I can't see colour, but I sure can hear them, so to speak

Easter whoosed by in terms of delicious food, some wine, mämmi, a lot of recording, mixing and off-note singing. I was so into my own little world I didn't have a moment to put down here what I was going to last thursday evening. So here's a recap of what was up:

I got my new screen, 24 inches of Eizo goodness. It's rather huge, as in otherwise than screen size, but I'm liking it. The EcoView or whatever it's called auto-brightness seems to do it's trick: Haven't had a moment thinking the screen's too bright. One of the reasons I got it was my interest for said feature, as well as the fancy folding stand, which makes it possible to place the screen itself just at the front edge of the stand foot. Something sort of crucial for me, as I need to be able to have the screen as close to me as possible. Well, with this huge size it's not necessary anymore but I do appreciate have some space to type in too without displacing my shoulders to fit my arms in.

Mics were good, the four I tried being Shure SM58, Audix OM2, AKG D5 and EV N/D767a. In short, the Shure is nice but needs proximity. Not much room to go around there. The Audix was nice, good pickup and all, probably my favourite of the bunch. The AKG was also nice, picked up from a longer distance, rivals the Audix sure. The EV didn't really leave any impression at all. It was alright, but nothing to write home about I guess.

For the testings I had to MacGyver myself a mic stand, but nothing a little creativity can't do. A tripod, a plastic wrapper and a whole lot of duct tape did the trick.

My guitar recording for a song a friend of mine and I have been working on for quite a while took a turn to a lot easier direction as I realised I've got a StealthPlug, a little USB device which's one end goes to the computer and the other goes to the guitar (for amp modeling software) or to an amp (apparently) and the input can be taken in through the ASIO driver. The easing bit versus a standard cable in the soundcard's mic input is that using Sonar I don't have to reconfigure it every time I want to change what I'm recording. I wouldn't need to do anything at all if I figured out how to get the guitar signal in decent through the 0202 as it's been a bit too loud so far. But now it's just a simple restart of Sonar that does the trick. Still bothersome, but not as much as with changing driver types back and fourth to fix a chord. I didn't try changing it on the fly, but I have my doubts it'd work. Sonar wants to get restarted after changing about any audio settings anyway.

I'm familiar with Sonar from the past, and figuring Cubase was not too much fun, so despite being told Cubase is easy I sticked with Sonar. The LE version that came with the EMU 0202 is just dandy apart from one little detail: it doesn't have a graphic equalizer or a very clear compressor. Not that I'm too well versed in compressors, but I just couldn't figure out the on in it. I got what I needed done with the four point parametric EQ with decent results, but I know a proper graphic one would be so much better. I need to plunge into the world of free plugins, it seems. I've just been a bit too lazy for that.

In the process of recording both clean and harsh vocals I learned I'm somewhat off-note most of the time. It doesn't sound absolutely horrible, but there's enough room for improvement to fit a brontosaurus.

So I'm venturing into improving my pitch a bit. Googling on the subject is interesting. A lot of completely opposite opinions around, and some rather impressive finds also. I found an online pitch training program and as they're all saying I did notice the difference right off. It does work! I might be barred recognizing colours, so I'll learn recognize notes instead. It's just as useful a skill, atleast in my chosen set of hobbies.

If there are any obvious missing H's in the text I blame the keyboard. The H key on this one is horrible. Almost as if the keyboard was over-zealously French...

A step towards a possible venture into the music business, and some eXtra Problems

It's been a while since I last wrote here, and I have a semi-decent excuse this time around.

I've been working on my entrance pre-task for TAMK University of Applied Sciences (= Tampereen Ammattikorkeakoulu, where the acronym comes from), and it's taken the last couple of weeks of my time pretty well, along with not so inconciderable tiredness over having to get up for work ridiculously early. As I said, semi-decent...

As usual, something always has to go wrong. This time around with the pre-task I ran out of printer ink crucially the night I should have printed the thing and put it together. The printer is my sister's and it hasn't really been used so I could only count on what she knew about it, so it was a bit hazard to begin with. But I had counted one extra day for slugglish delivery, so I just went instaling Office and a gazillion fonts on my parents' computer and printed my portfolio on it, then mailed it express yesterday. Lucky I had printed the photos for it first, meaning they were full inked and shiny and all. My parents' printer doesn't have proper photo printing shamminghangs, seen.

I did try sharing the printer from Vista, but my XP machine couldn't find it in the network. I don't know if Norton installed on the Vista computer was in the way or what, but I did see my computer on it a few times so the network connection exists to some extent. There are some XP settings and updates I read about but the settings aren't anywhere to be found and the update refuses to install claiming I already have it installed.

Another thing yesterday: I got my hands on a few dynamic micropones and an E-MU USB 0202 pre-amp/audio input thingamaboing. Instead of using my evening testing the mics and configuring the software that came with it I spend it googling around for USB 2.0 drivers and solutions, since my XP installation doesn't seem to recongnize the fact that a USB 2.0 Host Controller is installed, and it even claims it's running and working! I wouldn't really mind if it weren't for the fact that the 0202 doesn't really stay in touch too well with Sonar atleast on USB 1.1. With my computer configuration a 10 millisecond latency for the device should be plently. I tried 200ms and, well, it doesn't drop out but clicks, pops, stutters and loses synch. I even closed everything else, so the USB has something to do with it. I'm not claiming the XP installation is in the best possible shape, but still.

I apparently have to use my much slower laptop, which however sports USB 2.0 just fine, if it'd work any better. If it does it'll just be for the better, provides me mobility. I also need to find a decent pair of headphones. If I'm not mistaken there's one in the house somewhere, if it's still working that is. A real nice old one.

To fix the USB issue I guess I could just reinstall XP if I could, but I can't. Reinstalling it would mess up my boot record, which would force me to most likely reinstall Windows 7, and I just don't want to do that. I'm liking it too much. If and if so when I get my hands on the 7 Release Candidate I'll definitely reconsider, though. I did remove SP3 to see if it resolves anything at all anywhere, but I doubt it.

On a half-related note, as I've been using XP on my work computer I've noticed I'm starting to slightly dislike the XP interface compared to the 7 one. The themed one I have at home is bareable, but this basic one is a bit too unpractical. 7 is so smooth and fast. The only real weak spot I've come across in 7 normal use wise is the networking center. It, in a nutshell, sucks. The network diagnostic tool works way better than in XP, but everything else is just way too shiny for the user group who really want to go messing around there and know what to mess up. Way too many clicks to be followed from a help file too. But yeah, most of it is there. It's just hard to find. Ofcource I can see the plus side in hiding everything: people who don't know what they are doing aren't as likely to mess things up.

I'll really need to get to the XP/7 comparison at some point, when things around everything else get a bit less hectic and I get a bit clearer picture - the glamour of something new and exciting having worn off 7.

I also decided to give Live Messenger 2009 another chance, and mess.be patched what I could out of it with the light patch, getting rid of the worst flood of space-consuming adverts. I wouldn't really mind them if they didn't take up so much of my precious screen space and distract me so much. I know and appreciate what they are for, I just don't like the execution of the idea at all. Overall the new Live Messenger isn't THAT bad, once you get used to it. But it's still unnecessarliy huge everywhere. 8.5 is still better.

A bit of light amidst all this mess, I'm getting a new montior sometime soon, maybe even today. A big one. I'm fed up with my back-up 15" CRT I was forced to use when my 17" flat broke. Fingers crossed for a nice large, 8-cornered surprise today. The realist in me doubts it though, but in the past doubts like these have been proven wrong.

I've spent my free time today reading up on recording and mixing vocals, and I guess tonight's a night for some duct tape and peculiar voices.

I don't have a mic stand, so I'll need to build one, you pervert.

A few extra thoughts and observations for today

Oddly enough as I got back home and fired up Facebook once again in Chrome (version 1.0.154.48 was the last beta I had, btw) it worked fine... Apparently they fixed it then. Bah.

More stuff new in this beta is autocomplete for form fields, which is rather an awesome feature. The browsing history cleaning functionality apparently was there before, some googling revealed. I did also find the dev release version where all this neatness, zoom, autoscroll, autocomplete and so on was added but is it of much importance? I don't think so, you can google it up if you need to know. The main thing is it's here and the other beta channel users to enjoy.

I also came across a discussion about Chrome plugins today, specifically mouse gestures and I found it terribly amusing how some people were defending even such a simple gesture as opening a link in a new tab to their grave. I prefer pressing the wheel, it's much simpler than a twitch of my wrist. Yes, I can see there are places where this doesn't work, but if you can't be arsed to every once in a while select an address and click a few extra times I'd label you sickly lazy. If you can't even do that you'll get rooted where you sit or lay, or something eventually... I can see the back/forward gestures being missed, though I have a mouse with said buttons so I haven't really needed them gestures. Maxthon had gestures built in so I got to use them some, but they never grew on me in a way that I'd try to use them all around. Save for the Refresh-gesture which I occasionally tried using in IE. But no others.

I'm lazy, but the amount laziness that results in the inability to cope with having to do something with more than one click and a flick of your wrist every now and then is already unhealthy: It's the modern trend though, everything has to come at you with the flick of your fingers or wrist. And it's what drives people fat, tired and antisocial I bet.

Full page zoom, hell yeah! and other web browser thoughts

A slight overreaction there maybe, but still. New Google Chrome beta out today, and oh boi, it's looking nice. I've been following the developer channel release notes but I'm on te beta channel myself so I don't get the dev releases. But now I've got a bunch of them changes right here running. It's for one said to be even faster than before.

I'm especially excited about the full page zoom, which I've been waiting since I first got my hands on the browser, and now it's here. Working grand, the only thing it'd ideally need is an indicator somewhere on how much the page is zoomed in or out. Zooming is pretty important to me with my eyesight, as is the now added mouse wheel click scroll. That was absent earlier too, but now it's there too. There's not much left I'm missing from an ideal browser here, though I can't put my finger on what it would exactly be. I'll know it once it comes around.

Other features this version seems to introduce are exceptions to sites where passwords are saved, full screen mode and browsing history clearing functionality. Sounds all good. There sure is a lot done under the hood, I know from the dev channel release notes.

Funnily, here running XP and Chrome 2.0.169.1, as well as the last stable release of Chrome which's version number I already forgot... 1.0.159.someting or so? Anyway, in both cases here Facebook works just fine. But running Windows 7 and the last beta, which's version number I also have forgotten, it didn't work. I'll report back on what 7 and this beta say.

On a related note, I've been using IE8 out of interest, and it actually is a very decent browser! I can see how all the extra features, Web Slices and such will be useful to some people, but they're not in my way. The zoom there is also very good, as well as the renderer seems to be fixed. I trust it really is as secure as they claim, and thus obviously rivals with Firefox already. Chrome isn't so huge on the extra feature front, so I don't know if they can be compared per se. But sure Chrome is secure, I'm not trying to hint otherwise.

IE8 does boost some nice accessibility features, such as the possibility to override page colours for easier reading. Also the Windows 7 program preview feature for every separate tab is great, but it's a functionality that I think will end up in every tabbed browser once Windows 7 is out, if not earlier. My only gripes with IE8 are the interface, which seems a bit too heavy after getting used to Chrome's minimalism, and the way new window links open in new windows, and not in new tabs. I don't know if it's a beta issue and fixed in the final, but it sure is unpractical. Even more so after the Chrome experience where tabs can be dragged between browser windows or outside of them to new ones.

New Chrome beta experiences in Windows 7 later today, hopefully.

More things that just don't work

Okay, it seems they've now broken Facebook on Chrome. It works fine on IE8 but nothing really goes beyond the home page in Chrome. Not even any links seem to work, and the IM features are all dead, nothing happens when trying to open the list of people online. I hear it's bugged up before, but never happened to me. More shit in the new layout's fan, way to go!

Speaking of web design, I ran across yet another prime example why you should not use iframes for anything they're not explicitly designed for. A website someone I know has made, but I won't disclose more on that, just stick to the page. It behaves very badly atleast when the browser window is small enough, since the parent page and the iframes with more contents than fits one frame scroll separately. Just imagine trying to scroll a page and only a part of if starts moving, or the whole page moves without revealing any new contents. It's just plain confusing if you haven't figured out how it works! Not to mention it's apparently designed thinking everyone has a widescreen monitor, lucky the overflow on 1024 screen width is only images, but it still looks bad and is generally very unpractical. No idea of scaling of any sort, no siree...

So the deal here is this is just the newest version of a site that's been remade a few times by this person and once by me. I made her a functional, remotely updateable PHP page and all, but apparently she heard one "it's not good" comment and instantly decided to take over the webdesign side again, without even asking me to fix ANYTHING. Whenever I did on the page she asked why about, and when I explained why I had done so I just got an "oh, alright" type answer. Never actually asked me to change anything. But then suddenly it's not good, and has to be replaced by what anyone with any sense of a webdesigner would be plain apalled about technically.

Then, as the iframes strike back after updating the contents and finding browsers tend to cache pages the visitors are adviced to Internet Explorer, which "I wouldn't otherwise recommend to anyone." Oh really, now this is an interesting take. Since IE7 it's been actually an OK browser, even more so with IE8. And it even beat Firefox and Chrome in Microsoft's speed tests! I somehow doubt the picture those tests give, but I don't think the results are downright faked. It's competitive alright by my reckoning, tho I don't really know Firefox any better than I know IE8.

People just don't have the guts to admit it, I bet, but there are such who would agree with me I'm sure. Atleast among those not biased by how they think of the whole thing and the people running it. I might not share the warmest of them all feelings after this redesign mess and a few other personal things, but I still am one of those people too.

Bottom line is, if you want to make fancy looking websites that actually work do them right from the start or skip it. I can't say I'm an excellent webdesigner or anything, but I know a bad design when I see one, and if I know how to fix it I'm not afraid to voice my opinion.

Not a good day with new software ventures

My piss was brought royally near a boiling point today (well, yesterday to be exact) by two things.

First I was trying to install Windows Live Mail. Sounds simple enough. But it isn't!

Piss boiling culprit one: Windows Live

The only way to get a hold of the installer was to get the Windows Live Essentials installer, which was an online application so offline installation was out of the question. That's really not the problem though. When I fired it up and started looking at the options it was nicely informative on what it installs with which bits of the package and all in all neat looking and feeling.

But then we come to the big but and the pain in the butt: The installer just informed me that it will update Messenger, and there was nothing I could do about that. I did it anyway. Silly me.

Windows Live Mail turned out to be not much different from Outlook at a first glance, just Liveified in looks, but it seeemed sluggish and unintuitive, and as I tried to set my Gmail account up on it I couldn't find the details for the server stuff anywhere so I gave up. I'll just go with Gmail notifier, even tho it's a bit bugged -- opening my inbox in IE8 even though Chrome is installed and set as the default browser. There's something fishy going on here I'd wager.

Ok, so far no harm done, I just let it be. But Live Messenger 2009... Well, let's just say I don't like it. At all. On a scale of one to ten it's roughly -2009. Slow, lacking features dear to me from 8.5, way too big with unnecessary extra screen space consuming elements that don't do anything, etc. And the Sign In Assistant that came with it just bothered me around. That could be uninstalled, but it doesn't help much when the main program is very difficult to view and annoying as hell to use. I like the Favourite contacts feature. That's about it. The rest is plain rubbish.

The main window has so much extra stuff that the contact list itself gets buried in there, and passing over -- NOT hovering, but passing the cursor over -- a contact pops up a huge info box I really don't want there, obscuring the visibility and interfering with using the program hidden somewhere under it. The colouring options have been toned down way too much. Now I can set the colour of the Me area or whatever the top is. Ok, that's fine, it's similiar to 8.5.

But the conversation windows then: This is where the extra space just wasted is on proud display. For now changing the background of the conversation window has acutally changed it's background. Now it changes the background of the sent messages area, which is EXACTLY where I DO NOT want it. It's exactly where it does the least good to me. I have very photosensitive eyes, so I've set all the backgrounds I can to dark colours. I have a dark grey Messenger background, which works like a charm. People's text is still easily readable dispite different colour choices, but the window doesn't shine like a christmas tree all around. Come Live Messenger 2009, and all that is gone.

Yet another thing they messed up are the statuses. What the hell is 'Available'? Where's my good old Online? And I was actually using Out to Lunch, which is long gone too. I also read some comments along similiar ideas, and from people who had actually tried the rest of the suite too and found it's just as unpractical and slow.

The Live Essentials installer also seemed to mess something up, as SVCHOST.EXE started constantly changing, which Kaspersky Anti-Virus kept reporting, and the whole deal kept cutting the internet connection every half a minute or so. Luckily one of the oldest tricks in the book -- a reboot that is -- fixed the problem.

To summarise Windows Live Messenger 2009, it's simply fucked up. I'm sticking with my mess.be patched 8.5 thank you, and not touching the rest of the Essentials at all.

Piss boiling culprit two: Facebook

This might've actually been easy to guess. Yeah, so I got the new and 'improved' Facebook page today too. I'm not sure, but I hear the update was done to make the home and profile pages more consistent. Huh? Consistent? How is it consistent, other than they're both awful now opposed to being somewhat useful in the past? They're just burning the field for one flower here.

Last time Facebook updated the page layout it raised a little racket too, but back then I thought it was only for the better. The whole site became actually possible to use, instead of being a slow big pool of application jello. The apps were nicely tuned down and the skip buttons on the friend invite dealies actually work now.

But now, it's just a big mess again. Atleast I can't just tell what's been going on by a big glance. I have to read everything through to see what it is, since every item looks about the same now. Well I guess there's your consistency.

The Wall posts have been changed in a very contradictory way: if people would use it properly it'd be great fun, as you can now basically have status updates or action text or whatever you want to call it anywhere. But when something else than the plain Wall message comes to play it looks very silly if it looked ok on the wall, or vice versa. And replying to Wall posts has been made way less intuitive anyway. I spend a good while wondering where the comment option had gone, just realise it's the "Write on this person's Wall" link is gone and only the Wall-to-Wall link remains, a feature I've never really understood anyway.

I guess I'll get used to it eventually, but I'm sure I'll never truly like it like I did the previous version.

There are so many laws about the balances and preservations and things of stuff that I should've seen this. So much awesome comes at a price. Windows 7 is countered with this Live crap, but I don't know about Facebook... They're just idiots, I guess.

A few thoughts on web browsers

Let's get the ball rolling, shall we?

A few things off the top of my head on web browsers. I've never liked Firefox and IE's for long been less than ideal, so I've gone around the less known browsers. Tried Opera and didn't like it back then, and I hear it's still a bit twitchy anyway. I used MyIE2, now known as Maxthon for quite a while simply because it was feature rich and much lighter on system resources than either IE or Firefox back then, and FF had it's quirks with losing user profile data and crashing randomly for no apparent reason. I did use Maxthon for very many years, in which time atleast FF caught up to it apparently, but I still can't bring myself to like FF. Not after Chrome atleast.

When I learned of Google Chrome some time on its beta there was no return. Chrome's been my browser of choice ever since, and even tho IE8 is shaping up real good, and I hear FF is decent nowdays too I'm not going anywhere from this neat little thing. Call me a fanboy all you want, but I just happen to like the Google ideology. The interface on Chrome is perfect for my liking: it's very minimal, but everything essential is there within reach. It's still missing some features I'd desire, like a built-in feed reader or a proper zoom feature. Such things have made it to IE8, but the interface in IE8 is somewhat trublesome, has way too much stuff on it for my taste.

On my XP installation I have Maxthon installed and its feed reader set up to the few RSS feeds I pretend to follow. With my Windows 7 installation I primarily use at present I'm falling a bit behind on following those, but oh well, missing nothing important anyway I believe. I tried the IE8 reader but as it wasn't as intuitive as Maxthon's had become to me I just let it be. Maybe I'll get back to it. Windows 7 has a gadget to show the feeds on the desktop too, I should maybe try to learn using that. I've skipped a Windows version pretty much so I don't know what's new in 7 and what's carried over from Vista, but so far 7 is looking all around awesome, and I'll be getting around to it thoroughly later.