Now for a change: a music Mixxx for the DJ in the crowd
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Well it has been nearly four weeks since I was laid off, and I am still looking far and wide for a job. I have a few phone interviews, but still no actual offers. Since I have received an actual unemployment check, it has really hit home that i am completely and utterly without visible means of support, all the while I am fighting with a company called “Environmental Safety Intl” who sent me, without my consent, a box full of wood shavings it says works on septic systems, and now it expects me to ship this stuff back at my own expense via UPS. Of course I have no extra money, and it will not give me its UPS account number so I am stuck dealing with its account department and argue back and forth while I am trying to find a job. If anyone else is experiencing these issues with this New Jersey company, please comment here and we can band together and form some kind of action committee to drive it to the right side of business or else drive it out of business.
Now on to today’s entry: Open Source software that allows us normal people with computers to perform disk jockey type operations on the music we have collected. That’s right! We can create our own mixes, merges using MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or wave files. This Mixxx software is available on Windows XP , Vista, OS X, and Linux and can be found here. The software also allows you to upload m3u and PLS playlist files so you don’t have to upload or mix together file by file.
Now this software supports MIDI devices, so I assume the software is able to record and/or mix together music, or licks, or portions of songs using MIDI devices as well. If you don’t know what MIDI is, here’s a tutorial about the Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
[tags]microface, Open Source, music, DJ, Mixxx[/tags]
2 Comments
Oisín Mac Fhearaí
March 6th, 2007
at 10:22am
They sent it to you when you didn’t ask for it, and now they expect you to have it sent back to them at your expense?
I’d be telling them where to stick their wood shavings (and it’s not in a box).
Why are you even fighting with them and wasting time on the phone? Just ignore them, or call whatever local ombudsman you have for these matters instead. A complaint lodged with an official body usually works wonders.
Simon Jones
March 27th, 2007
at 9:23am
I don’t know about US law, but check it out.
Here in the UK, if a company sends you something that you did not ask for, it automatically becomes a ‘gift’ which they cannot demand payment for.
If you requested it and knew it’s cost at the time, only then are you entering a verbal contract which could be enforced. The item is a saleable product.
The other option which you can sometimes get away with here, is ship it back via our postal service without postage, the receiver would then be charged. I doubt UPS would allow you to do this however, but definitely look into the first option.
Anyway, random page hit, random comment, and now just as randomly leaving. Good luck with it!