The genesis of this page is that I've noticed over the last year that
good, unbiased reviews of consumer products are harder and harder to
come across. Google won't find
any for you anymore.
This exceptional program has rapidly become my only favorite tool for
color correction. It's a photoshop plugin, so you have to be running
Photoshop, but the amazing abilities of Supercurves blows away anything
else that I've seen. I can always correct faster and more accurately in
Supercurves than by using any other system. Whether you're a
professional or an advanced amature, check it out!
The single benefit of this player, and others of its sort, is that it
can record analog in a very high quality, very low noise situation.
However, it also has a lot of limitations. The primary limitation is
that you have to use analog output to get the sound out of the MD
player and into other formats. This is to appease the recording
industry.
First - you'll need a microphone. I've been using the Sony ECM-DS70
Stereo Microphone. This mic can plug directly into the MD player, but
in reality plugging in directly gets you huge noise problems as the
drive spins up and down. You'll need the included cable. The cost of
the DS70 is about US$ 70, and it is easily carried. I have a small
fanny pouch that I take to rehersals and gigs.
Second - you'll need to always be worrying about setting levels. The
system for setting levels in the N707 is obscure and complex. I didn't
learn how to do it until a year after starting to use the device. The
built-in settings are good for talking, but once you get to live music,
a single cello will cause this mic/recorder combo to max out and
distort. The key sequence is something like starting the recording,
hitting pause, then doing something else. It isn't just in the menus
somewhere. Damn you, Sony!
In terms of using this player to simply play music, the benefits are
that you can store lots of music on MDs (several hours per disc, the
equivilent of a huge amount of flash cards), the battery life is great,
and the size of the device is small. But I find that a MP3-CD is far
better. It's a little bigger, but the battery life is far better. I
make MP3-CDs for other reasons, like playing on my DVD player. The N707
requires you to use their download function for making MDs from MP3s,
and that software is annoying and buggy. One of the times I used it the
battery on the N707 died in the middle of download, at which point the
software refused to ever download those particular tracks again. Tracks
are limited to 3 downloads at a time, and has a system for "checking
out" tracks onto disks, and requiring you to insert the disk again in
order to "check it in". The issues of copywrite control for music are
complex, but the simple fact is that MP3-CDs are cheap, simple, and
more widely usable.
Recommended? Conditionally. I keep using it, and it's become a staple
in my gig bag for going over performances.
Banks - Wells Fargo and USAA
Man, has Wells Fargo been making
me mad. What a lousy company. What bothers me the most is how they
demand I go to a branch. There are things that, according to Wells
Fargo policy, can only be done at a branch. For example, closing an
account with a positive balance. They can just cut a check - "We don't
have any checks here" - yeah, a bank with no check. Love you, guys.
What got me terribly mad was when I closed Ann's account. It took me 4
hours of going to branches and notaries. Wells Fargo demands certain
papers to be notarized, but also doesn't have notaries. Over the phone,
they couldn't do all the things that happened at a branch. It just
doesn't make sense. I explained the situation, gave them the paperwork,
which the branch personsonelle faxed to the legal department. Legal
rendered an opinion, I closed the account. But it took 4 hours. All of
that could have been done over the phone, without me waiting in an ugly
branch.
What really cheesed me, though, was when I got a bank statement on that
account a month later with a $-8 balance. They had taken their service
fees from an inactive account. I called to rectify the situation, and
they said they couldn't talk to me because I wasn't Ann Simon, and I
should have her call back. They had no information that I had presented
documentation that I was in custody of the account - but that if I went
to a branch, I could get it all sorted out. I told them that it was
their problem, as I wasn't Ann, and they were unlikely to collect the
eight dollars from her. I resolved then to change banks.
The bank I'm at now is USAA. USAA is a non-profit bank set up to aid US
service personel. It is strongly rooted in the tradition of no branches
- my closest branch is in Sacramento. Every time I've called them on
the phone they have been professional and accurate. The only real
problem with USAA is the time it takes for a deposit to be credited to
my account - about a week. They provide special envelopes, and the
reality is that most money comes to me not by check but by various
forms of automatic deposit. Still, some comes in by check. I can move
money quickly between Schwab and USAA using MoneyLink - an electronic
transfer system that's free.
The difference in the fee structure is staggering. At USAA, I am so far
making about $10 per month by banking with them. I get a 0.5% rebate by
using the credit portion of my debit card, which ends up being about
$15 a month. I get a small interest payment on my balance - only a few
percent. There are no other fees. They refund ALL ATM fees - they don't
charge foreign ATM fees, and they refund the ATM's fee (up to $15 a
month, which gives me two withdrawls a week). I pay $5 for online
billpay, but that's it.
Wells Fargo was soaking me for $8 per month in fees, $5 for online
billpay, no interest, $1.50 if I used a non-Wells Fargo ATM, and no
refunds of the nearly ubiquitous $1.50 ATM fee. So if I used Wells
Fargo ATMs half the time, that would be 4 times a month a might use
another ATM, and be charged $3 a pop, or up to $12 in ATM fees. Total -
about $25 a month. Compared with making about $10 a month. And getting
better service.
The process of changing banks has been painful. It's taken about two
months, and a few little things every few days. My debit and credit
card number are out there all over the place - my gym, my internet
service providers, FastTrack, and many more. But today I'm going to
cancel those bastards.
DeWalt 12V cordless drill (August 03)
Ok, so I've been doing too much computers. I embarked on a project to
build something in physical reality. A platform, out of wood, on which
to scream at the world.
Since the last time I did any minor carpentry, cordless tools have been
invented and refined.
I don't know much about the competition, although I see them in every
hardware store. I see 16v, I see multi-packs including rotary saws.
The DeWalt works great. The packs require quite a bit of charging, and
run down by themselves if just left in their case for a few weeks.
Trek 1500 - 04 model year (July 03)
I've always been a fan of Trek. My parents bought me one in 1984, and
it was the best bike ever. When I started considering getting back into
bicycling for health, Trek was at the top of the list. I was always a
biker of long standing, it being my only form of transport until I was
about 24. After that it was a slippery slope, through vintage
motorcycles, old hondas, and the like until I finally started buying
(and paying for) cars on a regular basis.
I'm not a candidate for a cross-whatever bike. I like speed. I like
tools built for a particular purpose that answer perfectly to that
calling. The Trek does so, at a moderate cost. Lightweight, strong,
maneuverable. The drivetrain has a certain spring, and hardness at the
same time. Those few-spoked wheels that are all the rage seem to really
work (I know, I'm supposed to be getting exercise, but I want to enjoy
it).
I've only been out on it a few times since buying it, and I'll update
this if the honeymoon ends.
Dell Inspiron 8200 (March 03?)
This machine replaced my old Inspiron 5000, which I had for many years.
The Inspiron stopped answering the call when I had it in my courier bag
on the motorcycle in a terrible rainstorm. The bag let in just enough
water to mess up some of the screen connections, leading to some weird
lines on the screen. I kept using it for a while, but the price of new
machines just got to be too much.
The Inspiron has the largest number of pixels on any laptop machine
currently made (to my knowledge) It's available with 1900x1400 pixels,
although I got the 1600x1200 model. Apple's "big screens" don't have
even half as many pixels as this machine - although it's a serviceable
black plastic instead of adorned with Apple's excellent industrial
design.
Pixels are life - if your eyesight is good. I get my glasses tuned
every few years, and have excellent corrected vision.
The Inspiron has a number of flaws. First is the addition of an Alps
touchpad. I have no idea why Dell switched suppliers from Synaptics.
Synaptics pads "just feel better", and have always allowed me to use my
machine without a mouse comfortably over long periods of time. The Alps
is inaccurate and just feels bad. So I had to buy an external optical
mouse and carry it in my bag. I had a long talk with Dell support, and
they said that the Synaptics models are "unreliable", which I find hard
to believe.
The second flaw is a terrible Samsung DVD/CD-RW drive. It's got a
firmware flaw such that I have to insert each disk twice. There's an
update to a slightly different drive on Dell's web site, but not the
exact model I have. Dell has not adequately resolved this issue with me.
I had one heart attack, where the hard drive just halted. Gulp. Calling
Dell tech support, they suggested popping the drive out and reseating
it. I said this was ludicris, as the machine had been sitting on a
table when it failed, and hadn't moved in days. However, it did the
trick - happiness! My suspicion is that the drive got too hot and
"failed safe". I had been running the Stanford Folding software, so my
CPU was at 100% utilization all the time. After that scare, I removed
that program, and haven't had a problem since.
Update: December 31. The inspiron has continued to run flawlessly. I
attributed the drive failure to heat, and have stopped running high-CPU
background processes (folding).
Palm Tungsten W (May 03)
It's becoming a love-hate relationship with the W.
Last week it became a hate-hate relationship. That's when I found
out that the W has the old Dragonball processor, and no software
updates will be available for it. None whatsoever. So when my work
decided to protect their IMAP servers with SSL, I found myself out of
luck. Palm supports SSL over IMAP now - but only for PalmOS 5.0. The
web browser supports SSL, and it works great, but VersaMail (the only
IMAP client that I've seen so far) supports only the PalmOS 5.0 SSL
libraries.
This is an obsolete machine. Don't buy it.
Other than this shortcoming, the W could have a great device. Their
insistence that the device won't replace your phone hampers Palm's
natural creativity, and creates a second rate solution.
In the first week I struggled over and over again with connection
problems. I would get PPP errors, and the network would freeze. I
called Palm, I called AT&T. Each one pointed fingers at the other.
Finally, just a day before I was going to return the device, I reached
a Palm tech support person who is in the Tungsten W group, and he said
that whenever he got a network timeout, he did a reset. I tried that,
and I've had good luck ever since. But what a horrible week.
Palm will not support OS 5 in the Tungsten W. They're supporting it
for all the other Tungstens, but not this one. I think it's because the
W has an old processor, the 33mhz Dragonball. The other Tungstens are
built on a higher end Intel part (300mhz? 400?) which seems to be
required for OS 5. Normally I wouldn't care, but it turns out that SSL
support for VersaMail is tied to OS 5 support. So I will never have
that feature - and thus will never be able to read my work email, now
that there's a new security regime.
A few days ago, the Palm froze badly. I believe that while in my
pocket it turned to a "poison" application, the RPN calculator, which
froze it. It turns out that the "hard reset" for a W is the following
sequence. Hold the power key down. Hit the reset button on the back.
Keep holding the power key until the "Palm" logo shows up on the screen
- then release it. Doing this kind of reset will remove all data from
the Palm, but in some cases, it's the only way out.
In search of a solution, I tried the PowerOn application, which
purports to freeze the keys and stop turning the beast on in my pocket.
It doesn't work well - it works badly. The exact speed of the
double-click required to turn it on is very particular, so it turns out
to be useless. I've got an email in to the company (or, in this case,
guy) who develops the software, asking if there will be a fix
available.
Another grand annoyance is Palm's policy with headsets and
bluetooth. Palm refuses to say which 3rd party headsets will work with
their device - and they don't sell replacement headsets. It appears to
be a 4 conductor 2.5mm jack, which is the same as a "Nokia compatible"
2.5mm headset. I believe anything that works with the Nokia 3300 works
with the Palm. Secondly, according to Palm tech support, the Palm
Bluetooth card will not support using headsets to talk on the phone. It
only supports internet (data) access. So, keep those cords coming in.
All things considered, the single device concept is a winner. I like
the form factor - it fits easily in my pocket. A smaller person might
disagree. I like the screen. For web browsing, it's useless. Only if
you're stuck somewhere very boring with nothing to do will you flip up
the browser. It's only useful for text sites. The New York Times looks
pretty good, but you have to wade through link after link to get to the
real meat.
I plan to start collecting URLs that are built for mobile access.
This is currently confusing, as "Mobile Internet" and WAP are usually
interchangeable. On the Palm, however, there's a good, full featured
browser with a very small screen.
On one hand, I'd like to lambaste Palm for its inattention to the
Phone part of their offering. When compared to a Nokia 6100 class phone
from 4 years ago, the Nokia would be the clear leader in functionality
and ease of use. It would seem that Palm could have copied enough of
that functionality to be a good phone. On the other hand, the Palm
phone application is highly usable. It has replaced my phone. Sure, it
doesn't support downloaded ring tones, and sometimes it gets confused
and says I'm already hung up while I'm still on the line. But overall,
it's a mediocre phone which I use because it's attached to a great
Email device.
I bought the Roomba on a
lark. I was moving in with someone who is neater than me, so I thought
one of my contributions to the house could be a robotic vacuum cleaner.
Still, I hoped it worked well enough.
It doesn't work well enough. There are a couple of fundamental
problems. First is that it gets hung up and won't finish the sweeping,
and second is the recommendation that you do only a room at a time.
Each room takes about 20 minutes. So you're supposed to babysit this
thing for an entire afternoon? The amount of time it takes to just
clean up every little last thing from the floor is longer than the time
it takes to sweep.
What is fun is watching it wander around. There's a toy there, kind
of like the pet dog from Sony (
Aibo, 1999, in case you forgot)
Meatware 1, Computers 0
This points to what SkyNet should really have us humans doing.
Vacuuming.
Subaru Legacy Wagon 2003 (Feb 02)
I bought a Subaru Legacy Wagon (Special Edition, Red). This was to
replace the 1997 Saturn Wagon (SW2), which was also red. I like a nice
practical car to compliment the impractical motorcycle. Great for going
to gigs and hauling people around.
The Saturn's engine froze while going down a hill. The Saturn repair
rep gave me some song and dance about how the single oil system works
when using engine braking on a manual, but in my mind the engine should
never freeze. It turns out that this model has known engine design
flaws, and has a "secret warrantee". Since I didn't have any receipts
for my oil changes, I got nothing. I thought the fact that I came in
and spent money on the engine 6 months ago trying to stem the oil leak
might help - but no. So no more Saturn cars for me.
A different kind of car company, indeed.
So reliability went up in my search for a new vehicle. I still had
the same basic specs - cheap, functional, stylish would be nice - and
ended up thinking about the VW Passat Wagon, the Mazda Protoge 5, and
the Subaru Legacy. The new Saturn wagon (L200?) was out because it was
a Saturn. The Golf was out because it was a little too small, and
consumer reports didn't like it. The PT Cruiser never got seriously
into the running, and that perhaps was a mistake. The Mazda came out as
too small, and the Passat came out with "what am I spending an extra
$6k for?" So the Legacy it is.
I like the handling and the engine of the Legacy. I like the cargo
room, and how the seats fold down. The rear seats have more space than
on the saturn. I liked the options package (power locks, cruise
control, sunroof), and the price.
The worst thing has turned out to be the front seats. I can't drive
that thing for more than a few hours without feeling a crimp in my
neck. I have to stay mindful of my posture, and never put my hands on
the top of the wheel. The second worst thing is that the driver's side
window has a bunch of wind noise at freeway speed. Above 65 or so you
get a loud noise. I imagine Subaru would fix this if I told them about
it, but I don't have enough time to drop it off and get it fixed. Maybe
sometime.
One more gripe - the CD player has trouble with CD-R's. I'm going to
have to drop in a player that plays CD-Rs and MP3s, but I want MP3-Pro
support. Let me know if you have any recommendations.
