The Musical MUST-KNOWS you should know!

Kitara MIDI synth guitar shows some promise

2011-11-23T22:51:00.000Z

I'm not sure I need one but I'd sure as heck like one. Just to muck around with. To be honest though I haven't even scratched the surface of DAWs, MIDI controllers and VSTi synths, let alone playing one "guitar-style", so why I'd want to venture in yet more unknown territory I'm not sure. Aside from the novelty and the chance that something new may come out of it. In the mean time I'll continue with a real guitar and a USB cable I guess...

Review: The Kitara digital guitar synthesizer

The instrument is ready to play right out of the box - by plugging the adapter into the wall socket, the 0.25-inch cable into an amp and cranking it up. There's a default sound loaded (which serves as a first reminder, if one is needed, that the Kitara may look a tad like a guitar but it isn't one) - and touchpad mode is enabled, meaning that you have to have your fingers on one or more neck buttons and tap the screen at the same time to get a sound.

Best DAW for the money? What a question! Ableton? Reaper? Mixcraft?

2011-08-25T01:35:00.001Z

I've tried just about every Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) there is and whilst I'm no expert - or even musician - I do have enough knowledge to get by, and to form an opinion. So here it is!

Oh, and I use PC hardware, either under Win7 or XP SP3. You don't need to buy an expensive top-range machine or an even more expensive Apple product, IMHO, but lots of RAM, lots of storage and good audio-out will help immensely. (OK, get the best processor you can afford but mid-to-high range is OK). All of the software I've tested has worked with the well known free ASIO driver (sometimes after a struggle) and USB cables leading to either or both of a plain and ordinary Fender Strat or a MIDI controller (usually with no problems). They have all worked with 99% of the VSTs and VSTis I've tried, too, but yes there have been quirks!

FWIW Ableton Live 8 is my all-time favourite - I have a "Lite" version courtesy of my M-Audio MIDI controller/keyboard (i.e. it came on a CD with the hardware) and it's a powerful, intuitive DAW loaded with features and cool tools. It rarely if ever crashes on my 3-year old XP SP3 box and is just the best product I've used. It's high quality. It's also a bit different to work with at first but once you have it in your head, it works well. Alas the Lite version is crippled and almost useless - almost, but not quite - and the full version is too expensive for my budget. So I tend to use it as just one option among several. Oh, and even the "Lite" version is huge - in that respect it probably looks and feels more "serious" and capable. Whether it actually delivers on that promise is another thing, but it sure looks cool!

But in fact my first choice day-to-day is Mixcraft 5. It's easy, obvious and well-featured. It has a wealth of packaged VSTs and VSTis to play with and it handles videos, too. It crashes too often but recovers automagically, usually. It has most of the features you want, or need (maybe 85%?), and if it lacks at all then there's Reaper, isn't there? I use it as my first choice because it just about does everything and I've become so used to it that I probably do a quicker job, better. It's not a gargantuan download like Ableton or the other "name" brands and extends itself gradually as you download more of the free loops. Oh yeah, it was that library of samples that probably swung it for me.

But I did mention Reaper, didn't I? Well it does maybe 95% of what I'd want (including video) and it's also pretty easy to use. For a long time it was neck and neck between Mixcraft and Reaper, at least in my view. And if Mixcraft falls over then Reaper is my backup (although it easily be the other way around!). If I want something sonically cooler I go up to Ableton Live Lite, do the job and come back to finish it in Mixcraft or Reaper. It's more about familiarity and comfort than anything else, although there are procedural differences in how these programs work that may drive a better conclusion sometimes. Oh, and Reaper is also cheap, relatively speaking.

I also like FL Studio a lot. In another universe I may have chosen FL (or Fruity Loops if you like) but my money only stretched so far....

And I won't disparage the others, they all worked well. If I started my DAW habit all over again from scratch, did the research and had a larger budget I imagine my choices would be entirely different. But the above is what I prefer, for the reasons given.

What's the best DAW in the world today? | MusicRadar.com

It's been well over a year since MusicRadar users crowned Reaper as the best DAW in the world today - now we're asking you to vote for your favourite digital audio workstation all over again.

I'm here - and also there

2011-07-13T02:47:00.002Z

I've been a bit slack here with my posting but there's been a lot more activity on my other blogs... please check 'em out!

Addicted2wheels - bike racing for everyone
Offline - my take on the planet and its politics
Dopage - all the dope on the dopes who dope, allegedly
Secrets of a Sydney Past - personal photos and recollections of Sydney's history
Central Coast Imagery - my photography blog
Musical Must-knows - software and gadgets for the electronic audio artiste
My Alfa Blog - as in rust-free Italians
My PC Help Blog - as in fixing hardware and software

Rare footage as Halpin stands in for Moon on drums - The Who 1973

2011-05-29T22:33:00.000Z

The story as I recall it was that Keith Moon took some "elephant tranquilisers" and collapsed. Pete Townshend decided that the show must go on - and he showed consistency in this when more recently bassist Entwistle died - and asked if anyone in the audience "could play drums". Scott Halpin put his hand up for the gig of his life...

List-time! Umpteen VSTs and VSTis reviewed in brief. And I do mean brief.

2010-07-31T23:58:00.030Z

This is what you may call a 'work in progress'. I'll refine it over time, add links and further notes, including my absolute preferences. I'm sure you'll have your own ideas and preferences, but here are some of mine...

First up, I use these VSTs and VSTis in moderation, coupled with the standard pack of virtual plug-ins provided with most audio analysers, editors and DAWS.

My first preference for a host is to use Mixcraft, often in tandem with Audacity. I also use Reaper and Anvil Studio and occasionally Ableton Live. I really do prefer Mixcraft for its simple but comprehensive nature but if I had all the money and time in the world Ableton Live would be my winner overall. But I don't have the time to learn it thoroughly enough, so hats off to Mixcraft as my DAW of choice. It does video as well, as does Reaper, another powerful option.

There are some standouts in the list which I mention in more detail later, but Independence Free, Satellite Free and UVI Workstation come to mind as 3 I'll mention upfront. Consequence would be great if I could figure out how to get it to work when I want it to work. And PreparationP is worth a mention for its amazing piano sounds, or something like a piano anyway.

So, to the list - in rough alphabetical order, I hope...

VSTs
A0 Neosweep - handy frequency shifter. NeoSweep is a simple 12dB/oct. resonant filter with a limiter added at the end of the process chain. The cutoff of the filter can be controlled via both VST automation, MIDI control change messages and MIDI keys.

ADopplerEn2 - 8 voice chorus with loads of control

Ambience - reverb with 90 wonderful presets, loads of control over final sound

AmpliTube2DUOLERW - demo with 12 British or American amp simulations. AmpliTube 2 DUO is a special limited version of AmpliTube 2, which is a complete guitar amp modeling solution and effects powerhouse with ultra accurate models of the most sought-after gear and the ability to mix and match separate components to build your own amps and craft a unique and ultimate tone. Extremely easy to use, AmpliTube has been used in recording countless albums and Grammy award-winning productions. AmpliTube 2 DUO is designed to demonstrate the unlimited possibilities of AmpliTube 2 and qualifies users for special discounted prices on the AmpliTube 2 upgrade and also on discounted crossgrades across a wide range of IK products.

AtlantisFilter - lots of filtering options including "random all"

BJ Flanger - useful, highly configurable flanger

BJ LoFi - control over Bit, Rate and Interpolate, but my cloth ears can't tell

BJ Overdrive - Drive, depth and volume

BJ Ringmodulator - with 8 controls for those Darlek moments

VSTis
AM Freehand Free - synth with about 100 presets, loaded with bass but plenty of variety. Excellent. 3 Wavetable Oscillators, 135 prefab waveforms in 10 categories, Wavedrawing, Random wave generation, Frequency Modulation, Double FM CV Sequencer, Pitch Sequencer with individual outputs - you name it, it seems to have it. Freehand is a wavetable synth that can produce a wide range of sounds, as you can draw your own waveforms, save and load them up again, even randomize your waveforms. Also it has got frequency modulation sequencers added to the FM features, which gives Freehand a unique sound. Inlcuded are over 150 waveforms and 100 presets. Freehand comes in two versions, SL and Full. The full version will set you back only 10 dollars, and gives you more features, for instance an additional 200 professional presets making a total of 300 presets, and 32 voices.

AM Karbass - 31 presets, all bass, all good. KarBass is a straight forward bass synth, with a Karplus oscillator that brings string like sounds. Smoothing gives you pick to fingered sounds. You can compare this with plugins like the virtual bass in Cubase. Double this with a sub oscillator and saturator to get real heavy sub bass tones. This VSTi is offered as freeware, and can be used in commercial productions without any restrictions.

AM Virtuadrum - load .wav files under each pad by pressing "vel". It'll load any .wav, not just drum sounds.
VirtuaDrum is a straight forward multichannel drum sample player. It features a CV sequencer and mixer, and a filter envelope trigger sequencer to modulate the channel filters to give variation to your sounds. Note mapping, Pitch, Pan, Decay, velocity sensetivity, and multimode filters on every channel. It comes with 1400 high quality drum samples. Full version will set you back $35 but the freeware version - free, obviously - has 8 channels, no filter modulation, but features a lot of the specification of the XL version.

Angular Momentum has other products, free and not-free, including ClapLab - check them all out at www.amvst.com

Angel synth - yet another synth. Uses an original method of generating sound based on dynamic oscillators, no sine wave or saw wave. Includes 2 Oscillators and a delay.

Arch Avenger Pro - great synth with over 60 presets, excellent control

Astralis Orgone Lite - over 100 great synth presets. Excellent control, trancegate

Atlantis - yes, it's a synth

Audionaut FK Beat - excellent electro-beat sounds but 'edit' crashes Mixcraft at every load - so don't touch 'edit'!

AZR3 - 31 nice bass presets

Beatburner - locked up and won't let me in unless I pay

Bella - 15 presets of sampled bells

BrushStrokix - basically move the brush (by mouse) and you are 'painting' music

Chip32 - simple synth with about 15 presets

Clap - does exactly that

Clearsynth - almost 40 interesting synth presets

CombiNatOr - synth with 10 interesting presets

Consequence - by Sugar Bytes - when working, it's wonderful. Demo version drops out, but it also sometimes just doesn't start... I just have to get it to work when I want it to.. oh well, back to the manual

Crazy Diamonds - useful synth with 8 presets

Crystal - interesting, powerful synth with patch 'breed' and 'mutation' feature - 90-odd great presets too and highly configurable, loads .sf2 soundfonts and .fxb files

DreamSequencer2 - from Dream Vortex Studio, 8 patches, nice sounds and controllable. Hold down a key, it plays a sequence...

Drumatic - by e-phonic - 4 kits, very configurable

DS404 - fascinating, powerful sampler. LOad a .wav file then use the small keypad and knob to scroll thru editing the file. Set up the keyboard with velocity and run thru the filter options. Powerful

DSK Akoustik GuitarZ - 4 guitars in fact. Nice tone overall, with control over Flanger, Delay and Chorus

DSK BassZ - wonderful sampled basses - 24 of them

DSK Brass - I could play this all day. 16 presets - all great - plus 23 variations x 2 with flanger, delay, ADSR... wonderful sounds

DSK ChoirZ - 10 presets, nice oohs and aahs from the virtual choir, can assemble your own from loads of sounds

DSK DrumZ - AkoustiK - looks good but won't work for me...

DSK DrumZ - Machine2 - same deal, looks good but won't work for me... what am I doing wrong? Is it Mixcraft?

DSK Ethereal Padz 2 - 16 ethereal pad presets, or make your own combo from 111 choices

DSK Harmonica - sampled harmonica with 5 presets

DSK mini Drumz - essentially same as mini Drumz 2 but no soundfont loader. 20 kits to pick from

DSK mini Drumz 2 - 20 kits to select from, nice variety - or load your own soundfont .sf2 file and play what you like

DSK Odisea - 7 interesting presets on this "deep space synth"

DSK Oranze - excellent synth plus sequencer with almost 30 presets

DSK Saxophone2 - 3 saxes with reverb, chorus, filter, ADSR...

DSK SixSenZe - unusual and quality sound from a simple synth with 5 presets

DSK Strings - 8 really nice string presets, great sounding cello, viola, violin, contrabass; loads of control over the sound

DSK Synthopia - synth with 22 glorious presets, 3 configurable layers, many sound options. Choice of 8 waves from saw to pulse, loads of control, great variety

DSK Virtuoso - 6-layer MIDI-player with 16 excellent presets focused on strings, but highly selectable and customisable with ADSR, level, pan, channel and effects control. Excellent. Big, loads slowly.

duo-am - 15 neat presets, good variety of synth sounds

DVS Guitar - nicely sampled guitar with 4 presets from clean to hard, plus drive, cut, reverb, speed and depth control

DVS Saxophone - Nice sax samples playable from B1 to G4

DVS-Drumsampler - from Dream Vortex Studio, does what its name implies. Loads .wav samples. Comes with a basic kit but obviously will load and play any wav sample.

FL Studio VSTi - basically opens FL Studio as an instrument. Obviously very powerful, I've barely scratched the surface with this one.

FM8 - another powerful synth from NI

FreeAlpha - by LinPlug. Astonishing collection of .fxb files to load, great variety of synth sounds

FreeZZZZer 2 - i know what it wants to do, I just haven't got it to do it yet...

Freqatic - drum synth, 7 interesting presets

GTG 44 S - Synth with 50 nice presets

GTG DPC 3 - Drum sample player

GTG DS 7 Drum synth 16 presets. Not bad

GTG K 1.3 synth has 50-odd presets, lots of control options

GTG_PD9 19 great synth presets, good control

Heavenbound - interesting, heavenly synth with control

HTP-Lite - AKA Darbukator Lite - drums, 4 kits with African flavour

IL Harmless - another excellent synth by IL. Great interface, excellent control over sound.

Impulse - over 30 great sounding synth presets, loads of control

Independence Free - by YellowTools. Fantastic. Loads of sounds, effects, great control. Load your instrument from the browser, add layers. Also Surround Sound option.

Invader_11 - Great. 30-odd spacey synth sounds

Keywriter - typewriter samples from C3

Kontakt 3 - impressive, barely scratched the surface so far. Drag a .wav sample into the 'MultiRack' interface and it works as a sampler with lots of control over effects, tone and pitch. Also handles 3.1 SS

Kontakt 3 16out - same as Kontakt but 16 channels out

Kontakt 3 8out - same as Kontakt but 8 channels out

Kontakt 4 + 16out + 8 out - nice update

Koreplayer - by NI - superb, great. Loads and loads of cool sounds.

KX-Synth-X16-V2 - very nice, highly controllable, plenty of presets

KxStep - 29 interesting presets, nice sounds

Machine Creator - machine noises - cool

Manic - looks like it does something really cool with loads of interesting multi-sound presets but.. but... but... how??

Massive - by NI - looks great. Haven't scratched the surface though

Meltron_1 - great little unit, with Strings, Choir, Flute and Brass

Microtrance - excellent. 18 great presets, good control.

MidiWah - looks simple but defeats me for now

Milk guitar - diatonic guitar strummer. Try C1#, D1#, A2, A2#, C3, C3#, D3#

MiniMogueVA - excellent range of 60-odd presets, Cool sounds

Modismaster - looks cool but can't get it to make sounds...

Morphine - superb additive synth. LOads of presets. Loads. Demo does a sound-drop.

Nanotron - really simple synth

noisemo - 30-odd intriguing presets. Some unusual sounds.

OctoMag - 8 .wav sample player

Orca - synth with 16 gloriously moody presets

oscine tract - 40-odd bird-sound presets. I kid you not.

P6-KX-MODULAD-V2 - Looks fantastic. If only I could get it to work...

P8 - Superwave P8 synth (8 voice). Excellent, loads of presets

paax2 - need to search for .pax files

Percu-p2 - synth, 4 drum presets

Poizone - loads of presets, great control over sound, arpeggiation etc etc. Demo has volume drop-down

PreparationP - amazing piano sounds, or something like a piano anyway

Project X1 - loads of bassy presets. Nice sounds

Psymon - very simple synth sound

Quadzamp - load .wav samples into 4 control boxes... modify, play.

Rain - exactly that - rainfall, sampled - from drips to drenched

Reactor5 - powerful but complex. Need some more time...

Redtron MKV - 16 interesting presets, including a choir

RM IV - LinPlug. 18 drum-sample presets

ROM500 - another soundfont player

SAfntplayer - A simple soundfont player

Sam!1.3 - Sample player with 24 slots, lots of control

SANoise - 8 patches. Load a soundfont .sf2 file, twiddle the knobs and hit a key on your MIDI controller. Unusual, interesting effect...

SatelliteFree - Similar to UVIworkstation, load a .wav file or a soundblock and try out the samples and effects...

Sawer - Excellent, loads of cool sounding analog synths. Drops sound in demo mode

SC2 - Shortcurcuit 2 sampler. Looks impressive, if I could get it to load samples...

Simple Synth - 64 presets. Not as much variety as you'd hope

SimpleColourOrgan - Not sure I need this.

SK-crooner - Casio keyboard emulator.

SLIFTY_1.01nVSTI - Add 4 wav files, mix and loop. Play via MIDI controller. Powerful.

Sm-KXPM25-p8 - Synth. 19 presets. Flexible but not great

SonicalienzWaveNoise - I like this one. Load 2 wave files, or use the sonicalienz and wavenoize files and fiddle with the simple controls. Mixes the waves, play via MIDI controller,

Soundfont Enhancer - Load .sf2 file, choose patch, play.

Speakalienz02 - Not sure I need this. Does what it says, mostly.

Starrsynth Free - 30-odd presets, heavily on the bass side

Steps - Load 6 .wav files and play via MIDI controller. Excellent promise. If only I could get everything to work.

Strumee - Sounds promising, if I can get it to work.

SuperRiffBass - Simple but excellent bass sound

SuperRiffGuitar - Simple but excellent guitar sound

Synsect - insects, lots of 'em but crickets mostly

Synth1 - VST 1 preset but lots of control

Sytrus - VSTi Amazing list of presets. Trial version, can't save, makes a noise occasionally.

Take1 - Soundfont player, keyboard, EQ, filter

Thunder - 16 presets, all big, moody sounds.

TLR - Atlas 1. 22 presets, varied sounds.

TLR - D15. 6 presets, drumkits. some nice sounds

TLR - IceClimber. Unusual, configurable synth

TLR - Lifecycle. Simple, not very exciting synth

TLR - Melodikon. 9 interesting presets. Strange

TLR - Oceans. Simple, not very exciting synth

Tonespace - wonderful, colourful, lots of presets. Misbehaves in Mixcraft. Forces key changes, I think!

Tonmeister - doesn't appear to load in Mixcraft, works in Ableton, Reaper

Toxic Biohazard - some astonishing and truly toxic sounds. Excellent but demo cuts off the sound intermittently. Can crash Mixcraft when flicking between sounds

TranscenderSE Trance gate. Nice trancey sounds. 12 presets

UVI Workstation multi-track soundsource, standard soundbank is limited but exandable, many nice sounds and loops in free sample; plays rex files and audio files as samples, uses MIDI controller

VB3 organ - overdrive, reverb, rotary 15 presets from slide to rock

VSTSynthFont - 16 track configurable synthfont player

WySynTyp1_12 - 'wahnsyn type 1' nice control, nice clean sound 8 presets

Wind - 17 types of 'wind' sound, from 'arctic' to 'hollow'

Woosynth - deep pulsating rumbles thru to bird calls 3 presets unusual sounds.

Theremin-like "air piano" offers interesting soundscape programming options

2010-07-27T00:21:00.001Z

The Air Piano spatial keyboard from Omer Yosha

Seeing the Airpiano being played, one can't help but be reminded of a graceful martial artist, musical conductor or mysterious magician. The innovative interface is activated and controlled by moving a hand in mid-air above the flat display surface and within range of a sensor array matrix. Driven by custom software, the device can put a huge library of tones and sounds at a player's disposal.

Each of the eight Infrared proximity sensors spread horizontally across the surface of the Airpiano can play three notes depending on the user's vertical hand position. The sensors can also be programmed to provide up to eight control faders for altering volume, pitch, filters and so on. Custom software facilitates MIDI mapping and Open Sound Control message assignment which puts a vast soundscape at the spatial command of the player. Confirmation of user action is provided by LED lights at the surface of the instrument.

L. Hadron and the Colliders playing drums and guitar on their shirts? Cool.

2010-06-23T00:57:00.000Z

Along the same lines as Aviary's Mynah audio editor is their Roc music creator

2010-06-21T00:32:00.000Z

I'm a long-time fan of Mixcraft and Reaper but Aviary's Roc is a simple and seductive online music creator. Need to get an idea out of your head and save it, or just looking to kill some time creatively? Here's your new tool of choice. It's slow-ish at times, being tied to the Web architecture and Amazon's on-demand cloud computing service, but it's actually quite powerful and very conveniently available wherever you are!

Hard to beat Audacity as an audio editor but Aviary is a slick online backup

2010-06-21T00:27:00.000Z

Aviary's Mynah audio editor is one slick audio editor, especially given that it's online. Mind you, that's also its downfall. Depending on your Internet connection and time of day it can be a bit sluggish. Treat it as an online backup that you can get to whenever and wherever you are and it works a treat.

Reason and Record updates coming - beta program

2010-05-31T00:49:00.001Z

I love these programs and thoroughly recommend them. If you can afford them, of course. Alternatively test it out, become a beta tester - go cheap like me. When you can justify it, buy it.

Propellerhead - Home Page

Reason 5 and Record 1.5

Welcome to five days of Reason 5 & Record 1.5!

Join us for daily updates on the most massive upgrade to our flagship products ever. Check out the videos and details on the software that we are working hard to bring you at the end of the summer. And don't forget to sign up for beta testing!

USB Guitar Link - connecting PC to guitar #music

2010-05-25T03:15:00.002Z

USB Guitar Link_0260a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

For those who are interested in such things, I use a Behringer GuitarLink USB cable to link my Strat with my PC, using various software 'amplifiers' to get the right sound. On the PC I record to a WAV file and mix it in Mixcraft or Reaper. Quick and simple.

I also have a "lightsnake" which is essentially a USB cable terminated in a guitar lead. Same deal but a bit cheaper.

M-Audio K61es MIDI controller

2010-05-24T08:03:00.003Z

M-Audio K61es MIDI controller_0258
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

This 61-key MIDI controller gives me probably 85% of what I want - for now at least. If I took the time to learn all of the commands it'd be even better. And for the price I can't complain. Before buying the K61 I used the software-based Virtual MIDI controller. And it's still useful.

Just so you know...

2010-04-28T01:26:00.000Z

I'm trying to organise myself a bit better, so as of right now this blog will become focused on music and music-related topics (like DAWs, VSTs and so on) and my generic "must-know" postings will go here. Hope that's OK with you, it makes more sense for me....

Just stuff I'm reading...

2008-04-03T03:13:00.003Z

You may want to browse...
http://www.allmyfaves.com/ for an immense list of stuff, by logo
http://www.quamut.com/quamut/guitar/page/barre_chords.html for how-tos on more than just guitars
http://www.libraryspot.com/ for books, of course
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/index.html for grammar
http://www.startspot.com/network/ and for everything, it seems
http://www.phrases.org.uk/and search by phrase
http://www.refdesk.com/index.html and check your references
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Max%20Ernst and read about surrealism
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/ and Alfas
http://hindsight.trulia.com/map/#lat=34.053&lon=-118.243&zoom=10&mix=0.319 and look at this map of US development over time - very nice work!
http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/03/the_future_is_goople.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-listserv-_-MAR_2008-_-StratExec and one I'm laughing at - stretching to find parallels between Google and Apple. It's a joke, riiiight?

You must know everything by now, surely...

2007-10-04T01:38:00.000Z

Google Earth Flight Sim... ctrl-alt-A

2007-09-02T11:22:00.000Z

Yes folks, there's a flight simulator built into Google Earth and by Jove it works. Just try ctrl-alt-A or maybe ctrl-windows-A when over a location and a screen will appear giving you some options. It works, and it's as realistic as Google Earth itself. Big wow factor. I picked it up from Techcrunch, here.

Chart software on the web

2007-08-29T05:31:00.000Z

Need to draw some flowcharts? Used to Visio but not tied to it? Try Gliffy or a newcomer from Lenovo, Best4c, for free diagramming and charting on the web...

The Prodigy - Firestarter ( live, T in the Park )

2007-08-24T12:06:00.001Z

LIve version of Firestarter... weird, creepy.. fan-tas-tic.

Prodigy - Breathe

2007-08-24T11:56:00.001Z

Outside of rock, of R'n'B and the classics, there lies the Prodigy and electronica. I do like this...

Virtual Rome... you must see this!

2007-07-20T07:27:00.000Z

Read about the virtual Rome project here and check it out here. Yes, I mean Ancient Rome. Absolutely engrossing.

The Addams Family Theme (Original 1964)

2007-07-13T09:42:00.001Z

Can't resist...

Drobo... yes, it's bulletproof storage

2007-06-27T22:55:00.001Z

OK - I really like this idea. First let me paint this picture. You have a sqillion MP3s, videos and images on your PC and no backup. Or you backup onto another PC or a storage unit. Or maybe you backup on a few DVDs. Whatever, it's a pain. But if your main PC dies you lose the lot, so you take the small pain over the big, big pain.

Now Drobo is a smart storage box that takes 3.5inch hard drives in standard bays. That's not new - you can buy big external HDD boxes that plug in via FireWire or USB anyway. What distinguishes this one is its smarts. It hides the complexity of RAID and other redundancy methods inside so you don't need to know. Instead it just handles whatever goes wrong. Lose a drive? No problem, Drobo has made a backup. Need more space? No problem, slide another HDD inside and Drobo will format it and start sharing the load across the other drives. Seamlessly, apparently (I haven't tested it but others like CNET have). And from your PC it just looks like one volume, not a collection of drives. Yippee! I want one!

Mobiles yes, computers no?

2007-05-24T06:42:00.000Z

The SMH is spruiking the end of the computer, as the young people of Japan adopt smaller form factors in lieu of PCs. They suggest that this trend will spread across the world. I tend to agree, although by 'computer' we have to accept that they mean 'PC'. And I have some reservations.

Japan is a smaller, more densely populated country that Australia, so wireless communication is easier - and cheaper. This applies less so to the US, but similar geographic factors do apply. The Japanese also use a different keypad, which restrains the immediate spread of the exact same gadgets. And again the content provided - or perhaps desired - is different because the culture is different. Aussies will not necessarily see small form factor mobile computers as such an asset, especially without the content to drive their use or the network and bandwidth to deliver that content. We certainly lag in bandwidth - and both Australia and the continental US are geographically huge, making it more difficult to saturate the market with wireless gadgetry. It's a big factor in take-up.

I do think the computer as we know it is dying, if slowly. It peaked around the year 2000 and hase been collapsing since. It's morphing into a notebook-size and will probably shrink further, but purely for practical reasons at least 30% of the PCs will 'always' need full-sized keyboards, or at least a new way to input data. I'm certainly not going to want to type all day on a Palm Pilot, Blackberry or Blackjack-sized keypad - or smaller! I even use a full-sized keyboard with my notebook/laptop. Perhaps a direct brain-computer data feed is what I need instead?

I think those direct feeds will come, but not inside the next 5 years. I almost said 10. Almost. But when on the train or bus - sure - small is a goer. Even when jogging or cycling (maybe not cycling). An all-in-one mobile-sized pocket 'computer' is certainly the way of the future for PCs if we get all the ducks lined up...

Trendtracker... a cool tool

2007-05-22T05:40:00.000Z

Another cool tool... Trendtracker from MobiFeed.

IT gets technical

2007-05-03T21:45:00.000Z

Check out IBM DeveloperWorks online - and especially Spaces, a new social-networking-Web 2.0 collaborative developer area. I'm not that technical - I understand maybe 45-50% of what's going on but I love to stay informed of what's at the cutting edge. This is a great site to visit and browse but as I say it's for developers and those interested in coding with IBM products or open standards. (And yes, I work for IBM and these are my views, not necessarily the company's.)

Pete Townshend's Lifehouse Method

2007-04-26T10:44:00.000Z

Songware? It seems odd that a great live band like the Who would find itself promoting software-generated songs, but apparently Pete Townshend has been working - nay dreaming - about this for 30 years. Who's next grew out of Lifehouse - Pete's idea of a connectedness that expressed itself through songs... and was for Pete a glimpse of a future world where connectedness was pervasive, electronic and creative. Which brings us to The Method, software that apparently takes personal data like a birthdate, a photo, an audio file and a beat and produces music.

Pete talks about it here on MP3.com... The legendary Who guitarist and songwriter said... that he is set to launch a new Web site that he has been thinking about for nearly 30 years. Dubbed The Method, Townsend said the site will use music composition software to take a person's physical attributes and compose a brand new, personalized piece of music for that person.

"I've been thinking about this for such a long time," he said. "The gathering that the Internet offers is meditation. You lose yourself when you're listening to good music." Townshend said he hopes the site will provoke more people to take advantage of the immediacy of the Web.

And Yahoo! says this: Rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalised tracks at the click of a button. The Who guitarist/songwriter said that with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new "Method" software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star. "You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It's as simple as that," said Townshend, a technical wizard who pioneered the use of the synthesiser more than 35 years ago on the classic tunes "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley." The project, which started percolating during his art school days in the 1960s, was developed by mathematician/composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon.

From May 1, users will be able to get free access to the Web site (http://www.lifehouse-method.com) for three months, and will be able to compose instrumental tracks that they can e-mail or post on their Web sites. From August 1, it will become a subscription-based service.

Sounds intriguing, anyway.

The Church

2007-04-26T06:49:00.000Z

No, not that church, the Aussie band called Church! I stumbled over this discography for the Church whilst searching for Damien Lovelock - he of Celibate Rifles and soccer commentary!

I just reckon we all should know about this stuff. I can recall seeing the Church at the Sylvania Hotel, of all places, in the early 80s. Excellent.

Because I can!

2007-04-24T12:59:00.000Z

The strange tale of Earthrace

2007-03-20T22:53:00.000Z

Earthrrace is a futuristic-looking speed boat on a mission - to set a record time around the world, using biodiesel fuel. Well they have had some problems since setting out but this one tops the lot, sadly. Here's the press release:

"Press Release – 20th Mar 2007

For Immediate Release

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala – Earthrace collides with fishing vessel.

At 00:30 local time, on the 17th of March 2007, Earthrace was involved in a collision with a small fibreglass fishing skiff off the coast of Guatemala, one fisherman is still lost, presumably drowned, and a second fisherman seriously injured and in the hospital.

Earthrace was en-route from Panama to Acapulco, on the second leg of her attempt to set a new world record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe on Biodiesel. She left Balboa Yacht Club in Panama on the evening of the 16th of March, but early in the morning of the 17th, a heat exchanger on the starboard engine developed a hairline crack that leaked increasing amounts of oil into the bilge. The crew attempted to repair the crack using epoxy liquid metal, but it failed to stem the oil flow sufficiently to allow continuous engine operation. The decision was made to voyage the remainder of the leg to Acapulco on just the port engine, and at reduced load, limiting speeds to around 16 knots.

At 23:58 on the 17th of March, Earthrace Captain Pete Bethune awoke Anthony Distefano, the Engineer aboard Earthrace, to commence his two-hour watch. At 00:15, now the 18th of March, Ryan Heron, who had been struggling to sleep, got up from his pipe cot and had a short chat with Anthony, before returning to bed.

At 00:30, Distefano spotted a small white and red flashing light directly ahead. According to maritime law, flashing lights are to be used as navigational aids, marking things such as channels. Boats are marked with solid white, red and green lights only. Distefano, assumed the flashing light was on some form of beacon, and was checking the GPS system to locate which beacon he was looking at. The small size of the bulb gave him the impression the light was still considerable distance away. A few seconds later, Earthrace collided with a small fiberglass fishing vessel, approximately 5m in length.
Immediately following the accident, three fishermen were visible off the stern of Earthrace. Carlos Contreras Cruz, the youngest of them, clambered onto the transom step of Earthrace and collapsed. 51-year-old Pedro Salazan Gonzalez remained struggling between the hull of the fishing vessel and the transom, and was also gasping for air. Earthrace Skipper Pete Bethune jumped in and helped push the man up to the transom step, while Earthrace Engineer Anthony Distefano, pulled him from above. Distefano had seen a third man in the water minutes earlier and had thrown him a life buoy to cling to. Bethune swam over to the area but failed to locate him. After 15 minutes of searching from the water, the crew decided to start the port engine and circle the area to look for the third fisherman.

A number of Mayday calls were placed, initially on Channel 16, then several other frequencies, in an effort to get assistance with the search. Requests were made in both English and Spanish.

Earthrace scoured the area for ninety minutes, before driving over to 3 boats fishing nearby, and asking for assistance in the search. The fishermen were unwilling to help. Earthrace returned to the collision area and resumed the search for several more hours.

By now it was evident that the port propeller or driveshaft of Earthrace had been severely damaged in the collision. Engine speed could not be taken over 800rpm, without inducing excessive vibrations. With the starboard engine already out through the damaged heat exchanger, Earthrace now had a maximum speed of just 5 knots.

On being rescued, Gonzales had complained of severe pains in his stomach and chest, and David Stark, the trained doctor aboard Earthrace had been monitoring his condition. The blood pressure started at 104 / 60, but had steadily decreased as time passed. A second visit was made over to the local fishing vessels, requesting them to take Gaonzalez, along with Dr. Stark, to a hospital where the man could receive full treatment. The local fishermen again refused to help, despite being offered US$300 in cash, which were all the funds the crew had at the time.
At 05:20, the decision was made to commence the voyage to Puerto Quetzal, some 40 nautical miles South. The team was hoping that one of the local boats, or perhaps a military vessel, could be encouraged to meet Earthrace part way, and then take the Gonzalez on to port at reasonable speed. At 5 knots, it was going to take Earthrace 8 hours to reach port, by which time the crew believed the man would be dead.

By now, calls were increasingly made to several organizations, including the US Coastguard, in an effort to get local support for a medical evacuation. Calls were also placed to the US embassy in Guatemala.

Gonzalez blood pressure which had started at 104 / 60, continued to decline, so the decision was made to administer saline solution intravenously. On reaching 70 / 60 the crew believed the patient was dying before their eyes, and placed several more urgent phone calls saying in effect " this patient will die here if we do not have him evacuated". Meanwhile Earthrace continued its painfully slow voyage towards Puerto Quetzal.

At 6:35am, crew starts the starboard engine in an effort to get more speed. The engine oil starts to froth from water it is contaminated with, and within minutes much of the oil is lost into the bilge. The starboard engine was therefore turned off.

Bethune and Distefano then go into the water with masks to inspect for driveline damage. Three of the four blades on the port propeller were bent. Using a monkey wrench they bent the tips as straight as they could, but with only minimal impact. This allows boat speed to be increased to 7 knots.

At 6:56am, an email is received informing Earthrace that the US Coastguard has made contact with Guatemalan authorities, but that no boats are immediately available to help with the evacuation. At 07:20 an email is received saying a US Lt. Colonel has been in contact with the Guatemalan Coastguard, and that they are en-route to provide assistance. Then at 07:23, an email arrives saying a US Navy Vessel has left the Port of San Jose heading for Earthrace.
By now, over 2.5 litres of saline solution had been administered to Gonzalez, and he had started to make gradual improvements, despite suffering continual and severe pains in his chest and abdomen.

At 09:40 am, Earthrace crew spot a Naval Vessel heading towards them and make contact via VHF Channel 16. At 10:05am, the Vessel arrives alongside, as does the Dolphin I, a small 15ft fishing boat. The patient is transferred to the Dolphin I, which then left urgently to get the man to hospital. Ironically, the crew aboard Dolphin I was the same that had refused to provide assistance the night before.

Gonzalez was taken to Hospital Privado Genesis near Guatemala City, and treated by Dr. Carlos Enrique Robles Mendez. He was operated on, and found to have a perforated intestine, a perforated stomach, and a fractured sternum. He is now in a stable condition and expected to recover. Medical opinion is that the saline solution administered to the patient saved his life.

Earthrace was escorted into Puerto Quetzal and placed under military guard, with the crew confined to the boat and naval base, pending an investigation. The crew of Earthrace is all safe and is being treated well by the local authorities.
Given that this matter is now the subject of an official investigation, Earthrace crew has been advised to make no further comment at this time."

USB guitar, USB record player... what's next

2007-02-27T02:13:00.000Z

This is a good site, lots of useful as well as marginally useless gadgetry. I do like the USB guitar. The USB record player is not new but looks cool, and the cassette-drive for the PC saves connecting wires!! Well actually you still connect the wires, just once, inside your PC. Check out Firebox.

Hang on, whatabout this cool USB microscope from ThinkGeek?

USB devices the world doesn't need

2007-02-27T00:11:00.000Z

OK, some of these are mildly useful, but a cannon to fire balls? A lava lamp? A world-destruct button? Hmmm. Fun, though. USB devices - powered from your PC and guaranteed to give a giggle as we pump out yet more greenhouse gases... from PC World.

OK, ok, it's a bit techo but I love it

2007-02-08T22:40:00.000Z

I love the fact that as a kid I knew computers to be huge boxes that filled rooms. Traffic stopped as they were lifted by crane into buildings. I love it that they used punched cards for programming. I love it that in my first real job I used a "terminal", an Olivetti machine with no visual display, just an impact printer, a modem the size of a small cupboard and a keyboard with helpfully coloured keys. I love it that in another job mini computers did whiz-bang number crunching and stored data on huge, truly floppy disks. And I loved the early PC kits, the TRS-80, CP/M and the early Apples that began to proliferate inside universities. And I loved the first IBM PC, with its tiny 64Kb of RAM, green screen, single mini-floppy and no hard drive. And then those wonderful full-size hard disk drives, the Winchesters, which slimmed down and yet grew to a massive 20Mb. Wow, all that and we are only up to maybe 1984.

Having lived through all that, the trip to today's PCs has been a rocket sled. Tom Yager gets excited about AMD's new quad-core-but-with-so-much-more "Barcelona" chip. It's faster yet greener and really takes it up to Intel. Read on, and buy one when you can.

Useful tools...

2007-01-23T21:09:00.000Z

Another useful tool - PDF to text converters. It can be frustrating getting text out of PDF files. Frankly I hate PDF files and cringe when someone misguidedly links to an Acrobat file. As though I want to waste time opening Acrobat inside (or outside) of my browser when simple HTML will do the job 90% of the time. Anyway, here's a converter - I haven't tried it and there's plenty more out there if you search.

Ravings of a looney

2007-01-22T01:31:00.000Z

What really matters? What do we really need to know to get through life?

I am stressing "know", here, as in the working knowledge that gets us what we need and want throughout our lives. On a more physical level what we 'need' is sufficient food, shelter and exercise to allow us to sustain our bodily functions over a reasonable lifetime. It's not unreasonable to hope for reasonable health, unstunted growth and mental development over a period of say 30 years. It sounds short, but it's a minimum. Any more of that sort of life is quite a blessing, any less verges on misfortune or even tragedy.

These physical needs are pretty much the bottom rung of Maslow's hierarchy. And it does depend somewhat on where you are, of course. If you are sitting under a burning sun in a sandy desert then water would figure more highly, as would shade, food and some basic survival information. Alone on the high seas and you'd want all of the basics, plus a map would be handy.

But survival is more than just the basics. You can get by, or you can make more of it and leverage your assets. To do this involves some core knowledge. Whether you get it from me, from your parents, friends or siblings; or if you just figure it out yourself, no matter: it will make our lives somewhat brighter.

Firstly, we all die. Corollary, we get one shot at this. You may say, 'Well, derr! As if I didn't know that." Sure, we all know it, but do you live by it?
You may also believe in reincarnation, or an afterlife. Well and good, but if you are wrong...let's assume what we see is what we get, and accept for the moment that we do just "go". So...
Let's live as though life matters. Instead of lying in the sun turning brown, or lazing in a chair just being, let's ask ourselves what we are doing and what we hope to achieve by our actions. It may be that lying in the sun is exactly right for you. A nice tan may help us attract a mate, or just make us feel good. It may be that the warm glow of the sun is boosting our stocks of vitamin D and taking a good rest is just what we needed to 'recharge'. It may also be a waste of otherwise productive time and lead to skin cancer later in life.

So what am I raving about?

Well I think the keys to the kingdom are:

Respect yourself and those around you, do good in your life
Goals are good, so get some
Exercise keeps us healthy, so do it daily
Happiness is worth it, so pursue it
A little hunger keeps us healthy, so don't over-eat
An active brain will keep us younger, longer, so think about that
And kids are what we are here for, in the end, so have one or 2 of those as well if you get the chance ;-)

And if that doesn't work for you I don't know what will!

QuickMath - another maths site

2007-01-16T21:50:00.000Z

Can't know too much about maths, can one? Well QuickMath is pretty darn good.

Teoria - Music theory website

2007-01-16T21:45:00.000Z

An excellent music theory site... highly recommended.... Teoria.

IBM tops top 500 super computers

2006-11-16T21:39:00.000Z

So what? I can hear you saying. What does 280.6 teraflops/second mean anyway? It's still way slower than the human brain, and bigger, and hotter! And why does it matter to me that IBM dominates the list over archrival HP? I guess it doesn't matter, really - it's just bragging rights for IBM (and as I work for IBM I have to say these are my views and mine only and not necessarily those of the corporation). It's nice to see AMD claw back some ground with the Opteron, too. Network World reports here.

Urban legends 101 - Al Gore and the Internet

2006-11-07T01:48:00.000Z

Worth checking out the Urban Legends site - even if only to compare and contrast the media myth of Al Gore having said he had 'invented' the Internet with his stated contention that he had helped to 'create' it. It's hair-splitting, but a good point. In context it's clear he didn't say he invented it, only helped to get the funding together back in '77. So why do the media continue to report a lie?

Looking for an external HDD?

2006-10-30T22:58:00.000Z

Looking for an external hard disk drive? Want to do your backups as easily as possible (instead of burning DVDs)? Well external magnetic disks are certainly easier to operate - plug in the cable, the OS senses the new drive, allocates it a drive letter and away you go... almost. Don't forget to make sure that you get the right drive for your machine (Firewire is great, USB2 is fab but check what you have first - and perhaps anticipate what you'll buy next year as well).

Examples include Maxtor One-Touch and LaCie - but here are some more in a CNET review.

Remember to make sure you get one that's compatible with the ports on your machine - PC owners would usually have USB rather than Firewire, so confirm a USB connection to the external HDD. If you have USB2 that's faster and better. Most of them will support USB2 (as well as USB1), so you should be fine.

You can search prices from my affiliates page here - and yes I get a commission if you buy via my links, and that helps me pay for this site! The computer stuff is waaay down the bottom, just click on the advert.

Also, Shopbot have a huge and confusing range of prices to compare. In any case expect to pay a minimum of about $A200 for about 100Gb, however it gets cheaper if you go bigger - relatively. Pay about $A250-$A300 for 200Gb for example. It depends on features, too. Read the box, check out the web reviews.

Or just use Google; or simply (in Australia, anyway) go to either a Harvey Norman computers franschise (not cool but works), or a small computer shop (like CDG at Erina, where I buy my PCs - just down the street from Harvey Norman in fact). Big chains like Harvey Norman will usually have them in stock and will haggle over price. So make sure you do that ;-)

The Who on Tour

2006-10-26T03:38:00.000Z

OK, I couldn't resist, so here it is... a link to theWhoTour.com. Launch Squeezebox for those essential Who videos!

Dontdatehimgirl - an interesting concept

2006-10-25T01:57:00.000Z

Not sure how you control fictional content, but as an emotional release for women done wrong- and possibly as an effective tool against habitually cheating men - this has got to be worth a look. Just don't sue me, sue them, OK.

Lunching on Cobain's legacy

2006-10-24T22:41:00.000Z

Does this sound right to you? Forbes mag reports: "We believe if we say yes to the right things, we can do both--make money and do the right thing for the catalog," says Love's manager Peter Asher.
Which is to say sell out to the capitalists. Now I reckon Kurt may have turned around 180 degrees on his beliefs given enough time, but as he's dead he's not likely to have rethought this one as yet. The idea of Nirvana tracks on CSI is not sickening but smells like a ripoff of the artist in question. It's OK for Pete Townshend of the Who to sell out and get a gig on CSI (and everywhere else) - indeed they gloried in exactly that on The Who Sell Out - but Townshend's alive and making his own decisions. Hmmm.

Why do SPAMMERS go on and on with gibberish?

2006-10-24T04:20:00.000Z

A simple question deserves a loooong answer!

Yes, that gibberish is both weird and - sometimes - amusing. There are even people who collect it - and I've seen at least one book based on the gibberish alone! Anyway, as to why they write the gibberish: well the spammers have 3 main tactics to avoid the spam filters on servers and in your average email client.

Typically the filters are dumb, simply looking for words like 'viagra' or 'cialis' or looking up 'blacklists' of known spammers. So firstly the spammers will deliberately mis-spell their 'products' in the subject lines or body of the email. So you get 'v1agra' or 'vi AG ra' and so on. Sometimes that's enough. However smarter filters use statistical, analytical and adaptive methods that will learn to pick out the spam from genuine email over time (ie they get better the more spam they see). Often they use Bayesian algorithms to assess the statistical probability of each email being spam. They look for key things like text length, frequency of particular keywords, and the number of targets "cc'd" in a note. Shorter emails are more likely to be spam, as are emails 'mass-mailed' to multiple similar recipients, and emails where certain keywords appear too frequently (like 'sales' or 'mortgage' or 'pharmacy' to use just 3 examples).

So the spammers reacted to smarter filters with the second tactic: padding out their emails with long slabs of "gibberish" that actually looks real; in fact it's often genuine text copied from books or genuine websites. The gibberish masks the keywords, making it harder to be certain that a particular email is spam based purely on statistics - it introduces doubt.

Lastly they have used avoidance by creating images that look like text but are in fact images. So the filters have very little to go on - they need text as image-recognition is much harder to do. Thus they can only decide black or white based on subject lines, destinations and senders, all of which can be carefully constructed by the spammer to conceal (as in using a 'genuine' subject line message like 'Hi Geraldo how's it going?') or to 'spoof' (where real email addresses or even IP packets are hijacked for spam use, often by trojans carried by spam).

Which brings me to the dangers therein. Some "GIF" images actually can conceal code, so looking at an image in your email program can invoke a simple program that could plant a trojan that then calls up other software to invade your machine, Using up to date email software usually fixes that loophole, though.

Some links embedded in spam, especially the more cunningly concealed 'phishing' type of spam, actually obscure the real intent of the link. Clicking on the link may download a small program that will load a tracking device for 'marketing research' (ie spyware), or a trojan that invokes later and may set you up with a backdoor for later nefarious use (such as using your machine as a proxy spam send-mail server). Or it could download a keystroke capturer (to get your passwords and send them 'home'). Sounds scary but all you have to do is -- avoid clicking on any link in spam!

So the rules are
(1) use the latest version of your email application
(2) don't click on links you don't trust and
(3) perhaps most importantly, get a virus checker, an anti- spyware tool and a personal firewall.

The firewall will stop attacks coming in, and will also detect the unexpected - like when your machine starts sending thousands of spam messages without your knowledge. It will in fact say, sorry, you are not a mail server and block that outbound access. Some brands I trust are the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, Check Point Integrity Flex for firewalls, Lavasoft Ad-Aware for spyware checking and Symantec/Norton AV or VET as viruscheckers. There are others, I just haven't tried 'em all.

How's that for a short answer!!!

2006-10-05T07:04:00.000Z

The Kids are Alright

Indeed, it's The Who and the Kids are Alright...

Single, then dual... now quad cores

2006-10-02T22:30:00.000Z

PC World reports significant performance improvement on apps that can multithread and actually use the potential of Intel's quad core Kentsfield chip:

"Kentsfield really starts to shine, however, once you hand it a complex video-encoding or 3D-rendering task. Both 3D rendering apps, POV-Ray and 3DS Max 8, ran considerably faster with four cores; in particular, POV-Ray rendered 83 percent more pixels per second running on the Kentsfield chip than on the Core 2 Extreme. Video editing and encoding ran about 30 percent faster in Sony's Vegas app and in the DivX converter."

However the gains are non-existent for other applications. So I guess we can all buy dual core chips instead, unless we do have pressing video editing or rendering needs. Or just wait a bit and grab a coffee.

2006-09-16T07:57:00.000Z

The Who - Eminence Front

I've been busy

2006-09-12T22:19:00.000Z

It may not look like it but I have been busy. Apart from working for a living - which is not what you see here - I have been creating or updating a few blogs and image galleries... like...

My portals

My Alfa pages

The Rust-free Alfa Romeo page: guaranteed since '95
All about Alfas, especially GTVs
The car gallery

My bike racing pages

Addicted2wheels, bicycle race wheels: my most popular blog
Bike racing for almost anyone
The bike gallery

My myths and Legends pages

Myths, legends and weird stuff: Mythoblogia

My sustainable business pages

The business of sustainable business
My MBA resource blog - thespiel.com
Out Out Damned Blog - a wilder ride
The Offline blog for quieter web-rants

My overly long list of blogs

Addicted2wheels, bicycle race wheels: my most popular blog
The site that started it all for me in 1995, Colnago - the blogger
The Rust-free Alfa Romeo page: guaranteed since '95
My MBA resource blog - thespiel.com
Myths, legends and weird stuff: Mythoblogia
The Abecedarian Insult: A2Z, the blog
Stuff I think you all mustknow
All about Alfas, especially GTVs
The business of sustainable business
Bike racing for almost anyone
The Offline blog for web-rants
My all purpose writing blog
The Class of 75 blog
The gtveloce.com-munity blog
My genealogy research blog
Out Out Damned Blog - a wild ride

My image galleries

DAP: the digital image gallery
My mostly digital image blog
DAR: the digital art gallery
The aviation gallery
The aviation image blog
Trams, trains and buses... yet another gallery
The bike gallery
The car gallery
The flora and fungus gallery (I kid you not)
The New Fortian gallery
The Original Fortian gallery

Community and networking pages

Sponsors and other pages

Buy my mugs and t-shirts from Cafepress
Buy my books and images from Lulu
The mustknows

My sponsors... great deals on great stuff

Surely that's enough for now!

Can't resist a GTV6

2006-09-07T22:42:00.000Z

OK, can't resist mentioning this video of an Alfa GTV6 on the track at Spa... not exactly a must know, more like a must hear.

Mythoblogia

2006-09-02T13:22:00.000Z

I've started yet another blog - Mythoblogia - to get my love of myths and legends 'out there'. I need to get this out of my system. I need to talk about and explain the inexplicable. That's why I also write about bike racing :)

2006-08-28T10:31:00.000Z

Keith Moon's last interview

Can't resist.. if not his last interview, close to... for the Who fans (count me in!)

A neglected service: Google Trends

2006-08-27T12:33:00.000Z

Don't forget to use Google's Trends service... or use it now if you've only just realised it's there! Trends allows search term comparisons, as in "alfa" vs "alfa romeo". It plots it graphically and by geography. If you need to know what search terms are hot and where, this is how you find out.

Oh yeah, it's also fun.

From 9 down to 8 - exit Pluto.

2006-08-24T22:53:00.000Z

OK, so now we have to de-remember the ninth planet. Pluto has gone Trans-Neptunian and is officially a dwarf. Sigh.

My reading list

2006-08-23T06:57:00.000Z

Way out but worth it

Because I can, I will share here some weirder choices from my personal bookshelf. You may not agree with 'weird', indeed weird is the wrong word. Nevertheless I use it advisedly in the sense that I will cover subjects beyond literal truth. And I use truth advisedly as mathematics is the only provable truth. Everything else is either awaiting a mathematical proof or is a belief, a theory or an assumption.

Just to explain my thinking: you may believe in what you can see, hear and/or touch, and that's cool; but it's not necessarily a literal truth. Even if a thousand people see, hear and/or touch that thing it doesn't make it true. It may be real enough to the people concerned but it's not an incontrovertible truth. It may be an illusion. It may be a shared thought. It may be a shared assumption. It's something, but it's not a literal truth. To be a literal truth requires proof. To my mind we can only be certain of mathematical proofs, as I haven't seen any other proof that convincingly lives outside the mind or perception of man.

And I could be wrong about maths. Perhaps there is no independent proof? Ahhh, but that's an undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns....

So to the first installment of my 'way out but worth it' booklist, in no particular order:

Bill Shakespeare's works in full. An essential lesson in the use of the English language, up there with Fowler's.

The Elegant Universe (by Brian Greene. Post-Einstein string theory to get you thinking.)

Anything by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. As I said, there are mathematical proofs and there are theories. Some theories are more compelling than others.

The Torah (the Pentateuch, the Book of Moses: a lively read, basis for Judaism and the Old Testment and a fascinating read on any level)

The Bible (Greek for 'Books'; The Old and New Testaments: basis for the Christian cults and a brilliant read)

The Koran (Arabic for 'Recital': another excellent piece of writing and the basis for Islam. I have the Dawood translation)

The History of Magic (by Eliphas Levi: a great, compelling read. Spot the a ha! 'Harry Potter' moments and see the footprints of Rowling's research)

The Theory of Celestial influence (by Rodney Collin: immensely detailed, it wallows around trying to 'prove' a case scientifically but falls magnificently short. Can be heavy, clumsy and painful to read... but still worth it for the determined!).

That's just for starters. Let me know what you think.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 9:51 am and is filed under No idea where this one goes, Writing, Religion and Essential Truths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Cool music link

2006-08-18T05:57:00.000Z

You've gotta know something about music theory, surely? Teoria is a great site to explore. Even if you only listen to music it gives you some background and some extra 'a-ha!' moments ;-)

The bike rave - stand back - incoming!

2006-08-08T03:18:00.000Z

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Brown wins Stage 4 in Germany

Graeme Brown finally delivers for Rabo (Cyclingnews quote and link): However, with 500 metres remaining, the field came back together, just in time for one last suicidal attempt from Jens Voigt (CSC). With that over before it even started, Australian Graeme Brown threw his bike across the line and took his first victory of the year, beating Schumacher and Zabel to the post.

What a relief! He's had his ups and downs, but he looks pretty happy about winning a stage of the Deutschland Tour. Renshaw was in the Top 5 and Zabel has taken the lead. Can he hold on over the mountains? You'd like to hope so, but with Vino one of many contenders just 48secs back, highly unlikely.

On Landis: It's hard to know who's clean, what with masking agents and autologous transfusions, and we have to trust the integrity of the sampling and testing procedure. So is it as robust as we'd like? Cyclingnews gives a rundown on the B sample result here:Christian Prudhomme, Director general of the Tour de France, said Landis is no longer considered champion of the 2006 event, but added: "Until he is found guilty or admits guilt, he will keep the yellow jersey. This is normal. You are not sanctioned before you are found guilty.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Aussies in Germany and Denmark

A good result for 2 Aussies in Stage 3 of the Tour of Germany, as reported by Cyclingnews:
1 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) Team Wiesenhof Akud 4.56.22 (41.16 km/h)
2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram
3 AndrÃ© Greipel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
4 Luke Roberts (Aus) Team CSC
5 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole

And O'Grady takes yellow in Denmark, again reported by Cyclingnews:
Stage 3 - August 4: Kolding - Odense, 203.7 km FÃ¶rster scores for Gerolsteiner, as O'Grady takes yellow

Friday, August 04, 2006

Aussies in Denmark

Some Aussies are doing well in the Tour of Denmark... stage 2 - see Cyclingnews for the report: 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team CSC 0.21, 4 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 0.23, 5 Baden Cooke (Aus) Unibet.com, 14 Gene Michael Bates (Aus) Team L.P.R. 0.39

Monday, July 31, 2006

Other sports and doping

Because I can, I will comment on drugs, doping and what have you. It's just my opinion but I personally realised something was truly happening - as against being told by press or dodgy friends what "was" happening - when I spent time in an eastern suburbs gym in Sydney, building up for bike racing (more of a psychological boost than a physical one). This was the mid 1980's. These big, shiny, oily pimply guys were always there lifting massive weights (and gazing into mirrors) and they could sell you "stuff". It reminded me of 'under the stairs' deal at high school, actually, but different stuff. That other stuff you got at the pub and was detrimental to sports performance, or general sanity for that matter. (Not that I did, but some people did do that other stuff, anyway!)

So you could buy any sort of body-building drug at that particular gym, in my experience. Presumably other gyms as well. I also "knew" about the occasional cyclist's drink bottle ("bidon") that (it was suggested) contained alcohol, to give some sort of kick up hills or before a sprint. Don't know how effective it was, but a few people seemed to like it and claimed to "know". Bikes of course are build to carry bidons as well as riders and musette bags, but what about other sports?

'No-Doze' was also big in the '80s for that caffeine kick, and coffee itself gained notoriety in sports where being "aware" and awake was important. Again in cycling there were "special" bananas to be eaten just before a race finish. Now these were reputedly spiked with amphetamines, but who knows the truth? No-one did a laboratory analysis on this sort of stuff at the time and it may have been riders just bragging. But very, very few people were drug tested pre or post race, even at elite State level back then, so anything could have happened. (And I have yet to see a club-level drug test, even now. Tell me if you've seen one!)

So I can imagine, and it is just imagination fueled by innuendo and availability (particularly via the Internet), that some bike racers are using performance enhancing agents to "get noticed"; firstly at club level (basically weekly racing thoughout the year) and probably at State level. They would effectively get away with it. Testing remains something done at higher levels of the sport, not below. Not often, anyway, in my experience, would they get caught. On the other hand I have never myself seen a culture of drug use in cycling at first hand, beyond caffeine and stories of what other riders did. I heard about but didn't see the evidence.

Nevertheless we quite possibly get riders started on this stuff early and then they either chicken out, or get smarter. Or dumber? If there's money involved there's temptation. Of course cycling is not as "wealthy" as some other sports.

So what happens in other sports?

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Web resources - Roadcycling UK

An interesting take on the UK road and TT scene is to be found at RoadcyclingUK. Worth checking out. Here's a snippet on starting road racing in the UK:
Road Racing from scratch By RCUK "I could do that!" Almost invariably it's around the time of the three great tours that many occasional cyclists get so carried away by the unfolding drama, passion and competitive spirit of the Giro d'Italia,Tour de France and Spanish Vuelta that they picture themselves flying along in the midst of an illustrious bunch or riding with relative ease up steep mountain climbs with cheering crowds lining the road. At least that's what appears to be the case, even though you know that the apparent ease at which the riders are "flying" along at an average speed of 45k per hour is deceptive and the whole idea, in fact, may seem totally mad and completely and utterly out of my league - even more so as the prerequisite is incredibly hard training, unbelievable talent and a super-human physique. But cycling is all about sticking at it.

Music stuff

2006-07-30T02:10:00.000Z

Check this out. Vinyl. Cool or what?

I've got loads of old vinyl. People of a certain age have this stuff. I also have loads of CDs, VHS and more recently DVDs. I even have the odd MP3 but as I like my music loud and to vibrate the house I don't have a puny MP3 player.

The Music.com came to my attention at a Who concert last year. They sell some pretty cool gear for aging hippies and boomers. I did buy a pile of the Who's CDs from those 2005 gigs but I don't think my enthusiasm extends to getting a complete set of every gig, which appears to be available. Makes bootlegging obsolete, anyway.

This has to be useful. Diigo has some cool tools for social annotators

2006-07-27T03:33:00.000Z

This has to be useful. Diigo has some cool tools for social annotation - including sharing tags and bookmarks - plus some sharp tools for bloggers. Check it out.

To quote their home page: "The Diigo team is dedicated to provide innovative and useful web services for our users. The name "Diigo" is an abbreviation for "Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff." Diigo (dee'go) is about "Social Annotation". By combining social bookmarking, clippings, in situ annotation, tagging, full-text search, easy sharing and interactions, Diigo offers a powerful personal tool and a rich social platform for knowledge users, and in the process, turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media. The social annotation service introduced by Diigo allows users to add highlights and sticky notes, in situ, on any web page they read. Imagine a giant transparency overlaying on top of all the web pages. Users can write on the transparency as they wish, as private notes or public comments. And they can read public comments on the transparency left by other readers of the same page, and hear their "two cents" and interact with them."

Cool.

Le Tour 2006

2006-07-26T07:45:00.000Z

My 2006 Tour de France Wrap up, all wrapped up

Back to normal

Stage 20 - Le Tour 2006 - the dust settles

Stage 19 - Le Tour 2006 - the TT decides

Stage 18 - Le Tour 2006 - Status Quo

Stage 17 - Le Tour 2006 - Floyd flies!

Stage 16 - le Tour 2006 - Floyd falters

Stage 15 - Le Tour 2006 - Alpe d'Huez

Rest Day 2 - Le Tour 2006

Stage 14 - Le Tour 2006 - France over Italy this time

Stage 13 - Le Tour 2006 - Voigt's day in the sun

Le Tour 2006 - stage by stage

2006-07-15T00:19:00.000Z

Missed some stages? Catch up here!

Stage 12 - Le Tour 2006 - Discovery bounce back

Stage 11 - Le Tour - Rabobank strongest

Stage 10 - Le Tour - The mountain tactics

Stage 9 - Le Tour - The Spaniard returns

Le Tour - Rest Day 1

Stage 8 - Le tour - Calzati's day

Stage 7 - Le Tour 2006 - T-Mobile win

Stage 6 - Le Tour 2006 - McEwen's 3rd.

Stage 5 - Le Tour 2006 - the Spaniard takes it

Stage 4 - Le Tour 2006 - McEwen's 2nd

Stage 3 - Le Tour 2006 - the Cauberg

Stage 2 - Le Tour 2006 - Chaos and the Viking

Stage 1 - Le Tour 2006 - Blood on the road

Prologue - Le Tour 2006

Le Tour and the Aussie contingent

We get so close and the rug gets pulled

Mustknow links

2006-07-10T04:21:00.000Z

Mustknow, as in you must know this stuff. It's a fluid thing really. And not as prescriptive as it sounds. It's just my opinion. You don't really have to know this stuff, but I know it and I reckon someone else may like to know it too!

Mustknow bikelinks, quintessential bike know-how.
Addicted2wheels, the bike blog for racers
Bike racing for almost anyone
Take a flying leap with these airliner links. From Constellations to DC2s...
Got a Tipo 116? Crash your world with these slightly Alfa-centric carlinks..
Like your music with electricity? Thrash your world with these musiclinks
Super cool music theory site
Philosophically speaking, you must have some idea about why we are here
Environment getting you down? It should! Serious, sustainable business blogging
Steady study with the MBA resources at thespiel

Hope you find something useful in amongst that lot!

History of the P4 - well, one view anyway

2006-07-07T04:03:00.000Z

I'm a bit obsessed with the PC industry. In analysing the product life cycle of the PC recently I suggested that it was at the stage where it had commoditised and faced concentration into a few big players being nibbled at on teh edges by niches; or where it quietly died, replaced by something better. At the heart of the PC of course is the processor and the chief players include Intel and AMD. Their future is inextricably linked to the PC market. Either that or get out and do something elsewhere, like IBM has done with Cell. And there's a whole wealth of history in processors.

Now it's pretty plain that relatively speaking the P4 was a dud that lost ground to AMD. Intel turned to the P3 design to develop the Pentium M, rather than leverage P4. And again they ignored the P4 to develop their new "Core" product line. Try this quote from Tom Yager: "Intel’s first server-targeted core microarchitecture CPU, the Dual-core Xeon Processor 5100 (aka Woodcrest), has made its debut. A client CPU line branded Core 2 Duo launched as well, so in servers, desktops, and notebooks, Pentium 4 (aka Netburst ) is officially off the road map."

Or this:"Now it falls to buyers to maintain a vigilant skepticism. While Intel seems to have come to its technological senses, it has not mended its marketecture. The “Core” brand confusingly refers to two unrelated, incompatible architectures; Core Duo and Core Solo are not 64-bit Core Microarchitecture CPUs, but are fairly minor enhancements to the 32-bit Pentium M. Core Microarchitecture marketing reaches for revisionist continuity by crediting the contributions that Netburst made to Core, attempting to paint over Core Architecture’s design goal of repeating none of Netburst’s mistakes." Netburst of course refers to the P4.

Read the rest of Tom's yarn on the P4 here at Infoworld.

Bloggomania

2006-07-07T02:30:00.000Z

Blogging gives me another reason to write. As I do want to write, and I want to practise writing, it seems to me that any method is better than no method. Blogging is a style, one that I break regularly. There's an etiquette as well, which I choose to ignore. The point to me is that I can write what I want, when and where I want. Now I always could - and did - do that. However now my scraps of paper are not filed away in a folder but published on the web. Apart from added colour and motion I have gained a small readership. Potentially, anyway. Somehow it's both inspiring and limiting to have this level of openness. Inspiring that what I write will be viewed and critiqued, and limiting in the sense that now what I write is not just for me. So I tend to edit a bit more harshly. Or not. It's my choice, and I am aware of it.

Anyway, most of my recent writing has been in my blogs. I blog about writing, photography, business, cars and bike racing. Plus I rant and rave. Or just share opinions. There's some overlap, but mostly they stay on track. Feel free to critique.

The science of harmony

2006-07-06T23:48:00.000Z

The mathematics behind music is almost as interesting as the music itself - well, almost. This caught my eye: "In Western music, harmony--the selection of notes to create a chord--and
counterpoint--how individual notes are connected in time to establish melodic voices--together form the basis for composition. The rules of harmony and counterpoint embody aesthetic norms but also represent constraints on the composer that can sometimes be difficult to reconcile.
Tymoczko (p. 72; see the Perspective by Hook) discusses a mathematical system for organizing the 12 tones of the western scale that makes use of a topological structure called an orbifold, in which chords are points in the topological space and the segments connecting them indicate how chords progress. Examination of the geometry of these spaces provides an understanding of some long-standing puzzles in music theory." It's from Science.

Some essential business reading from Harvard

2006-06-19T23:04:00.000Z

Some essential business reading from Harvard, including especially good stuff on Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard. Beware the implementation. Some companies implement the name more than the concept. Is your balanced scrorecard truly balanced? Does it align? Read more.

You mustknow about social networking!

2006-06-16T03:25:00.000Z

Well, social networking is all the rage on the web. What's happening is that what we had in real life is being reproduced or adapted to suit our new virtual lives. It's the same but bigger and flatter. If you know what I mean. It's easier to connect but harder to hug. Anyway, Wharton has a good article on its history here.

I mentioned it here, too.

Platial, Eventful, Flagr, Wayfaring, 43Places, Zopto, Zoomin and Plazes

2006-06-15T23:36:00.000Z

Into maps? Into social networking? Want personal functionality, like customised maps you can share? We've all been to Google Earth, Google Maps and the Yahoo and Microsoft catch-ups and seen what can happen when everyone gets a go at making spelling mistakes on a global scale. Now check out what you can do when you lay more personal functionality on top of online mapping:
Try Platial (meaningful local mapping with a social networking focus - which led me to Eventful for event announcement), Flagr, Wayfaring (a really easy way to create your own map and share it), the overly-NZ-dominated 43Places, Zoomin (the Aussie affiliate of Zopto and again a great way to share maps - you can almost see me here: http://www.zoomin.com.au/australia/nsw/central+coast/saratoga/davistown+road/) and the lovely Plazes interface.

It's an obvious extension of what's online already. For those who are asleep it's called a mash-up. Basically mashing together multiple streams of data. Cool, huh?

I'm not preaching but... you MUST know this stuff :)

2006-06-14T07:31:00.000Z

I'm not preaching but... you MUST know this stuff :)

OK, some people admire Airliners
Some people like to look at airliner images
A small number of people callect old airliner postcards
The environmentally aware ride bikes (yes, bicycles)
Some people like 'em so much they go bike racing (a guide for the non-elite rider)
Others destroy our world with cars (or Automobiles)
However some cars look nice in images
When you get serious about sustainable business you need MBA resources
And to relax you need these music must-knows
And to enjoy life you need a philosophy - let's try Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
And lastly to while away your time and mine: My Blogs
1. The cycling-specific Exercise Physiology Research Blog
2. The Business-related Environmentally Sustainable Blog
3. The socially responsible old 1982 Alfa Romeo GTV Blog (yeah, riiiight)