New bike

I recently found out that my bicycle frame was cracked. I'm not sure when this happened but it was a small crack near the front and wasn't safe to ride. Specialized was great as they covered the frame and sent out a new upgraded model in the replacement. After riding the new frame around I found it to be some what bigger than the previous frame. The size wasn't any bigger but it felt much larger that it really was.

After taking a look around, I found that a local shop had the Giant STP in stock. I wanted to buy this bike last year but after calling around and never finding one in stock, I gave up. Around this time I also broke my collar bone and took a break from riding. So I decided to stop by the shop and just check out the bike, maybe buying it if it was really nice.

After looking over the bike it was in my favorite color, yellow and black. I liked the size, while it's listed as a regular size it's much smaller than your standard mountain bike. Appears to be a regular 15" frame but with much heavier duty frame and parts. The bike is also a 8 speed, with a single chain ring and chain guide in the front. While this is a big change from my 24 speed, I really kept the bike most of the time in the second chain ring which is similar to how this bike was set up.

The disc brakes were nice but I didn't like the levers, they felt cheap. Overall the bike was pretty nicely set up. I really liked the fork which was a air/spring combo, much more adjustments than my current bike. Also I liked the larger front axle which was more durable than my old bike.

Just to make sure how it rode I took it for a short test ride. Around the back of the bicycle shop I rode the Giant STP and found that it felt like a BMX cruiser than a mountain bike. It was very compact feeling and easy to turn, but still felt stable. I ended up buying the bike with the idea I would use this for more trail riding and keeping my old bike for street riding.

While I wanted to buy a road bike earlier this year I didn't like the position of leaning over the bike. After thinking about different choices I like this bike and maybe later this year but a cruiser just for riding around town.

Something else while I wanted this bike was durability. After I found out how the previous bike frame cracked I was really surprised that how little I rode damaged the bike so much. I'm hopping this time the new bike lasts allot longer.

HDR photo of the Mission

IMG_0036_37_38_39_40_edited
Originally uploaded by robscomputer

I took this photo of the Mission during mid, with really bright light. It's 5 shots combined into 1 to make a HDR image.

Canon 40D

I recently bought a new digital SLR, a Canon 40D. My old camera was getting a bit slow especially writing to the cards. With the recent Canon rebates I took advantage of this to get a small discount of $200. Just playing the camera I find it's much faster than my old 10D, in terms of writing and image taking.

New Smugmug site

I'm redoing my entire Smugmug photohosting site. Basically I had too many personal snap shots and I'm cleaning out the questionable photos. These will be moved to either Flickr or Picasa, still trying out the tools they both offer.

Flickr

I created a Flickr account a few months ago but never uploaded anything. Recently I'm switching my Smugmug account to old host my really nice photos while I want something else for the personal pictures. While it's pretty easy to use I find that the linking of pictures is more difficult because Flickr requires you to link a web page instead of the images by themselves.

Robscomputer Flickr page

Also a few photos from the last Goodguys show in Pleasanton, CA. These are shot with my new camera. Looks pretty good, but I need to improve my Photoshop adjustment skills.

Elevator music

For years I would hear this older organ song used for the sound of elevator music but never knew where it was from. Then I happened to find the song on Youtube. It's Summer Samba by Walter Wanderley. The Internet is amazing!

Enjoy!

Great music find

I found this link from another forum board, the person is Ronald Jenkees and a really great keyboard player. This video I like with the guitar distortion and the nice key work.

Photography

I haven't been taking as much pictures as I would like to. Recently, I've been using mostly my small point and shoot camera instead of my big DSLR just because it's easier to work with. Also I haven't taken any true photography trips where I would need my big camera. So when I started to take out my camera again on a recent trip to San Francisco I really missed taking photographs.

My camera while it's old, it still works pretty decent. I'm tried out taking some night photos near Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf, which didn't come out as expected. Part of the problem seems to be the camera. When using it for day shots it's not a problem but at night the noise and older generation of the camera shows how old it is.

So after some considering a new camera before I think I'm going to purchase one sometime this Spring.

My current camera, a Canon 10D, I bought used in 2005. This was my first digital SLR camera and really impressed me with digital photography. It was still a huge jump from my first digital camera, a Kodak DC280, which didn't impress me with digital photography. Then after this I bought a Canon Powershot G3, a camera that still is impressive even today, and I used to make a majority of my favorite pictures.

While I don't need any super camera, I want something like my 10D but with less noise and better quality. After looking around I'm looking at the Canon 40D, which is the latest in the consumer digital D series. From reading about the camera and reviews, seems like it's a good match for me needs.

Just to know what my current camera looks like, here's a few pictures from SF.



Another version I made some changes with a HDR program and tweaked.

Microsoft's free programming tools

I'm interested in programming, and Microsoft has a lot of free tools on their web site.

Some of my favorites.

Microsoft Visual Express editions - I really like these editions, it's pretty much all you need and more for basic applications. From C# to SQL server, there's a free product to download and learn.

Microsoft's Popfly - This is different but still fun. You can create new web tools from a nice drag and drop interface. Also you can build more detailed projects with the Popfly connector to Express editions. Honestly, I can't make anything worth while in Popfly.

There's allot more tools on their website but I've think these are the best ones for learning.

What drives you

I am always amazed when I see someone who is a high archiver. Someone who has their masters degree before 25, or they are are successful with their own company at a young age. Even with someone who excels in sports, I'm interested what drives a person to work that much harder than the average person.

What interests me, is how they push them past the average and continue on. Most people in general will work as hard as needed, then stay at this level, it's what's natural and most comfortable. But for some, they are not happy living this life and want more. Do they want more money? Do they want more fame and glory? Do they want to make their parents happy?

What I'm guessing is it makes the person happy from the results of working hard. If you get a large increase in salary, the extra money will make you happy and allow you to buy larger items (house, car, boat). Also you get more exposure from your co-workers and more respect from your friends. It's easy to understand why people work hard.

It's harder to understand why people don't.

I noticed that some people instead of working harder, like to be a constant pace of work. They do not want to work any harder than they already are, even if everyone else around them works harder. I also notice that some people like to complain but not do anything about it, as if they might not want to change their daily routine.

When I hear this I keep thinking, why complain when you can do something about it? I think most of the people in this want the same work each day, little change between the days. What they started years ago, they want to keep the same today, sometimes this limits to what you can do in the future, especially if things change.

While this doesn't seem bad, when the company changes path to a new direction, it's these people who have the hardest time.

Music hosting

I have my own web site, but was looking for a easier method of sharing out my music mixes. I considered Youtube but the problem is you are limited to 10 mins of length. So looking around I found Musicv2 which is a hosting and social site for musicians, djs and fans. It's actually pretty nice, for $20 you get 10gb of space and handy sharing tools.

So far I only uploaded a practice mix, full of mistakes, but it's not too hard to link and share out. Below is the sample mix I made, it's mostly breakbeat and drifts off to some house stuff.

http://www.musicv2.com/listen.php?m=45865

Beatport, part 2

I spoke of Beatport before but after using it more often I find it's a pretty good amount of music. The only problem I find is if you don't know the name of the song it's hard to just browse around for new music. On iTunes this is pretty easy as you can spend hours listening to random songs and play lists but Beatport is harder.

Honestly it's a slight problem nothing serious. I think their pricing is fair and selection is good enough for my picky tastes. :)

I'll start to check out other sites to see how they compare.

My past motorcycles

I started riding street motorcycles around 2002, just a few I owned over the years with the last bike sold last year. So thinking about it I made a list of the bikes and a short pros/cons list of each.

2002 Kawasaki Ninja 250

This was my first street bike, really my first motorcycle I owned. This bike was allot of fun, rode it for about 7,500 miles in 4 months before I sold it. I knew three other people with 250's as well and we rode around the Bay Area. I ended up buying a new bike and shortly selling this bike to make room.

Pros -
Very cheap, not a bad thing as parts were easy to find and replace
Easy to work on, I did the oil changes, much easier than on a motard
Easy to ride, the 250 was like riding a scooter, just twist and go, also it's really light
Can carry stuff on the rear, believe it or not many motorcycles can't carry much, the 250 can carry a decent amount of gear with the built in hooks.

Cons -
Low power, this is really a pro and con. If you're a new rider it's a pro but after a few thousand miles or riding you want more power. Also it's tiring to constantly ride around 10,000rpm all of the time.
Lightweight, normally this isn't a problem but going across a high bridge or windy road will push the bike around.

2003 Suzuki SV650S

This was the first year of the second generation SV650. I really liked the power of this bike but it always felt top heavy, I'm not sure if it was due to the v-twin engine or tall gas tank. I think I put about 4,500 miles on this bike after owning it for almost two years. Also I never really liked the body position, as it was more than most sport bikes. After selling this bike I took a break away from motorcycles.

Pros -
Great low end power from the v-twin
Felt solid and well made
Easy to work on, no plastics on the bike made it easy to change oil

Cons -
Top heavy, I'm not sure but this bike never felt easy to ride slow
Race ergos, the bike had really low bars and high footpegs, great for dragging knee but it hurt my back after a few hours of riding
Harsh suspension, due to having lower quality suspension the bike was very hard on bumps. Combined with the race style position you're wrists and back took a beating

2002 KTM 640SM

I wanted to try something different from my last bike and was interested in supermotards. I almost bought a Suzuki DRZ-400SM but wanted something that would have enough power for the freeway. Found the KTM for sale on a local motorcycle forum and it was pretty nice. After riding it for about 1,000 miles I sold it. The bike while fun to ride was really really slow on the freeway, even slower than the 250. Also it vibrated like crazy, making your hands and fee numb.

Pros -
Lots of power, the big 640 single was fast if not faster than my SV650
Easy riding position, you sit up instead of leaning down, very easy to see all around you
Crashable, in a case of dropping or crashing the bike, there were few if any parts to damage. Great thing about motards

Cons -
Expensive parts, of course I didn't know this until I needed parts but Euro bikes are hard to get and are expensive
Vibration, this really bothered me. I couldn't believe how bad the bike vibrated, felt like I was holding a paint mixer. After a few miles of riding, I had to stop and let me hands and feet get back to normal
Shorter oil change period, riding a dirt motorcycle on the street makes for a harder life and the motard needed more oil changes

So after looking at this list of previous motorcycles I found that I wanted the following.

Able to go freeway speeds
Space to carry some bags or gear
Lightweight and easy to ride
Easy to work on and change oil
Japanese made for cheaper parts

After reading my want list, I think the new Kawasaki Ninja 250 would make a great next bike. The only problem is the high price but it would level out later this year. Right now the price dealers are asking is above MSRP but hopefully it will come down.

Beatport

This is new to me but Beatport has some great music, especially geared towards the dj. It's slightly expensive but I feel worth the added cost. Here's a play list to get an idea of what they offer.

Selling on eBay

I've been buying and selling items on eBay since 2001, but even today I still make mistakes on my auctions and bids. For selling I tried to make it simpler, here's some of my favorite tips.

1. Shipping scale - I can't tell you how many times I estimated the weight of a item to only get surprised when I brought it to the postal shop. What is really nice is have your package already weighted, then in the auction the person can choose their shipping and all you have to do is print the label. Which brings me to my second item.

2. Printer - With a scale and a printer, you can prep you package, then just drop it off at your local shipping station. This saves so much time waiting in line.

3. Boxes and envelopes - If you ship with one carrier you can order various boxes from the carrier for free. If you ship with various carries it might be easier to buy common boxes and envelopes from shipping suppliers on eBay or on-line. Buying from local stores I find it's very expensive and better to just save boxes you have at home.

Just a reminder, don't ship the wrong box for the wrong shipment method. For example, if I'm shipping USPS Priority, don't use a USPS Express box. The package will get sent back to the shipper. This also goes for using a USPS box with UPS or Fed Ex.

4. Bubble wrap and popcorn - One of the worst things about getting a package is when the shipper does not use enough bubble wrap or popcorn to keep the item safe. The stuff is pretty cheap and I recommend that you use more to keep everything safe during shipping.

5. High quality tape - I personally use the more expensive tape by 3M because it's easy to peel off and stick on the boxes. If you use cheap tape, it's more frustrating to even get the tape off without it falling apart. Spend a few dollars for a tape roller as well.

6. Digital camera - Selling a item sight unseen is difficult on the Internet but without any pictures it's even harder. You don't need any expensive digital camera, just a basic camera will work. This makes a huge difference for selling as people will usually choose a auction with a picture than without.

Hopefully, these will help sell more auctions.

Sampling in music

I'm a big fan of electronic and hip hop music. Both types of music use heavy amounts of sampling from previous generations of songs. While some samples are easy to pick up, some are much harder to find.

Here's a good example of one. Daft Punk's One More Time uses a very very short sample for the main loop.

A person on YouTube posted what he found when slightly changing the pitch and speed of a sample.



Another from Daft Punk and their samples. This one is a big more songs included.



Then a short one from hip hop. The Juice Crew with the Symphony.



Then the sample they used.



It's pretty interesting to find the samples they used, and how sometimes it's almost left along and in other cases chopped up.

Dusting off the turntables

After a long time in storage and out of use, I brought out my turntables for some fun again. I dug in my record crate and found a few drum and bass songs, then a misplaced hip hop song. Found they worked well together so I mashed them up but the vocals didn't sound right on.

I imported both tracks into my computer and then edited the vocals a bit. It's still off but I spent about 30 minutes on the total project. Still sounds pretty cool to me.

It's Jungle Brothers mixed with Spy.

Some new updates

For fun I added a forum to the site. I'm not even sure how helpful this will be but think it might work out to have some information posted there.

http://robscomputer.com/forum/

Leaving Warcraft

The other day, I decided to leave World of Warcraft for good. I sharded and sent all of my items to a friend, then deleted my main characters. The only one I have is the first character I made in December 2005, a level 13 night elf rouge, and the most recent character, a level 43 blood elf paladin that I was leveling with my girlfriend. I might delete the paladin but for now, leaving it if she wants to play.

When I deleted my main, a level 70 warlock, I had 27 days played. That's days of in game played, which equals out to about 650 hours. Then on my other characters, about 3~5 days more, or 72~120 hours. While I didn't play very seriously, I still spent a surprising amount of time in the game, and I really didn't even see but a few instances.

After thinking about the time spent in the game, I wanted to focus on other things but didn't want to have it be a distraction. So if I deleted the characters to the point where I would need to start from the beginning, it would be harder to jump back in. I don't think of the game as something bad, I had fun playing on and off for 2 years but after getting to 70 once, there wasn't much to solo, and I didn't like to spend time in a long instance for end game.

One thing I didn't want to do was just throw away all of the items. I ended up sending everything to a friend and he could use them so it was at least helping him out. Even if I was leaving the game, I still didn't like to just waste something if another person could use it.

In the end, if Blizzard came out with another MMO, I would play again but for now I want to spend more serious time learning to play the guitar, and studying for school. While I'm leaving I might come back to play again, it's a fun game, but just takes a long time to complete the higher level stuff.

Learning to play the guitar

I've been learning to play for the last two years with little success. I get interested and then I loose interest, or other things become more important, like gaming. So on the advice of my friend, I tried out a guitar learning series called Metal Method by Doug Marks. It's a dvd series how to play the guitar from a more rock style instead of a traditional style.

So far I'm just on session one but it's actually pretty nice. For starters, the first lesson goes over the guitar, good basics such as how to hold the guitar, then begins the first lesson. Here's where it's different from regular lessons, instead of having your play a chord, you play single notes on the first string. There's also a PDF included with the dvd lesson and a visual guide of the guitar tabs.

For the price of $15 per dvd, I think it's a good investment. Not too hard and the instructions of Doug Marks is very clear, he's easy to listen to, all steps are simple to follow. I'll be sure to post my on going sessions and how they follow up.

Dundracon gaming convention

The past weekend, Carol and I were at Dundracon in San Ramon. It's a gaming convention that covers all forms of gaming, except video games. At first I was a little hesitant to go, I never really played much except video games and some pen & paper RPGs. After I was at the convention I was really amazed at the amount of games available. There were miniatures, RPGs, board games, LARPs, etc.

On the night we arrived, I jumped into a World of Warcraft board game. Honestly, I can say the board game is too close to the actual game play of the on-line game. You spend a few hours choosing a monster to kill, turn in the quest, get loot/xp then repeat. It was very similar to the computer game, and after a few turns I started to wonder if there's something more to the game? Ironically, it felt too similar and didn't really show any major difference, which could be good and bad. Still it would be fun to play this with friends at a cabin trip.

The next day I attended a couple of seminars about Creating a Dungeons and Dragons character, to World of Warcraft vs Real Life. Then in the afternoon I joined a RPG game playing Ars Magica, a game based upon magic in early 1300 Europe. The gm was really great at balancing the game and the role playing part, actually was a really fun game experience. Especially having the other people in the game with everyone role playing made the game really work, and we ended exactly on time, solving the puzzle of the story as well. Even I'm normally not into role playing but really got into the story of this game.

Mixing pen & paper RPGs with computers

After playing a more role playing RPG I was thinking how could you bring such depth to a video game. Is it even possible? Something that is common is to play a pen & paper RPG but across the Internet. There's tool available for people to share maps, dice rolls, and other

RPTools has many tools available for the role playing game.

Dice Tool - A dice roller
Map Tool - Creates maps and sharing for other players

Another tool is from Fantasy Grounds, this is a paid version but allows similar controls.

Finally, you can use RPGGateway's play by post forum to find other players. This is a slower version as each action needs to be posted, then replied to but offers more time to think and write a response.

If I can get enough friends interested I could like to start a play by post game. Most of my friends we don't see each other so often and it would be great to keep in touch with them in a game.

The Rogue LX406 Pro 6 string bass

Last posting I mentioned I ordered this bass. Well it came in over last week and got a chance to play it a few times. I have to say that for $200, it's a really nice bass. My other bass is a old 1985 Ibanez 4 string, I wanted to try out something with more strings, settled on the 6 string version instead of the 5 because it's more similar to the guitar. After playing with dozens of bass guitars at my local Guitar Center I still think for the money the Rogue feels better, especially considering the price is cheaper than any P-Bass, even Squire.

I really like the matte finish neck, while it's wide for the 6 strings I can still reach the 6th string without much trouble. The body also feels nice, it's more square than I normally like but works and is balanced. The bass is also using active pickups, gives more power to the sound but you can turn it off as well. There are some negatives, I noticed on the fretboard, some chipping from light string slapping, and rough edges where the neck is bolted to the body. But considering the price, I can overlook these mistakes.

How to party with yourself in World of Warcraft (Dual boxing)

I've been playing World of Warcraft for a few years now, on and off because of school or work. It's a fun game, my friends play and I currently have a level 70 undead warlock and a level 43 blood elf paladin. After I got tired of my warlock I started my paladin with my girlfriend, she choose a blood elf priest. Once we started to run through the old areas, I had my friend run us through a few harder instances with his level 70 mage.

After playing like this I really wanted to solo a instance using my higher level warlock but also play my paladin to level. I started thinking about how this would work and found a web site about Dual Boxing. Basically dual boxing is using two or more gaming accounts, either on the same computer or more to play at the same time. It sounds funny, but what you get is a very powerful combo of 2 or more players that you can control as one.

With a simple software like Keyclone you can control the characters pretty simple. Here's my testing done with two mages from the same computer.



It's not great, I am only level 2 but shows how the software passes from one screen to the next. Now it's not as easy as playing one character. A major problem I found is that questing items have to be picked up by both parties, so you need to keep switching screens back and forth.

So far, I really haven't had time to figure it out much but I think it's harder than I expected. A problem I'm having is keeping the two characters together, they keep running away from each other after a few minutes. Also many items in WoW need interaction such as right clicking gathering items and quest items.

It's fun but because of school and limited time. I'm going to hold off on any more testing until this summer.

Here's someone who's gotten the multibox idea down much better. It's in the battlegrounds and you can see just how powerful 5 people working as one becomes.



Cheap guitars and basses

In my previous post I spoke about cheaper guitars, actually a classical guitar specifically. I found another site which has a bunch of cheaper guitars, Rondo Music, which sells a majority of guitars for under $200. Their selection isn't bad, a good amount of guitars, basses, even a few 6 strings.

While I haven't ordered from them, I'm interested in their basses. For a total cost of about $200, I could order a nice 6 string bass. Normally to play a bass like this you need to spend much more money but for a non-professional like myself I rather spend $200 for something I wasn't sure about.

After checking out this site and then Musician's Friend. I ordered a cheap 6 string bass from Musician's Friend. It's a Rogue LX406 Pro, has decent reviews from the site and other review sites.

I have a older Ibanez 4 string bass and wanted to try out a 6 string bass. Since starting my guitar class I am learning to not use the pick (ironically just after I got used to it) and wanted to see how different it is to playing a 6 string bass. At the local Guitar Center I had fun playing the 6 strings there but after seeing the price tags near $2000 I decided it was beyond my price range.

Dundracon

Next week, my girlfriend and I are attending Dundracon in San Ramon. I have never been to a gaming event before but it sounds like fun. She already told me it's a big event with hardcore gamers, so expect the worst. Basically it's a large event with various types of gaming, from pen and paper like Dungeons and Dragons to miniatures to board games.

I'm more of a video gamer so playing non-video games is a different experience. Every other weekend I play D&D with friends but I'm still confused with the details of how the game works. Our experienced DM knows the rules pretty well so it works out. :)

What makes a guitar worth 10 times more?

Recently I started playing the guitar again, actually taking a class at my local community college. It's a classical guitar class, and traditional guitars are similar but use steel strings to the nylon of a classical guitar. So I went to Musician's Friend and ordered a cheap classical guitar for $100. Hasn't been delivered yet but for $100 doesn't look bad, decent reviews and for me and my skill will be perfect to use over the class into summer.

After looking at this guitar for $100, I saw some others twice as much and more. Now I'm wondering, just how much more can those guitars really be worth? Say, is the guitar for a $1000, 10 times better playing? Here's an example.

The Squier Affinity Series Telecaster sells for $160

The Fender Vintage Hot Rod Telecaster sells for $1600

Now the two guitars here look very similar but they are different in the details. One is made in the USA while the other is made in a foreign country. Also the other details such as craftsmanship, electronics, etc.

The main question would you pay 10 times the amount of the cheaper guitar for the better quality guitar? Will it sound 10 times better?

For me I think I wouldn't spend that kind of money but for a professional player I could see where he or she would need the better instrument. Just starting out minor defects with a guitar honestly are not noticed but for someone who plays hours per day, I'm sure they would stand out.

As I read on a forum about guitars, if you can tell the difference, then why waste your money buying the more expensive version?

It's cold!

I'm not sure if the weather is getting colder but am I getting less warm, but it's cold. I took a trip to the East Coast last month and it doesn't feel that much colder there than here, even in February.

Two failures in a row

Recently my home computer, which I just built from scratch two years ago had a problem. I couldn't turn the computer back on after a attempted upgrade of Vista. So I checked the computer and everything was ok, guessed it was the powersupply. Went to the store and bought a new powersupply, computer still doesn't turn on.

Now, I'm not sure what else is wrong and figured it's the motherboard. Well, it's an Asus which I've have great luck with before but there's a chance it would fail. I decided since I'm making a order for some major components, might as well order a new processor and video card to give the computer a full upgrade.

Ended up with a 6400+ AMD processor, Asus M2N32 motherboard, 4GB of PC6400 memory, and a ATi 3850 video card. Also threw in a new hard drive and powersupply for good measure. After all of these items, I neatly installed them and set up the computer. Got ready to power on and nothing again.

Now I was really stumped, I replaced everything from my old computer except two hard drives and the DVD writer. So I removed everything (including my neat zip wrap job) to test the motherboard alone. Since I have my old powersupply I tested the motherboard and it powered up! So I switched to my old powersupply, and nothing. So the new powersupply I bought was DOA. Then to make sure, I checked my old motherboard, nothing with either powersupplies, so the mother board was confirmed failed.

So I ended up first having a failed motherboard, then buying a failed powersupply. Rare chance but it does happen!