than by the distribution of harmonics in the normal tonal output of the pipe. It is not a factor considered in scaling pipes.
• Non-Harmonic Noise: Essentially white noise inherent in the tone of flue pipes. Voicing techniques can lessen or enhance this. It is not a factor considered in pipe-scaling.

These are factors which influence the speech and timbre of flue pipes:

• Wind Pressure: The effect of wind pressure in general is that higher pressures cause greater development of higher partials. Thus larger scales or techniques are employed to maintain the same timbre that would be achieved with lower pressures. Although it is a general factor affecting the results of scaling, there are no formulas for it, and will not be considered in Töpfer PipeCAD.
• Toe Hole Size: If the toe hole is smaller than the amount of air the windchest can deliver and/or can issue from the flue, it will decrease the effective pressure of the pipe. Töpfer PipeCAD will provide a means for generating smoothly graduated toe hole sizes.
• Lenght & Shape of Foot: This is not a factor considered in scaling for tonal purposes, but Töpfer PipeCAD will provide a means of smoothly graduating foot lengths for visual or construction purposes.
• Shape & Size of Flue: The width of the flue (i.e., front to back) can determine the effective wind pressure of the pipe. The graduation of this in a set of pipes is usually determined visually by the voicer, but Töpfer PipeCAD can provide precise graduations, if desired.
• The Mouth Width: The mouth width determines how large the ‘motor’ of the pipe is which generates the sound. Increasing the mouth width without changing the actual height of the cut-up will increase the power of the pipe (assuming the effective wind pressure remains the same) without changing any other factor, including timbre. Töpfer PipeCAD will provide several ways to calculate mouth widths.
• The Cut Up: The distance from the lower to upper lip of the pipe mouth is the cut up. It is actually a factor of the speaking length of the pipe, but is often expressed as a fraction of the mouth width. Principals often have a mouth width that is 1/4 of the circumference and a cut up that is 1/4 of the mouth width. Obviously this can go awry if the mouth width is instead 2/7 of the circumference, because the cut up height should remain the same in either case. Töpfer PipeCAD will offer several ways to calculate cut ups.
• Shape of Pipe Body: Flue pipes can be cylindrical and either open at the top end or stopped. They can be tapered either smaller at the top or at the mouth. There can also be combinations of tapered and cylindrical sections. Stopped pipes can be fitted with chimneys or simply a hole in the top cover. Töpfer Pipe Cad will provide a means for calculating all of these variables.
• Tuning Devices: Pipes can be cut to exact length, fitted with tuning sleeves in which case the pipes are cut slightly too short, fitted with cut out slots, etc. Töpfer PipeCAD will provide ways to calculate pipe lengths according to these various factors.

If one wishes to learn how to scale organ pipes it is necessary to listen to pipes that one has scales for in the actual room where the pipes are playing. Only this way can one listen for the peculiarities of the room’s acoustics and how the scale of the pipes (and their voicing) reacts to this. It is also helpful to listen to recordings of organs that one has scalings for, but microphone placements and recording techniques can make accurate conclusions very difficult. Obviously a great deal of listening and careful analysis is necessary to become an expert pipe scaler.

The Blank Voicing Graph: Many voicing operations need a means to produce smooth gradations of dimensions. It would be unwieldy to use a computer for many of these operations, particularly where proportional dividers are used to mark the dimensions on the pipe. Therefore a blank voicing graph based on the Normalmensur has been provided which can be printed out in as many copies as required. One can enter dimensions on desired points of the compass and connect the points with straight lines. A useful hint is to multiply the dimensions by 10 on the graph and set your proportional dividers to 10:1 to read the points, especially on smaller dimensions. This will improve your accuracy. (Note: Please feel free to download the Graph Template from this website for use in your voicing work - MirthMaker)

George Bozeman is a native of Texas. He majored in organ performance under the late Dr. Helen Hewitt at North Texas University in Denton. Following college he apprenticed as an organbuilder with Otto Hofmann of Austin, one of the pioneers of the tracker revival in the United States. He worked with the late Joseph E. Blanton in an effort to develop a standard model one-manual organ, and at the same time received a thorough grounding in architectural matters relating to the organ. Then he was employed by the firm of SipeYarbrough which later became Robert L. Sipe & Company of Dallas. He was a vice president of the latter firm when he left in 1967 for a Fulbright grant in Austria. There he studied organ with the late Anton Heiller, harpsichord with Isolde Ahlgrimm, and organbuilding with Joseph Mertin. He also began the study of European organs, new and old, which now encompasses those of some 13 western European nations.

On returning to the United States, Bozeman was employed by the Noack Organ Company in Massachusetts. In 1971 he founded his own firm in Lowell, Massachusetts. In addition to organbuilding, he has continued an active career in musical performance. For many years a practicing church musician, he now frequently substitutes for organists in New England, and has performed as a recitalist all across the United States and in Canada and Mexico. He is an active member of the Boston and New Hampshire chapters of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the American Institute of Organ Builders, and the International Society of Organbuilders. He also is a frequent contributor to The Diapason, The American Organist and The Tracker.