I’m Still Here (& Engaged!)

Hello again, Internet! It’s been a while since the last update, so I thought I’d drop in and act like I still have a blog. First and foremost, I need to mention something I’m ecstatic about.

On the beautiful palindrome Saturday of 01/02/2010, I proposed to Julie, my girlfriend of four years. Since she accepted, I now must get used to calling her my fiancé!

We’re planning on having the big day in September of 2011, so we have plenty of time to figure out exactly what we want. But wow — I’m now finding just how complicated all this planning is. :)

Yay for Julie and me! Thanks, everyone, for the kind wishes.

My Favorite Android Apps

So I’ve owned the Motorola Droid for just over a month now, and I’m just loving it. Yes, the phone isn’t without its shortcomings, but many of them are getting fixed via software updates. I don’t really want to post another review since there are a bunch of good ones already, but rather list my very favorite apps.

• ConnectBot is an truly excellent ssh client with plenty of features — including easy ssh tunnel managing!
• Dolphin is a good replacement web browser with lots of fancy features.
• NewsRob is the best way I’ve found to read RSS. It syncs with Google Reader (like NetNewsWire on my Mac!) and offers a very comfortable way to navigate and read the news.
• Google Voice, if you can get an invite, is amazing: free phone calls / texts in and out, visual voicemail, vm transcriptions, call recording…
• Google Listen is a really great podcast downloader/player.
• HandyCalc is a very powerful calculator with graphing, algebra, and unit conversion features.
• Google Sky Map turns your phone into a guide to the sky. By reading from the accelerometer and compass sensors in the phone, this app shows what should be seen in the sky when looking in the phone’s oriented direction.
• Pandora, Last.fm, StreamFurious, and Jamendo are all great apps for streaming music down to your phone. Amdroid lets me connect to my Ampache instance on the server back home and stream anything from my collection.
• Qik lets me stream (and archive) live video from my phone.
• SwiFTP starts up a simple ftp daemon that I can connect to from my PC to manage files on the SD card. This is more convenient than plugging it in.
• Mythmote lets me remote control my MythTV DVR software on the TV.
• SqueezeDroid lets me remote control my SqueezeBox.
• TransDroid lets me remote control my torrents running on the server.
• Seesmic is a nicer Twitter client than Twidroid, I think. Maybe not as many features, but it’s clean, totally free, and includes bit.ly API support.
• Meebo IM is my favorite IM application of the bunch. It supports all the major networks.
• MixZing is a great improvement over the native media player, though I haven’t been playing local media much on my Droid. I wouldn’t really want to use my Droid as my primary media player. While the built-in speaker is quite good, the headphone output is not the best from a portable.

The Android user base is currently growing by leaps and bounds with the release of the Droid and other exciting new phones. It seems like every day there’s a great new app and several updates to existing apps. I’m very much enjoying being a part of it!

Fix Found for Weird Noise from Mac OSX Audio

As I was just researching unrelated stuff pertaining to Android, I came across this post from a guy who was having an issue on his Mac that sounded exactly the same as one that’s been bugging me for months now! He never followed up on his post, but it was from about 7 months ago, so I thought it was worth shooting him a line to see if he ever solved it. He had!

For him, it was the Android emulator, but for me, I believe it was caused by VirtualBox. The internal speakers were fine, but when I used a USB DAC or even the in-built headphone output, I would get a subtle fuzz noise in the background when the music was playing. (The noise was missing when all audio was silent.) This forced me to rely on the optical output to get sound from the MacBook Pro to my headphones.

The fix is to open up OSX’s “Audio MIDI Setup” tool in the Utilities folder. Select your output device under the “Properties For” drop-down and make sure that it is selected to be “2ch-16bit” on the right. For some reason, these apps seem to want to switch to “2ch-8bit” and that is what causes the problem. It does appear the fix will need to be performed again after each use of these applications.

Don’t really know who to blame for that one… But thank you, Duncan, for the tip!

I hope this helps someone else. I had no luck searching for a fix, myself.

The Droid is Coming!

So I’ve been working from the same, boring ‘ol, non-smartphone phone for longer than I can even remember now. Verizon sent me a text message something like 6 months ago telling me I’m elligible for a new phone, but I’m still holding out. I’ve known for years that I want an Android phone, but of course the G1 is slow and chunky. The MyTouch 3G doesn’t seem much better. Only now are we starting to see some proper Android phones coming out.

The upcoming Droid phone (or Sholes if you believe this report) from Motorola seems to be not just be the Android phone of my dreams, but a smartphone that will truly shake up the whole mobile space and perhaps give the mighty iPhone a run for its money. Just about everything about it seems appealing: big (854×480 — iPhone is 480×320 for comparison), beautiful screen, slide-out keyboard, fast processor, 5 megapixel camera, and of course all the usuals like an accelerometer, GPS, compass, etc. It’s only a hair thicker than the iPhone, to boot!

I think I may also grab the separately-sold dock accessory. It lets the phone become a little widget dashboard so I can see bits of info and run all manner of nifty apps off to the side.

Why didn’t I just get an iPhone already? I’ll tell you why. If I buy a piece of hardware, I expect to be able to install software on it. The iPhone platform has some serious issues with that way of thinking since you can only install software that Apple has deemed “OK” via the “App Store.” Further, their approval process can seem entirely arbitrary as they have approved apps only to later deny them, and deny apps only to later approve them. And if they don’t like you, they’ll take their sweet time at coming to any conclusion! Oh, and while I know Verizon employees are trained to ignore basic math, I have heard a slew of even more horrifying stories pertaining to the locked-in iPhone carrier, AT&T.

I’ve already began dabbling in Android app development, and it looks like their API’s are very workable. I think it’s pretty empowering to be able to write software for my phone, and I really don’t think Apple belongs in my way when I want to share my app with a friend. And the ability to actually have background processes running like a modern, multi-tasking operating system is also very appealing!

So needless to say, I’m psyched. Verizon’s big announcement is on the 28th of October, but based on some leaked infos, we’re expecting to see the phone(s) become available on the 6th of November.

Check out this hands on preview from Boy Genius Report!

Shure Announces New DJ Headphones

In the way of headphones, Shure have historically only built in-ear monitors. But they have since launched a line of full-sized studio headphones, too. Well, they’ve just announced a DJ headphone to add to the mix, with planned availability sometime in November. And I certainly approve of the look.

Shure Press Release

Shure Product Page

Wallpaper: Trent Reznor

I shot this picture from third row center of a NIN/JA show on May 31, 2009. Just a couple quick operations in the Gimp, and here’s what we have! I’ve actually been using this wallpaper for months already, and it seems to deliver exactly what I want from my wallpaper. :)

CanJam at RMAF 2009!

Just last weekend, the annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest happened in Denver, Colorado. RMAF is a massive audio show. Several floors of rooms in a huge hotel are cleaned out and turned into listening areas for vendors of all kinds. They set up their gear and show it off to audiophiles.

This is the first RMAF that CanJam has participated in. CanJam, of course, is an official (read: huge) Head-Fi.org meet. Up until now it was an annual event, but CanJam@RMAF is set to become the CanJam.5 each year.

Wish I could have been there, but I do have my sights on CanJam 2010 in Chicago!

Check out the RMAF thread, Jude’s pics, or Dave & Carol’s pics.

Microphone Made of Frickin’ Lasers

Just imagine the types of recordings that could become possible once this technology is fully realized! I bet this is where microphone technology will be heading.

The press release on this one is full of superlatives, but somehow most of them seem justified. Schwartz Engineering & Design just announced its Laser-Accurate microphone technology, which promises to provide “pure sound” from a microphone for the “first time ever.” It works by detecting the impact of sound on the motion of particles in a stream of air by running a laser across them, and was created by David Schwartz, who holds several digital audio patents, including one that is foundational to the MP3 format (which is, ironically, not a traditional friend to the audiophile). The idea is to avoid the inherent “coloring” of sound due to a regular microphone’s physical diaphragm, since the moving particles are virtually weightless. Of course, it seems that a Laser-Accurate mic would have plenty of variables of its own to deal with in regards to the stream of air, but we suppose we’ll find out just how tight Schwartz has this thing when it’s shown off for the first time in NY next month. PR is after the break.

Laser-Accurate microphone proves once and for all that everything is better with lasers via Engadget

Ultrasone Edition 9 vs Edition 8 Headphones

I’ve owned Ultrasone’s Edition 9 headphones for nearly two years now. While I do like their sound, the insides of the cups are not quite deep enough for my ears. The sensation of them resting on the tops of my ears starts out annoying and becomes downright irritating before very long at all. Well, I finally decided to give them up. They’re now sold and gone. During the transaction, though, I happened upon an opportunity to pick up the new Edition 8’s second hand for a reasonable price. So, since I’ve been wanting to try them for some time now, I decided to jump in and give them a go. I even had a few days with both headphones as I waited for the buyer’s payment to clear.

The Edition 9’s make no attempt to “disappear” due to their clamping force and weight. They have a long cable, terminated with a 1/4″ plug. They are obviously designed for stationary listening, though many have found use for them as a portable headphone. To me, I hear a bit of a bass exaggeration all through the low frequencies. I feel that the Edition 9’s are better suited to a rocker who wants their basslines slamming. Genres like pop, metal, or hip hop seem like they do well since bass is so important there, and detail is not the most important aspect. I always felt the Edition 9’s were really great headphones for me until I tried the JH13 and Edition 8.

The Edition 8’s are quite a different animal. They are much lighter on my head and the enclosures almost don’t touch my ears at all. This time, it’s the bottoms of my ears that touch the insides of the cups a little. It’s far less annoying, though, and I seem to be able to wear these for much longer without issue. They are terminated with a 1/8″ plug after only 1.2 meters. This, and their weight, make them a much better choice for a portable rig. They also come with a 4 meter extension cable that I have found useful since all my headphones now have short cables.

I have the impression that the sound from the Edition 8 is more polite and balanced. While there is no doubt the sub bass has a somewhat generous boost, everything else seems quite balanced. I find this low bass occasionally annoying, but I think that it is helped with a good amp; my RPX-33 seems to take better control of the bass than my RSA portables. They also have great transients. The speed increase of these drivers mean noticeably improved detail retrieval! Ultrasone’s “S-Logic Plus” on the Edition 8 does seem to increase upon the effect of the “S-Logic” in the Edition 9. The drivers are aimed at the listener’s pinna (the outer ear) so the sound must bounce around the ear before finding the eardrum. This leads to a more “3-D” sound that seems more like a projection. I think the Edition 8 would be better suited to instrumental music like classical or jazz, where neutrality and detail are more important.

It’s interesting to note, though, that I still greatly prefer my JH13 for just about everything. They have much better detail than even the Edition 8. They are more intimate and definite in their view into the recording. The bass, while not lacking at all, is very well integrated and doesn’t stick out as much as the Ultrasones. I’d even go as far as to say that they’re more comfortable. Why do I bother then? Well, I like different perspectives on my music. Sometimes I don’t want to stick my IEMs in my ears, but would prefer to have big, warm pads enclosing my ears and have big bass and a different soundstage.

Thankfully, given that I was already in the process of letting go of the Edition 9, I found that I overall prefer the Edition 8. I really appreciate the increased clarity and more neutral presentation. And the better comfort is icing on the cake.

Steve Gibson on Vitamin D

Though my favorite podcast, Security Now, usually aims to cover topics related to computer security, Steve Gibson decided to devote an episode to a topic that he felt was very important to everyone: vitamin D.

Steve makes the great point that vitamin D is not patentable! Thus, the large pharmaceutical companies with all the money have no incentive to research, and the burden is left to universities and other organizations with limited funding. So, it has only been in recent years that this powerful steroid hormone (as he describes it) has been more fully understood.

UVB rays from the sun can cause you to produce vitamin D in your skin. It is widely accepted that we originally evolved in Africa near the equator with plenty of direct sunlight. It is believed that these abundant amounts of vitamin D, over time, caused the substance to become very important to the function of our bodies. So it’s no wonder vitamin D turns out to be such an important part of a healthy individual.

Up here in North America, though, we can only get the UVB rays for about half an hour around high noon due to the latitude. At any time outside this window, the rays are absorbed by the atmosphere before they reach us. So, dietary supplements become the most realistic way for us to get our vitamin D.

Our bodies were designed to have this in normal operation, but since we essentially don’t get it these days, there is an epidemic of vitamin D deficient people. This is bad, because having some vitamin D means:

• Greatly decreased chances of a long list of cancers
• General increase in effectiveness of the immune system
• Mood elevation (ever heard of seasonal affective disorder?)
• Better calcium metabolism (stronger bones)
• Probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten, or that isn’t even known yet

So I’ve taken Steve’s advice and got some supplements. They’re inexpensive, easy to swallow, and I only have to take one of these tiny capsules every three days.

I highly recommend that you either read his vitamin D page, listen to the podcast (linked on the page), or both. He goes into much more detail than I have, and I found it all quite interesting.