Scamwagon

A Second Class Citizen at the Verizon Wireless Store

2011-12-17T12:25:00.001-05:00

A couple of days ago, a new, large Verizon Store sprung up down the road. At about the same time, Verizon finally announced the availability of the new and long awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone - The phone that was hyped by Google and Samsung in early October, announced in Late October, promised to be released in November, and then delayed and delayed until the middle of December. It's been all over the news and in people's faces.

I figured the timing was no accident, and sauntered in to see if I might be able to have a look at this Ice Cream Sandwich laiden beast. To be honest, I was half expecting them to tell me they didn't have one. As a Verizon Wireless customer in Vermont for over 15 years, I've gotten used to being a second-class citizen. We are the usually the last to get network upgrades, good stores with good phones, or sales people who can handle technical questions.

I walked in and quickly surveyed the store, before I was immediately swooped down upon by an overly-smiley sales lady. The first red flag: all of the showroom phones were phonnequins (faux plastic mock-ups with stickers instead of a real display). There were no functional units anywhere.

I asked her if I could see the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and she said "sure". She "just needed to know my account info", so she could look it up. This was new and weird to me, as all I wanted to do was look at a phone. I gave her my account info, and she returned a few minutes later with a brand-new-in-box Galaxy Nexus. It had never been opened (and, as you may have guessed, was not activated). She took it out and fiddled with the phone, which was sitting at the activation wizard. She tried to subtly ask her colleague what the "unlock code" was for the phone (lol). Unsurprisingly, he was not much help. She then cheerfully handed me the phone, saying "well, at least you can get your hands on it!". Today would not be the day I would get to play with Ice Cream Sandwich.

As I inspected the phone's physical attributes, namely its bigness in the hand, and the appearance of its SuperAMOLED 4.65" high def screen, the sales lady pointed out that it was about the same size as the Samsung Charge, but, and I quote, "the big thing with that is the face unlock." I almost burst out laughing, but she was serious.

I'd had all I could take, and I got out of there as fast as I could. I think I'll wait until one of my friends gets a Gnex so I can look at it for real, since I apparently can't see one at my local Verizon Store. Wait, what am I thinking? I can just download a face unlock app to the Samsung Droid Charge, and I'd basically have myself a Samsung Galaxy Nexus!

Congratulations, You're BLACKLISTED!

2011-12-17T12:25:00.000-05:00

A long time ago, I posted The Trouble With Greylisting. My latest rant is brought to you by the current state of e-mail server blacklisting. I'll relate to you the following anecdote, to help with the specifics:

My client recently purchased a new internet pipe from their ISP - (I won't specify, but let's just say they're "Vermont's largest wireline provider.") Along with this new connection came a new block of public IP addresses. This has been standard fare - they have switched connections 3 times in the last 2 years, and for a variety of reasons, each time it's been a fiasco to get everything migrated to the new block.

This time it almost went incredibly smoothly (without question, this was at least partly due to the help of an Astaro Security Gateway, and its almost infinite flexibility). The only snag was when I moved the mail server over to the new IP block. Within 20 minutes, people were reporting bounces (undeliverable message reports). The new IP address was blacklisted for sending spam. I moved the server to another IP in the block, and an hour or so later, received another report of the same issue. For the record, this server is totally clean, and sends maybe 50 totally legit messages an hour, during peak.

The only explanation is that some (perhaps all?) of the IPs that were given to us were previously used by spammers. As I played the scenario through in my head, it all made sense. Due to the severely overtaxed IPv4 address space, addresses are constantly recycled. Furthermore, every IP address in that space has probably used by a spammer at some time or another, given the number of spammers in the world. Ok, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but still... It was enough for me to get the picture.

I moved the mail server back to the known good IP, and then set out to start the long and arduous process of delisting all these IPs. Even though I don't plan to use more than one for sending mail, I need to have options, as obviously I can't predict what is going to happen to my IP reputation, regardless of what is actually my fault.

Throughout the process, one interesting thing I got to see was the variety of different types of blacklists out there. They range from reasonable and responsible (think Spamcop), to strange, and obscure. Some blacklists are very straightforward about removal requests. The policy is simply "check yourself, and then click the removal button." Some blacklist providers investigate reports of spam before listing a host. However, the lower end providers take a very lazy approach to blacklist management. They blacklist everything based on loose criteria, don't expire anything, and make it very difficult for hosts to request removal. One delisting form was actually punctuated with a lecture about how

So, to review, we have 2 problems:

1. (some) ISPs sell IP blocks with no guarantees about the reputation of IPs within that block

2. (some) Blacklist providers use lazy tactics to manage their lists, including listing without due process, with complicated and indefinite delisting requirements, and without expiration of highly outdated listings.

With these 2 factors at work, it's a very disconcerting direction for private mail hosting in general.

Whether Steve Jobs Liked It Or Not, Apple Created the Market For Android

2011-10-24T15:28:00.000-04:00

As Steve Jobs' authorized biography is released, we are getting some of the first public looks at his perspective. I'm not surprised to hear about his view of Android as a "stolen" product. Android is a smartphone OS that features a lot of the same usability aspects as the iPhone OS. However, the reality is that Android fills a need that the iPhone's closed architecture doesn't: The freedom to run almost anything you want on the device you own. Apple created the market, now largely owned by Android, when they decided to withhold that freedom from their developers and users.

Interestingly, Google was already thinking about Android well before the iPhone came out. They acquired the developer in July, 2005, almost 2 years before Apple's announcement of the iPhone. So whether it's really a theft is up for debate... An expensive debate that is being waged in court, and probably will for years to come.

Regardless of that outcome,

...the people who love Android over iOS are generally people who care more about freedom than having the perfect user experience.

...Freedoms such as being able to choose from a wide range of devices, with a wide range of prices. The freedom of installing applications that aren't necessarily published in "The Market". The freedom to choose your own music management system. The freedom of customization.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that the devices in the Apple ecosystem work really well, in part or in whole, because they have such a controlled environment. As Android has helped demonstrate, more things can go wrong when there are fewer limitations. Maintaining a controlled environment is necessary to serve the "I don't care, I just want it to work" segment of the market, the one that Apple best associates with. Apple routinely bans apps from the app store, without much of an (if any) explanation as to why. Incidentally, not all of them are adult or poor taste apps - some of them are actually useful. Some go fairly unnoticed, others have a much larger impact. They probably have their reasons, and even if they don't, iPhone users are getting what they signed up for.

By limiting the apps and capabilities the user has access to, they limit the variables that can create unforeseen circumstances. This rule is important when designing successful user interfaces, and it makes sense that it would carry over to product development. However, this should be viewed as a "tough decision", and Apple certainly needs to be accountable for the fact that some developers and users were and will be alienated. It's these folks who have likely found themselves at home with the Android OS.

Alt Rock Band Mutemath Quietly Rocks Vermont's Higher Ground

2011-09-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

After 3 successful albums, several appearances on the late night shows of David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, and others, Mutemath, the 2007 Grammy Nominated alt rock band known for their creative and energetic performances finally descended on Burlington's only "little big venue", Higher Ground. Why then, was the show tucked away in the smaller Showcase lounge, with only around 70 or so people in attendance?

Concert review, photos, and video after the jump.

The scene in the showcase lounge was very unassuming. Tall, skinny girls and preppy 20-something guys were in attendance - pretty standard fair for an alt rock band performance. Some quietly waited, while others stood in groups and talking and bantering. A friend and I went up to check out the vintage equipment, commonly seen in Mutemath's setup, that was crammed onto the small stage.

Out of nowhere, the entire band entered via the audience door, and processed up to the stage, marching band style. And just like that, it was on.

We knew this because Drummer Darren King approached his drumset, put on his over-the-ear headphones, and performed his signature application of duct tape around the entire headset and his face. It was a surprise that the show was starting for what felt to me like a tentatively small crowd. However, as we would find out, the crowd would not grow any larger that evening.

The hallmarks of any Mutemath performance are an amazing combo of sweat, high stage volume, instrument-trashing, and acrobatics, all while maintaining a tight performance and complete control of the stage and crowd. Right from the start, this show was no exception. Despite the small size of the stage, they managed to move comfortably between instruments, and did so almost constantly. The suit and tie clad singer/keyboardist Paul Meany moved between 2 different keyboard setups (Hammond, Rhodes/Mini Mogue) and occasional drum banging at a third station, all the while sweat dripping from his face like a leaky sink. New guitar player Todd Gummerman was also seen occupying each of the keyboards a few times throughout the evening.

The bread and butter of Mutemath's sound is the powerhouse rhythm section that is Roy Mitchell-Cardenas and Darren King. Mitchell-Cardenas' bass lines were syncopated, busy, and perfectly locked to King's gritty, in-your-face, hi hat rich drumming style, creating overtones of electronica. But like their keyboard and guitar playing counterparts, their chops were not without a bit of performance flair. Mitchel-Cardenas' "Cousin Ed" hair was flying everywhere as his head bobbed. During their performance of Reset, King dumped his water bottle out onto his toms, causing a spray of water against the backdrop of lights, and a terrific visual display every time he hit one. As the water rained down on him (and surrounding equipment), his riveting performance was unphased - marked by his continuous, intense, blank stare, rife with concentration and seeming vendetta toward his unlucky drum kit.

Darren the "Rain King"?

At one point Meany asked who had traveled from out of town to see the show. Over half the people raised their hands.

Upon ascertaining that at least some part of the contingent was from Canada, he asked how many were from Montreal. I had a moment of shock and dismay as almost the same number of hands went up.

I remember the moment I heard that Mutemath was finally coming to play at my hometown music venue. It was a moment I had been waiting a long time for. The 4 piece alt rock band out of New Orleans has been something of legend in my mind. At one time, I had watched countless Youtube videos of their high energy performances, all laiden with theatrics, stage acrobatics, and what appeared to be organized chaos.

I first stumbled on Mutemath literally by accident, while searching for something else on a music download service, and decided to give them a listen. The first song I heard was "Reset" off their first album (Reset EP, 2004). After that, I watched the "Typical" music video, shot as they performed the entire thing in reverse, and then played "forward".

My friends and I obsessed over amazing videos, such as the ones in which drummer Darren King is seen crowd surfing on top of a bass drum (sometimes more successfully than others).

Around that time that I was discovering them, they were finishing up their second full album tour (Armistice, 2009), and we had missed it. Friends and I waited patiently for the opportunity to see them do a follow up tour. And waited, and waited... I think this delay may have begun a cascade-effect downturn for Mutemath. By their own admission, their follow up to the self-titled, grammy nominated album took much longer than they had hoped to release. The strange part is, looking at the sheer number of tracks on the album (20!)... why they didn't decide to drop some ballast. My guess is that a 12 or even 10 song release that was on schedule would have kept their music industry momentum, and the situation could be very different for them today. Rather, by the time their 2nd album was released, it went fairly unnoticed by those not in the know. Sadly, their 3rd release and supporting tour may be on the same road.

Will Mutemath will recover their upward movement toward stardom, if the word gets out about their exciting performances? Perhaps. In the meantime, I'll be attending as many of their shows as I can, as will any other fan who is lucky enough to get wind of them.

Dear Indie Rock Musician,

2011-09-20T01:35:00.002-04:00

A Letter From the Sound Crew

Dear Indie Rock Musician,

It has come to our attention that we will be working your show at our venue. This letter is to identify the preparations we have made, in order to minimize any responsibilities on your part.

Arrival/Sound Check

The info we sent you, which I'm sure you have read in its entirety, states that we will provide a line check at 7pm, doors are at 8pm. Please pay no attention to this. Arrival is at whatever time your individual band members desire. You may want to have your drummer (and drum kit) saunter in at 7:45, and we will see how much fun we can have loading the stage back line after guitar amps, mics, and cables are all over the stage.

Guitarists, place your Fender Twin or Mesa Combo flat on the stage, pointed directly at the audience (and the back of your legs).

Turning it up as loud as it will go will ensure that the sound man has that much less work to do.

As long as everyone just hears your amp, and everything else is drowned out anyway, there will be no point in wasting any effort on mixing the front-of-house sound. Should you become bored, please entertain yourself, us, and any others in earshot of the bar by drilling strange Buckethead-style scale runs or obnoxious Bonzo-style drum fills, continuously and as loudly as possible. Please do not concern yourself about the possible need for verbal communication, or even thought, by any of the crew or musicians, once you have your instrument set up enough to make noise. This is encouraged throughout sound check and while patrons are at the door, considering whether or not to pay the door fee.

Showtime

Please be certain that when showtime arrives, at least one member of your band is nowhere to be found. Once this has been established, you should use the mic like a department store paging system, and make a big show of calling him/her to the stage repeatedly. The fact that you basically require a full time babysitter for each member of the band is cute, and makes the band more "accessible" to the audience.

Immediately after the first song begins, stop the song and point out that you "can't hear anything" in the monitor. We will simply turn "it" up, and begin gauging the practical performance of our monitor equipment, as it attempts to compete with the stage volume of two guitar amps that are cranked to 11. A monitor system that is operating at the verge of feedback provides much needed stress and exercise for our sound engineers. Also, having adequate stage volume will ensure that we don't have to overtax our amplification system, as in actually needing it at all.

During Performance

A lesson in dynamics: play the parts of the song you like really loud, and the parts you don't really care about softly. After every song, take time to drink, privately sidebar with each other on how the last song went, etc.

If you've never done it before, this is a great time for you to try your hand at stand up comedy.

You can speak into the mics all at once. We have audiences with an uncanny ability to pick out a single conversant in a flood of 4 people talking at them at the same time.

When you're done talking, you may be inspired to start the process of tuning your guitar. Don't forget the crowd's favorite: yell to your buddy, or better yet, indicate to the general audience, that you need another drink. It's their duty to keep your drink glass full the whole time you are on stage. I'm sure some guy who just walked in off the street will plop down a $10 bill to buy you a Martini, and then walk in front of a gaping audience to bring it to you. It's the least he can do for someone who is providing him such high quality entertainment.

There comes a time when every band has to start the next song! Click down on your stomp box or pedal board, and load up the next song's settings. A great way to provide musical variety is to have a completely different volume setting for each of your guitar patches. No worries, the sound engineer has nothing better to do than happily ride your fader all night long, since everything else is going so smoothly.

Break

The break is a time for you to get some props for your hard work. Hang out with the girl/guy in the corner and let her/him know that you're in the band. What's that, you sound good, but the vocals could be louder? Our sound engineer welcomes second hand information about what's wrong with the sound, and especially some opinions about what he should do to improve it.

Break time is specified as 15 minutes, but feel free to jump back on stage 40 or so minutes later. Don't worry that your show is already almost an hour behind schedule because of how late you started, and how long it took you to get through your first set (which was only 7 songs).

Again, don't bother to get your drink before you go actually go on. You can always page out for someone to bring you one during the set.

Please wait until everyone else is back on the stage and ready to go before you begin tuning your instrument. Waiting as long as possible reduces the window of opportunity for it to go out of tune. The bar patrons are happy to have paid the door, basically just to stand in your presence and listen to set break music all night.

After the Performance

When you are wrapping up, be sure to announce over our PA that you are playing at [competing venue down the street] next Friday night, and that everyone had better be there. This is brings legitimacy to the venue who will be paying you later, as it shows the audience how much of a commodity your band is. Anyway, the windfall profits they undoubtedly got from your massive fan base tonight will surely be enough to tide them over for several weeks.

Encores are welcome and encouraged, especially when there are 2 more bands who are supposed to be on after you. At this point, all the people who came to see the next band, who was supposed to start almost 1½ hours ago, have now left anyway. Also, you wouldn't want to disappoint the your two stoner friends (now the only patrons left in the bar), who are standing at the foot of the stage and yelling "WOOOO! ENCORE!". (Edit: Don't forget to point out the fact that you'll be doing this "even though there is basically no one left", in case anyone watching hadn't noticed, or stupidly thought they were worth performing for.)

When you are done playing, don't be in a rush to get your stuff off the stage. Hang out, have a drink, and ask the closest bartender or waitress when you are going to get paid. That's far more important than our schedule. When packing your amps and stuff up, set all your (now full) drinks right on the stage, where they will be kicked over or leg swept by a mic cable. We don't care about a few beers spilling on our equipment. Also, feel free to leave your piles of empty glasses, broken strings/drum sticks/picks, and dead 9V batteries on the stage. We have a designated person who will remove these items when you have left.

If you follow the guidelines of this letter, you can be guaranteed that the decision about whether to hire your band again in the future will be much more expeditious.

Sincerely,
The Crew

Victor Wooten To Vermont Bass Players: Take Better Notes, Bathe.

2011-06-20T11:09:00.003-04:00

Last Sunday, I, along with some of Vermont's highest profile bass players (which I don't count myself among) attended the Victor Wooten bass clinic held at Daddy's Junky Music in Williston, VT. Wooten, who was in town for the Flynn Theater show with Bela Fleck and (the original) Flecktones, held the clinic from 1-2pm. While the chance to meet and talk to one of the worlds foremost electric bass players was at hand, the Vermont bass players in attendance also received some assertive and off-the-beaten-path advice.

Figuring on the opportunity to meet and get to know some of other bass players in the area, I arrived rather early. Sure enough, I recognized several players from the area, including Thom Carvey, Billy Dorsey, Aram Bedrosian, a guy named "Rudy" (I've never known his last name) and several others. I even ran into the guy that sold me my upright bass last year, and chatted with him for a while.

As you might expect, the pre-clinic scene was fortified with noodling and slapping on store gear by a few of the more brazen veterans present. This was combined with convivial discussions about everyone's gigs over the last week, as well as others in quiet observance/wait for the promise of Wooten's arrival. When he did quietly appear on the small stage (obviously coming in from the employee back room), and began setting up his well-known Fodera "Yin Yang" bass, the scene didn't really change much. I noticed a few breaks in conversations to insert an indicative nod in Wooten's direction, but other than that, people seemed unaffected by the celebrity's arrival.

After he finished setting up, he walked out the front door of the store, apparently to Starbuck's to grab a coffee. While he was out, most of us (about 30-40 in attendance total) found our seats and the jovial chatting between acquaintances continued. He eventually came back in, and did what appeared to be some shopping over at the music store counter. He was inquiring about a pedal that would offer a certain kind of compression pedal that could be tweaked to provide additional of sustain for the note, but without actually squashing the initial attack much. A Boss CS-3 came to mind, but I guess they didn't have one at the store. I assume he was looking for something for the purpose of the clinic, as I imagine he has access to arsenals of such gear when in his normal element.

Apparently content to proceed without any compression pedal,

Wooten jumped up on stage and everyone fell silent as he proceed to "rip it up" for the next 10-15 minutes.

He made heavy use of a Boss RC-50 looper, demonstrating an obvious practiced facility with the pedal. Many times he recorded a loop layer, pressed a pedal to lock it down, and immediately proceeded to play/record another layer without taking anytime to listen back to the previous. All the while, Wooten's playing was as innovative and unorthodox, yet always musical, soul filled, and swing induced, as in his signature style.

After Wooten finished his first performance for the group, he asked,

"Why are each of you here today? What do you hope to get from this session? I'm just curious, that's all".

A number of responses followed, most of them centered around, "learn how to play some new chops."
"Get some pointers."
etc., etc.

He then asked, "How many people brought a notebook?" Only a few of us raised our hands. He then asked, sternly, "So how do you expect to learn or get something out of this session, to take full advantage of this opportunity, if you didn't bring something to take notes on?" He then proceeded to lecture the somewhat stunned room full of bass players about this.

"Your first lesson today is about not missing opportunities to learn."

The lecture seemed a little harsh, especially considering the caliber of some of the musicians that were present in the room, but Wooten's point was clear. He is serious about giving people real teaching value at a clinic, rather than a watch-the-celebrity-rip-it-up, shake hands, and go home affair. He went on to other topics, allowing the crowd to ask questions and steer the discussion. The topics ranged from what it was like to be on tour, to how he composes music, and how he got the gig with Bela Fleck back in the day.

"I don't care how impressive you are at playing bass. You have to be a whole person. If you are going to be a touring musician, you have to be the kind of person people can stand being on a bus with for 12 days. Right? You have to bathe..."

He continued to take more questions from the audience. One younger gentleman in the back asked, "Can we watch you rip it up on the bass for a few minutes again?"

"Why?", Wooten responded. You can look it up and watch that on Youtube. I'm happy to do it, but think about this: I don't know when we will have this chance again. Is that what will give you the most value out of this time we have together?"

Wooten made sure to drive home the point that being a successful bass player is more than being able to do crazy moves.

"For the most part, the only people you impress by playing a lot of busy notes and chords are other bass players. Bass players aren't going to hire bass players for a gig."

At the end of the clinic, before many of us took the opportunity to get autographs on photos and bass guitars, he did indeed "rip it up" for one more time. His playing impressed all the bass players, but I think anyone else there would have felt the same way.

3.31.2011 Toad The Wet Sprocket at Higher Ground

2011-04-01T10:44:00.006-04:00

We saw Toad The Wet Sprocket at Higher Ground last night. It was a great show. The last time they came to Higher Ground was apparently 15 years ago, before they had broken up. The band played a few new unreleased songs, as well as, of course, all of their most popular songs from the 90's. As a 6 piece, the arrangements and overall sound of the songs were pretty much exactly as they are on the albums, with the addition of lap steel and keyboard player Johnny Hawthorne to fill out the sound.

Dean Dinning's bass playing, as seems to be the hallmark of the rest of the band, is "tasty" yet subdued. If you watch him, he is all over the fretboard, doing tricky runs even while singing solid backup vocals, yet the overall effect of it on the music is very well placed and subtle. I recall his note and phrasing choices being something of an influence on me while I was (really) learning to play bass, in the late 90's. Dinning's gear for the show was either a Markbass or Eden head (a little hard to make out), going into a Markbass 4x10" cabinet, and his usual 6 string Warwick Thumb.

The really cool thing about the show was how laid back it was. Glen Philips (lead singer), Dinning, and Todd Nichols (guitar), were very conversational with the audience. I mean, literally just chatting back and forth with a few of the people up at the stage at a few points in the night. At one point a lady in the audience wasn't feeling too well, and they stopped to make sure she was alright, Philips handing her husband a bottle of water to give to her. Another time, when we were on line waiting to buy a t-shirt, the merch guy got up and left the booth for a minute to run up on stage and play cowbell. I forget what song it was, but it may have been "Fall Down".

Philips joked a couple of times throughout the show about the "high energy, heated rock-n-roll" that the show wasn't, with the band at one time breaking into a 2-beat shuffle spoof of "Crazy Train". But personally I appreciated the easy, informal presentation of the concert. It made the band more accessible and less "larger than life", an attitude that is probably much better suited to a band in this post-record-industry era.

November Guest Receives Airplay on 30 U.S. Radio Stations

2011-03-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

This afternoon we were delightfully surprised to receive a report containing 30 RADIO STATIONS across the US who have picked up November Guest this week. Here is the current list of radio stations you can now hear us on:

KAXE (Grand Rapids, MN)

WROQ (Greenville, SC)

KRSC (Claremore, OK)

WKPS (State College, PA)

WKWZ (Syosset, NY)

WMSR (Auburn, AL)

KCLC (St. Charles, MO)

WIZN (Burlington, VT)

WMBR (Cambridge, MA)

WMEB (Orono, ME)

WNCW (Spindale, NC)

WOAS (Ontonagon, MI)

WQAQ (Hamden, CT)

WSUP (Platteville, WI)

WUMD (Dearborn, MI)

CFMU (Hamilton, ON)

KDHX (St. Louis, MO)

KFAN (Fredericksburg, TX)

KOTO (Telluride, CO)

KPUR (Forest Grove, OR)

KSUT (Ignacio, CO)

KUMD (Duluth, MN)

MSPR (Moorehead, KY)

WBZC1 (Atco, NJ)

WJHU (Baltimore, MD)

WMLU (Farmville, VA)

WMNF (Tampa, FL)

WMPG (Portland, ME)

WPMD (Norwalk, CA)

WUTK (Knoxville, TN)

And btw, wow, there's a place called Farmville, VA? I wonder if they'll be sued out of existence by Zynga.

Where's Scott? (My Current Musical Endeavors)

2010-12-28T13:44:00.006-05:00

As some may already be aware, my lineup of musical endeavors has changed a little over the last few months. As of November 2010, I am no longer with 80's & 90's group Shakedown (I wish them all the best!)

I have branched out into a variety of other music projects. You can catch my performances with the following groups:

PornFunk - Indie rock band from Randolph, VT

www.pornfunk.com

Longford Row - Traditional Irish Music

www.longfordrow.com

November Guest - Indie rock band from Randolph, VT

www.novemberguest.com

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you will be able to stay apprised of all of my upcoming performance dates.

To start with, I'll be performing at Ri Ra's (Burlington, VT) on New Year's Eve (12/31/2010) from 5-8pm, for First Night. If you stop by that evening, you can catch me playing upright bass with Irish band Longford Row.

Cheers!

Gear review: Fender B-Dec 30 Amplifier

2010-12-02T18:09:00.007-05:00

Today I'm going to review my Fender B-Dec 30. This assumes you've already perused the product literature and are already familiar with the features listed. If not, you can check it out on the Fender website. It's a small bass guitar amp, designed mainly for practice, but packed with features. I bought it new for around $350. I've owned it for a little over 2 years now, and have used it quite a bit for:

-Gigging with my upright bass (stage monitor)

-Gigging with my electric bass, with no drummer

-Rehearsals, campfires and impromptu jams (even with drummers)

-Practice and noodling around

Physical Aspects

Although the B-Dec was designed to be a practice amp, I have used it many times for gigs. It's small and light enough to be carried with one hand. I really love this: with a bass in the other, and a gig bag slung on your shoulder, you can walk into the gig in one trip. I also love the fact that it is a "kick back". I'm a big fan of putting the sound where you need it, and lowering the volume. No one has ears on the backs of their legs.

Controls

The controls, which are actually all encoders. This allows the settings to be stored and recalled in patches, which is pretty neat. The knobs all feel pretty sturdy and work well. The knobs don't stick out too much, so you don't really have to worry about them catching on anything.

Sound

Okay, it's not a tone monster, but it's solid. It sounds great throughout the entire volume range, and doesn't distort. It also holds down a very good bottom end throughout. I have been using it with a drummer for rehearsals and it is fine. I place the amp right behind the drummer.Volume-wise, let's say that if I ever turned it all the way up in my house, it would be pretty crazy. Not bad for 30 watts.

Bonus Stuff

Certain bonus features of the amp I frequently use, mainly the built-in tuner and the line out (which I plug into the mixing board). Incidentally, these are the things that convinced me to buy this amp in the first place.

The other doo-dads on the B-Dec, such as midi, back tracks, and FX, are neat, but I rarely use them. I do find them fun to play with when practicing. I thought I might use the RCA inputs, but not so much. The built-in backing tracks are actually helpful for doing certain kinds of drills. The phrase sampler, delay and reverb are inspiring when sitting around creating music.

Conclusion

When I first bought this amp, I was a little nervous - it was kind of an impulse buy, but I figured as long as it has a line out, tuner, and it sounds decent, I can do quite a bit with it. Well, I've actually ended up using this amp a lot more than I thought I would. As I mentioned, the B-Dec does way more stuff than I actually use, but they are not really the kind of things that get in the way. I definitely feel like I've gotten my money's worth, and would recommend it as a part of any active bass player's arsenal.

My Theme is Featured on the Buzz Out Loud Podcast

2010-07-06T13:11:00.004-04:00

You can hear my Buzz Out Loud theme remix featured at the end of Friday's (7/2/2010) show. I have been dubbed the keytar-playing, "Unicorn Of Rock" by Friday's BOL crew. They seemed to like it though.

Check it out, starting around 36:00

July 2nd, Buzz Out Loud

I told them that my computer didn't catch on fire when I played the riff - only my keytar did. Glad to have been connected via a USB hub!

The trouble with greylisting

2010-06-12T11:49:00.005-04:00

Greylisting is one of several fairly common methods of preventing bulk spam from getting into a mail server. In short, the concept is based on the following idea: The receiving mail server is contacted by a sending server it has never seen before. Rather than accept the (possibly spam) message, it issues a message to this effect:

Dear sending mail server: I'm having a problem right now, and can't accept your message. Please try again later.

The thought is that, if it is really serious about delivering it, it will try again in a little while. Most bulk spam mail servers are not configured to retry. as they expect that most of the harvested addresses they attempt to deliver to are going to fail for one reason or another. A real mail server, however, will try back after a few minutes. At that time, the greylisting server will (in theory) recognize the retry attempt, accept the message, and make a note never to test that host with this rather rude procedure again.

There are at least a few problems with this method, that I have seen.

1. Mail being delivered by a cluster having multiple IPs.

These days, the large e-mail providers (Hotmail/MSN, Yahoo, etc.) use multiple IP addresses to deliver e-mail, and the source IP address can vary on the next delivery attempt. In this case, the greylisting host will not recognize it as being a retry, and will "test" that server as well. In the best case scenario, this repeats until all of the possible mail host IPs have been tested & stored, one of the earlier IPs comes around again, and the message is finally accepted/delivered (after a long delay). However, this can also result in the sending host interpreting this strange charade as a permanent problem with the receiving mail server, and giving up. In this case, the sender would receive a bounce message or NDR (non-delivery report).

Arbitrary minimum retry times

To get around the problem of an immediate retry, which is not that expensive to a spam host, most greylisters also implement a minimum retry delay, which will continue to reject reattempts within a certain time frame (usually around 5 minutes). This time frame may be unacceptable to some hosts, and unknown to others, again possibly causing them to give up because they are generally confused about what's going on.

Record lifetimes

The stored info about confirmed hosts usually has a lifetime before a server will need to be re-tested. This causes a delay to occur again in the future, and of course at that time the possibility exists that the process will fail for one of the above reasons, causing everyone to scratch their head.

As the volume of mail on the internet increases, there will be more providers with clusters doing delivery, there will be more spam, there will be more people using techniques such as greylisting, and there will be more spammers finding ways to reduce the effectiveness of greylisting.

Conclusion

Greylisting has got to go. It's a stopgap measure that is based on the idea of fooling someone or something. Those kinds of solutions usually don't scale, and eventually fail.

What is the future of mail host authenticity checking?

I haven't researched this much, but why doesn't every "valid" mail host in the world have a public key listed in a worldwide registry database or available via DNS? There is already precedence for databases on the internet as being part of the infrastructure - such as the root.hints file for DNS, and arguably what people are already doing with RBL services such as spamhaus, cbl, etc.

Here's an example of how this would work:

Mail Host A contacts Mail Host B and tries to deliver a message in a signed"envelope", using his private key.

Mail Host B obtains the public key of Mail Host A (if it's not cached), probably via DNS protocol

Mail Host B verifies the authenticity of the signing against the public key

Mail Host B knows whether Mail Host A really is who he says he is, and perhaps even whether he is worth listening to.

I do realize that this is similar to SPF (Sender Policy Framework), but the thought of using GPG signing seems like a better way to do this. It would get around some of the inherent vulnerabilities and non-portability of depending on identifying certain mail server IP addresses. The signature that Mail Host A uses is totally independent of the IP address being used to deliver the message. As long as the private key is not compromised, the mail envelope can be trusted.

A look at my first live internet gig

2010-05-27T12:12:00.010-04:00

Last Wednesday night, my band November Guest pulled off their first internet gig, on ustream.tv. I thought I'd give some of my first impressions.

Non-Technical Observations

It went very well. We treated it like a "normal" gig, and in a lot of ways it felt like a "normal" gig. We advertised it (a little modestly, I'll admit), prepped, stuck to a start time, and played hard (as it can sometimes be easier to do when people are watching). It was strange not being able to see the audience.

I would recommend this to any band that can handle it technically (I'll talk about that more below). It seems like a great way to get/stay in shape, build, maintain, and connect with your fan base - all without lugging equipment, dealing with tentative venue/entertainment managers, etc.

I do think it was a lot more fun having someone who could produce the show - tasks including monitoring and switching cameras, responding to people in the chat room, etc. Thanks go to Ian Sears, of CentralVermontLive.com for that.

Technical Observations

There were some technical problems, but nothing that stopped the show. We used ustream.tv to do the broadcast, and there were a few things that, for all the popularity this site has, frankly disappointed us.

Commercials and ads - The broadcast was frequently interrupted with a commercial (and I mean something that "replaced" our video and audio which the user had to close in order to continue watching us). The ads were annoying, and there was even some kind of popup ad window that had popped under. wtf
Latency- We had some issues with latency, which we later traced to the fact that we were using Wirecast (basically the same as Ustream producer pro). It uses a LOT of CPU, and I think we've pretty much decided is not worth it. A better product is VH Multi Camera Studio, which we managed to download before the pulled it off the web. I'm looking forward to their commercial release.
Long wait times, heavy CPU utilization, whether you're a server or a viewer.

The other issues we had were mostly to do with levels. As it turns out, there are a variety of places that that levels need to be adjusted, and we needed to learn where they all were (board output, the Windows mixer line-in level, Wirecast, and finally Flash has its own level adjustment).

Justin.tv

After we were done, we decided to play around with Justin.tv for comparison.

Our new input chain looks like this:

Board audio/Line in----------->Flash Media Encoder -----> Justin.tv

Cameras ---->VHMultiCam-->Flash Media Encoder -----> Justin.tv

First observation is that Justin.tv seems easier to use than Ustream. In particular, the controls seem more intuitive, and there are fewer pages to navigate in order to get where you want to go. It seems to automatically record when you broadcast. You have to delete the video after, if you don't want it to stay up.

Some other things, again- this was only a first look, so forgive me if there are some minor inaccuracies.

justin.tv had lower latency: 2 seconds, compared to 4 seconds for Ustream. Both tests were performed with VHMultiCam going directly into Flash (no full FME). The full FME seemed to add 4 seconds of latency, which would be presumably common on both services.

justin.tv seemed a little more reliable on both the sending and viewing end. Noticeably less stream startup time, and seemed to run without breaking up or stopping. justin.tv seems a lot nicer on the viewer's CPU.

justin.tv might have fewer interactive bells and whistles (does chat, not sure if it does polling).

And here's the big one: Unlike ustream, it didn't keep interrupting the broadcast with a commercial, poorly implemented ads on the page, or weird popup windows.

All in all, it seems like Justin.tv is worth checking out. We'll probably be using it for our next broadcast.

I'm Making A New Podcast Theme

2010-05-10T20:24:00.005-04:00

I'll confess, I haven't been a regular listener of CNET's Buzz Out Loud podcast, but I happened to tune in about 2 weeks ago. At that time, I learned about the Buzz Out Loud Remix Contest. It's a pretty exciting opportunity for me, since I ABSOLUTELY LOVE COMPOSING PODCAST THEMES.

As a musician /composer, I have had a really hard time finding a medium that works for me, due to my quirky background and limitations. These include:

My partialness to the underground demoscene sound, which is lo-fi, 8-bitty, and well, sort of unique and special interest (put gently) for the ears of most radio-loving listeners.
A short attention span, causing me to lose interest while writing songs with lyrics...
" "... songs that last more than 30 seconds or so.

My brother's college buddy had a saying: "there's a butt for every seat". Well, if there's a medium for every artist, I think I've found mine. Podcast themes are short, VERY unique (a requirement, in fact), and generally instrumental.

I've tried my hand a composing/producing a handful of podcast themes, including for such podcasts as Dinosaurs: Before They Were Fuels, as well as Fresh Ubuntu (although you'll not find any credit anywhere on their site indicating so... *AHEM*, GUYS). Anyway, they've been pretty good, if I do say so myself. Without going too deeply into what values I believe a podcast theme should have (I'll save that for another post), they succeed in combining interesting elements from the podcast, personified through my background, into a well articulated, contained, and fairly polished theme song.

So I knew I needed to outdo myself. The BOL podcast has a lot of listener-ship. There will be a lot of competition. Over the course of the last week or 2, I have tweaked, scrutinized, polished, and tuned my composition. I've heard it on my studio monitors, headphones, computer speakers, in the car, in the living room... you get my drift. But now it must be "done" - it's time to present my submission to the CNET team. I'm not taking the chance that something stupid will happen, causing my submission to be screwed up or lost by the time the 5/12 deadline hits.

Whether or not mine is selected for the theme, I can say that it's a step up from anything I've done thus far. I think it represents the beginning of a whole new tier of podcast theme production for me. I'm looking forward to seeing it up on the CNET website, and I'm pretty sure it will at least hold it's own with the "heavy hitters".

May the best podcast theme win! (And let's face it, it'll be nice to have something better than the 4 track Acid loop they have been using until now. No offense, BOL team.)

Welcome to my "New" "Old" Blog

2010-05-10T19:51:00.003-04:00

This is about to become a much more special place for me. In fact, it's the biggest thing to happen here since June 6th, 2002, as 2 friends and I were trying to come up with a name for our consumer rant site, and someone shouted out "Scamwagon!". It just rolls off the tongue.

In short, I've decided to consolidate my internet presence down as much as possible. I currently have 3 or 4 blogs, not to mention a facebook, 4 Myspaces, 4 Twitter accounts, and, it seems like, 234,432 websites to maintain. It has come to my attention that these days, the Internet values quality a lot more than quantity (just ask Google!).

So to that end, I am consolidating some of my blogs, etc. as much as possible. The information posted will remain, but new tech-related posts will go on to my (ONE!) remaining blog, Scamwagon, which was formally relegated exclusively to political and consumer rants. Instead of creating separate blogs for each of the crazy interests I have (cars, music, computers, to name a few), you'll be able to find all of my posts on one, single blog site: this one. If you are reading this via Facebook, great. That's another example of how I will consolidate, by connecting mediums as much as possible, so I only have to publish content once.

If you're reading this post, you're already tuned in. Wow, look at the added value already!

480 Million Needles Floating In Space

2010-04-12T21:31:00.005-04:00

The dumb things people will do for war. I just read about this 1963 experiment, where the US launched a package of 480 million tiny needles into space, in order to create an artificial ionosphere that we could bounce radio signals off. The idea was to provide a backup method of communications in case our undersea cables were taken out by the enemy.

It "worked" for a couple of months, and then scattered to the point that it would no longer provide any effect, other than to obscure communications attempts beyond the orbit altitude of these needles, which it probably still does to some extent today. On top of that, this blanket of space junk is one of the many things that modern spacecraft have to avoid when doing, for example, real advancement for mankind.

Why Reward /Offer Cards Suck

2010-03-23T11:18:00.006-04:00

Ok, here's another scam to watch out for. "Reward" debit cards. These are becoming all the rage. If you haven't seen one yet, rest assured you will. They may eventually replace all offer checks sent to you by companies (things like rebates, rewards, gifts, etc.) Popular amounts are $25 - $100.

They are basically debit cards with a fixed limit for the amount the company is giving you. If you have used one, here's a familiar scenario.

Joe has a $50 debit card he got from a cell phone rebate. He used it to buy dinner last night, and has $35.42 left on it. Today Joe finishes pumping his gas. The total comes up to $38.42. Joe inserts / hands the clerk his offer debit card and attempts to pay. Uh oh, transaction denied. No big deal, Joe can use it to buy something cheaper. Except, HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU BUY WITH A DEBIT CARD UNDER $35.00? Here's the short list of reasons why these cards suck:

Transactions for more than the balance of the card are denied. Yes you can split the transaction between 2 cards, if you know how much you have left on the card, and you are using it at a location where this is possible, but who has time to screw around?

The balance is a pain in the ass to find out. It usually involves creating an account on some website or calling an obscure 800 number and typing in many digits.

It screws up your accounting, if you like to track your spending through your bank statement.

Essentially, they know you're not going to be able to access the last bit of the money. So in essence, they are giving you $25-$100, but there's a pretty good chance that they may only actually have to spend about $5-$85.

The irony of it all is that they are frequently touted as being a "more convenient" alternative to traditional check payments. Keep your debit card, I'll take a good old fashioned check.

Broadvoice unable to call Fairpoint phone numbers

2010-03-08T15:51:00.006-05:00

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but since last night, I am unable to call any Vermont landline (a.k.a. FAIRPOINT) phone numbers from my Broadvoice line. Message is: "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." The same issue also exists at work, where we also use Broadvoice.

I called Broadvoice tech support, and they said the problem is on Fairpoint's end. They've reported it several times.

On an interesting and semi-related note, I have experienced (twice in the past) a problem where people with Verizon Wireless couldn't dial my Broadvoice line (similar message). I got through to someone at Verizon Wireless, and they were able to confirm and fix the problem. They said the issue was with routing tables (the dialing kind, not the IP kind).

Of course, being a Verizon Wireless customer also, it was a lot easier for me to get them to listen.

Do this simple mod to your OEM Droid dock, take police style car camera footage.

2010-03-06T20:46:00.010-05:00

You see the craziest things driving down the road in Vermont. The other day I was driving over a mountain in a snow storm, and thought about how now one would believe what I was going through unless I had some video. Unfortunately, the last thing I was going to do was try to hold a camera while driving, rally-style, through heavy snow.

I glared at my Droid, perched in the perfect position to record the view out the front windshield. All I would need to do was hit the camera button, and hit record! But alas, the Droid dock has no hole in the back for the camera to see through. I vowed that day that I would take the 5 minutes to drill the stupid thing, and easily open up a whole new world of hands-free video footage.

Drill Template

Since I figured I'd have one shot at it, I decided to make a template first. I measured everything out with my vernier calipers, drew up a template and printed it out. The template is designed so it can be cut and laid into the dock. I then drilled straight through spot where the camera will end up.

Tools

Here's what you'll need if you want to do this as well:

Printout of my template
Drill
Some scotch tape
A 5/16" drill bit
A file to "deburr" (smooth) the edges of the hole.

Fasten the template to the face of the dock where your Droid would go.

Start by drilling as straight as you can through the circle. It's kind of an awkward piece to drill through. It's not the end of the world if the drill slips a little at the end. If necessary, remove the template and then use the drill like an end mill to stretch the right side (in landscape) of the hole a little. Place the Droid in the dock in camera mode, and tweak the hole as needed to make sure there is no obstruction.

Some Caveats

1. You could weaken the mount and cause one of the corners to break off. This might not be the mod for you if you frequently throw your Droid dock in a bag or suitcase, and travel around with it. For me, it really just stays in the car, so I'm not too worried about it breaking.

2. I should point out that this solution will work better for you if you have mounted the Droid dock to the dashboard, rather than the windshield. The arm is more likely to articulate such that it doesn't block (or partially block) the camera. It's still not bad, though.

That's It!

Now drive around town and pretend you are on COPS! But keep your eyes on the road, or you might actually end up on COPS.

Prem tech visits the wrong location

2010-03-04T21:28:00.004-05:00

I finally had the chance to play around with xtranormal.com. It's pretty addictive. You can make a machinima movie very quickly (once you learn how to deal with a few idiosyncrasies). I would recommend steering clear of the "Take 5" button, as it pretty much ought to be relabeled "trash my video".

If you aren't familiar, there is a subculture of "premise technicians" (technicians that go on site to make repairs), for certain well known cable and telephone companies. It's not a rewarding job. There is a raft load of satirical videos on Youtube, using xtranormal machinima, in the format of sort of "a day in the life" of a prem tech.

So, with that as my inspiration, here's my first piece. Yes, this is based on a true story. Some liberties were taken, and the names were changed to protect the guilty. Audio track is NSFW.

Cheap All-In-One Printers: Don't Believe the Hype

2009-11-12T13:42:00.005-05:00

The other day I saw an ad from Staples, touting their line of HP All-In-One printers, designed to rival small color laser printers in terms of price and printing quality. The basic message was, "Don't buy a laser printer- buy an Officejet. It's cheaper per page, and lower electricity cost, than laser!". They also had a deal where you could get a $50 discount for bringing in your old printer for recycling (certain printers).

Since I am the manager of several bands, and part of that role is advertising, I realized that we have a need for a good quality color printer. I had a hulking office laser printer that recently died, so I decided to load it into the car and see if there was a deal for me at Staples.

I arrived and had a look at these printers- such as the HP Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-One Printer, Eco Easy Edition, the HP Officejet J4680 All-in-One Printer, HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One Printer, and a few others. I will say that prices were very low, ranging from under $100 to around $230. They seemed equipped with a fair amount of features, including wireless connectivity, duplex printing, card reader, etc.

However, as I touched and interacted with the printers, the one thing that was screaming out at me the entire time was the old "you get what you pay for". The printer enclosures seemed like cheap, flimsy plastic. Several of the demo printers there were open and wouldn't even close properly. The entire thing seemed like a printer that would last about 1 or 2 years if you were lucky. I read a few reviews which confirmed my suspicion. Stay away from these feature-filled cheapos, because you'll end up spending more money on them in the end, then you would have if you had purchased several separate devices of higher quality. As for electricity cost, the actual amount of electricity a laser printer uses these days is pretty negligable, even if it is several times more than an ink jet.

After looking through all of the printers, I walked out of there with an HP Color Laserjet 2025dn, a beefy color laser with duplexing for about $300. The very campaign that was trying to convince me that an Officejet is a better choice than a laser, had convinced me that a cheap AIO ink jet printer is no replacement for a solid laser printer.

Why Caller ID Blocking is Dumb

2009-09-18T17:02:00.003-04:00

Does this sound familar? You are in the middle of a great movie. Your cellphone or landline rings. Your muscle memory kicks in, you glance at the screen to see who's calling, and observe the following:

"Private"

Quickly, you think to yourself, "My God, it could be anyone!" Your reaction to this paltry dilemma will most likely be:

A. "Wow, someone who doesn't want me to know their number. It could be important! I'll take the call."

B. "It could be a telemarketer, or someone I really don't want to talk to. I'll err on the side of caution and let it go. Besides, they can leave a voicemail, and if it's important, I'll call them back after the movie is over."

C. "There's a 'special place' in my heart for people who have the nerve to use caller ID blocking.... And it's not the one that encourages me to answer calls."

If you ask most people, the answer will NOT be A. If you choose to employ caller ID blocking on your outgoing phone calls, you should be aware that, in today's society, you are basically signing up for what amounts to "voluntary call blacklisting." Here's some of the things you can look forward to dealing with, in exchange for a supposed measure of added privacy:

Be prepared to, at least, go to voicemail a measurable percentage more often than everyone else. At most, you may just plain not be able to reach people.

Get used to writing down your phone number for your friends, as they will have to manually enter your number into their phones.

It's possible to make the argument that your circle of friends will know that it's you calling (since so few people choose to add this "feature" to their lines). However, the reality is that there is a chance someone else they receive calls from has a line with blocking, and unless you both happen to be that person's favorite callers, you can bet that they won't be answering your calls. A lot.

Host Your Own Domain's Mail? Here's Your Spam Filter.

2009-07-07T10:08:00.004-04:00

Something positive for a change. I thought I'd take a moment to sing the praises of (possibly the only) service that I have dealt with for the last 3 years, without a single reason to complain.

A company that I maintain the e-mail server for has been using PeertoPeer.net for off-site anti-spam, virus scanning and anti-phishing protection. Don't be put off by the sleazy marketing approaches on their website. After 3 years of use, I'm happy to report that the only experiences I've had with them have been:

100% uptime
Friendly, prompt, and technically adept tech support, U.S. based, not off-shored
Effective filtering that has not required any interaction for tuning, false positives, etc.
Affordable service - $19.95 per domain

Setting up the service is easy- point your MX record to the service, supply them the IP of your mail host(s) and lock down your incoming traffic at the firewall. Some people believe it is a bad idea to contract out filtering to an outside server. I have arrived at the conclusion that it is the best choice under most circumstances, as long as you choose the right service. PeerToPeer.net has been the right choice for us, and here are the factors:

Their filters have an excellent cross section of sample data with which to recognize malicious e-mail, which makes them very effective. I don't remember having any false positives in 3 years (and yes, I check the spam quarantine regularly).

It reduces your drive space, processor, memory, and bandwidth consumption - bad mail that is filtered never hits your mail host.

It makes for a leaner security profile - at your firewall, you can lock down the hosts allowed to connect to your mail host to only peertopeer.net servers. This is a huge benefit in terms of protecting your server from the badness of the open internet.

It works with any MTA server, not just Exchange (a major cost savings right there).

Only one proven, robust protocol, SMTP, is employed for mail to come into your server. Not POP3, IMAP, or strange proprietary protocols for mail retrieval to your MTA, a function for which they are not designed.

The cost of $19.95/mo per domain is slightly higher than a subscription to mail host plugin service, such as GFI mailessentials, for a domain. However, this minor premium is quickly nullified the first time someone doesn't spend hours fixing a broken Exchange plugin when it breaks (not to mention the mail downtime). As for the individual spam viewers available for $49.95/mo, I have not found these to be necessary, as after 3 years, there are never any false positives.

Probably the most important, and unsung feature: They queue your mail when your host goes down. This shields outside servers from any mail server outages due to maintenance, etc. on the customer's mail server. Believe it or not, these days, a deferred /failed message can have a considerable impact on the professional reputation of an organization.

There are lots of ways to deal with spam, virus, and phishing e-mails, but after 3 years of analysis, I'm settled on the best, most cost effective way to deal with it. For my money, it's peertopeer.net

Broadvoice Sets Us "Up the Bomb"

2009-05-22T10:19:00.002-04:00

So Broadvoice now requires that customers (even ones that have been signed up for years, such as myself) send them a copy of their driver's license, and credit card they use to pay. A notice "requesting" such is triggered when you make any modifications to your payment info (such as changing the credit card on file). I don't think it's Federal regulation, as it seems Broadvoice is the only one doing this, but I'm sure it's some sort of CYA move.

Now, a lot of people complain about Broadvoice, but I personally have had a pretty good experience with them. They have reasonable pricing, excellent tech support, and I have not had a problem with their uptime. The only issue I've ever had is that Verizon Wireless likes to drop Broadvoice exchanges from their routing tables once in a while, which Broadvoice can hardly be blamed for. However, I have not had the pleasure of dealing with their administrative folks until now.

So...

I did some Google searching around, and it seems that they are serious. If you don't send it in within 5 days, they suspend your service. I also learned that they tend to ignore the fact that you have SENT IT IN. Sure enough, when I sent it in on the 4th day, they suspended my service later that day anyway. I called them, and they re enabled my account, saying "it probably just hasn't been processed yet".

This morning, a few days later, I received an e-mail:
"Dear Scott McGrath,

This is a friendly reminder that we have not received the Service Authorization form that was sent to you."

I'm in hell.

What Are We Doing Wrong with Biofuels?

2008-09-25T12:52:00.004-04:00

My friend sent me this article on how biofuels are responsible for a 75% increase in world food prices.

http://www.carectomy.com/index.php/Politics/Biofuels-Are-Starving-Us

My response: This is what happens when you live in denial for 100 years, and establish an infrastructure around a fuel source that doesn't really "exist" (the sun is the only "real" energy source we have, but that's another discussion). When it starts to run out, everything destabilizes, which is what we are seeing. The obvious choice, which is not always the best choice, is to look for the most accessible, drop-in renewable alternative .

What are doing wrong with biofuels?

1. We're making the wrong fuels.

Ethanol has been the biofuel of choice by many, which is a ridiculous fuel. It takes a lot of energy to distill it, and the resulting fuel has a miserable energy density. There are far better ways to get fuel from plants, unfortunately most are not usable by gasoline cars (see #3)

2. We're making them in a reactive and irresponsible way.
Since we haven't built up an infrastructure that produces biofuels in a responsible and distributive way, the only alternative is to utilize the same resources that have been devoted to producing food. The government is now throwing tons of money at farmers to produce ethanol. If anything, it's easier for them because there are fewer regulations.

3. We're using them incorrectly.
Cars that carry their own power plants (gas/diesel engines) are only about 7% efficient. "Real" energy sources can't be held responsible for producing the amount of energy we traditionally waste. We need electric cars and trucks. Electric vehicles leave the energy conversion process to centralized power plants, where it makes sense to invest the money to make very efficient processing. Furthermore, a wide variety of energy sources can be brought into play, and even mixed, at a powerplant (solar, hydro, petroleum, wind, etc.). This gives you a more flexible infrastructure, so we can be opportunists as different energy sources rise and fall in their availability.

VW Bluemotion Golf for 2009

2008-09-08T09:23:00.004-04:00

What do you get when you combine the winning combination of a smaller (1.6L) common-rail turbodiesel engine with a revised ratio 5 speed transmission, and a particulate filter? 74 MPG, and only 99g/km of CO2, thanks to the 2009 VW Golf Bluemotion. This car still has 104 HP (184lb/ft), which is more torque than some gas compact cars have now- and you can bet that those numbers will all but double with a few basic fuel and air mods.

In terms of mileage and emissions, this car puts some hybrids to shame- yet with its simplistic design, it will remain much more affordable (£15,500 starting) than cars with complicated hybrid technology. There is no word as to when this car will be brought to the U.S. (as usual), especially with oil prices dropping again, but at least we can have the comfort of knowing it's out there.

Got a Small Car? Drive Carefully.

2008-06-23T11:27:00.004-04:00

If you are the owner of a small, fuel efficient vehicle, here's something you may not have thought about. If you are involved in an accident that ends up totaling your car, you may not get enough insurance money to replace it.

Here's why: When the insurance company "totals" your car (decides it's cheaper to replace it than repair it), they will cut a check for the Blue Book value of the car. But, as the demand for these cars continues to rapidly increase, so does the "street" value (the amount the car is selling for today, on Ebay, for example). Since the Blue Book value of these cars is assessed using a fairly bureaucratic process, this value hasn't been calculated recently enough, and is therefore under the actual cost involved in acquiring an exact replacement.

Cost is only the beginning. The headaches of purchasing a fuel efficient vehicle are many- if you are in the market for a new car, you'll probably end up on a waiting list. When you do finally get your car, you'd better hope it comes the way you like it- because your other option is to wait some more.

If you're buying a used car, watch out. There are plenty of snakes out there who realize the inflated prices of fuel is the opportunity to fleece the public. They'll sell any small car they can get their hands on, knowing that SUV owners are bailing out and looking for something small to drive to work. They will gladly sell a car on its last legs for a few thousand dollars.

The worst case scenario is that you are driving a "banned" car. This includes highly efficient, diesel passenger cars such as the Volkswagen TDI. Despite their ability to achieve mileage in excess of 50 mpg, most of these cars have been banned from new sales due to high nitrous oxide and smog emissions. Replacing these cars will surely be a chore, as they are being retired from the road every day. On top of that, replacement parts are expensive, and knowledgeable labor is extremely hard to find.

The bottom line: drive carefully. Your car may not be insured to the extent you think it is, and even if it is, replacement can be more complicated due to our rapidly changing transportation economy.

Got a Samsung SCH-i760? Don't use an external antenna!

2008-06-15T21:56:00.006-04:00

If you have a Samsung smartphone, such as the SCH-i730 or SCH-i760, you may or may not be aware that there is an external antenna jack on the back of this phone (you have to pop off a small round cap to see it).

It is possible to use this jack to plug in an external cell phone antenna - an incredibly convenient option for road warriors who can't afford to drop calls when traveling through spotty areas, etc. However, I have this cautionary tale to share with you.

This is the 3rd time I have had my cell phone replaced because the internal antenna performance degrade to almost nothing. It started with my Samsung SCH-i730, and then when I upgraded to the SCH-i760, it happened twice. I have decided that the issue is likely one of the following:

1. Samsung makes a flaky and weak connector, which breaks the internal antenna connection when used (doesn't really make sense, as the external antenna still works)

2. I have been unlucky enough to get 3 defective phones (yeah, right.)

3. The external antenna is BURNING OUT the internal antenna, due to a design problem with the Samsung phones.

4. The internal antenna is BURNING OUT, due to a design problem with the external antenna.

In circumstance 3 & 4, a little bit of radio theory applies here: When you plug in an external antenna, it doesn't take the internal one out of the circuit. Rather, the 2 antennae are in parallel, and untuned. This creates a high SWR (standing wave ratio) situation that the fragile internal antenna (probably a just a "coil" drawing on a circuit board) can't handle.

If this is the case, Verizon should do a better job of notifying users that this jack is for the testing bench only, and not for use with an external antenna. After all, it's pretty easy to come by an aftermarket adapter that fits this jack, advertised for use with an external antenna. Verizon sales people will not warn you against using this jack with an external antenna.

It could be a problem specific to my external antenna, but when searching I found 2 posts indicating others have had this problem:

Post #1
Post #2

Finally, I just found a blog post with a definitive link to a faq on Samsung's website about this. The jack is not for use with an external antenna!

GM Decides to Use Radical "Turbo" Technology to Make Fuel Efficient Car

2008-06-09T10:14:00.006-04:00

GM has always answered the call for more horsepower by trying to find ways to shoehorn bigger engines in their large cars and trucks. For some reason, this wasteful practice has made Americans happy, as long as the fuel prices were low. However, now that its pickup and SUV sales have been obscured by a new demand for fuel efficient cars, GM finally has decided that it might be a good idea to give Americans a 120-140 horsepower vehicle, that still gets over 40 mpg!

Why wasn't this vehicle developed when gas was $2.00 something a gallon, and had every indication that there was no end in sight? Heck, why hasn't this vehicle existed for years as an American car choice?

Because the technology didn't exist? Wrong. Consumers of foreign manufactured autos have enjoyed lightweight, fuel efficient, and fast sport compact cars for years. How do they do it?

Turbochargers: They have been in use for over 80 years. By forcing air into the engine, power output can be significantly raised, or fuel efficiency, or both.

Why are GM and other American car manufacturers only now giving conservation-minded Americans the option of cake + eat? Because our economy has never rewarded anyone, manufacturer or consumer, for making fuel efficient choices. The only check built into our economy is the cost of gas.

Electric cars coming to the rescue in 2 years or less (No thanks to America)

2008-06-04T12:51:00.006-04:00

Foreign auto manufacturers such as Nissan and Mitsubishi have responded to high oil prices by making small, 100% electric cars, slated for release in Japan (and even the U.S., in Nissan's case) by 2010.

Mitsubishi Announces Electric Car for 2010

Nissan Announces Electric Car for 2010

GM has responded to high oil prices by closing 4 plants, laying off 30,000 workers, and leaving dealerships all over the nation to try to sell the Chevy Volt hybrid, with a $40,000 price tag.

Reportedly, the Th!nk City EV, now owned by a Norwegian company, will be coming back to the U.S in 2009. The car was originally developed by Ford, and dumped as part of its 2002 total abandonment of the electric car venture.

The Prius - Now Getting (your favorite number of) Miles Per Gallon!

2008-05-22T11:24:00.005-04:00

The other night, a friend asked me what I would do to make a car that got 100-something miles per gallon. This is a perfect example of how that question can be answered in a number of ways. This Prius has been outfitted with new technology LiFePO4 batteries, and has been recorded achieving 125+ mpg.

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/683/

Having better batteries means it can use more stored power before having to run the engine. While this is an improvement in city driving, on the highway commute this vehicle will be right back to 40mpg. Even the best batteries will be exhausted fairly quickly and the engine will end up running for the remainder of the trip.

Claims that the Prius achieves 499 MPG could be made just as easily and accurately if they measured the mileage on 1 mile test drive on a totally flat road, with no engine start or braking occurring. As far as I know, there is still no standard course for measuring these claims, and most of the time, no one understands the science well enough to question them.

I'm not trying to shoot down Toyota's efforts at making a more efficient car. In a sense, they have done this. However, as usual, press releases never seem to detail the nature of the improvements made, only the part everyone wants to hear. I suppose this is why I never made it in marketing.

Bob Lutz: Leading the American Race for Capitalist Gluttony

2008-03-27T16:51:00.006-04:00

Have you ever wondered exactly how America gets its reputation for driving oversized vehicles without any regard for the environment or fuel costs? Because people like Bob Lutz are behind the wheel of the largest American motor company: GM. We all know that GM is company that's as "American as apple pie."

Here's a timeline of events for you.

2004: Bob Lutz thinks that Hybrid cars make no sense. Quote:

"Hybrids are an interesting curiosity and we will do some," he said. "But do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not."

Understanding interaction between national and global economy: FAIL
Effectiveness at developing strategies that look more than 1-2 years out : FAIL

2005-2007: GM continues to bring products to market that it thinks will be good for America.

This includes pukemobiles such as:

The Chevy Suburban 2WD Z71
GMC Envoy Denali/Envoy XL Denali.
The Chevy TrailBlazer EXT
*and don't forget*
The Hummer H3

They are shoved in the face of Americans by GM via advertising on billboards, TV, and internet. GM makes so many of them that they are sold for next to nothing.

February, 2008: Bob Lutz thinks global warming is a "Total Crock of Shit"

March, 2008: Not making a hybrid car like the Prius was a "mistake"
No kidding.

Why iTunes Sucks: Reason #22

2008-03-09T21:31:00.004-04:00

Alternative posting title - iTunes and Audible.com: Sucking in Harmony

This is in reference to of a (very dated) Mac Observer posting 21 Reasons Why iTunes Sucks . iTunes is continuing a long standing tradition of sucking!

As I mentioned in a previous posting, I have had dealings with audible.com . I gave my wife a gift certificate for audible.com, proud of myself for my having a gift that pleased to her affinity for books on CD. However, what I didn't realize was that I was really giving her a gift of PAIN.

We figured (naively) that this day and age, it would be a fairly common, and therefore simple(!) process - choose an audio book on audible.com, and burn it to CD, so she could enjoy the book in her car. Seems like a reasonable request, based on the following assumptions:

Most people use audio books during their commute.
Most cars, last I checked, come "standardly" equipped with CD players, unless you get some kind of "option"
I haven't checked on this, but I'm pretty sure Audible.com has got to be the #1 audio book seller
As a matter of survival, audible.com must have a need to provide their product to consumers with CD players, right?

Well, as it turns out they probably do, but for whatever reason (and I'm sure DRM has something to do with it), it's a ridiculous process to get this to happen.

Download audible.com manager software
Install audible.com manager software
Download the item with audible.com's manager software
Download iTunes
Install iTunes
EXPORT the item to iTunes from audible.com manager
Open up iTunes
Create a playlist containing the item
Burn the playlist to CD
Yes, I know this 8 hour audio file won't fit on 1 CD. Please burn to multiple CD's. (wow, iTunes makes everything so SIMPLE!)
Insert new blank CD
Wait for CD to burn
Go to step 11 until done.

Ok, so that's the process. Great, it's ugly and ridiculous. BUT- to complicate things even further, the process was interrupted by a power failure. after burning disk 4 of the 8 disc set. Which finally brings us to

Reason #22 why iTunes sucks:

Problem
No way to "resume" a multiple-disc-burn in iTunes.

What you can do about it
-Start over from disc 1 and toss the extra discs

-(if tossing away good CD-Rs isn't your thing) burn the "done" discs onto a single CD-RW, erasing them on a different computer each time, until you get to the disc you left off at.

-Bitch.
-Whine.
-Complain.

Golf Diesel Hybrid for Everyone Except Us

2008-03-07T12:58:00.005-05:00

As usual, some new, cool car technology is being developed which the U.S. will likely be (at best) the last to take advantage of. This time it's a diesel hybrid by VW. The diesel hybrid is not a new concept, but this will be one of the first production cars to incorporate it.

The fact is, diesel cars are awesome in so many ways. They are powerful, efficient, clean, and can be run on 100% renewable fuel with ZERO modification. Many other countries have embraced diesel vehicles. So why do they have such a hard time in the U.S.?

They are perceived by most to be "loud and smelly," to quote the Wired article. I will add that from my observations, people think they are dirty and underpowered. Now let's do some myth busting, shall we?

Myth: Diesels cars are Loud
Fact: Diesel trucks are loud. Old diesel anythings were often loud. My diesel is loud (since I riced out my exhaust system). But "Diesels" are not loud, at least not significantly louder than any gas car.

Myth: Diesel cars are smelly.
Fact: Catalytic converters shipped on current VWs produce a smell that is milder and more natural than the exhaust of a gas car.

Myth: Diesel cars are underpowered.
Fact: Some of them are underpowered (as with any car made), but especially so in the U.S. Often they are purposely power-castrated in order to meet the ridiculous Nitrous Oxide standards the cars are held to, which is all the California Emissions Nazis care about. Read on.

Myth: Diesel cars have terrible emissions.
Fact: Diesel hybrids could be used "in Europe to address tightening emissions regulations" (Quote from Wired Article). Diesels are very low emitters of CO2, which is what we should be focusing on.

Myth: Diesel cars can't/don't do what popular hybrids can, in order to address rising fuel costs and dwindling resources.
Fact: Under many conditions, regular (non-hybrid) diesel cars achieve the same average efficiency as hybrids such as the Prius and Civic (think 45-65 MPG). Now just think what these cars can do as hybrids. If that's not enough, check this out: diesels are the only vehicles that can be run on a 100% renewable fuel, OUT-OF-THE-BOX, with ZERO modifications!

So, I could go on, but like millions of other frustrated diesel fanatics, I think I've made my point. What is it going to take to get the point across to the masses?

The answer is simple.

First, let's look at some of the other simple crap that was used to convince people they need SUVs - which is what got us into this mess in the first place.

(special thanks to CommercialsIHate.com , with an awesome commentary on this particular commercial)

So I say, how about one of those hippy-dippy, white backgrounded, "think-different" commercials on a Hollywood trash channel that goes something like this: (Late 20-something, fashionably dressed woman with a British accent, standing in front of new diesel car)

"Diesels aren't smelly, loud or dirty anymore. They're fast, clean, and most importantly, your European fashion heroes are all driving them right now. Diesel: it's the new black!"

(Usual voice-over, phone number and website URL, financing percentages, etc. fade onto the screen.)

Or how about this: (Snoop-dogg standing in front of new diesel car)

"Y'all better be gettin' up on some of Deeeeeeezul-nuts."

(Usual voice-over, phone number and website URL, financing percentages, etc. fade onto the screen.)

Want to cancel your Audible.com membership? You'll have to call them

2008-03-04T17:33:00.004-05:00

It all started when I got my wife a gift certificate to audible.com for Christmas.

So I'm not really sure how it happened, but at some point in the last few months, I ended up with a premium audible listener membership, billed at a rate of $23 a month. I suppose it's possible that I did an impulse purchase, but that's neither here nor there in this discussion.

I finally got logged in to the point where I could edit my account details (long story, but basically I had to clear my cookies due to the fact that it kept dumping me right back to the step of "confirming a purchase" I had apparently started - months later). In the account details control panel:

There didn't appear to be any way to cancel my membership.

There didn't appear to be any way to remove my credit card information from my account.

After I pretty much resolved and mentally prepared for the fact this was going to involve a phone call (which to me instantly involves long hold times with bad music, explaining, and convincing, not to mention finding the back door on the website that has the cust. srvc. phone #).

To my surprise, the phone # was easily located on the site, and the phone call went directly to a human. Once I was on with someone, he canceled my membership, refunded my last month's charge, and removed my credit card info from my account. It was a relatively painless experience, actually.

The only way it could have been easier is if I didn't have to call them in the first place.

FAIL: The Snowdrift 2000

2008-03-03T11:48:00.005-05:00

I'm sure everyone has thought about trying this at some point, right? Come on, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Fix for X-Lite -> Asterisk DTMF issue

2008-03-03T11:04:00.005-05:00

If you use X-Lite with an Asterisk system, as I do, you may notice DTMF codes sometimes don't work after the call has been placed. This results in difficulty when entering pin codes, dialing an extension on another system, etc.

Here's the quick fix inside X-Lite:

Go to menu -> Advanced System Settings -> DTMF Settings

-Change to DTMF Force Send In Band: Yes
-Change to DTMF Tone Length in Samples: 4960

Reconnect the call and try it.

Welcome From FreshUbuntu Podcast

2008-03-01T14:01:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to post a shout out to anyone visiting from the FreshUbuntu podcast!

As Harlem mentioned, I have been working on putting together some theme music. The first track I sent over was actually a draft of the title track that will be on my upcoming demo album, called "6 Inches From the Curb". Most of the music on that album will be original jazz and funk, and will feature "solo bass" work (to be clear, solo in the sense that the tracks are predominantly drums and bass guitar, with little or no other instruments). My goal for this demo is to practice my new skills with multitrack production, and to demonstrate my musical concepts to musicians I will collaborate with on future projects (stay tuned!)

The tune was a little rough - I have decided to put together something more reflective of my skills, and more specific to podcast use. Tune into the next FreshUbuntu to hear it!

Rant on G-mail's Supposed "Send Mail As" Feature

2008-02-24T15:01:00.008-05:00

Gmail: In development for over
4.109578 years (and counting)

Despite my having sworn off third-party e-mail providers, I broke down and moved my e-mail account to Gmail recently. I was under the impression I could make the transition without anyone noticing that I was even using Gmail. I set up my personal address to forward to my Gmail account, and then set up the Gmail "Send Mail As" feature to send mail from my personal address.

As many users have found out, this is not as seamless as Google makes it out to be. This has been bothering me as well. Gmail doesn't change the sender address, only the reply-to address. Apparently this is because mail coming from a Gmail server (and thus being different from the sender domain) has a tendency to trip spam filters.

I did find this note at the bottom of the Gmail instructions:

" Note: when you're sending with a different 'From:' address, your Gmail address will still be included in your email header's sender field, to help prevent your mail from being marked as spam. Most email clients don't display the sender field, though some versions of Microsoft Outlook may display "From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@mydomain.com."

In practice, contrary to the above note's claim, all of the e-mail clients I have experience with just show the message to be from yourusername@gmail.com . A reply is sent to your custom From: address, but this doesn't really help you much. In fact it's really just more confusing to the end user, as they deal with 2 different e-mail addresses when replying to you. Not to mention it's your Gmail address that gets auto-added to their address

What should Gmail do? They should do as the feature name suggests, change the From: address and let me worry about the spam ramifications of that. I am the true owner of the domain I am trying to send from, and I can create an SPF record which will show Gmail as a valid mail host for messages coming from my address.

Hm... what should I expect from a "Beta" service? Gee, when(ever) Gmail is done it's going to be a good product.

My Godaddy Hosting Cancellation Survey

2008-02-03T14:25:00.001-05:00

When I cancelled my Godaddy Virtual Server, they asked me to fill out a cancellation survey. Here's what I wrote:

1. I had my virtual server with godaddy for several years. The whole time, the machine suffered from lag. This was evident as a delay when serving web pages, using Plesk to administer the machine, and severe (at times up to 20 seconds) latency when typing over SSH. I opened a ticket about this and was told it must be my connection. Apparently it wasn't, as the new service I am using doesn't have this problem.

2. SMTP - The godaddy mail relays are constantly DNS blacklisted because many of the servers are being used to send spam. I opened a ticket about this and no one got back to me. Can't really blame them.

3. While Plesk made administration easy, it was extremely slow and prevented me from being able to install other programs or keep the machine up to date with package tools, such as yum.

4. There is no OS upgrade path without having to reprovision the server.

5. I found a better deal - not the least of which is cheaper, faster, better administration tools, and an SLA that doesn't cater to spammers.

The 10 Elements of Music

2007-12-19T17:38:00.002-05:00

Bass guitar virtuoso Victor Wooten performed a clinic (view it on www.bassplayer.tv) in which he taught that there are 10 elements of music that you should know how to use. (in no particular order):

1. Notes
2. Rhythm
3. Feel
4. Dynamics
5. Technique
6. Tone
7. Phrasing
8. Listening
9. Articulation
10. Space

Quiet Your Rehearsal Space on the Cheap

2007-10-07T22:52:00.001-04:00

Build your own acoustic tiles for under $100

(This post is aimed at improving a band rehearsal space, but could also apply to a home studio or home theater)

Have you ever jammed in a room that just seemed disagree with every instrument? The vocals are difficult to make out, the drums seem too loud, and you're constantly battling the sound board to keep feedback at bay. If this sounds familiar, you've probably experienced jamming in an underdamped room.

Bare walls can cause excess reverb, and lead to a host of problems- feedback, bad equalization, and other poor conditions that make it difficult to get any work done. The easy way out is to hang a crappy old rug on the walls... And while you're at it, why not break out the cheap beer and a Playstation for the full dorm room effect. However, if you want to do it with a little more style, you'll want to use 2'x4' or 2'x2' panels. While the pros will charge you upwards of $500 for such acoustic panels, you can make them yourself for about $90.

Assuming you have a carpeted (if you don't have carpet on the floor, at least put down a large rug), unfurnished 200 sq ft. room being used for general rehearsal needs, you'll need 80-100 sq. feet of coverage for general rehearsal use. This is about (10-12) 2'x4' panels.

Materials

$65 100-120 sq ft. of commercial carpet (10x12) - cheaper if you can get used or damaged carpet
$20 (16-18) 2x3" studs
$5 (100 or so) Finishing nails or brads
$5 (500 or so) staples
--------
$95

Tools:
Mitre Saw
Tape measure/pencil
Nail gun
Cushion back cutter
Carpet knife
Duck-billed napping shears (regular scissors will work)
Safety Glasses
Safety gloves

First you'll need to obtain the carpet. You can use second hand or damaged carpet if you don't care how it looks. The only stipulation is that you'll need the smallest pieces to be slightly larger than 2' x 4'. I suppose you could use other types of carpet as well. I purchased brand new commercial carpeting from Home Depot for about $65.

Making the 2'x4' frame

Using the mitre saw, cut (2) 2x3's and assemble them according to the diagram.

The crows foot pattern on the studs will give you the correct angle, as well as allowing you to make 2 cuts at a time, without having to reposition the wood. Be sure to mark these on the wood, and don't rush, so you don't reverse any angles by accident. You should be left with one extra 4' piece, which you will use for the next frame.

When you're finish, nail them together at the corners. I used an air powered finishing nailer. If you don't have one of these, you should get one. Otherwise, use glue, or buy some small L brackets ($2 a piece) and use screws. I don't recommend trying to hammer this together. The joints should look a bit like this when you are done:

Making a 2'x2' frame

You can make a 2'x2' panel the same basic way, just do all 2' sections, instead of two 2' and two 4'.

Putting the carpet on the frames

Ok, now it's time to carpet the frames. Here's the tools you'll need:

You can obtain these tools at most hardware stores. The carpet tools can sometimes be rented. If you are patient and have a helper, you could probably get away with a utility knife.

Lay the frame out on the carpet to be cut, leave about 1-1.5" of extra space around the frame near the edges of the carpet.

Cut the carpet around the frame, again 1-1.5" wider than the frame.

Next, lay the frame down, and place a couple of scrap wood pieces in the center, to keep the carpet from sagging in the center while you staple it.

Lay the carpet on top, and do your best to align it so that the extra overlaps evenly on all sides.

Put a staple on of each of the four corners. Try to pull the carpet tight as you do, to minimize sagging in the center. If you want, you can remove these staples later, for cosmetic reasons.

Now you can stand the unit up, which makes it easier to work on. Snip 45 degree angle cuts so you can fold the corners down...

And staple away. I found 2 or 3 inch spacing sufficient to keep the sides relatively flat. You will use a lot of staples.

When you get to the corners, fold them over and staple as shown.

Here is the finished product:

To hang them, I used sheetrock anchors with the screws screwed halfway in. You can then hang the tiles on the screws like a picture. This allows for adjustment and easy removal, should the need arise (cleaning, etc.)

Enjoy! Your ears, PA, and singers will thank you.

Hydrogen is a widely misunderstood fuel.

2007-06-19T14:06:00.001-04:00

Often I'm asked why I'm a proponent of vegetable oil as a fuel, rather than a fuel that doesn't emit CO2, such as Hydrogen.

Carbon neutrality is more important than to zero CO2 emissions at the tail pipe. Hydrogen is no more a fuel than are the batteries of an electric car- you put energy (electricity) in to make it, and it's then just a carrier of that energy for a vehicle. If the Hydrogen was produced using electricity from a nuclear power plant or coal plant, you still contributed new CO2 to the atmosphere.

Using plant mass as a fuel, however, is carbon neutral. When plants grow they convert CO2 to oxygen- the same amount that will be turned back into CO2 when it is used by cars. Thus, you could accurately say that a veggie car is, in some cases, less of a CO2 contributor than a Hydrogen car.

The promise Hydrogen offers is that of a better fueling infrastructure: one that will centralize energy conversion (and thus any CO2 production) to one location and source. Right now every single car is a separate problem, even if there really was some other choice (for the masses) to use instead of gasoline. When we convert fuel sources to clean energy carriers at one centralized location, the problems with those fuel sources become much more simple to deal with. For example, a hydrogen plant could, at any given time, be fueled by contributions from any or all of the following sources, based on supply, demand, and other various factors:

(carbon neutral)
Solar, Wind, hydro
Biomass
Biofuels

(not carbon neutral)
Nuclear
Coal, Oil
etc.

So, while Hydrogen offers a lot of hope for improvement in the future, the CO2 impact of using hydrogen itself is not really comparable to using vegetable oil to power your car. Furthermore, the benefits of Hydrogen are still a *long* way off.

Mike Watt - Hardest Working Bass Man in America

2007-04-02T12:44:00.001-04:00

I never intended for anyone to become my hero. As a bass player who is trying to further his self, one of the most important companions to creating music is studying other music - all of it. The good, the bad, the popular, and the unprecedented. Mike Watt and the Minutemen helped shape the early American punk movement in the late 70's. Traveling all over in a beat up Ford Econoline van, setting up their own tours, and conveying their own message, they "jammed econo".

What do you do when your best friend and musical soulmate is killed in an accident? For Mike Watt, music was his life when D. Boon died in 1985. Hanging up his bass guitar and calling it quits would have been equivalent to suicide- and I'm sure the thought crossed his mind during that dark time. Instead, he did the only logical thing to him, and has everyday since then- he gives himself to the musical world, in the name of his fallen mate.

Mike Watt gives his energy to us in several ways. Besides the gigs that he plays almost every night with one of several bands (The Stooges, The Missingmen, Banyan, Dos, and other projects), you can listen to his regular podcast, The Watt From Pedro Show. It's a three hour presentation featuring Watt's philosophy, interesting special guests from different areas of his life, influential music, and new music from around the world. He's been doing the show for almost 6 years, with well over 100 shows archived. That's 300+ hours of mind expanding material for your listening pleasure. It's kept this side of overwhelming thanks to Watt's careful attention and faithfulness to a consistent show format.

Watt is also very good (considering the challenges involved) about "writing from the road" He posts his experiences, thoughts, and memoirs in his blogs on The Hootpage, his personal website. Thanks to these gifts, it's not hard to learn what kind of person Mike Watt really is... a hard working, caring, and real person- who has become a hero of mine.

Why did SpeedTV dump WRC in favor of NASCAR?

2007-03-04T16:54:00.001-05:00

I don't watch much TV, but there was a time when my roomies and I used to enjoy catching the weekly recap of the World Rally Championship, on SpeedTV (formerly Speedvision). For those of you who are unfamiliar, auto rally racing competitions are THE most hardcore, adrenalized motor sport, for both the participant and the viewer, on the planet. Sport compact cars with unbelievable power-to-weight ratios are dropped into the most grueling road conditions (snow, mud, you name it) and run the stages as fast as possible, with in-car cameras. The competition is on real, treacherous roads (no tracks!)

...And these cars turn left AND right, NASCAR fans.

The cars go so fast that they have a dedicated course note reader so the driver is prepared for the turns. See this video to get an idea of what it's like. The road conditions change rapidly and the team has to decide quickly and finally what tires to use, etc. The cars run one at a time so they don't have to worry about hitting each other- no yellow flags, red flags, no stopping. The only rule is get your car across the finish line as fast as possible, no matter what condition it's in. And believe me, these cars can be in pretty rough shape and keep going. Cars have been known to flip several times, land right side up - and it's game on.

Anyway, while the coverage was admittedly sparse, at least it wasn't non-existent. Over the years, NASCAR coverage continued to further dominate the programming on Speed, and finally in 2005 they dropped WRC all together. In fact, at this time, there is NO way to watch WRC coverage on TV in the US. This is amazing- an actual quote from a NASCAR fan on the VW Vortex forums: "I like NASCAR too, but I can't watch it 24/7."

If Rally racing is even slightly appealing to you... If you feel like you could be one of the millions of Americans missing out on some of the most exciting motor sports out there, I urge you to take 1 minute and Sign this petition to get other events besides NASCAR back on SpeedTV channel.

Timbaland rips off a Demoscene artist

2007-02-09T12:19:00.002-05:00

I knew this day would come. The new Timbaland/Nelly Furtado song "Do It" uses a song made in 2000 by Finnish demoscene artist "Tempest" (Janne Suni). It's a 4 channel .mod (the ripoff is from a playback using the C64 SID soundchip). The song was hosted on scene.org's servers (the main repository for all everyones demos and tracked music, etc.). As you might expect, no permission or royalties were paid to Tempest.

Just to clarify, we're not talking about some kind of coincidence here. There is no question that this track was used to create the song "Do It".

In an interview, Timbaland tries to downplay it, saying things like "he sampled it from a video game". (This track was not written for a video game- it was actually written for the 2000 demoscene music competition, in which it won 1st place). Regardless, he basically claims he has no legal obligations because it's just like all the other pop artists that sample other music. The difference is that those artists get royalties even when other artists sample their music. Anyway, when you here the song, this is a little more than a "sample". Tempest deserves some compensation.

That being said, this is a very interesting situation. Timbaland has the legal power of Geffen Records behind him, and Tempest has his one lawyer. No one has heard of the Demoscene, so he's going to get screwed, and all of us who have written and submitted tracked music to repositories popular among the Demoscene could be next.

There is such a huge difference between the worlds of pop music and demoscene music. In the pop music model, the music is highly "accessible" (simple assed writing, CD's that sell in retail stores, played everywhere you go, etc.) and the artist generally receives revenues (and fame). In the Demoscene, because of the nature of the way the music is "programmed", the music can be complex and intricate, and often uses sounds not heard in the pop world because of the computer architecture that is used in playback. The music is awesome, but obscure. Most importantly it's always been freely shared. For a big pop artist looking to do something revolutionary with their "sound", this is a wide open door. All you have to do is throw away a little thing called "ethics".

When the pop and demoscene worlds are mixed, everything breaks down. The precedence of this case is really important because there's a fricking ton of incredible music out there in the demoscene that could fall "victim" and be used to make money for someone else, and the outcome of this will decide whether there will be any royalties paid to those artists if their music is used.

To make matters worse, he apparently already used this piece of music to make money in 2005, in a ringtone "written exclusively by Timbaland":

Media
------

Here's the entire C64 playback of the original (mp3 format)
http://www.genietervan.com/hoerr/glenn_acidjazz.mp3

Here's the Timbaland/Furtado song:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8N4ovp90Ea0

The first post in this thread does a good job of explaining what happened:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2274635&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Timbaland, in an interview answering to the controversy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTvY3wZrHrQ

Verizon Wireless customer service exposé

2006-12-15T09:51:00.000-05:00

As the world is finding out, Verizon Wireless doesn't know the difference between .002 dollars, and .002 cents.

Obstacles to Progress

2005-09-15T23:50:00.000-04:00

I have always had the view that the needs of mankind are a set path, and that barring any self-induced catastrophe that wipes us out, it is our destiny to develop new technology until we have reached some kind of "holy grail". Resistance is but one of the many temporary obstacles to developing new technology, but even that occurs less often. As our rate of "progress" (to use a controversial word) goes up, the timeline for acceptance gets shorter, as accepting new ideas becomes more routine.

Our society works in a way that consumer needs dictate the funding and motivation for research and development that leads to progress. Often times, however, people (often individuals) develop ideas that are "ahead of their time". These ideas will be met with the most resistance because the masses will not understand how they will fully integrate with our way of living. The development of these ideas is important, nonetheless, for when their time comes they will be implemented faster, and forethought will become a blessing.

Biodiesel

2005-09-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

My friend took this picture in North Carolina.

Charting tv content characteristics

2005-08-25T01:58:00.000-04:00

I got to thinking about tv content today. Nowadays, there's more and more "unscripted" reality tv crap splattered all over the cable-waves. It seems like each genre has various levels of 3 specific characteristics. I've come up with a rating chart to contrast 3 major characterists of all the various kinds of tv content:

Type	Scripted	Stupid	Fabricated Plot
NASA Channel
Movies	X		X
Reality TV		X	X
Crappy Sitcoms	X	X	X

NASA Channel: Reality TV without the suck.

A look ahead

2005-08-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

My obsession with looking forward to new technology is not a new one. This is a brief essay I wrote on November 30th, 1999. The point was to have some sort of a forward-looking benchmark to "look back at".

It's funny, some of this stuff seems obvious now, but at the time you couldn't even buy a DVD burner, and "TiVo" was not a widely recognized verb in the english language. The iPod didn't come out until Oct. 23rd, 2001... Almost 2 years after this was written. I'll admit that I didn't see the personal music player as a stepping stone to "PC-in-my pocket ubiquity", but you can definitely see things moving in that direction. Some of these things have yet to come to fruition. Still, not bad for a pre-turn of the century prediction.

Here's a list of key modern-day technologies this article touches on, albeit in scarce detail:
-iPod
-DVD burners
-Surround sound audio DVDs (still on the rise)
-5.1 (and 7.1) digital audio soundcards
-TiVo and Windows Media Center set top boxes
-Peer-to-peer music sharing, and homegrown music internet labels
-USB memory keys
-WiFi and the anxiously awaited Wi-MAX
-Shoutcast and other internet radio providers
-In-car GPS navigation

--
Into the 21st Century:
Predictions For The Next 5 Years
________________________________________________________________________
Scott McGrath
November 30th, 1999

It truly is an exciting time to be alive. Technology is being developed at an exponential rate, and in less than 5 years, we can expect the same amount of development that has taken place over the last 10.

Music

Conventional CD sales will dwindle as mp3's become more popular. CD's still sold will be encoded audio, like mp3, and sold either directly through the artist, or through a clearinghouse with a small retainer. Record companies will lose control and power over the industry, and will be forced to work *for* artists. Band success will depend on popularity, successful promotion techniques, and quality. The internet will continue to grow as a medium for the transfer of digital audio, both legally and illegally. Most bands will have some music available for free download on the internet, much like shareware is to software.

CDs and CD burners will eventually be completely replaced by DVD with its vast storage capability. Flash memory and other solid state storage will be used for portable storage. Recorded music and audio will be mixed and encoded for 6 channels, rather than run-of-the-mill 2 channel stereo. This will give the recording industry a fighting chance to get back into the market, because manufactured discs will regain its popularity. But this comeback will be shortlived- 6 channel mp3s, players, and sound cards will be commonplace. Typical internet bandwidth will increase, and transferring larger, 6-channel music won't take long. The digital music revolution will survive.

All radio stations will "bit-cast" this digital audio on the Internet, allowing better quality than can be delivered on the limited spectrum available on the commercial FM radio band. Conventional FM stereo will continue to be offered for mobile reception.

Internet

Demand for bandwidth will continue to increase in the home. The fall of dial-on-demand, conventional modem connections is inevitable. Cable companies will thrive, as a rush of dial-up customers make the transition to high-speed, full-time internet access. Backbones will swamp with the demand, cable companies will be forced to impose limits. DSL will become available and common as an increased demand for reliable, private high-speed connections is realized.

Wireless networking will be available over a network of small, high frequency (XX GHz) transceivers placed everywhere in high locations. The bandwidth will be enough to stream digital audio, or comfortably browse the a graphically-rich web, excluding motion video and videoconferencing. Given enough time, even wireless internet bandwidth and compression techniques will be improved to the point where this is possible as well.

Home Computing and Entertainment

Television and the Web will be combined and/or embedded in one-another. The entertainment center and personal computer will be consolidated into one small, convenient appliance. Several of these appliances will be located in any given house- as many as there are TVs in houses today. A plethora of services will be made available by interactive television-like networks. It will bring home shopping, gaming, videoconferencing, and many other services to new levels. These appliances will also function as terminals or consoles for E-mail, home automation and security, and other things. Speech recognition will be dependable enough to use as a primary interface, accompanying the keyboard and mouse.

Palm Computing

Wireless internet will give rise to a strong market for Personal Digital Assistants. Typical uses include remote control of home-automation, personal digital music player, E-mail and Web browser clients, pager, etc. Along with the conventional uses of today which will not go away. PDA use will be greatly enhanced by speaker-specific speech recognition, which will allow reliable speech control and dictation even in a noisy environment.

Mobile (In-Vehicle) Computing

Cars will be standardly equipped with onboard PC's, GPS receivers, and wireless internet. Vehicles traveling on the interstate will be bombarded by geographically-sensitive advertisements on an in-car billboard. Weather information for the traveller's current area, no matter where it may be, will be available at the touch of a button or voice command.
--

Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns

2005-07-08T15:49:00.000-04:00

An interesting essay. We'll get $40 trillion if you read it! Trust me, this essay will impact your perspective the future.

The Law of Accelerating Returns

San Diego in 3D

2005-04-26T16:34:00.000-04:00

I took this stereogram photo of Downtown San Diego at night. To view it, relax your eyes and bring the two inner images together in the middle.

(Click for larger version)

2005-04-12T15:41:00.000-04:00

Converted another car to run on vegetable oil this weekend. Check out Mark's site to see some photos.

2 types of people

2005-04-12T15:09:00.000-04:00

I got my stapler back today. Office Space commentary aside, it's really interesting when you consider it: there are two people involved in stapler displacement.

Person 1. Where's a stapler? Here's one.

Person 2. Where's my stapler? Hmmm. Someone probably borrowed it. Perhaps I should put out an office memo, inquiring whether someone has my stapler. I'll waste an hour of productivity thinking about it, posting it on my blog, etc. In the meantime, I'll try to make do with a paperclip, scotch tape, or other inferior binding method.

Found: AOL CD

2005-04-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

I found this AOL CD on the ground, on the Oakes green. Contact me if it is yours and I will get it back to you.

Buying a TDI

2005-04-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

As the school year wraps up, I've had a lot of questions from people with plans to buy and convert a Volkswagen TDI to run on vegetable oil. Here's some good information:

The normal price range for a decent TDI is $5,000 to $10,000. They are a little pricey because they last a long time and are in high demand. Don't bother going to the dealership to find one. They will all be gone, and the ones you do find are going to be overpriced. Volkswagen of America has set about buying back TDIs from previous customers, for full market price, so they can keep TDIs on the lot. Thus they are selling them above market price.

Your best bet is private sale. Watch the local classifieds like a hawk. In vermont, I would check Burlington Free Press (also listed in cars.com) and Motor Digest. Don't be in a hurry- it may take a month or two. Check out everyone you see. Find out if the timing belt has been changed, and adjust the value accordingly. It's a pricey ($800-$1000) endeavor that needs to happen before the car reaches 70,000 miles. E-bay is always an option if you can figure out how to transport what you buy, and don't plan on getting any steals.

As far as what you'll be looking at- There are basically 4 categories of used TDIs in america right now:

-The 96-97 Passat ($3,000-$5,000 range). These are probably pretty tired cars, but if you find one that has been taken care of, it's worth it.

-The 98 Jetta ($4,000-$6,000 range). These are good cars. They were kind of a transition between the old and the new. There are a fair amount of these around for private sale.

-The 99-03 Jetta, Golf, and Beetle ($6,000-$13,000). This is what I have. Bought my 02 golf new for $20,000 (loaded) and it is now worth $10-11,000 on the private sale market.

-The 04 and up Jetta, Golf and Beetle. These cars feature new technology and more horsepower. They are selling used for $15,000 - $18,000.

Greasecar conversion kits (greasecar.com) cost $800. Besides that I would keep an additional $200 in reserve to buy some kind of pump and filtering system, as well as miscellaneous odds and ends to keep your operation neat and easy. Rubber gloves, cleaning supplies, buckets, etc.

The people agree

2005-03-18T16:34:00.000-05:00

The United State Postal Service thanks you for contribution.

2005-03-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

I sent a really thin battery in a plain envelope, and this is what I got back. The USPS tore it open, emptied it, and returned the empty envelope to me. The back has an apology on it that reads: "Please accept our apologies. We regret the damage your package recieved during handling in the postal service."

Some postal worker has a brand new battery for their cell phone.

BSOD

2005-02-24T15:50:00.000-05:00

"The Windows Logon Process system process?!"

BONES appetit

2005-02-24T13:52:00.000-05:00

Ricky Bones has "lunch" at work.
http://www.rickybones.com

Blowed-up projector bulb

2005-02-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

This classroom projector bulb blew after only 300 hours of use. If you haven't heard an HID bulb blow before, it's not unnoticeable, audibly. It happened during a class in progress.

Ghetto NAS

2005-02-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

5, 250GB SATA drives in RAID5 in external enclosure = 1 TByte Network Attached Storage for under $1300.

It's alive.

2005-02-22T01:26:00.000-05:00

And it talks.

Speak-web

I'm going to bed now.

E-mail I sent to my colleagues

2005-02-18T18:23:00.000-05:00

At some point, very late tonight (after midnight), Waite exhausted memory and the web server crashed. I tried to restart the server, and it abended like crazy as it unloaded the NLMs, and then of course hung up instead of rebooting.

So at this point, the portal is down, and no one can get to webmail. I feel really bad about this, especially since it's so soon after its official release, and we've been getting really positive feedback about it.
I considered driving there, but as soon as I got on the road I quickly reconsidered, as I observed my car was able to break traction on straightaway using only the accelerator pedal (not on snow). I consider myself to be a fairly bawlsy driver, but that's my cut-off :)

The problem does not appear to be associated with Extend (Portal Services). I think Apache2 (or some supporting module) is leaking memory. I found a TID that proves its possible, even if it is a little out of date:
http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10091722.htm . A short term fix we can do is load apache2 in protected address space. I bet this will at least allow us to restart the server successfully despite the abends. Also, when we get the web power switch, we should move Waite down to the library server room so we can hook it up to that. It is now on the list of mission critical servers (during off hours).

So whomever gets in first tommorrow, please reboot Waite.

iPod Generations

2005-02-18T18:22:00.000-05:00

The Singularity

2005-02-18T17:46:00.000-05:00

Since I'm really busy, I will probably post pictures most of the time. Sometimes stuff I post will be about technology and developments, other times it will just something I think is cool.

This is a subject I am carrying over from my old blog, The Singularity (deprecated):

Ray Kurzweil is a futurist, who predicts that the human civilization will control its own destiny through the combining of biological and non-biological entities in to one (cyber human? humanputer?) He discusses in great detail the implications of the rate at which we are developing as a technologically advanced civilization, and something he refers to as "The Singularity"- an event after which we can not currently imagine the circumstances therein. The surprising part is that all this may happen within the next 30-50 years.

I have converted the text of one of his essays to speech for listening on the go. Feel free to download it and listen on your iPod or other device. It's fairly long (2+ hours), but well worth the "read". You'll see what I mean.

Also, here's Kurzweil's company website to read up on: http://www.kurzweilai.net/

Welcome

2005-02-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

This is a historical moment indeed. Scamwagon has gone from a deeply rooted concept in my mind (and an ever-present domain name in my domain manager list) to reality. This is now a forum in which subject matter related to any of the following topics, but not exclusively, may appear:

-Computers (Hardware, PHP, Multimedia, Perl, C, C++, other programming languages, homebrew software, free software)

-Music (Bass guitars, multi-effects pedals, multitrack recording, midi, sequencing, home studio)

-Cars (WRC, SCCA Pro Rally, diesel, probe, vegetable oil powered)

-Tech (Gadgets, pda, wifi, personal audio, cellular, laptop)

-Interesting personal experiences I feel like sharing (pics, movies, stories, etc.)

Enjoy!