Google Blogger Housecleaning: Customizing Blogger

    Writing kind of a trivial post today.  At least, it's trivial in the large scheme of things.  It was a big deal for me, anyway.  :^)

    Back in January when the idea of starting Grace Notes back up was gaining momentum, there was a huge speed bump that just about shut things down before it even had a chance to start.  The "cookie consent" situation.  There were a log of changes to manage, new things to learn.  Last time I was paying (a lot!) for hosting and using Wordpress.  This time we're taking the budget express.  Google Blogger is free, and you can have a BUNCH of blogs if you really want to.  Google charges $12 per year for the URL domain, and $12 for Google Office.

    The URL name is a compromise.  It's not the original one for Grace Notes, but it is my overarching URL ever since Galaxy Quest came out.  Crewman6 was the redshirt who lived, and it's always been an inspirational name for me.  Google Office gives me a custom email, more storage for whatever files I use on the blog.  Some other benefits I haven't looked into yet.  Pretty much, this is everything I need to manage Grace Notes.  WordPress was a great blogging platform, and was more versatile than Blogger.  But it was a heck of a lot more expensive to maintain, and the hosting company just kept leapfrogging the rates up every year.  As things stand, I pay about $156 per year for this setup.  The old Grace Notes, with Word Press, hosted on a proper site... was costing nearly $500 per year by the time I pulled the plug.  Blogger is far more cost-efficient for me.

    At some point I'll turn Adsense on, but it's not a big goal here.  Grace Notes cost much more to maintain than it ever made me last time around.  If it can pay the $12 per month fee this time, I'll call it a successful hobby and enjoy it.

    Now we get to today's subject.  To properly manage the cookie consent requirements, I had to paste some code into the Blogger theme.  I also pasted in some custom lines for a couple of features that weren't easily available on Blogger.  Not really a skill of mine, but I did manage to follow a couple of guides.  Afterward, the initial menus for Theme management were gone.  There was a comment about some features not being available now.  I took that to mean I could no longer change the advanced features of my theme, without reloading the base version, making my changes, then re-inserting whatever custom codes needed to be done manually.  For a few months I looked for other theme templates off-Blogger, but didn't find any that seemed worth changing the whole blog for.

     With that in mind, I've been leaving a lot of 'tidying up' undone for months.  Mainly the link colors, and making a custom Banner. Woke up this morning, and it felt like today was the day to finally fix all that.  Found some websites that gave pointers on changing the link colors and sat down to puzzle them out.  The first one wanted me to start off on the Theme tab.  As usual, the first line read "Theme Preview is currently unavailable."

   

    If you're familiar with Blogger, at this point you've probably realized I've been mistaken this whole time.  The ability to customize my theme was always there.  As was the Advanced options.  Maybe something changed, maybe I just read it wrong.  I was clicking the down-arrow on the orange button to get the drop-down menu.  Took me ages to realize I just had to click on the orange button ON THE WORD "Customize!!" in order to get to the customization options. Now that I know, fixing the link colors was very easy.  

    It was a bit of work to get the banner done, but at least it was legitimate work, not a figment of my own imagination.  My previous keyboard was a Yamaha DG-640, and was a grayish-silver color.  That worked really well against the black background of the blog screen.  The Hammer 88 was more difficult.  A black body on a black background doesn't stand out a lot.  I played with it, even tried to use an external image for the background, but it didn't come out perfect.  It will stand for now, I do like it a lot.  But some day in the future, I'd like to have better lighting so the keys will be a clean white. Today's lighting was partly sunlight from a window, partly incandescent bulbs from a ceiling fan light, and the keys aren't consistently white.

    It's been a learning process, and a matter of finding the right software all over the internet.  I started with PixLR, used Irfanview, and tried several online tools before getting something that worked.  At the moment, I'm calling it a day, and an improved banner will have to be a project for another day.

Introducing The Singing Chapmans: Just Over In The Glory Land

 

    Some time ago I digitized all the audio from the record album "Introducing The Singing Chapmans."  The album has 12 songs.  It's one of two albums I know of that has my Uncle Freil playing the piano.  (He also did a couple of CDs solo, but those are easier to find.)  I chose to feature "Just Over In The Glory Land" because it's one of my childhood favorites.  Even better, there's a fair amount of interesting history involved with the song.

    According to TraditionalMusic.com, the words were written by James W. Acuff (1864 – 1937), and the music by Emmett S. Dean (1876 – 1951)

    Per Pixabay, James Acuff wrote it in 1906, so the song is considered Public Domain.

 As always, their midi is clear and pure. Nothing fancy or complicated which makes learning the melody much easier if you’re a ‘play by ear’ pianist.

    I can remember Freil Playing and Aunt Elsie Mae singing this song in church.  And through the years, heard Freil play it just about anywhere there was a piano available.  Eventually it became one of my favorites to play myself, not as nuanced as Freil's playing but brash and bold, and full of joy.  (The result of not knowing as many non-major chords as Freil.)  

    Going back to digitizing the record... it was a loan from my sister, so I had to get the songs to computer quickly and return the album.  It was convenient to do that work immediately, with the intention of going back later and getting them onto Youtube.  So of course they languished forgotten on the computer for a couple of months.  Now they're online.  You can play the video above, and click on "play on YouTube" to see the rest of them.  I may feature a few more from the album, but it will be over time, no rush.

    So far, the songs done by "The Singing Chapmans" have not been easy to research.  It's been difficult to find much about each individual song, and discouraged me from doing each and every one.  In this case, "Glory Land" is well-known, with a bit of history, a bit of lore and some confusion about the song's provenance scattered thoughout the internet.  Here are a few of the links and claims:

    Timeless Truths has a nice looking page, and is one of my favorite resources for information about gospel music. But in this case, they’re a bit sparse on information.  They agree it was writtten by James W. Acuff, and specify that it was PUBLISHED in 1906.  They also state that the copyright is Public Domain. They have the words, sheet music, and a midi file to listen to.

    But the end-all and be-all is an extremely-well researched article by Henrik Smith-Sivertsen. I found out much more than anticipated, and far beyond the scope of southern gospel I usually stick to. Smith-Sivertsen writes that “Just Over In The Glory-Land” was first published in the hymn book “Glad Hosannas: A Winnowed Collection of New and Old Songs for Christian Work and Worship”, in 1906. He gives credit for the lyrics to Acuff, the music to Emmett S. Dean, but goes on to name Dean as the editor of the hymn book, and part owner of the publishing company. The fascinating part, and this explains why some websites seem confused about the copyright, is that another publisher, R. E. Winsett, obtained “renewed copyrights” to the song.

    The article in full is worth digging into, and with an extensive bibliography, seems likely the most authoritative and trustworthy document of the song's history.  

    I personally agree with the articles and websites that list "Glory Land" as a public domain.  Especially after this year, because January 1st, 2023 marks the date for everything published up to the year 1927 (U.S. only; other countries have different laws.) There's a wonderfully detailed article by Jennifer Jenkins regarding copyright.  It's a fantastic read and very worth the time if you're interested in the Public Domain.

    As a matter of fact, she mentions that on January 1, 2024, the first ever appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse will enter the public domain!  Imagine that... I bet Disney is having fits about it.  Even Sherlock Holmes no longer has copyright protection.  Until 2023, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's last two Sherlock Holmes stories have been under copyright protection.  As of this year, everything Doyle wrote about Holmes is in the Public Domain. If even the Doyle Estate, and even more so, The Mouse, can't keep their characters out of the public domain, there's no reason a song published in 1906 would still be copyrighted.

It's safe to say, out of all the posts I published in the original Grace Notes, this was by far the easiest yet most overwhelming song to research.  Some day I'll post another blog about "Just Over In The Glory Land", but next time... it'll be with my rendition on piano.  I do believe I mentioned it being one of my favorite songs to play.  :^)

Used Laptop for the Hammer-88: USB Problems

     Just an update based on a simple fix for a long-standing problem.  Going way back, I originally had one very good desktop to do everything.  It's 6 or 7 years old now, and still good, but no longer great.  Over the years, some things started conflicting with others.  The usual victim was system audio.  

    This caused the biggest problem with Ableton Live Lite and M-Audio's Hammer-88 keyboard.  Sometimes the audio drivers would quit working randomly.  The  most consistent and annoying villain was when Microsoft did a Windows "update/upgrade."  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  I only know a couple of swear words, but I've used them many many times at Windows updates.

(Warning - Upcoming Rant)
    The problem could sometimes be fixed easily (usually the random occurences.)  Other times (looking at YOU, Microsoft...) it could take days or weeks to get the audio to working reliably.  Sometimes it took so long, another update would come out just days later and we'd start all over again.
    Helpful Hint:  This website provides a link to a trouble-shooter that could fix most of the audio problems in moments:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-sound-or-audio-problems-in-windows-73025246-b61c-40fb-671a-2535c7cd56c8
    Yes, I'm aware it's a microsoft link.  That doesn't make me like them any better, since it was nearly always their OS updates that triggered the problem.  Just the same, this is the first thing I try when the audio stops working.  Click the link on the page and allow the app to test for problems.
    The weird thing is, it always reports "no problem found", and starts suggesting random things to try... but actually fixes the issue, at least most of the time.  So I click the "Open Get Help" button, let it do it's thing, then close the window after it reports failure.  And that's usually all it takes.
    Other times, it's as simple as checking "Sounds", going to the PlayBack Tab, and finding that the update has totally played havoc with speaker output assignments.  For some reason, it would reassign a new random output as the default.  Sometimes it would go to a legitimate speaker, like the one built-in to the monitor.  Other times it would choose options that had no output at all.  Re-setting the correct speakers as the default option will typically fix the audio, but sometimes it has to be reassigned as the default with every reboot.  Eventually it sticks, until the next system update.
    The worst ones... the mystery issues with no reliable fix... were the worst. This is part of the reason I quit playing.  It was so consistent, there were so many times I just wanted to 'play the piano' but couldn't, I gave up for a while.
(Rant Over)

A Dedicated Laptop
    In a final attempt to solve the problem, Monique found a used laptop on an Amazon lightning sale.  It's an older HP EliteBook.  Old enough it was originally sold with Windows 7 installed.  It's running Windows 10 now, but that's pushing things.  I don't install extraneous software.  Primarily Ableton, plus CCleaner and Irfanview.  And my favorite browser, Vivaldi. 
    Ableton 10 Live Lite - dedicated to the Hammer 88.
    CCleaner for it's utility toolkit and easy system cleaning. 
    Irfanview for the times I need a screenshot. 
    Vivaldi mainly because I used to use Google Drive to swap files.
    Our working space is tight, so the keyboard is on a wall-mounted shelving system, right beside the door.  It's easy to bump the keyboard while walking past it, and I thought maybe too many impacts caused the issue.

The Ultimate Fix: A USB Hub
    Eventually I realized the problem was the USB port the keyboard was attached to.  The laptop only has 3 USB ports, one to an external audio driver (the Air/Hub, by M-Audio), one to the keyboard, and one for the mouse. Not enough to go around with one having intermittent problems.  We had a 7-port powered hub.  I tried it, but for some reason when the laptop is powered down the hub still provides power to the Hammer 88 and to the mouse.  I didn't want the keyboard to be powered up non-stop all day long.  Seems like that would wear the electronics out faster.
    For about $15.00, we found a great USB hub on Amazon, by Sabrent.  It's powered, has 4 ports, and each port has a dedicated on/off switch, with a light so you know which ones are on.
    Now the keyboard and mouse are connected through the hub.  I also keep a USB memory stick on one port, for trading files between computers.  And the fourth port, just because it was available, provides power to a VCR-to-Computer converter.  Only the ports in use are powered up.  And when the laptop is turned off, I turn off the hub ports as well.  
    Now it works great.  I can play the keyboard reliably, at any time.  And turn the peripherals on/off as needed.  It's amazing when things function like you need them to!!

    With this setup it worked most of the time, but frustratingly there were still days it didn't.  Sometimes on a reboot, the laptop would not communicate with the keyboard.  Occasionally reconnecting the cable between them, but not always.  I started worrying that after all these years of not getting to use it, maybe the keyboard was aging, connections failing, who knows.