Zombie-proof House. I want!

Just when I thought I'd reached a point where there was no more stuff I didn't need I came across this (Thanks, Anna!)

I don't know who the designer is, but they had me at modern decor and retractable drawbridge.

Check it out:

Http://all-that-is-interesting.com/post/4956385434/the-first-zombie-proof-house

Amazon Cloud Player-Anyone using it?

I just tried out the Amazon Cloud Player for the first time. If you buy an album from them you get upgraded to 20gb of storage. A $5 record and you get 20gb of online storage? Not a bad deal even if I don't end up using the player.

However, at first blush, this seems pretty cool. The player instantly had the record I bought available right away (Alexi Murdoch's Towards the Sun, which I like a lot so far. Sort of Nick Drake meets Damien Juardo. Not a stretch, but still.).

The next test is how long it takes to upload stuff. I'm trying to upload about 9gb of stuff Says it's gonna take 3 hours. We shall see.

So, are you interested in the Amazon Cloud Player? It may be a service without a real use. What do you think?

Dropbox: Friend of the Writer

Aside from writing this blog, I am also a writer of fiction (among other things). I've tried the past few years to find away to keep my drafts all up to date in the same place. I have to move from home computers to work, to the phone, to the iPad and to have to manually move files from one place to the next was always a disaster in the making.

So a couple months ago I found Dropbox. Not only does it save your stuff in the cloud, it also keeps all that stuff up to date on all the rest of the machines you've attached to your Dropbox.

Now I can access all my files and work on them at any time, on any machine, anywhere. Just thinking about that makes my shoulders relax. Check it out.

Location:Brookwood Dr,Iowa City,United States

The best stereo $800 can buy

So, we made out OK on the tax return this year, and the lovely wife allowed me to indulge myself with a chunk of the return. When we moved into the house five years ago, it came with a home theater built into the basement, Infinity speakers in the walls, a control center with all the wiring and the connections for the projector built into the ceiling. I got an 84" screen and an HD projector and I was in movie and gaming heaven. I was not, however, in audio heaven. But to pay for all that stuff, I sold my low end hi-fi setup. I did have the studio, which was great for listening to stuff, but not exactly a comfortable hangout when I just wanted to kick back and take in some tunes.

I'd been considering replacing the janky home theater setup in the upstairs living room with a 2.0 hi-fi for a while and this tax windfall seemed like the perfect time.

Let's be clear: If you think you can go to Best Buy and get anything that sounds like a good sound system, you are mistaken. I did my due diligence and went out to check out what they had. I suppose that some of the Polk and Klipsch stuff would be ok, but I listened all the way up the line and it wasn't until I got to the higher levels of the floor standing models that stuff sounded alright. But I didn't want to spend my whole budget on what were really some uninspiring speakers, so it was off to the local hi fi store.

There's really not a lot that you can do for $800 at the hi fi store, but if you know what you're looking for, there are options.

The first set of good speakers I ever bought was a pair of Paradigms. Bought them at Sound Investments in Morgantown west Virginia when i was 18 or 19. They were awesome. This was in the time before bookshelf speakers and they were the smallest I could get. I had those speakers for the next ten plus year. Then I moved to a set of Energys. They were also great.

These days, Paradigm makes a nice set of speakers called the Atom. They've been around for several version s and have always gotten raves for their sound and their price point (they run about $350 or less a set right now).

I should also say that I don't really care at all for things like bass extension. I'm a firm believer that the artists and engineers who made the records put a lot of time and thought into making eq choices, so I never futz with eq settings at all. I like natural, balanced sound. But even more important than balanced sound is sound stage. Now, some of you might not be familiar with the idea of sound stage, but it is what it sounds like: the stage on which the sound is presented to the room. I went into the hi fi store looking for sound stage. And in the Atoms, I found it. There might be some of you out there asking "How can such a small set of speakers give any sort of sound staging?" Well, I'm not an engineer. All I know is they do. These are great sounding speakers that present tight, focused, and alive in the room. That's what speakers are supposed to do in my book.

Of course, the speakers are at the mercy of what powers them. With the rest of my money I really had two choices in the store (there're certainly other choices out there): a Cambridge Audio stereo receiver and a Marantz SR 5004. I went with the Marantz mostly because it had a built in phonograph amp and the reviews read quickly on my phone were really great. Not to mention that the set up in the store was the Atoms plus the Marantz. I went to the car and got a cd (Dark Side of the Moon). I like listening to that record because it's really dynamic and theres a great sound stage on it.

Well, the results were amazing. The record sounded great. It felt like it was surrounding me. The sound stage was awesome. Just to be sure, I had the guy in the store set up my current speakers (which they also sold) the Polk TSi100s. Te difference were night and day. I never hated the Polks, but listening t them after the Paradigms was like loosing a dimension. They were congested and lifeless. S the Paradigms and the Marantz went home with me and I've been rediscovering my music collection now for the past coulee weeks.

If you're looking for a great, reasonably priced stereo set up mainly for music (although it does sound great for TV as well) you could do a lot worse than this combo. In fact, you'll have to spend a lot more money to do much better.

Location:Brookwood Dr,Iowa City,United States

Lots to share

Been a busy week in the real life, so I haven't been able to get in here, but suffice it to say that I now have two iPads in the house--a 64gb iPad and a 16gb iPad2--and I'm deciding which one I should keep. Let me know what your thoughts are. The 64gb was on $49 more expensive than the iPad 2.

Also, Nintendo 3ds comes out today. Saw this clip from Jimmy Fallon and my GAS (Gadget Acquisition Syndrome) has flared again. This time mostly for the daughter, who would love the 3D pet game they have for the thing. Will I survive this Sunday without getting her one? We shall see.

Tablet Wars: A retreat

Well, I returned the Motorola Lapdock and the Motorola Xoom. Both very cool products that are half-baked. In a year, they'll be awesome. Right now, they are awesome ideas not worth the money required to purchase them.

I'm on the waiting list for an iPad 2, but when a 64GB Wi-Fi iPad can be had brand new for $529, is it really worth spending $500 for a 16GB iPad 2? Well, we shall see. 64GB iPad is syncing now...

Tablet War: Why do I need a tablet, anyway?

Wallet Moths:

Motorola Atrix 4G

Motarola Atrix Lapdock

OK. for thise who've been following with bated breath, you'll know a week or so ago I got the Motorola Xoom in anticipation of the iPad 2 release. I've had an iPad since day one last year and I've really liked it. But since then, I've been curious as to what the upstarts (Android) can do.


I gravitated from an iPhone to the Samsung Captivate last summer. I liked the promise of Android and aspects of the Captivate, but at the same time, the phone was buggy and frustrating from day one. I wanted to throw it against the wall most of the time. But when I upgraded the phone to Android 2.2 it got better.  Not good, but better.

The Xoom has better specs all around than the iPad 2. Android doesn't have the ecosystem of apps that Apple has. So I picked up the Xoom with every intention of returning it after i played around with it a while. And return it I will. At this writing, there's no other option in purchsing the Xoom other than buying the 3G version for $800, even though I have no interest in 3G. There is a wifi version coming out in a couple weeks, but that's going to be $600. Still more specs than the bargain basement iPad at $500, but still the same problem in terms of the apps and usefulness. I know that the Android Marketplace will catch up eventually, but what am I going to do with the thing until then?

That question got me thinking: What the hell do I need a tablet for anyway? The iPad is cool and I've used it, but my real hope was that it'd become an extension of my studio and a real boon to on-the-go writing and, well, it hasn't. It's a fun toy and great for surfing the web (but not as great as the Xoom). My daughter uses it more to play games like Big Buck Hunter (don't ask) than I do. What I use it most for is taking quick notes in meetings and such. Is that really worth $500?

Then I got to thinking. I hate my current phone, I like the Xoom. Motorola just came out with the Atrix, which is exactly the same as the Xoom inside, but is a phone. If I could convince the folks at ATT to let me upgrade early--really early--then I could solve all my probelms, because the Atrix also has waht they call a "Lapdock." It's this 11.6" super thin laptop shell that is powered by the phone itself. You can access all the functionality of the phone, including calls and texting. You can access all the apps. And the Lapdock uses a Webtop interface when paired to the phone to access a really limited bunch of apps and Firefox.It's a barebones setup, but compellig because it kills two birds: I have to have a phone but I also want to be able to do work with a lighteight, portable interface. Honestly, while using the keypad on the iPad was fine most of the time, it wasn't ideal and i'm not sure it ever will be. For one thing, as a writer, I cursed the burying of the quotation marks on the second screen of the keyboard. It made it impossible to do serious work on the thing. I found a couple apps that change the keyboard, but they had their own problems. I did like to edit on my iPad though, for some reason.

So yesterday I was at the mall for a few errands and I stopped into the ATT store to complain more about my Captivate. And I took a look at the Atrix. A very sweet phone. Comparable to Xoom in terms if speed, etc., although I like the unadulterated Honeycomb OS of the Xoom better than the Motoblur of the Atrix. Then my ATT guy (I know, weird I could say that, right?) jacks the phone into the Lapdock. It boots right away, like, in a few seconds. There's the phone. There's Firefox. Seems cool. I'm more than intrigued.

Let's get this out of the way: minutes before I'd bought a $100 gift card at Best Buy to reserve an iPad 2 when the next bath comes in (I was shutout on launch day because of personal issues beyond my control). But before that I was bemoaning to the wife how in many ways a netbook is more attractive to me than a tablet, especially if the idea is productivity. Now, I have no desire for a netbook. But there in the ATT store was what amounted to a netbook that I could power with my phone. If I could convince the ATT folks to let me upgrade after only 8 months with the Craptivate.

So I asked my guy what I could get out of the store paying  for the phone and the Lapdock. Out of contract, the phone is $600 and the dock $500. No way. And supposedly you have to add tethering to a data plan to the tune of $45 all tolled. Also not happening. I thought my dreams of trying this combo instead of the iPad were dead. But then my ATT guy worked some magic and I walked out of the store with the Atrix and the Lapdock for $500 and no tethering plan. It was black gadget magic. Pretty slick.

So now I'm typing this blog post on the Lapdock. The Lapdock is powered by my new phone (which is awesome) and it is nice to use a real keyboard while watching round one of the Tournament. Could I be using the Macbook resting three feet away? Yes, but this is compact and light. I said IT'S COMPACT AND LIGHT!!!!

Is it an iPad killer? No. But I think its also a harbinger of the future. As phones get more powerful, they will subsume the other devices, making the iPad obsolete, until the head of Steve Jobs in a glass jar invents the iPaper.

The Lapdock is good enough, but not full featured. It's balky in performance and ultimately won't offer enough performance to justify keeping it, just like the Xoom. But it is a device worth noting.

But let's be honest, when the call comes that my iPad 2 has arrived, this thing will go back to the store and the iPad will take its rightful, if not reluctant place in my bag as the best of a bunch of imperfect devices out there. If Moto and others really wanted to compete with Sensei Jobs, they'd do a better job of matching price points and concentrate on a few products and making them great instead of many that remain underdeveloped. That's how Apple dominated the market. Others who wish to compete need to learn the lesson.

Motorola Xoom vs. iPad vs. iPad2: The prelude

I got a Moto Xoom over the weekend to take on a test run in the lead up to the iPad2 release. The Xoom is the first real contender to challenge the iPad's supremacy (or should I say "magicalness"). It's specs outstrip the mach one iPad by a landslide. It's actually more specced out than the iPad2 as well. You can find detailed descriptions of how the thing differs from King iPad all over the internet, so I'm not going to dwell on that here. Over the next few days I'll keep fooling with it and then on Friday I'll check out the iPad2.

What concerns me most is whether either device builds on the foundation of the iPad1 enough to make them worth buying. I have used my iPad a lot in the past year. I'd like to see if either of these machines can build on that.

I can say that the Xoom is crazy fast and the notification systen is WAY better than iOS. Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), is the best iteration of Android I've seen yet.

Major downside: the thing costs $800. Can I justify keeping it with that price tag when I can go iPad2 for $500?

Stay tuned for the full smackdown coming soon.

In which I try to stream music Pt 2: And the winner is....

APPLE TV!!!!!

(FYI: This post is Part 2 of an exploration. See Part 1 here.)

I fooled around with the PC for the whole weekend a week ago. I got XBMC loaded. I tried to get Ubuntu working and finally got it to connect to my network but then couldn't get it to access my music library. And then I just stuck the thing downstairs connected to the home theater, still running Windows XP, still slow as Moses, and I'm going to use it as a glorified jukebox when I want some music in the HT.

The Apple TV was just so simple to setup up. And the Remote app makes it so easy to control it's just a no-brainer. I've watched a couple movies streaming and they're great. Watch Netflix with no problems. But for me the big win is that my whole music library is now available upstairs. And the Apple TV even knows what I last listened to at the PC. Pretty darn slick.

Most--no all--of the reviews I've read about the Apple TV focus on the video viewing capabilities of the Apple TV. Yes, it is more limited than other options (Roku, etc.), but it is the only set-top that will stream music as easily as this thing. And for me, that's the most important thing. I can now sit on my couch upstairs and enjoy music again without hooking up my phone.

Thanks, Apple TV! You're swell.

The Apple TV, for being awesome, but not allowing me to rule the world with an all-mighty fist, gets 4 Wallet Moths:

Trying to jerry rig an old PC into a media streaming behemoth gets 2 Wallet Moths, mostly because it was fun to mess around with, but ultimately a waste of time.

iPad 2...iPad 1 with cameras?

OK, so the big announcement has come. iPad2 is here. It's thinner. It comes in white (I'll believe that when I see it.). It has an available magnetic cover in different colors. But the thing is not a case, it's a cover. The back of the thing will remain unprotected by this precious-looking little piece of eye candy.

The good is that there's a dual-core A5 processor in there, so it'll be faster. And there's better graphics and a gyroscope like iPhone 4. And there are 2 cameras (front-facing and on the back) that are 720p.

I personally don't care about cameras on the iPad. I never thought it would be a device that taking pictures on would make sense. Just imagine holding the thing up and trying to steady it for a photo. There are some many devices better for that, like say, your camera.

But I digress.

The one important piece of tech that remains the same is the screen. I haven't been happy with the resolution on my iPad and have forsaken it as a reading device because the rendering of text was causing me a lot of eye strain. If the iPad2 had a new screen with better resolution, I might have been in line waiting for it, but now I don't know. It's pretty slick looking and I'm sure it's "Magical(TM)" but I don't see how the features that matter most to me have been significantly altered in this new version enough to make it make sense for me to buy one.

Will I suffer a bout of TAD (Tech Acquisition Disorder) and have to get one anyway? Maybe. But as of now It seems tome a nice update, but not worthy of selling the year-old iPad for the emperor's new clothes.

What do you think? To buy or not to buy?

Amanda Hocking has sold over 900,000 books...

...since last April.

That's absolutely insane.

What's even more insane is she's completely self-published.

I haven't read any of the books (but I just might to see what the fuss is about), but from the descriptions, they're genre fiction. Now, that's not a pejorative; I like genre stuff. I say this because I continue to follow the self publishing thing with an eye toward going that route myself. But my finished novel is not genre fiction. It's literary fiction. If I had any proof that literary fiction could enjoy that kind of success, then I'd think about self-publishing even harder. Something tells me that it wouldn't be a bad idea to get out in front of the whole thing. Who knows.

Just for shits and giggles, I've copied in some sales numbers for ebook sales on Amazon for December. Very interesting.

These are DECEMBER sales figures for some indie authors. In other words, they account for only 31 days of sales.

Blake Crouch - 2500+
Nathan Lowell - 2500+
Beth Orsoff - 2500+
Sandra Edwards - 2500+
Vianka Van Bokkem - 2500+
Maria Hooley - 2500+
C.S. Marks - 2500+
Lee Goldberg - 2500+
Lexi Revellian - 4000+
Zoe Winters - 4000+
Aaron Patterson - 4000+
Bella Andre - 5000+
Imogen Rose - 5000+
Ellen Fisher - 5000+
Tina Folsom - 5000+
Terri Reid - 5000+
David Dalglish - 5000+
Scott Nicholson - 10,000+
J.A. Konrath 10,000+
Victorine Lieske - 10,000+
L.J. Sellers - 10,000+
Michael R. Sullivan - 10,000+
H.P. Mallory - 20,000+
Selena Kitt - 20,000+
Stephen Leather - 40,000+
Amanda Hocking - 100,000+

Part of me really wants to walk up to a publisher and invoke Amanda Hocking's name just to see if said publisher explodes.

Here's a link to her blog: http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/



What say you, writing friends? This could be the future staring us right in the face, n'est pas?

In Which I Try to Stream Music Throughout the House, Part 1

VS.

All right, I looove my digital life, sure, but ever since my music went digital, I haven't been satisfied with my listening experience. I never liked jacking my phone into the AV receiver and I've had trouble getting a satisfying, high-quality solution streaming from a server to the various spots in the house where there are couches and I could chill and listen. So last night I embarked on a two part mission.

1) Take an old laptop I have here in the house and repurpose it as a media PC using a linux-based OS (for speed) and a program like XBMC or Boxee.

2) Buy an Apple TV (now only $99 and literally the size of a hockey puck) and see if that  would be a better solution than my abortive attempt at using an Airport Express a couple years ago. Since that time I've upgraded our router to an Airport Extreme, so I thought the chances were good for success.

So last night I spent hours fooling with the PC and never got it up and running right. I tried Ubuntu and it wouldn't hold a reliable wireless connection long enough to download any software. It was fun to mess around with the thing, but I would have liked to have had some result.

So I went to bed and woke up this morning with the plan fully formed in my head. Vaughan had a birthday party to go to at the mall, so I bought the Apple TV while we were waiting for that to be over. I would bring it home, install it on one TV and then I'd install the PC on the other (if I can ever get it running reliably) and see which one wins.

So far, the Apple TV installed in ten minutes, found all my music, videos and pictures in one minute and is now playing away in the downsatirs home theater as I type.

The laptop is one the floor, waiting for me to install Xubuntu (a little smaller, faster version of Ubuntu) to see if I can get it going.

The Apple TV functions with the touchscreen of the iPad as well, making it one of the best user experiences I've had with a remote ever.

Round 1 winner: Apple TV by a long shot. Not only because it was easy to get up and running, the Remote app, plus the easy navigation are pretty sweet. Stay tuned for round 2, where we'll see if the laptop can come out swinging.

Dynamite Yorke!

OK, I wanted Thom Yorke and Napoleon Dynamite to dance to "Lotus Flower" together. So I made it happen.

How do we educate our kids? Seriously, lets think about it.

Part of what I do is teach people. And I'm someone who, by and large, was failed by teaching. I was failed by the system and I wanted more, so I found it, but not before I thought many bad things about myself, and the educational system I was subjected to. Sound familiar?

And so, as someone who teaches people, and as a parent, and a recovering graduate of an inadequate educational system, I think about how, why, what and when we teach what we teach to our children. This week I was introduced to Sir Ken Robinson (online, not in person), who thinks along the same lines (he's been knighted for it, I have been...well, not) and articulates what many of us fret over those sleepless nights where we wonder how we got where we are and how our kids might ever have the chance to do better.

I encourage you all to watch these videos--teachers and parents doubly so. We owe it to our kids to consider this conversation and act on it vigorously.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html


http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/10/14/rsa-animate-changing-education-paradigms/

I am so pissed at Radiohead

This is the album art. Pretty cool. I just wish it would show up in my player while I'm listening to the album.

Man, I'm so ticked off at Radiohead. I downloaded their new LP, The King of Limbs, last night and spent the extra $$ for the .wav versions. I love's me some fidelity. So I go to load it into my player and there's no metadata attached to the files (that's the stuff that tells iTunes or whatever you're using what song, band, album, etc.). Grrrr.

Think I'm overreacting? How would you feel if you went to the record store and bought a record and all you got was a blank CD-R with no writing or art?

Maybe this is just a shortcoming of .wavs, but I did pay $15 . I don't want added headache and work for the pleasure. Half-assed job by the band? If it is a shortcoming of .wavs, then there should have been some readme info in the folder as well.

If you ask me, major fail, Radiohead.

Meanwhile, the LP is quite good after an initial data-less listen. Here's a video, which is creepy in a very satisfying Radiohead way:

Why did I buy a PC?

Excellent question. Why did I buy a PC? Or more specifically, why did I buy three PCs? Or why didn't I buy another Mac? Or why did I buy another computer at all, given that we had four in the house already? The whole thing started out with wanting to buy a computer that the whole family could use. We have a Macbook, but it always just seems to float around the house and not get used. I have my studio computer, but I hate doing anything with that machine that isn't studio related for fear of screwing up the delicate ecosystem I've got going there, so around Xmas I started shopping around for a PC.

Why not get another Mac, you might ask? I've been a lifelong Mac guy. I've owned many over the years and I've always liked them a ton more than the PCs in my life. But as I started looking around at computers I realized I wanted more of a Mac than I was willing to spend money on. I wanted a machine that would be good for the family to use, but I also wanted a machine that would be fun for me to use, and it was becoming clear to me as I did the research that that meant a computer to play games. I love to play games, even though I don't have as much time to play as I used to, and my daughter loves to play games. So I went in search of a PC that would play modern games.

First I bought an HP TouchSmart PC. I thought this would be a good solution. The touchscreen interface was pretty darn cool. But after getting it home and having it for a week, it was clear that none of us were going to use the touchscreen technology. Why is that? I have no idea. I have no problem using the touchscreen on my phone or iPad. I thought the same paradigm would be great for the PC, but no. I just used it like a regular computer, and so did the rest of the family. And to make matters a little more complicated, the PC was designed to sit a lot  closer to the user on the desk than most computers (in case you did want to interact with the screen) so all available desk space was taken  away. And finally, I decided to slake my urge to start playing World of Warcraft again. I loaded WoW onto the HP and started to play, but the performance was way subpar. This just didn't seem right in a brand new computer. I started doing some research and this is where I began to discover the wiles of a land hither-to unknown to me: The land of the underpowered video card.

I fretted over what to do for a few days. I liked the all-in-oneness of the TouchSmart. I really liked Windows 7 (more on that later). It was a cute little computer. Not as slick as an iMac, but different enough that I wanted to keep it. So I slogged away for a couple days playing WoW at less than 10 frames per second and then I decided to take it back.

I still couldn't afford to spend $1200-$1500 on another iMac, so I kept looking at the PCs. I decided on an HP tower that the Best Buy kid who helped me swore would run WoW the way I wanted. I got it home, I set it up, and no dice. Still single digit FPS. The culprit this time: Integrated video card. Who knew?

Now I was on a mission. I wanted to play games at the best possible framerates. I deserved it (so I told myself) and if I was going to spend money on a PC I was going to get something that I wouldn't be dissatisfied with. So I took the second HP back to Best Buy (By this time, the local BB had opened an express return lane explicitly for my use) and I went back to the PC section to continue my search.

I cornered another BB kid and told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn't leaving that store until I had a machine that would run WoW at 60 FPS on Ultra. And I wasn't going to spend more than $1000. )I hadn't yet told the wife about the $1000 yet).

My young helper convened a quorum of the best computer minds in the Best Buy and they identified two computers that would satisfied my jones for high framerates, or at least come close. One option was to go with a Mac Mini (cruel irony!) and almost get there or to go with a Gateway FX 6840. Now, I'm not going to bore you with the specs of either computer. I'll provide a link and you can look them up and I know that there are those among you who are chiding me for looking for an off-the-shelf- solution for my gaming PC needs, and I should just build one myself, but I say to you, life is short and I have took many hobbies as it is. I wasn't about to add gaming computer home spinner to the list.

The long and short of it was that the Mac Mini would do a pretty good job at playing the game (and most others) and it was a couple hundred dollars cheaper that the Gateway. The Gateway would definitely get me to the homeland, but I'd have to pay for it. That's where the thought of why spend the money if you're not really getting what you want? So I bought the Gateway and brought it home and I've been extremely happy with it.

This is where I want to extol the virtues of Windows 7. I have been a longtime hater of Windows. I've found it clunky and obstinate as a work tool and never would I have called it sexy. But Windows 7 is a different story. The interface has a lot of little nuances that I'm sure Apple will include in some form in their next version of OS10. The dock is better, the window configurations are better. The library system is better than Apple's and Windows does a pretty good job of understanding what you're trying to do and helping. This was not always the case. In the past, when I migrated from an Apple to a Windows PC, I felt like I was going from Whole Foods to Aldi, but now they are on a really even playing field. I enjoy the Windows 7 experience and find that I enjoy the Apple experience less. Talk about a turn around. I have to tip my hat to the folks in Redmond for pulling this one out of their a-holes after the Vista disaster.

So now I'm a computer user who lives in two worlds. I make music on a Mac and I listen to music and play games and do other life things on a PC. I really like my Gateway FX. It's slick in a way Macs are not and it's so powerful that it sometimes take my breath away (I know, sad, right?).

Seriously, Otter Box cases are effing ugly.

iPhone 4 OtterBox case, circa 2011

TI calculator from eons ago

Want your super-fancy smartphone or tablet to be more protected than the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken AND to look like a Texas Instruments calculator from 1982? Consider the Otter Box as your portable device protection solution. You'll curse us later.

And, until people come to their senses and refuse to pay this much, as an added insult-to-injury bonus the Otter Box will cost you way more than you should pay for it ($50 for and iPhone 4 case or an even more unreasonable $90 for an iPad case).
 
Just look at how crappy your sleek and beautiful iPad can look when you shackle it with the Otter Box Commuter series case:

And that's not all! When you apply the OtterBox case to your device, it will immediately transform itself from a reasonably-weighted portable device to an unwieldy, rubberized brick, rendering it cumbersome and annoying, a downright pain in the ass to cart around!

Shop Now!

Teaching with Kindle, Take One

Well, today I had my first class where I tried to teach using the Kindle instead of a real book. Epic fail. The students were throwing out page numbers, and as Kindle users know, Kindle don't got no page numbers. I might have had better luck searching for keywords, but I didn't want to ask students to give me a searchable phrase so I could catch up to them.

Anyone out there teaching with ereaders or the like? What's your experience?

UPDATE: Just yesterday, Amazon announced that Kindle will now feature real page numbers through an OS update. Glad I could be the straw that broke the camel's back. Thursday I will attempt to teach with Kindle again and report back.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20030926-1.html?tag=cnetRiver

The Les Paul: Is it worth the dough?

This is a tough question. One that I've pondered for a long, long time. Not exclusively about the Les Paul, but about about expensive guitars in general. I've been playing guitar since I was five and, well, that was 35 years ago (eek!), and I've had a lot of guitars over the years. Some good. Some kind of expensive, some bad. Right now I have 9 guitars and all of them are good for something. My Martin D-15 was the first really nice guitar I ever bought for myslef. I did used to have a 1976 Telecaster Deluxe, but it was never a great player for me even after a refret, so I sold it to a dude in Australia on eBay. I hope he's happy with it, because I never was. I also had an American Tele for a while, but didn't love it. When I sold the Tele Deluxe, I bought an Epiphone Dot to replace it. I went to every guitar shop in NYC and player every Dot they had until I found the one that played well. I never even plugged it into an amp. I took it off the wall, strummed a few chords, and just by the way it was ringing out and the neck was fretting I knew that it was a solid guitar and if needed could be improved. I still have that  guitar and still think it's a fine player. It has a plastic nut and the Gibson pickups that are in it aren't the greatest, but they get the job done.

The Guitar Wall

And this kind of leads me to my first point about whether or not it's worth it to buy a Les Paul: I'm a firm believer in the idea that it's not the tools that build the house, it's the craftsman wields the tools. Like I said, I have a lot of guitars, the Les Paul is by far the nicest and most expensive, and yes, it is my best playing guitar, but it's not a panacea for everything. Yes, when you plug it in and you strum a chord or play a lick, it has a sound that is a very familiar sound. One that we've been hearing on records for over 60 years. And yes, it is easy to get that sound out of the guitar. Really easy. And the Les Paul is an easy guitar to play. Really easy. Like I've said, I've been playing for 35 years. And I make no claims to being a shredder of any kind. I play to back myself up. I'm a good rhythm player. But after a week or so of playing the Les Paul, I was most definitely a better player than I had been before, there's no doubt about it.

So is it worth it? Well, as you can guess, my short answer is: Yes. These guitars are hand crafted, they use the best materials out there and they have premium pickups. All of those elements make it easier for you to do your job as a player. But the cost is steep. I bought a used 2008 Les Paul Traditional. The Les Paul Standard was changed pretty significantly in 2008 to compete more with makers like PRS and to appeal to players looking for a more modern sound. The have what are called Burstbucker pickups in them and I found that I didn't care for the, The Standards are still the priciest non-custom shop guitars. They run about $2700 and up. The Traditional line is more like the Standard from the early 80s. these are heavy ass guitars too. Mine weighs upwards of 9 or 10 lbs. They are loaded with the '57 Classic pickups, which have more of a vintage sound. That's what appeals to me, so that's what I was looking for. But I didn't know that at first.

That brings me to my second point about these guitars: You absolutely cannot order one off the rack, sight unseen. When I went out shopping I had 6 guitars in a semi-circle around me and I went from one to the other for the better part of two hours and every single one of them was different. Not just different feeling, but different sounding. Drastically so. Yes, they were all made of the same kinds of wood. Yes, they all had basically the same hardware, but these are handmade instruments. Each one has taken a slightly different journey to your hands and you need to factor that into your decision. A hard thing to wrap your head around in this world where everything seems to be interchangeable.

The Les Paul Studio

The first Les Paul that I bought was a Les Paul Studio. These are the less frilly step brothers to the Trads and Standards. There are several differences that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say if the Les Paul Studio were the only guitar I had to play for the rest of my life I'd be pretty happy. But I was spending over $1000 for the guitar ($1300 to be exact). I got it home and noticed some of the lacquer was popping out on the neck where the frets were. I thought that wasn't right. So I took the thing back. I looked at the other Studios in the shop and none of them were that great. Some of them were terrible. I just couldn't see myself taking one home. And then the shop guy took me to the used wall and asked me to check out the Traditional that had just come in. When you shop for a Les Paul, you'll start to read phrases like "Chambered" and "weight-relieved." The former means that big sections of the mahogany body have been routed out to take off some of the weight. The latter is similar, but insetead of routing the guitar out, Gibson drills out 9 strategically placed holes in the body. Now, these aren't visible because the Les Paul body is two layers: maple on top and mahogany on the under side.

Well, this Traditional was freaking heavy. It must have was a full two or three lbs more than the Studio. I sat down and before I plugged it in I finger-strummed a G chord. I could feel it the whole way through the guitar. The thing just felt right. I knew I was going to buy it before the cable went into the jack. Since it was used, they were asking $1800 for it, but I got a great Labor Day deal and walked out with the guitar for $1500.

2008 Les Paul Traditional Plus (Desert Burst finish)

And do I regret the purchase? Not at all. That guitar has made me a better player. The better materials make a difference...a big difference. But like I said, not every Les Paul is equal and not every player will feel the same way about every guitar. I actually don't recommend that someone who's just started playing go out and buy a Les Paul (or any other top shelf guitar for that matter). It's important to have a good guitar that plays well, doesn't fight you, stays in tune and makes you hum with pride, but an investment of $1000-$2000 was something I felt I needed to earn for myself and I didn't feel like I got there until I'd been playing for a long time. Maybe I'm still not, but I'm glad I made the purchase. This guitar is the perfect complement to the rest of my collection. It fills in a sound in my pallet that my other guitars were and it's versatile enough that I can get a lot of surprising sounds out of it. And it looks effing cool as hell.

What are your experiences with expensive guitars Les Pauls or otherwise? If anyone's interested, I could try to do a little shootout with the LP and my other electrics to give you a flavor. Might be a couple weeks before I can do it, but let me know if that's interesting to you.

The Les Paul gets 5 Wallet Moths!

So is the Les Paul worth the $$? I say yes, but be sure you're getting the guitar of your dreams when you buy one. And that will require you spend some time and give everything a lot of thought.

I'm an IBMer?

What the heck does this mean? Can someone please tell what IBM is trying to sell with these "I'm an IBMer" ads? I mean, can I go out and buy Watson and have a super computer to play Jeopardy against? Can I go out and buy a better traffic grid?

When I'm forced to watch ads over and over again, I at least like to know what they're trying to cram down my throat.

Anyone?

Kindle 3 Unboxing

This is my first shot at an unboxing video. Don't know if I'll do it again. I picked up a Kindle 3 over the weekend because I was advised to take some money that's coming my way and spend it all on something. And since that money has to do with writing and reading, I figured I'd spend it on the same. And yes, I have an iPad and a Sony Reader (well, the Sony's been sold), but the Kindle 3 wore me down for several reasons, chief amongst those I have a bunch of Kindle books that I've bought and have read on my phone and the iPad, and I had an eye exam the other day and the doctor told me if I was feeling eye strain (and I was) I should consider an eInk device for reading.

The first Kindle I got went haywire and kept crashing, so I returned it for another one. Aside from that, the reading experience has been really great. I finished a book last night and start reading another this morning as well as work on some manuscripts for the journal I've been editing. We'll see if this Kindle holds up. I'll be back periodically with updates.

Disclaimer: Sorry the video is blurry throughout. I used my Flip Ultra HD and it didn't like the up-closeness of my shots. Still, the audio is pithy...

RocketFish LED book light

Rocketfish™ eReader Clip-On LED Light on Best Buy

I bought this to go along with my new Kindle and as soon as I took it out of the box I knew it was going back. I'd rate the quality of the materials used as comparable to something you'd get out of a gumball machine. But look and feel aside, I figured I'd try it. The thing doesn't even cast light on the ebook reader. It shines on you instead. The light that is cast on the reader is wavy and dim. Completely unacceptable.

Rocketfish is Best Buy's house brand. They knock off other company's products. I've bought a few Roctetfish products in the past and they've been OK. Best Buy should be ashamed of themselves for selling this piece of junk. For the same price you can buy something of better quality through Amazon. This product should be removed from the shelves. Immediately.

Pros: It's returnable.

Cons: The product.

CDBaby gets into the DIY book business.

So now worlds collide and CDBaby has gotten into the DIY book biz with BookBaby. I use CDBaby to get my records onto the various digital stores and now it looks like they're providing a similar service for ebooks.

I don't know how their service compares or if they're a day late and a dollar short when dealing with outlets like lulu and CreateSpace, but this'll be something that I look into.

In other news, I have a new draft of the novel that's been streamlined in a few places and I've sent it out again. We shall see how that goes. I've made a pact to send it out to at least three or four places each week and if there's nothing going on by June, I'm going to do the DIY thing.

And I've also vowed to take the word self-published out of my vocabulary when I talk about this stuff. I like DIY or indie a lot better.

Here's a link to the bookbaby site if you want to check out what they're offering. http://stuffidontneed.blogspot.com/2011/01/cdbaby-gets-into-diy-book-business.html

I'll look at it more closely soon. If nothing else, the fact that they've jumped into the fray means someone outside the DIY pub industry is seeing potential here. Or am I wrong? Thoughts?

Update:  I just did a little more research (I looked at their splash page). They want $99 to distribute your book. Sounds like a crap deal to me.

The Social Network

Just watched The Social Network. I'm left wondering if I should admire Mark Zuckerberg or feel sorry for him. Probably both.

In which I offer my headphone wisdom

My go-to cans

  There are millions of headphones out there today. Some really expensive, some really cheap, some free with your phone or iPod, but no matter where they came from or how much you've paid there's only one real requirement for a pair of cans: they have to sound good.

I have been searching for some good phones for a long time. And I've found some, so I thought let you all know what I've discovered. Maybe it'll help you out.

First off, let's get this out of the way: whatever phones came with whatever player you have are terrible. There's no wiggle room here. If you want decent fidelity, you're going to have to bu something else. The closest I've ever had to good free cans were the phones that came with my Samsung Captivate. They sounded really good, very flat and clean, but they aren't very well-made and didn't fit very well. Fit's almost as important as sound, so I tired of them pretty quickly.

You might also think that if you spend over a hundred bucks you'll be in good shape. Not so fast. You can spend a lot more than that and get some pretty terrible phones. I bought a pair of Dr. Dre Beats Solos on a whim once and tried them out before I left the parking lot of the Best Buy. They were terrible. I couldn't even listen to one full song. They were back in the box and I was in the return line within ten minutes. I didn't try the $250 Beats, but they seem more like a fashion statement and a money grab by the good Doctor than anything else.

So without further ado, I'm going to give you my picks for the best phones I've bought in different price ranges. I should tell you that I am not someone who likes hyped sound in anything I listen to. As someone who's worked in the studio for years, I know engineers work really hard to get records to sound the way they want them to, so who the hell are we to jack the bass to rump quaking levels. When I buy headphones I want to hear the music as intended, not artificially basements, so any set of phones that amplifies the bass is out for me.

Nice, long cord, Brillo pad earcups, great sound.

For sitting around the house and listening I pick the Grado SR80. I bought these moments after I returned the Beats. They are everything the Beats aren't; smooth, detailed and open sounding. They are also very open. That why I recommend them for home use, and preferably when your significant other isn't trying to sleep beside you. The Grados have what's called an open-backed design. This helps them get their open sound, but they are also very audible to anyone else in the room when you're listening. The other downside to the Grados is the ear cushions. They are like wearing Brillo pads on your ears. I got the old design. The newer ones (the SR80i) are more cushy, but just FYI. But they do sound fantastic.

Cheap, but effective. Not the best, but fine fit and sound for commuting.

In the earbud category, I have had a set of Shure se210s. They sounded really good, but they had phone controls they kept breaking. Totally unreliable. I've given up on phones with phone controls. I used the Samsung phones for awhile, but they started to fall apart. I bought an expensive set of klipsch earbuds that were highly recommended on other, more fancy review sites. They sounded terrible. And then on a whim I bought a set of skullcandy ink'd earbuds on a whim. They were on sale for ten bucks. Low and behold, they sound great. So much better than the klipsch that cost ninety dollars more. The bass in the ink'ds is a little hyped in the low mids, but not so much as to muddy the sound. For ten dollars, you'd be crazy not to try them.

Tried and true. The old workhorses.

But now, for the best headphones I've ever had: the Sony MDR 7506. I bought these in 2002 when I first started recording. They were a little bright when I first got them, but after a while they smoothed out and have been great ever since. I've had them for almost ten years. Wow. The faux leather on the ear cups has peeled, and I don't like the coiled cord, but longevity and fidelity can't be argued with. They are closed back, so you can wear them without disturbing anyone. And now they're under a hundred bucks. If you're looking for solid, all-purpose phones, these are hard to beat.

Now, this is by no means an exhaustive review of headphones. This is my experience with what has worked for me. I'm sure that hundreds of dollars would get you phones that would blow any of these away. But headphones aren't really worth spending hundreds of dollars on, if you ask me. They are secondary means of listening to music. There are more important things to spend your tech dollar on unless your in a more rarefied tax bracket. And most of us aren't.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Basement couch

Self-publishing continued...

OK, I've been researching this self-pub thing all week. I've order a test copy of my book through lulu.com (it arrives today. I'm actually really excited, even though it's only for me), I got a draft of the book ready to put on amazon.com in less than TEN minutes. I've also sent out the book to a couple more small presses and a couple more agents. But I just found this blog : A Newbie's Guide to Self-Publishing. It posts some pretty mind-boggling numbers. Like these:

"These are DECEMBER sales figures for some indie authors. In other words, they account for only 31 days of sales.

Are you ready to be blown away?
Blake Crouch - 2500+
Nathan Lowell - 2500+
Beth Orsoff - 2500+
Sandra Edwards - 2500+
Vianka Van Bokkem - 2500+
Maria Hooley - 2500+
C.S. Marks - 2500+
Lee Goldberg - 2500+
Lexi Revellian - 4000+
Zoe Winters - 4000+
Aaron Patterson - 4000+
Bella Andre - 5000+
Imogen Rose - 5000+
Ellen Fisher - 5000+
Tina Folsom - 5000+
Terri Reid - 5000+
David Dalglish - 5000+
Scott Nicholson - 10,000+
J.A. Konrath 10,000+
Victorine Lieske - 10,000+
L.J. Sellers - 10,000+
Michael R. Sullivan - 10,000+
H.P. Mallory - 20,000+
Selena Kitt - 20,000+
Stephen Leather - 40,000+
Amanda Hocking - 100,000+

For a more detailed breakdown, visit Derek J. Canyon's blog http://derekjcanyon.blogspot.com/2011/01/keys-to-epublishing-success.html. This was compiled by him, and Robin Sullivan."

Amanda Hocking, 100K+?!?!? I mean, that's hard to fathom.

There's one commonality amongst them all that gives me pause, however: They all write genre fiction of one kind or another. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a lover of good genre fiction, but the book I'm considering self-pubbing is not genre fiction. There's no niche market for this book, unless you count Appalachians, and we all know they can't read (I joke, I joke!). So can anyone out there point me toward numbers for self-pubbed literary fiction? I'll keep looking myself and report back.

In the meantime, I promise to post some tech stuff here too. I'm working on something about headphones and also thinking about the Motorola Atrix, which everyone seemed to be abuzz about during CES, but my question remains, when you have a computer, a TV, etc, why would you want to plug you phone into one of those devices and use it as the content provider. Stay tuned!

Self-published is a bad word, right?

I know, this is a tech blog, but bear with me, I have some stuff to work out.

Long story short, I have a novel that took me five years to write, and has been done since November 2009. And by done, I mean that I wrote six drafts of it (a few completely from scratch) and when I put the final period on the last draft, the book was the book that I wanted it to be, maybe not perfect, but the book I wanted to write.

Fast-forward to the present day: The book has been around to several agents and publishers, most of whom have had very nice things to say about the book and the writing, but no one has taken it. Some have blamed the market, some have said they liked it but didn't "connect" with it. The list goes on. These are common rejections if you sit around a table with writers and listen to them tell their stories. Let me say right now that, while these rejections have been disappointing, I wouldn't go as far to say they were disheartening or discouraging. In some cases they were quite the opposite. Rejection is part of the writer's life and I've been rejected a ton, so I'm as used to it as can be. A sage teacher once revealed that he sent his stuff out expecting rejection, in fact early in his career he set out to collect rejections.

As the new year arrived, I wanted to start thinking fresh about my book and where I am with my writing and my life. Not only do I have this book done, but I'm almost finished with the first draft my next novel and I have a couple more in various stages of planning and completion. I have a job that keeps me in touch with writing and teaching, so I don't need to support myself with my writing.

The question becomes why do I write, anyway? Well, a big reason, the simplest reason, is that I'm a writer. Writers write, as the saying goes. But it's not just the acting of sitting your ass in a chair and pounding out a few hundred words. I do it because I can't not do it. I'm compelled by a drive that goes beyond the need for recognition and accolade and rests somewhere in the pit of my stomach: I have to say something and I have to say it for me. I have to write or I'm not me. There's more to it than this, but I don't want to get all self-helpy.

So back to the self-publishing thing. Most of my "professional" life has been in advertising, marketing and publishing. I've been a proofreader, a copy editor, an editor, a graphic designer, a marketing manager, a copywriter; I've done just about everything there is to do when it comes to the creation and promotion of printed media. I looked into some of the self-publishing options available now and, honestly, I'm impressed, particularly with LULU.com. Lulu has everything necessary to create a professional-quality book, including ISBN numbers, voluminous print options, templates for design, eBook distribution to Amazon and elsewhere, and other promo opportunities...the list goes on.  And I have the knowledge and ability to use lulu or another service to its full extent. Do I just go for it?

The only thing that continuing to send my  book out to agents and publishers would get me is the satisfaction of knowing that someone who already does what I know how to do has told me that I'm worthy of the effort of putting my book out there, right? Do I need someone to tell me that? Am I making excuses and short-cutting if I self publish? If the reason I write is because I have something I need to say that I hope others will find merit in, then why continue to court the middle man, when their tools are available to all now?

Yes, writers write. And I am a writer. But writing is an art form that is in many ways incomplete without the other side of the equation: the reader. If a writer's job is to give a reader just enough of the world in his mind that the reader can complete the picture in theirs, then shouldn't I seek out readers for my work? I felt strongly enough about this book to spend more than half a decade with it. Don't I then owe the work an audience, no matter how small? To put this in perspective, I started it when my daughter was one and now she's seven. Her whole life has been me with this book. I've grown it and suffered with it and felt proud of it. Should it then live the rest of its life in a box because others haven't found the same wonder in it that I have?

So, in  a world where the publishing industry is failing according to many and the means of production are available at a high level to everyone, should I release my book into the world to see how it fares and move on with my new projects, or is there a reason to keep pounding away at the traditional structure in the hopes of acceptance?

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

2011, the year of the batch install: Ninite

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm spending my new year at home this year, tucking my girls into bed and sipping some Diet Cherry 7up (it has antioxidants). I'm also breaking in a new PC. Actually, my third in two weeks (more on that later).

I just had to share this new site/installer I found called Ninite. What it does is gives you a list of about seventy or so programs (Chrome, Firefox, VLC, Skype, iTunes, etc.) and lets you tick a box next to the programs you want to install and then you hit the button at the bottom of the page and the thing installs all the programs you want. Mine was done in less the five minutes. Very cool.

Here's the link: http://ninite.com/installer/84a22594182e17127063200e91257e647660ea03

Check it out.