I am testing the posting of my images. I have no desire to write political comments anymore but that could change. I would rather be a photographer and show the beauty of life whether still or moving, whether breathing or not, whether man-made or not (everything's natural or it wouldn't exist.) I took this photo in October. More to come soon...

Dart : Structured web programming

Dart is officially released (but limited.) I've started looking at it so I won't comment on its structure but I think it will be real easy for Java programmers to pick up.

Dart : Structured web programming:

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Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was one of the most important people in my life as well as many others. His business partnership with Steve Wozniak moved a cadre of niche products to the forefront of the computer industry by offering something better than the others (at the time.) Later, his return to run that same company made it bigger than its rival competitor (Microsoft) and number two in the country.

My first computer was an Apple II and it was vital in getting me to where I am today. I wrote machine-level code in order to understand the inner workings of a CPU and how it interfaced with memory and other devices. Although the memory-mapped I/O method was completely taken over by Intel's I/O approach, the understanding remained. The Apple II helped me realize that I could make a machine do what it wanted it to do. I had abandoned Apple after I bought an Apple IIe but now I own a Mac and an iPod. Jobs made Apple produce products that mattered to people and did so without stealing ideas.

When Jobs said he'd step down if he could not run the company I knew his days were numbered. I still was surprised to see the news last night. It shows how quickly cancer can cause someone to go downhill quickly. Tuesday's big announcement of the iPhone 4s was quite lame compared to past announcements. Had I known that Jobs was going to pass away the next day I would have seen the announcement in a different light. Tim Cook did a good job considering the circumstances.

I wish the company continued success and I thank Steve Jobs for the job I have now.

Photography Bug

Everything goes around in circles for me. For a four year period of my life in the nineties I was a wedding photographer. It wasn't my primary job, it was just something I wanted to grow into and become my career. I loved photography. My father was a wedding photographer and he let me use his cameras when I got old enough. His primary cameras were a Mamiya C330 and a C220. I learned how to shoot manual pictures and do things with depth-of-field and other techniques. He bought me Ansel Adams' series of books and for my high school graduation a Minolta SRT-201 SLR. That was in 1977.

From then until I did weddings I focused on taking landscape and architecture photography. My job took me to places around the world and I took slides of some of the most beautiful places. I still have those slides and I need to digitize them for my soon-to-be portfolio. The key was that I loved photography. My wife took some of my favorite photos from that era and framed them. They hang in the wall in our hallway. On and off since then I've wanted to get the passion that I used to have.

But the wedding photography damaged my passion. I worked solo in a field where my photography equipment was no match for my competition. I worried between the wedding and the negative processing. I lost tons of money trying to get started. I hated all of the professional processing labs I dealt with. I hated the business side of wedding photography. It got to the point where I didn't want to ever pick up a camera again.

In 2000 I bought a digital point-and-shoot camera. Until it was stolen in 2004 I started enjoying taking pictures of family events. I started playing banjo and wanted to photograph those events so my wife bought me a Nikon D50. Since then I've taken pictures on and off and have enjoyed doing so. I tried souvenir photos at banjo events too.

Lately I've gotten the bug again. I started playing with HDR in 2007. I got a cellphone with a 8MP camera in it and found some great Android Apps for it. I started following photographers on Google+ and Facebook. I want now to replace my Paint Shop Pro and free software applications with Photoshop, Pro Efex, HDR Efex, Lightroom and whatever Photoshop filters I can get. I want to get a Nikon D7000 camera. I want to pursue career again (but not weddings!)

I am far away from the level that the best digital photographers have achieved but I can get to their level in the future. In the meantime if you want to see some wonderful photography, follow me on Google+ and let me know that you're interested in following the photographers in my circle. I have over 250 photographers in that circle. I'll share the circle with you.

Stauer Meisterzeit Watch

I have taken for granted the idea of wearing a watch since being an adult. I remember my father getting me a Caravelle by Bulova when I was a kid. I don't remember how old I was or what the occasion was. All I remember was that it was an automatic mechanical watch and it kept great time. Since then I've owned a Seiko with a quartz movement, a Swatch and various LCD Casio watches. The last Casio I owned was too hard to adjust and I gave up wearing a watch.

Recently I've had my eyes looking at automatic mechanical watches again. Money being an issue, keeps me from looking for anything in the Rolex category but I was looking at moderately-priced Hamiltons. Last week I went to Las Vegas with my wife and I saw a watch that intrigued me in the SkyMall catalog on the airplane. It is the Stauer Meisterzeit and it is advertised for only $99.

See the ad from Stauer here.

Okay, some of you will probably question my gullibility after reading the ad, but I actually caught the nonsensical marketing hype and stuck to the things that made me want this watch. I read forums from watch connoisseurs who dogged the quality of "Chinese-made" Stauers to the buyers who likened the watch to the "finest ever made." Here is my review of the watch (so far) and a comparison of the marketing hype to the real thing.

This is part one of my review. I will write part two in a month or so. The watch arrived five days after I ordered it online. It looks like it came directly from Stauer. The box it came in really doesn't remind me of the typical watch box but it is nicer than boxes I've seen. The instructions are presented in a fancy envelope along with a card stating its excellence in reproduction. Supposedly this watch is a reproduction of one made 82 years ago. According to the story one survived and it was meticulously reproduced using 31 million dollar machinery. I cannot verify any of this and I doubt it's true.

The next claim is that the automatic movement is based on a patent from 1923. I did some research and learned that John Harwood patented the automatic movement in 1923 and it was for a "bumper movement" that was used in thousands of Harwood watches and made more famous by Omega watches. Bumper movements have been criticized and have since been replaced by the full 360 degree movements that were made popular by the original Rolex patent in 1930. Fortunately when I received the watch it had a full-360 degree movement. The other thought I had was that if Harwood was the one who made seven of these watches, why didn't he reproduce it when he made thousands of plain-looking watches until his company went out of business?

I have come to the conclusion that the ad is all hype but if one wants a nice looking watch and is careful with it, this watch is rather nice. It is water-resistant down to thirty meters but there is no claim of it being shock-resistant. It only has a thirty-day guarantee, which is something else that bothers me. That's where I did notice reviews. Customers were happy that theirs were still running fine after owning one over a year. I will have to be careful with this watch.

The second hand "sweeps" at five increments-per-second like a Rolex. The face is big but the date window is tiny and the watch is rather thick. None of this bothers me much. The watch face is one of the nicest I've ever seen. The band is genuine leather although I don't think it's fully leather. The band was real stiff when it arrived but it broke in quickly and is comfortable after one day's wear. The side buttons are the right size for my wrist. The watch was running when it arrived but I wound it fully before putting it on. Some have said the wind doesn't last long after the watch is taken off but since it was running when I got it, I don't think it's that bad. I can't rate its accuracy but I will do it at my followup review. It's a mechanical watch so I expect to adjust it on a regular basis.

Overall my first impression of this watch is good. I didn't have high expectations when I bought it so for what it is, it's very nice. I don't like the marketing decision because it's dishonest to call this watch a limited edition and state that it takes six months to make this watch. A $100 watch? Did Stauer get a $500 million loan from the government? It takes six months to make an expensive watch. That's why they're expensive. The intellectual dishonesty of the ad is a turnoff. But don't go by the ad. The watch is very nice and works fine (so far.)

Bitcasa Infinite Storage on your Desktop

A new cloud storage service called Bitcasa is taking registrations for users to have INFINITE storage space! Register HERE. I can get rid of Mozy for backups, Dropbox for file sharing and Ubuntu One for storage and not worry about my computers in the future. It's worth checking out.

Bitcasa

Why I Like Google+

I am on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ regularly. I'm on LinkedIn but I don't go there. I planned on avoiding all social networks until a banjo player friend of mine invited me to join Facebook. When I found a vast community of my banjo friends I realized that there is a good reason to be on Facebook. So at the same time I joined Twitter.

I didn't get Twitter. I didn't find many friends on it and most of them would hardly post anything on it. On the other hand I followed about four people who post regularly. I couldn't ever read everything they posted. I didn't have enough time. And the posts were so short that a lot of it was incomprehensible. The mini-URLs that accompany the posts were a good idea but I didn't have time to view them. I quit Twitter.

I played with Google Buzz and Google Wave. It would have required that I get all of my friends and colleagues on there. I was thinking the same thing with Google+ until I discovered that I could follow Linus Torvalds and Leo Laporte. I started getting regular posts on my stream that were more than just spitting out random, incomprehensible chatter. They were interesting. And they shared other posts from people who interested me. Before I knew it I was following people who write things I want to know. I actually had time to read them and if I had time I could read all the comments. That's what I didn't like about Twitter: every post was like a comment but I could not always get what people were commenting on. I have none of these problems with Google+.

Now that I finally get Twitter I rejoined it. I may never tweet. I only read what others say but I only use Twitter for following my favorite political pundits (and Orianthi.) I will probably follow other musicians too. But now I love posting on Google+. I share other posts for my small following. I use Google+ for technology and photography, not for politics.

I'll keep the other social networks. I like the fact that I can post to circles or publicly in Google+. This means that friends that don't want to be on Google+ can still go to my profile page and read what I share publicly. But if I have a circle of work colleagues and I want to post something that is work-related, I can share with just that circle. Cool!

I recommend that if you get a Google+ invite, take advantage of it. Follow some people on there and you'll discover that there is a lot of great content there. Businesses - Google is rolling out business-related stuff soon. In the meantime check it out.



I have a different point of view:

Fujifilm adds X10 to retro digital compact range

Unless the X100 drops under $1k I want this camera. It doesn't come out until November but I'm putting this on my Christmas List. I've wanted the feel of the old 35mm cameras that I'm not getting with my Nikon D50. Unlike the fixed-focal lens on the X100, this has a zoom lens. I prefer a fixed-focal lens.

Fujifilm adds X10 to retro digital compact range:

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DigiTech RP155 - A Great Pedal

I'm a tone god wannabe with no budget. I look for all the answers when it comes to getting the right guitar sound. I have tube amps. I have essential stompboxes. I have the most recommended guitars for my budget. And yet I have not been able to get the sound I want. Lately I have listened to the modelling amps that have been coming out on the market and I've been impressed. The top-of-the-line Peavey Vyper sounds great to my ears. I couldn't just go and replace my amps to pick this one up.

 

Weeks ago I went to our clubhouse and watched a local band, the Rock and Roll Relics perform. I'm a groupie. This talented band has a setup I wish we had in the Clubsiders. The guitarist Gail always sounds like the guitar players she mimicks. I've spoken to her before about her setup and she always has an older Vox Valvetronics with a Vox Multi-effects Pedal. That made me think that perhaps the answer is to get a modelling multi-effects pedal to mimick the guitar sounds. My first choice was the Vox Tonelab ST but then the question was, "how am I going to afford to get one?"

 

Fortunately my boss gave me a bonus. But after the money was allocated to various things like a trip to Boston late this spring and a new cellphone, I was left with too little money for the Vox. I then started looking around. I found the DigiTech RP90 and up until the day I was buying it I dreamed of having it. There were two big disadvantages to this pedal: no USB interface and no fuzz pedal emulation. They were two caveats that I thought I was going to compromise with. But that day I discovered that the DigiTech RP155 was the same price and instead of compromising those caveats I had to compromise with the expression pedal. Looking at the jacks on the pedal, an expression pedal input was included. That's it. I was sold. I bought the RP155.

 

Well, now that I have bought the RP155 I have had some time to play with it. The bottom line is that this is the best thing I ever spent $100 for. I can get the tone I was looking for and I didn't need to adjust the amp to do it. That's important given that the Fender Champion 600 has only a volume control. The RP155 has a decent equalizer and five preset tone settings along with the ability to adjust bass, midrange, and treble level and frequency. I suggest creating the sounds you want and listening to them through your amp as opposed to using the canned presets. If I had gotten the RP90 I wouldn't be so dog-gonned pleased with this. With the USB interface you can use the X-Edit software available from DigiTech. It is available for Windows or Mac. This software makes it very easy to create the sound presets you want. The methods used to create the sounds from the pedal are confusing and require some learning time. Not so with the software. Everything's there and the flexibility is amazing.

 

The equalizer and the noise gate are key. The Lexicon reverb settings are also great. My Vox AC30 has tremolo that I want to utilize when we play shows but I won't lug this anchor to practice. The tremolo works great on the RP155. The distortion effects sound very accurate to me as well as the different amp and cabinet settings. I have not tried to use this to work with GarageBand or any other recording tool. I am still learning how to take advantage of the twenty second looper. I think it should be a thirty second looper but I'm just learning how to use one so for me this is fine. I thought the two-pedal tap for the bypass would be an issue but both pedals could be tapped with one foot. The bypass sounds like a true-bypass but since I want to control tone I will most likely store rhythm/lead settings adjacent to each other. Fifty new settings can be stored which is more than enough because the fancier effects are less likely to be used. I do like playing with the Whammy effect and the delay effects sound really good.

 

This is really a partial review but I am quite impressed with this pedal. It feels like it can be abused but since it doesn't use real stompbox switches, I'd be careful. I am going to get an expression pedal soon. I will take this to practice and to gigs and will get comfortable with the looper before I re-review this pedal in the future. As for right now, I highly recommend this if you are not a purist with a keen ear for tone god perfection. That will cost you a lot more money.

Telecaster Four-Way Switch Mod

It took me very little time to go for the mod. I was hoping that wiring the pickups in series would give me the crunch sound that the humbuckers on my Les Paul give me. I ordered the Tritan four-way switch from Guitar Parts Resource. Warning to those who choose to buy this lever switch - the slot on the plate is not long enough. I had to use my Dremel tool to lengthen the slot so that the switch could go all the way to position one.

I used the wiring diagram from Rothstein Guitars. Both pickups normally have the negative leads grounded but one of the negative leads has to go to the switch. The neck pickup seems logical to me because the metal shield is grounded. The Rothstein mod instructs you to disconnect the wire on the shield going to the negative lead on the pickup and adding a wire to the shield to run to the back of the volume pot. The only problem I had wiring was starting it with the switch backwards. I had to study the wiring diagram and the switch to find the common pins. Other than that the diagram was easy to follow. I tested the wiring before I mounted the switch to the plate. Everything was fine.

I recommend plugging a cord into the output jack and testing the resistance while switching through the positions. The bridge pickup has a higher resistance than the neck. Wiring them in parallel will read less than half of the bridge pickup and more than half of the neck pickup. Wiring them in series will read the sum of both pickups.

I mounted the switch and put the guitar back together, plugged it into my amp and was disappointed with  positions one and two sounding the same. I did the resistance check and found position one measured what position two did (both pickups in parallel.) I lifted the plate and discovered the switch could not go all the way to position one. Fortunately I had a Dremel tool and with a little labor and a couple of broken wafer discs I got the switch to work. Looking closely at the picture above, the plate was nicked in the process. Consider it the start of my relicing project. :)

Fender also makes a four-way switch at over twice the price of the Tritan. I could not tell you if the switch or the slot is the problem but other than this problem the Tritan works fine. I have one more mod I want to implement. It requires a push-pull switch/potentiometer and a .001uF capacitor. This is my own design for adding a "cocked wah" sound usually done to Fender Esquires (Telecasters with just the bridge pickup.) Esquires have the same three-way switch that Telecasters do but it is used to modify the tone. I will post the results in the future.

Testing the mod, both pickups in series did not give me the humbucker crunch but did give me a stronger midrange sound. It does add to the versatility of the guitar and sitting at switch position three I can play rhythm and go to position four for leads. I'm not set up to provide a sound demo. I hope to in the future.

New Guitar - A Review

Time flies and I've stayed away from my blog despite a lot of rants I wanted to post. I probably will post about the shooter who shot Congresswoman Giffords but for now I will write about a guitar I bought after Christmas.

The guitar is a Fender Squier Classic Vibe '50s Telecaster.

That's not a great picture but it is a great guitar. I can't afford to buy my dream guitar (a Gibson Custom Shop VOS 1959 Les Paul Reissue, which can be bought for < $6000) so I look for good guitars for a heck of a lot cheaper. Before I go on, I can understand if a non-musician says to me "why if you don't make money playing the guitar?" but a musician asked me that question when he knows the difference between a cheap instrument and an expensive one. I don't ever care if I make money playing the guitar, that guitar is my dream guitar. Back to the Fender.

I decided on this guitar based on word-of-mouth. I visit the TDPRI Telecaster Forum regularly and I listen to people at Guitar Center or wherever I go. This guitar was the most talked about because for the price, people were saving from buying the more expensive Made in America Fenders after playing these. I needed a guitar to perform with that would allow me to play standard tuning. Since I started playing guitar again I played with a tuning that reflects my banjo skills (Bb, F, C, G, B, D) and due to string gauges (.012 - .070) I couldn't just retune to standard tuning much less spend the time doing so at a gig. When it was time to look I decided to get the Squier CV50.

Back in 1993 I bought a Fender '52 Reissue Telecaster and owned it for twelve years. I didn't cherish it - I thought it didn't have great pickups and acoustically it didn't resonate well. I thought all telecasters were like this. I had it until 2005 when I totally stopped playing guitar. I actually sold it for more than I bought it but that is how guitars value. I don't see this Chinese-made lower end guitar doing the same but this guitar may be the exception. So my review of this guitar will be based on comparison to the '52 RI. Overall, it is the best out-of-the-box guitar I've bought since 2008 and possibly the best ever.

First, the plusses:

The fretwork on this guitar is better than any guitar I've ever owned. The frets are dressed perfectly and were leveled. Guitars made at this level will usually sacrifice this much quality in the manufacturing process.

The intonation and neck bow was perfect out-of-the-box. I just had to lower the strings at the bridge.

The acoustic resonance was remarkably well. There must be something to pine and maple as the choice woods for this guitar. The ash/maple on the '52 RI didn't sound this good.

The bridge pickup is hot and tone-wise good. I can't compare it to boutique pickups but my other electric pickups don't sound this good and the '52 RI didn't either. The magnets are Alnico IIIs.

The neck pickup is not as hot but also sounds good. I must say that the resonance of the guitar is probably adding to the pickups to make them sound good. I will not be replacing the pickups.

The volume and tone potentiometers are made by Alpha and have a great feel and quality.

The tuners are solid. I've had to buy tuners for Chinese made guitars before.

The nut is synthetic bone and was cut perfectly at the factory.

Now the minuses:

The pickguard looks cheap. Being wintertime I had a pickguard static issue. I fixed it by placing a drier sheet under the pickguard. I can't blame the pickguard for that but it did make me notice how much better my other guitars' pickguards looked and felt. The '52 RI had a bakelite pickguard, which I find superior to all plastic pickguards.

The saddles on the bridge are low quality. The screws to adjust the height are too tall and can grab one's hand. With the good intonation I won't bother to replace it.

The bridge pickup route is exposed slightly on the side of the bridge plate. This is me being nit picky but I never noticed it on the '52 RI.

These minuses are not major. I will replace the pickguard only because I want a white one.

Finally, where I have no opinion (yet):

The input jack and cup - People have had problems with flimsy jacks and cups. They are buying Switchcraft jacks and Electrosockets to replace them. I have not had a problem yet. I will consider this in the future if necessary.

The switch - I am replacing it with a four-way switch because I'm adding a mod (surprise). The switch is fine.

Knobs - they're fine.

The only other thing I will say is that these guitars only come in the cream color with black pickguard. The cream varies by guitar from white, to yellow, to slightly green. Mine is more yellow and I like it a lot.

Keep in mind that guitars vary in quality off the assembly line. In America flaws are caught more often than in Asian countries. One person complained that the frets were really bad. Others have had pickups fail. Don't judge this guitar by the words of a few because a vast majority rave over this guitar. Replace bad ones with another CV50.

The mod I mentioned will be posted in the future.