Blue Yeti, big....isn't it?

I just got the Blue Yeti Microphone, and after two hours of playing around I already love it. It’s a solid piece of equipment (4 lbs, I think), no hassle install woes, and great sound out of the box. I had a fan running in the room the whole time with almost no carry over. It’ll be fun to try to push it to its limits. For now, it’s a couple of spins with the penny whistle and Skype conversations.

I like to use Frere Jacques as a test case. See what it sounds like on my Logitech Pro 9000.

Flutes Frere Jacques Take 1 by raymondberg

Now on the Blue Yeti.

Flutes Frere Jacques Take 2 by raymondberg

Keep in mind that calling me a trained professional is like calling Michelle Bachmann a viable presidential candidate. I try hard, but it’s really laughable by those with any sense at all. In that same vein, I’m having a blast pretending to know what I’m doing. I’m not comfortable uploading my lack of singing talent to the interwebs, but it’s been interesting to see what I can make in 20 minutes or so. I really need to get back to some music theory to create some fun little experiments.

The biggest problem with the Blue Yeti + Blue Pop [Filter] is a common one among internet users. However, all of their innovative, costly, or dangerous solutions seem to be way harder than something I came up with in about 4 minutes.

MacGyver is an amateur

Yes, that’s styrofoam. The grip is solid; I can pick up the Yeti at a 45-degree angle from that clamp. I wouldn’t carry it through the desert like that, but it’s a fantastic desktop solution. The best part is where I got the styrofoam from*:

*knife not included

If you, like he, don’t understand what Kindle is, it’s a little tough to break in. I explained how there was a device called “The Kindle” and how Amazon had stood up a store to buy electronic books. We talked about the books I was reading and all of the books you can get for free. He still didn’t get the connection until I explained that Kindle books can be read on your computer, phone, or “The Kindle”.

I thought about my parents, who haven’t used the Kindle yet but enjoy reading. I also thought about being a parent and being able to give my kids a library of books on the computer or their personal device. But I wondered about the cost for entry? How much money do I need to spend to get into this market? I think, assuming the average lower-middle class family: nothing. Any computer or mobile device will work, and there is a huge amount of free content that kindle has created to get you hooked:

This list isn’t everything, it’s just what I picked up from “the classics” that Kindle offers for free. So, instead of buying $162 of books (assume average of $6 per book [low, right?] times 27), I got them all for free. Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot:

My books in the Free Kindle App on Windows

My perspective:

I’ve gone through a very significant lifestyle change as regards my work week. Over the last month, my one-way commute has gone from 4 minutes of walking to 1.25 hours of mass transit (including 8 minutes of walking). I knew that this would be tough for me to handle, but I tried to keep a  positive perspective. Certainly there would be benefits.

Amazon Kindle was the one I turned to. Months ago, I had started reading “Straight from the Gut” after a party at a friends house. I liked the first five chapters so I picked up the Kindle copy. I had found time to read while waiting, (restaurants, doctor’s offices, waiting to meet friends, etc…) and I loved how easy it was to just load up my place on my phone. I could read 5-10 “screens” of text and slide the phone back in my pocket. Unfortunately, I didn’t devote any more than “bored” time to it, so in 3 months I only got 25% further into the book.

Fast forward to the end of my first commute week: I finished reading the last of the Jack Welch book on the way to work. Every day I would grab a new, relaxing album off Rdio, and start reading. I’d get through multiple chapters per day for the first time since getting my bachelor’s. I started looking for more books, taking recommendations from friends, and reading more and more.

I have a friend with a Kindle, and she claims she’s knocking out books faster than ever before. I just have the Android version, but I can already see what she’s saying. I’m almost halfway through a massive book that I just picked up on Sunday, something I can’t imagine doing since those days at home where I would burn through 700 pages in a day as a kid.

Long, rambly, but I hope you got the picture. Go pick up some free books and see if you enjoy reading more.

**OH! So holding books SUCKS, I’ve always thought that. You have to use both hands, and constantly hold it open. Kindle makes me read more if not just because I don’t have to hold a crappy pile of paper. It’s a stupid comment, but man is it true.

I experienced significant problems all of last night and this morning. While my router was connected to the internet and some traffic could go out, there was almost no response coming back to the box. So websites would say “connected” and “waiting”, but content would never arrive. I could perform traceroutes and get responses all the way to the endpoint devices, but the content simply wouldn’t come back. I didn’t have Wireshark installed on any of my PCs so I couldn’t check my local network traffic, but it’s definitely a problem with the service.

This was tested with multiple configurations with wireless (phone and PC) and wired (pc) configurations (4 devices total tested). All were working fine recently, but last night and this morning they were not. In addition, it was taking 10-20 minutes for my Verizon FIOS modem to lease an IP address from the WAN.

Please check if there was an outage in my area or what is going on.I wasted my entire night trying to fix the issue and I’m very, very displeased with the quality of the service I am seeing thusfar. I don’t know who to blame right now, but so far FIOS seems to be the only untested piece of the equation. (EDIT: Not true, see below)

Update and Closure:

When I came home last night (Day 2), the problem was still happening. I did a little more testing and swapped some more cables. In my previous testing I hadn’t tested the WAN cable from the company. It turned out that their outbound cable had a minor disconnection in it and packets were getting lost like crazy. Once I put a new cable of mine in there was no issue. I guess Verizon wasn’t [really] to blame since the problem was a cable that had come with the network setup in my new place.

Verizon never got back to me through the form I submitted. I didn’t include my account information, but I would have liked a phone call. I will say that @VerizonSupport was persistent in getting me to fill out a whole different form. I don’t know why there are two, but this new one has social account info which is really fun! I now have to get back to @VerizonSupport and close the loop. Thanks for following up, Verizon!! I’m still on your team.

The new Motorola Atrix 4G smartphone promises to “redefine the line between a phone and a laptop.” Motorola appears to be setting its sights on the smartphone, tablet, and netbook markets all at once as the Atrix 4G combines the features of all there products into one device.

I believe this WOULD in fact revolutionize the world, if AT&T realized how this technology is supposed to work. The problem is that with the AT&T bandwidth caps in place, there’s just no way this device is going to be useful and affordable. It’s way too much for just mobile data, and the bandwidth caps prevent any serious user from switching to this device exclusively. Here’s the pertinent excerpt from their website:

Just plug the ATRIX 4G into the MOTOROLA LAPDOCK™ for MOTOROLA ATRIX 4G to unleash a connected experience via the built-in webtop application.

Wait for it:

‡Requires 2-year voice plan & $45/mo. DataPro 4GB Personal plan, Card valid for 120 days wherever major credit cards accepted. May be used to pay wireless bill…MOTOROLA LAPDOCK sold separately. Full Firefox® browser use with AT&T Mobile Broadband requires DataPro 4GB Personal plan

As usual, AT&T has offered new technology at a foolishly prohibitive cost to the end user. Their hope? They want you to think that this is the new norm; they want you to think that spending $45 a month for 4GB of data per month is acceptable. $10.12 per gigabyte!!! Compared to the 5 cents per gigabyte provided at the host company level. Are you telling me it costs AT&T 200x the cost of a data center to provide connectivity to their end users?? Idiocy, especially since the AT&T networks aren’t worth the packets they don’t mind letting fall into the void.

Do yourself a favor, talk to Verizon or Sprint or any other carrier that offers unlimited bandwidth before you start barking up this tired old tree. What a pitiful excuse for a communications company. I hate to be so negative, but as an ex-AT&T customer I’ve been there too long and for too much money.

It’s not JUST AT&T, any company that puts additional tethering costs on restrictive bandwidth cap is stupid. It’s not going to increase the load on your network unless you figure that you’re selling bandwidth to people that they just aren’t going to use. If that’s the case, your offers are almost maliciously misleading.  Either it’s a tethering cost OR it’s a bandwidth cap, take your pick. And I don’t buy the “bandwidth” vs. “throughput” argument for one moment, not with iPhones streaming Netflix as it is.

For Free

I think Avast is considered the best for free. I used AVG for the longest time and never had a problem, but I guess their success rate is pretty horrible.  There are a bunch of articles on the topic. Be careful in searching for reviews or “best antivirus” in Google; there’s nothing that malware likes more than a user looking for antivirus. Is Avira a real AV solution? Never heard of it.

Paid

I use Nod32 it’s pretty well reputed as being the best in the market for its low resource usage; it’s great for netbooks or older PCs. Kaspersky is another popular one. Norton places high on most tests but usually slows computers down to a crawl so I refuse to link to it. McAffee is the same thing with a different name and worse antivirus capability.

Most of the tools fall under the “more is better” fallacy, with Symantec and McAffee being the biggest offenders. They try to sell “security from hackers” to little, old grandmothers and my sister-in-law by doing “FEATURE COMPARISONS” and use “SECURITY COVERAGE“ charts. I’m not a big fan, it leads to people saying things like “well, it has more features than the other one so it must be better for me”. My biggest recommendation is to stick with just antivirus on a home PC (if it’s behind a router [aka. not the only pc plugged into the modem] ). Don’t opt for “surfing protection” or “online privacy”. It’s almost always [fraudulently] unhelpful and just adds pop up windows and buttons and whirring things to every window on your PC.

Get some simple antivirus and hope that Operating Systems and Browsers continue to become more secure. Don’t use Windows XP anymore, switch to 7. And don’t be a teenager/baby-boomer or let these people anywhere near your computer; if you wonder where viruses come from….well, it’s them. Teenagers breed them in MP3 files and free streaming movies while baby-boomers bring them in the door with free wallpapers and eCards.

If you happen to be a teenager or baby-boomer…well, get all the antivirus tools, adblocker, spyblocker, spamblocker, identityprotector, surfwatcher,  hacker protection you can.

Realistically, the notion that we can create signatures for every single bad idea that a hacker or bad programmer comes up with (or doesn’t, in the case of the latter) is a hopelessly foolish one. We’ll move to more effervescent clients where we give the software free reign but burn the client after every use and the tools we use on the desktop will be more and more constricted by the operating systems. This is the only way to limit the impact of viruses. For now….go download Nod32….Leo said so.

The first talk (below) is with Twitter inventor and Square founder, Jack Dorsey. I had never seen an interview with him before, but through watching it seems that I get to know his passions and major life threads fairly intimately. If this video is any indication of the upcoming content then I am extremely excited. I would probably pay for the content if I weren’t miles behind my other subscription services.

This interview has also gotten me reinvigorated in Square; I think it has the potential to revolutionize small businesses and vendors.

Yes, I speak of Lala.  Apple tore her away from me in the middle of dinner one night, and I have not heard a word from her ever since. Sometimes there are glimpses of news from flickering television sets in pawn shop windows. Sometimes I hear word that she’s doing well, but she’s changed a lot. I don’t even think I’d recognize her now.

In her absence I turned to  Grooveshark. This wasn’t love, mind you. This was pure lust. I had animal urges, and she had rhythms I could have only ever dreamt about on cold, winter nights. Her interface was clunky, and she asked for money up front. It was always unnerving; I knew she didn’t love me but I waited to see if I ever could. When we went out my friends would often ask questions about artists or new trends and she would always know the answer, but she’d quickly go quiet or get shaken up by processes running in a nearby window. I had her on the homescreen of my phone…the homescreen of my heart.

That is until I received this letter today:

Dear Raymond,

This is to let you know that we have disabled access to the following content as a result of a third party claiming infringement:

Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA)
Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Thanksgiving by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Variations on the Kanon by Pachelbel by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Colors/Dance by George Winston on Autumn: 20th Anniversary Edition
California by Phantom Planet on title
The Holly and the Ivy by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Peace by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Prelude by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Some Children See Him by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Joy by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Carol of the Bells by George Winston on December: Silver Anniversary Edition
Big Brat by Phantom Planet on title

As a result, the ability to upload content has been suspended for the user account xxxxxxxxxxxx.

The above parties claimed infringement under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.  If you feel this infringement has been filed improperly, you can file a counter notification (http://grooveshark.com/dmca). You can read more about our copyright protection policy by reading our terms of service (http://grooveshark.com/terms).

Sincerely,
Grooveshark

I was in shock. How could this be? When I came to my senses I became overcome with rage! I raced to my computer, frantically clicking through links to get to the only thing that would make her feel as badly as she hurt me: the subscription cancellation page.

In front of God, country and a jury of my peers I would admit that I smiled when I clicked that final “Yes”. The outcome? “Your subscription will expire after this billing period.” Written in red on a black backdrop. Not ideal, but it would do.

Again, I was not truly happy. I was alone again…alone in a world without music.  But I keep looking, maybe Lala would come back to me some day. She’d be changed, forever mutilated by her new experiences at Apple. We could never make it work, but maybe she could introduce me to a new friend. I guess I’m not sure what to think….except maybe I’ll turn on my CD player and just sit for a while.

Google Instant means no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible. Real-time feedback will change and personalize people’s search behaviors.

What the heck does that even mean?!? Google made their searches run as you type; it’s not like they shot a cybernetic monkey into the sun. This is a stupid article and Steve Rubel probably needs help turning on his computer. My biggest clue? His bio on the side of his blog: “[Steve] is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs.” And his name is Steve, this seems like a foolish combination.*

Google Instant does not kill SEO. Feedback changes aspects of the search [moreover the advertising] game…yes. But you’re still typing in words….it’s still the same queries. If suddenly we started being sent to random web pages based on biometrics, radiation from our cell phones, or by selecting a series of colors to represent our mood then THAT would kill SEO. The fact that Google is using the same exact algorithms on the back end that they always have (well, sort of….[isn't that image goofy?]) only shows you how preposterous the idea is. They’re still returning the exact same results! The only argument he could possibly have is that it’s guessing the remainder of the word you’re trying to type. Watch out people! Start keeping your pets indoors because SEO is about to fly off the rails and through your backyard.  It doesn’t matter how many times I

*I’m sure Steve Rubel is a very nice man with immense talent and a nice car to match. I don’t mean to criticize. It’s just that when some guy says idiotic things about the internet in an idiotic way to get his idiotic blog to the top of Google’s idiotic Instant Search it makes me think that he may, in fact, be…well, you get my point. Please don’t take offense, sir, I think it had to be said. I’m almost proud that you said it first. You’re kind of like the first guy who said “cigarettes are good for the lungs!”

EDIT: This guy didn’t come through Techmeme until later, but much more thorough. Go read a real journalist’s opinion.

I’d like to highlight briefly the lyrics of the song because learning more about the imagery that Cohen borrows really helps to add significance to the song.  Most of it ties around two interesting figures from the Old Testament: David and Samson. While entirely unrelated, save for the pesky-Philistines, both characters experienced very similar life stories. They experienced selection by God (David selected as the King of Israel, Samson a savior to the Jews under Philistine rule), great feats and love of God (David slew Goliath, Samson killed quite a few), failure and destruction in the face of temptation (David and Bathsheba “saw her bathing on the roof”, Samson and Delilah “she cut your hair”), and eventual return to faith and redemption after their great suffering.

The last point is rough to go into as Samson is tortured and forced to live in slavery until he sees the inside of a temple collapse, and he was lucky. David did more dubious things after the Bathsheba incident (read up on Uriah the Hittite), and his kingdom fell apart: the child born out of wedlock dies, his third son rebels and is killed, his oldest son rapes his daughter and is killed, and many other trials. David’s and, to a lesser degree, Samson’s stories are incredibly tragic, but the significance comes in the height from which they fell…from absolute favor with their God. David, as the song points out, is often thought of as communing directly with God through the Psalms that he wrote. Without knowledge of the great peaks and depths that these men experienced it’s hard to understand the complications of ‘the Hallelujah’ that Cohen brings out.

“…But love is not a victory march, It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

For a while I’ve been trying to find a list of all the major (and a few minor) versions of this classic. Finding them was interesting enough, but trying to rank them has been almost impossible. Still, I’ve built a completely subjective list. You can listen to them individually, or listen to the whole playlist (in reverse order).

1. Jeff Buckley – Hands down winner every time
2. Alexandra Burke – Went back to the original with the chorus, but modern flare. Lot of credit.
3. Allison Crowe -Piano is underwhelming, and the end gets a bit crazy (“And IT IS A” tell me if you notice it)
4. K.D. Lang – She slides into eeEEvry sssSIiingle nnNOote.
5. Brandi Carlile – Not a great voice, but her spirit is locked in
6. Kate Voegele – EDIT: Forgot about Kate! Really crisp, but her voice gets in the way in spots.
7. Justin Timberlake et als. – Some flaws in the recording, too many frills and poor harmonies
8. John Cale – His air control seems lacking in spots
9. Imogen Heap – A capella  is bold, and lovely voice, I just need more
10. Bon Jovi – Listen to how he hugs the mic
11. Rufus Wainwright – Really, this should be better, but it sounds like he’s reading the lyrics fo-net-ick-ly
12. Willie Nelson – Yeah.
13. Le0nard Cohen – The original, I think this is purely a style problem. I like the digital age too much.
14. Charity Mondok – Don’t know who she is, but her’s is pretty, pretty bad.

If you’ve got modifications to the list I’d love to hear them; I don’t know if anyone else is that interested.

As an aside, Cohen said, in that same CBC interview, “I was just reading a review of a movie…and the reviewer said – ‘Can we please have a moratorium on Hallelujah in movies and television shows?’ And I kind of feel the same way. I think it’s a good song, but I think too many people sing it. I think people ought to stop singing it for a little while.”

Dear Raymond B.,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

This letter was probably written the day that Apple purchased Lala over four months ago. It further solidifies my disgust with Apple and the way they do their business. In this acquisition and destruction of a perfectly good company, they’ve literally promised services to me in exchange for my money and now backed out of our agreement. I currently have over $25 in store credit on Lala and over one hundred songs to which I’ve purchased streaming rights. Beyond that, I’ve given dozens of songs to friends and family on the service.

Lala was the most innovative approach to music that I’ve seen in years, and I was extremely excited to evangelize the service and partake in it like some sort of Dionysian zealot. Now that’s all gone because Apple saw competition, they wanted technology, and when they had it they didn’t want to share. If Apple wants to make me happy they can give me copies of my MP3′s at a loss to them or send me a check for $50. Until that time, I’m looking to warn others of what happens when a closed, heavily proprietary company in bed with numerous neerdowells. This closure makes me furious, and I’m eager to see significant blow-back from Apple’s consumer-base.

UPDATE: It would cost me over $155 to get MP3 copies of the music I’ve purchased. Screw you, Apple.