Childhood Memories - The Singing Chapmans

     A few days ago, I was reminiscing with Monique about my uncle Freil's piano playing, and talked about the two record albums he made as part of a southern gospel music family group called "The Singing Chapmans".  Monique, of course, searched on eBay, found one of the albums, and ordered it for me.  It arrived yesterday, and I've been on pins and needles since then, wanting to hear it, and more, to share their songs so everybody else can enjoy the music too.

    Opened the package, took pictures, but got stuck trying to figure out how I was going to play it; and even more importantly, get the music digitized.  We had a couple of record players around the house, and one was a self-contained unit that would have been perfect if I just wanted to listen.  But Monique and I both remembered having a record player years ago that was perfect, with RCA audio outputs hardwired into the case.  Couldn't find it.  Gave up for the night.

Next day, I'm home from work, to see the old record player at my computer.  Monique had found it.  Actually, she found it exactly where we tried to look last night, but she went back and dug deeper.  I've seen old players quit working because they were band driven, and after years, the band can get old, brittle, not play right or outright break.  It was a worry in the back of my mind, but as it turned out the player was just fine.

    There was a bit of technical trouble getting all the working parts to work together.  First, my current computer doesn't have RCA input jacks.  All it's got is microphone in.  There are a number of ways around that, but I chose a bit of a hack.  Out in the shed, in my old audio/video cables box (from the days I did video production), was a "mic in/stereo in" connector.  The same box also had a 1/8" male to male stereo audio cable.  Lucky day!  Like a Rube Goldberg drawing... phono player to RCA out to converter to 1/8" to mic input on the computer.  :^)

    Still not ready.  The record played, I could hear it through the computer speakers (headphones, actually).  But the volume was so low, it was almost more imagination and wishful thinking than reality.  Google to the rescue - it suggested I see what the volume is in the SOUNDS controller.  When I checked, the volume was already maxed, but...  there was a "Microphone Boost" slider that offered up to 30db more volume.  

    Since the audio was so quiet, I slid that thing straight up to +30db and started the record back up.  It nearly broke my eardrums.
I yelled and jumped about half a foot straight into the air, scaring Monique at the same time.  After REDUCING the volume a bit... it was perfect!  And with that, suddenly Audacity was up and running, the audio check worked, audio levels set perfectly.  Roughly an hour later, the entire album is saved to my computer, one song at a time!!

Plus, I got to listen to music I haven't heard in 40 or 50 years.  Smiling the entire time.  It was like regaining a treasure I'd thought long lost.  Good memories of good times, music I never thought to hear again.

Next, I'll put the songs together with an image of the record album, and upload the videos to Youtube.  It may take a few days, but when I post again, there'll be something special for you to listen to.  

Finally Solved the Cookie Consent Riddle!

 I've been struggling with the whole European Union Data Protection (EUDP) Regulation... the Cookie Consent requirement, and by extension the California Consumer Protection Act.  It's easy to understand the need to protect everybody's privacy.  It's not so easy to understand the technical procedures to meet the requirements.  I'm a little more disgusted with government in general after all this.  If they're going to make a law requiring compliance, it should be built into the process.  Not laid on the end-user, many of whom, like myself, just want to write and lack all but the most rudimentary under-the-hood skills.  We're end-users, not professional programmers.

    I'm reasonably intelligent, but didn't want to spend weeks learning website code.  Especially when the advice on the internet is confusing, often incorrect, and overwhelming.  Or hidden behind a paywall, or a membership requirement.  Just at the time you think you learn something, you realize that's just one step, and then you have to learn more to implement another step.  Then you find out what you thought you knew was wrong, and you have to go back a few steps and start over.  It's been frustrating.

    In my last post, I shared a conversation with ChatGPT, asking for advice about how to comply with the cookie consent laws.  The chat occurred on Friday.  By Sunday evening (tonight) I've achieved conformity.  At least, as far as complying with the requirements.  Using the AI's advice as a springboard, I've learned what's actually needed, and how to approach it.  It's not that ChatGPT gave me the exact answers to my questions.  Rather, it gave me enough knowledge and understanding to find my own solutions.  And that's all I needed.  Just some honest, useful, advice.

    To begin, I wrote a Privacy/Cookie Policy page.  I learned the difference between writing a POST on Blogger, and writing a PAGE.  Learned how to use a widget under the layout tab, in the HEADER section, which gave the blog header tabs, in order to have my PAGES easily accessible.  Learned enough to follow (simple) directions from websites that provide the cookie consent popup.  Figured out how to access the HTML code from the Theme tab, and where to paste the popup code.

    Additionally, I learned that many of those "help" websites don't work.  It took trying several, and tampering with the HTML code for the site Theme (the look and feel of my blog, provided by Google).  I had to sign up for several services before finding out that the code they provided didn't function.

The site that worked for me, CookieYes, required a signup as well.  They offered paid services, but lucky for me they have a free service that worked nicely.  And included a tracking page, so you can track the consent record by IP address and date.  (Yes, apparently you have to provide this in case Big Brother wants proof that you're properly getting consent.)  To be honest it did a lot more than I expected, automatically.  I had to sign up first, making sure I chose a FREE service, not a TRIAL OFFER.  (Yeah, I picked the wrong one at first.)

Since I have some old blogs on Blogger, I'm not sure if they fall under some kind of umbrella, or if I'll need to do each one uniquely.  But there's no pressure, because I don't plan on using AdSense on any of the others.  I'll figure all that out another day.

Unlike some of the sites that offered free popup services, CookieYes' popup actually... you know... popped up.  I had to give my own consent to view my blog with the cookies.  For added confirmation that it's working, their stats page actually tracked when I clicked the approval button.  It's SUCH a huge relief to finally understand what needed to be done, and know that it's actually working!

Jump-Starting Grace Notes: Surprising Solutions

 In the previous post, I was (honestly, ranting) explaining about the difficulties of installing a cookie consent widget into Google Blogger.  I've learned a lot about how to do it, but the more I learn, the more it seems there IS to learn.
    The solutions I've tried so far haven't worked.  But even minor progress is still progress, and I'm still trying to figure it out.  Yesterday, a good friend (Thanks, Eugene!) gave me the most amazing suggestion... ChatGPT.

    I'd never heard of it.  If you haven't either, it's an AI that you can freely talk with (like talking with someone on a forum, but more polite).  Ask questions, and in a reasonably natural writing style, it will do its best to answer.  It felt like I was talking to a very smart, and very polite, person.  The suggestions it offered seemed useful and well-thought out.  If you're curious, below is a transcript of the conversation we had:

    I asked, very specifically, how to add a cookie consent widget to my Google Blogger website.  Here's the result.  (My comments are bolded to make it easier to follow)