July 27th, 2008 jeffwa
If you’re a musician or a frequent concert goer, you owe it to yourself to look into custom ear plugs. I’ve been aware of these for quite sometime, but at $180-200 per set I was reluctant to purchase them. I recently picked up a set and I can’t believe I waited so long. These things are amazing! I play bass in a big band orchestra (20+ piece) and also work as a front of house tech for a local sound company, so my ears are very important to me and at the same time are abused quite frequently. I usually wear foam ear plugs when I’m working a gig or attending a show, but I have always hated the way they muffle the sound and rob me of the true “live” feeling. At the same time, I have sensitive ears so the high SPL’s hurts which means I have to sacrifice sound quality for my ears safety. Not anymore! The Westone and Ultimate Ears custom plugs have a changeable attenuator that “filters” the sound rather than kill it. I compare it to turning the volume nob down; the overall frequency range is there, just a little more quiet. I have the 15db attenuates and recently ran front of house for a 3 day festival, which normally would have been pain and agony. I sound checked without the plugs and then put them in when the band would start. The 15db attenuators (I will note that the 15db filters are a little to much for mixing and I plan on getting the 9db filters for front of house work) allowed me to mix just as I would without plugs, in fact I would take them out once an awhile just to see if my mix was still true - and it was perfect! Last weekend I went to Rock Fest in Cadott WI, something I normally would dread because of the poor sound quality vs. painful ears dilemma. I love concerts again! Every band sounded perfect in my head, plus I found the ear plugs have an added bonus - because of their filtering characteristics you can hear someone talking next to you over the band! I found the same characteristics playing bass - the overall level of the band, which normally drowns me out (trumpets on my left and drums on my right) was brought down a notch and I could hear myself as if I was twice as loud as I really was.
Again, if you work in an environment where your ears are a valuable asset, or just want to enjoy concerts in a whole new way, you owe it yourself to check these out. Most local audiologists can make an ear mold for you and in my case, if you order the plugs from them the mold is free. You can get 3 different filters, which are interchangeable, to suite a complete range of applications. Save your ears!
http://www.ultimatears.com
http://www.westone.com
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July 18th, 2008 jeffwa
With Microsoft announcing the end of Windows XP production, sales of the operating system have skyrocketed (no thanks to the endless sea of incorrect Vista information spewing from mouth’s of people who have never seen the operating system…more on that later). Oddly enough, cnet reports that it may be Mac users buying up the licenses. This is not surprising as almost every Intel Macbook I see is booted into WINDOWS not MacOS. I witnessed this just last weekend at the airport. I almost wanted to walk up to the person and ask them why they bought a $2000 laptop only to turn around and run Windows on it when they could have just bought a Windows based system and saved $1000. This backs my theory that having an Apple is "trendy" and "cool". The majority of people who have Macbooks don’t own them for their powerful OS, but rather so they can say "I have a Macbook" as if it makes them a better member of the worlds society. Every time I hear someone say "I’m buying a Mac" or "I have a Mac" with that usual smug tone and stupid "I’m better than all you petty ‘Windows’ users" I feel part of my brain die. Owning a product with an Apple logo on it is not a status symbol. No one cares. Get over it.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9987074-33.html?hhTest=1
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July 18th, 2008 jeffwa
Experts still state that our storage needs double every year, and it looks like the HD manufacturers are keeping right up with this predication.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9109018&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
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June 12th, 2008 jeffwa
If you haven’t played this game, at LEAST find a friend who has it and try it out. I guarantee after 5 minutes you’ll be out the door to your local game supplier to pick it up. I don’t game like I used to (yes, the days of 24-36 hour LAN parties are over), but this game lassoed me and brought me back to younger days when I would spend hours engrossed in a game. In fact, to date no game has ever captured my complete and undivided attention. I love games with a 
deep and heavy storyline, and this game is no exception. The story line alone is enough to keep you glued to your PC, but throw in the mind blowing graphics and somehow insanely efficient game engine and you’ll have the wife/girlfriend nagging you for days. I’m a huge art deco fan, so when I first descended into the forbidding city of Rapture I knew it would be trouble. I would spend hours in my dark office completely engulfed in this game. The extremely detailed and breathtaking views of rapture combined with haunting score make this game a truly engulfing gaming experience.
Much to my delight it was announced a few weeks ago that Bioshock would be made into a movie with Gore Verbinski directing (Pirates of the Caribbean) and John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeey Todd) writing the screenplay. As if that wasn’t enough it was announced a few days later that Bioshock would not only have a sequel, but there would also be a THIRD installment making it a trilogy!
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April 8th, 2008 jeffwa
I finally picked up a DSLR camera after “browsing” for months now and have had a lot of fun learning the basics of photography. I had photography in HS, but that was years ago and what I do remember is only somewhat relevant today. 
I picked up the Nikon D40 which wasn’t my first choice, but was the best suited (and priced) for my needs. I like the entire Nikon line way better than the Canon’s because of the intuitive interface and the fact that they use SD memory cards vs compact flash. After playing for quite sometime in the store and reading various reviews I definitely found the Nikon’s interface to be much quicker and easier to get around than the Canon’s.
So far I absolutely love the D40 and the only downside (which I somehow overlooked) is that the D40 doesn’t have a lens motor in the camera body itself so unless you purchase AF lenses with the motor in the lens, you have to manual focus. Not a HUGE downside, but one that will make lens selection somewhat more difficult in the future.
I drove my wife down to Iowa this weekend for a class which gave me some time to play with the camera. Unfortunately my amateur (at best) photography skills resulted in a lot of experimenting and very few shots I’d actually consider keeping, but after every shot I felt more and more comfortable with the camera, again thanks to the intuitive interface.
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February 7th, 2008 jeffwa
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January 31st, 2008 jeffwa
For all you big band music lovin’ fans out there Troppo just played a gig last Friday at the Heyde Center for the Arts. It was a great gig with quite a few new charts and the feedback from the audience was very positive. We play again February 16th at Chi-Hi’s Valentines Day Big Band Bash. As always, Troppos information is at www.troppobigband.org!
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January 31st, 2008 jeffwa
I ditched Wordpress for awhile in favor of a simple page with hyperlinks, but I grew bored not having a site to maintain so I’m back with a new theme. Not that anyone actually visits this site, it’s just an outlet for my technical boredom.
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