Chris Hermansen

7192 points

Vancouver, Canada

Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.

On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.

Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.

Open Sourcerer People's Choice Award Emerging Contributor Award 2016 Programming Author Comment Gardener 100+ Contributions Club Columnist Contributor Club

Authored Content

4 open music players compared: VLC, QMMP, Clementine, and Amarok

In August 2016, I wrote about about why I like the Guayadeque music player, and then I used the six characteristics that seemed most important to me to evaluate other music…

Chile's green energy future is powered by open data analysis

Open source software and open data play key roles in implementing Chile's long-term energy planning, identifying ways to get the maximum value from development, minimizing its…

Why the proprietary MQA music encoding system is better than DRM, but still not good

In June 2016, I wrote about the MQA proprietary closed-source music encoding system and shared my thoughts on why I felt the system is not a good thing. Since then, I've been…

How to choose an open source music player

Linux offers an abundance of music players; how do you choose which one to use? Back in June, 2016, I wrote about the apparent passing of my favorite open source music player…

What do we mean when we talk about open music?

Learning about Bolero's recent entry into the public domain made me think about the concept of "open music" in general. Where is it found? What characteristics define open…

6 reasons why Guayadeque is a music lover's open source player

Recently I upgraded my laptop's Linux to the latest release, and I was surprised and saddened to discover that the wonderful music player Guayadeque seems to be considered as…

Authored Comments

clhermansen

19 Oct 2019

How I built and maintain Cantata, an open source music player

Thanks for the kind comments, Don! First time I ever heard Gregorian Chant was in 1988, when the wonderful person who eventually married me moved to Vancouver and brought a double CD by el Coro de monjes del Monasterio Benedictino de Santo Domingo de Silos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cwHhzmU7ps&list=PL0LxyRVWLtuuFseiMpCqy… with her... Nearly 10 years later was the first time I ever heard Kwanzaa Posse, when I bought Quango's World Groove compilation CD, which is a fine album even though they somehow managed to mix up the titles and artists on the last two tracks, Sous le Soleil de Bodega by Les Negresses Vertes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tklk596Urg and Wicked Funk by Kwanzaa Posse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB2wiiOoeEQ. None of the artists on this album were familiar to me at the time. Fond memories of summer road trips with my family listening to this and singing along... Besides Kwanzaa Posse, I have since managed to buy other albums by Les Negresses Vertes and Rachid Taha. Taha's cover of Rock the Casbah is awesome... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbFYsi9iSg Sadly he passed away last year...

clhermansen

29 Sep 2019

Designing open audio hardware as DIY kits

Thank you very much for the kind comment, GriffinMatilda!