Issue #6 : The Long Overdue Issue
Like the stack of library books that are sitting
by my door, this is long overdue. Now
I'm paying my fines.
This issue is a mishmash of toys, audio gear, and computer stuff.
No More Squawk:
DSL or Bust
I have friends tell me they can't get DSL. I tell them
they can't live without it. No more dial up. No more
busy signals. No more squawk.
If you are going to make the jump to DSL, then you
are going to have to make some equipment choices.
Your first choice will be an internal or external router. A
router is your connection to the outside world. It serves
the same basic need a modem My local phone company was
giving away a free internal router with new service,
that is a router that goes inside your computer. You want
this if you are only going to have one computer. I you want
to connect more than one computer in your office or home
then you want an external router.
If you do go with the external router than you need
a few other things. First your computers need to have
network cards in them. Second you will need a hub.
The hub connects all of your devices on your new
network.
Hooking up all of this equipment gets a bit tough. If
you've never hooked up this type of equipment
before you might not want to start now. Then
again everything might go smooth and you
and your girlfriend an your mom can all surf
at the same time.
How much is that doggy in the window?
My gal an I have been talking about getting a dog for
all of our adult lives. It always comes down to
"we're too busy" or "we don't have a yard". But
seeing punk rock kids with their big old mutts or
the yuppies with their pure breeds has driven us
crazy.
Well the looking has stopped. Sony has put out
it's new electric dog named Aibo. Well, we like to
call ours Caz. We opted for the English model
over the woof/dog model. It's so much cooler
to have your dog say "Hi Bill, you are a sexy
guy" as opposed to "woof, woof, woof, drool".
And if your friends want you to partake in
a weekend getaway, hell just shut the little
guy off, he's only a robot for christsake.
Other features: No peeing, no pooping
no vomiting, no noise, no walks, no humping
your leg, no alergies, no hair on the couch,
no food. Damn it's perfect.
Multi-Track at home : The affordable way
I was about to drop a lot of money on the new Mark of the Unicorn
2408 Hard Disk recording system. Sure they make great stuff and
it's compatible with tons of other products. But hell I'm not made out
of money.
My friend down at the noisy music store convinced me
to try out Layla by Echo. I had a couple of weeks to decide and
I could always take it back.
Well so far I've had it a month and there is no turning
back. I've got it in a Pentium 266 with 128mb of RAM,
and this baby is smokin. I've not witnessed a moment
where the sound sags behind. Now I'm not running
30 audio tracks and 20 midi tracks but I've had half
that many and it's great.
Guitars without the amplifier.
For the longest time I've tried to get a good
guitar sound on my home recordings and I always
ended up hauling the recording gear down to the
practice space.
I picked up a Mesa Boogie Pre-V Twin amp
and I may have found my solution. I'm not crazy about
the distorted channel but the clean side is perfect. And
since I'm usually playing clean it works.