machinehead

Here are a couple of links you can use to test your connectivity speed. http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ http://www.zdnet.com.au/broadband/speedtest.htm

This statement can possibly be one of the more inevitable aspects of our lives, as computers become more and more embedded into our lives. Kids of 3-6 yrs getting on internet explorer and visiting http://www.abc.net.au/children/ on their own. Its a pretty good website that is guranteed to entertain any toddler. Slightly frustrating for adults, but the kids seem to like it. At ages 12 to 14, they will probably want there AMD CPU with a kick ass 3D accerator with wide screen high res screen to play proper games on. I'm sure their game console will be hooked up to the monitor as well. (plasma?) Once they get to 16, instead of a car, they will go "mommy, I want a blade. I've got a school project and I want to see if my experiments will work." Make space in the garage and haul in the server rack with 10 TB in some storage array and a 2-4 node cluster? Who knows maybe kids just want a frisbee and a yo-yo.

As I sit in my room coiling 20+ cables that didn't quite make it into the new setup. I keep thinking of all the people who try to convince me that wireless is the way to go. Its not that I totally do not believe everything should be wired, but I've seen so many issues with wireless technology. Here's a brief breakdown of cables i have. Power cables, 1/4 in, TRS, XLR, midi, USB, firewire, DVI, component, VGA, RCA audio, CAT5, SPDIF, etc. Right, so lets make all this wireless. How much bandwidth can you put into the air and not get conflicts in frequencies. I believe the air is polluted enough. I can't even get a good large file transfer with 802.11g without my neighbour accidentally disconnecting me. Speed rules doesn't it and everyone wants broadband which you can't get at this point with wireless. Contrary to what my wife thinks, I dont really like cable messes. Sure, I'd like to clean it all up. I actually like the idea of multi purpose hub based fiber cab...

i'm sure this is going to be a multi part series. one of the more basic things that been around for ages and most out of the box solution people dred. I think its something to be tackled headon for in the quest for computer adulthood to get past the delinquent years. The first question I will ask as a out of box type of guy is, "Is this an art or science, skill or attitute?" Going back a few years, kernels used to be so easy to compile, I remembered running make xconfig on redhat 4 or 5 and there really wasn't that much too choose. looking at all the configs now. its a real killer you wouldn't even want to type make config. So that means it needs patience. patience = attitude. Art or science? pull out that techno dictionary and start reading. Finished reading? Ok, no disregard half of what you read, mostly the parts you dont understand (this assumes you got the right attitude). Alternatively, pull apart the hardware you have. inventorise what you have on a piece o...

Its arrived and i've been mucking around with it for a few days now. Its rigged up and i've retired my Tascam US-428 and Fostex 4-track. Test 1: Plays mp3 - Sounds great. I'm not sure if its my imagination, but it does sound great via my reference monitors which sometimes had some noise from the connectors of the 4-track. Test 2: HUI controls work with sequencer. This is the first time I'm using pro tools so I'm not sure how the jog wheel works at this point. Right now I'm getting frustrated with markers and not navigating correctly. It doesn't have the intuitiveness of cubase, which works great and its good having all that inputs on the firewire bus instead. No issues with how the jog wheel works there. Test 3: Changing setup while computer is running. The moral of the story is do not when any audio application is running. My computer had a history of audio driver blue screen's before so I'm not sure if its just this machine, but good to know that i...