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Music is Life the 333rd

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So, here you go. Music is Life the 333rd.

I'm a huge music fan, I live in NYC, and there is ALWAYS something going on around here. So this theme sort of reflects my off-hours interests. Music, TV, gossip, friends, family and design. I'm also super busy, and somewhat of a hermit, so basically my entertainment needs to beat me over the head to get me to notice that something's up and that Oh yeah I should do something other than work or chill. :P

The design incorporates a lot of the technologies used in in my Zen Desktop the 332nd, but it's been refined and I've added a few things that make my life easier.

Most importantly is that I HATE ICONS. I do not ever want a damn icon on my desktop. I also want to sit down at my PC and see things that interest me and make my offhours planning time more efficient.

And it needs to be pretty dammit, I'm a gurl!

So, here we go. This is created with Rainlendar (Pro, purchased, it's only 10 bucks...just do it) and Rainmeter w/ the Enigma suite that comes bundled now.

Rainlendar Pro: [link]
Rainmeter 1.1: [link]

The following Rainmeter/Enigma modules are enabled:

Sidebar
--Notes
--Music

Sidebar 2 (_Sidebar)
--Nothing enabled in this, I just wanted the halftone divider to background my Twat feed.

Taskbar
--Rain
--Launcher
--Various System meters

Custom configs are:

My time (for the nifty wordclock/date)
Notes2 (Just make a copy of your notes directory in the Enigma config folder, rename the files with a 2 at the end, enable through the rainmeter config menu, repeat as necessary for dividers, restart rainmeter and enable)

The Twatter feed is a huge PITA, but it works. I only want the latest 13 items, not 20, and I wanted them styled so they wordwrap (which is a huge issue with the Twatter RSS reader native support in Rainmeter) so I fed them through Yahoo Pipes to knock it down to 13 items from Twatters RSS default of 20, then fed THAT into GCalDaemon's Feed Converter and then connected Rainlendar to GCalDaemon to to refresh it regularly.

Yahoo Pipes: [link] -- Just create a pipe to your Twitter homepage's RSS and pass your user pass, then tie a truncate statement to fit your screen real estate. Note the Yahoo RSS feed for this refeed of your Twatter RSS feed.

IE:

h t t p : / / username : password@twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/xxxxxxxxxx.rss

GCalDaemon: [link] -- Accept the defaults on install with the following exceptions:

Calendar reloader script is: 'C:/Progra~1/GCALDaemon/bin/reload-calendar.bat'
You only want HTTP sync and feed converter enabled. All other modules can be shut off.
Set your Feed converter to 1 minute cache and event length, and 100% duplicate sensitivity.

Create a daily scheduled task to start at midnight every day and run every 5 minutes thereafter.

You'll want to 'start a program' which is: c:\Progra~1\Rainlendar2\Rainlendar2.exe -e=Rainlendar_Refresh()

If it says something about arguments let it. It's cool.

Now to get your Twatter feed to display, set up your preferred Rainlendar Calendar skin and set up an Event item only (no notes, calendar, todo, just an event feed). Create a Network Shared Calendar and use your Yahoo Pipes user/pass in the authentication section. Then you'll pass it through your local GCalDaemon HTTP Feed Converter. Like this:

h t t p ://localhost:9090/pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_whateveryourRSSrefeedis

Supress Alarms and Errors or you'll end up annoyed beyond belief. Set your frequency to every 5 minutes. No backup, no offline copies.

Message me if you have questions, it's kind of a pain in the ass, but I'm kinda nuts. :P

Lastly on the right you'll see a bunch of calendars. Under the entertainment section, I have a local concert feed from the iConcertCal iTunes plugin to remind me to buy tix, etc. Just set it up to do an export to a local iCalendar format file and every time you start iTunes just remember to update it by turning on the iConcertcal visualizer occasionally.

iConcertCal: [link]

Anything I choose to go to, I hook to my last.fm account which is then also hooked to my Gmail Calendar, and then those events, tasks, and meetings, I'm actually attending go down into the personal calendar area where it says 'My So-Called Life'.

[link]

I also subscribe to FirstShowing.net's Movie Release Schedule via my Gmail Calendar so I know when things I want to go see are opening.

[link]

And lastly I use Pog Design's TV schedule to keep abreast of TV shows I need to remember to record or want to watch.

[link]

Also, I use Miranda with the Glass or Transparent skins and the clskin updated contact list plugin to put my Yahoo IM down under the personal life stuff.

All in all, this just sort of works for me. By far, the stupidest bit was the Twatter foolishness, but I just couldn't handle not being able to style the feeds EXACTLY the way I wanted them.

If you have any questions or want help with configs, just message me!
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© 2009 - 2024 penelope
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penelope's avatar
The wallpaper is in my gallery. It's not mine, so I was hestitant to upload it, but I can't for the life of me find the original author anywhere on the 'net. So it's in my gallery if you want it.