Saturday, February 26, 2011

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.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Dynamite Yorke!


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

Saturday, February 19, 2011

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:

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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?).

Thursday, February 10, 2011

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!

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