Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Music on the computer.

I was able to play my electric bass into my eMac and Garage band the other day. I use an M-Audio Quattro USB interface that digitizes the signal from my bass. I use a Trace Elliot pre-amp with Tubes for my bass. So I was looking at used iBooks to use for a recording platform that would be more mobile. I need a Mac running only Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger because there are no Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard drivers for this Quattro interface. I then found an Motu PCI interface available on ebay from Asutralia. But this is on auction for another 7 days so the price will probably go out of my range. The prospect of getting this card has me looking at PowerMacs to install the card in. But I could just install it in Remembrance and have not even won the auction for the Motu PCI card yet. I did investigate Motu's drivers and they do not have Linux drivers. So having not won this interface card and rack processor, I will not be looking at PowerMacs yet. In fact, I should loose all the auctions I am bidding on because I can afford this stuff now. It would be green to buy the used equipment. I had been looking at new M-Audio Delta PCI cards because there are Linux drivers for 50$ available for these cards but the cards are about 175 dollars and the local computer store just raised their prices on these cards when they got them in stock and the price is now above retail. So for now I have recording abilities with my eMac. I should see if I can get the Quattro working with Windows XP 64 bit but this will probably not happen.

I am going through with the purchase of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu 8.

I hope by now I have canceled the purchase of the Mini 9 with Windows XP home. I reordered the Mini with Ubuntu 8 and upgraded the hard drive to a 64 GB solid state drive. I am also shifting some attention to music recording and have been looking at late model macs used.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My ISP Bell Canada offered a 110$ coupon off a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 but I backed out of buying one.

I was offered a deal to buy a small laptop from Dell. These are popular now and often come in Windows and Linux models. My ISP which used to be known as Bell Sympatico offered me a coupon of 110$ off the price. I did go to Dell and set up an order for one of these Inspiron Mini 9's. I had the order set up to be paid for on an installment plan but then when I saw the plan was at 19% interest I changed my mind. So I canceled the order. I had thought perhaps to have SAS working on this small laptop. But the OS was Windows XP Home which I think will not run SAS. I am still interested in having one of these small laptops but might prefer to have a Linux version.

I can instead run SAS on my Macbook using a Windows boot up on the Macbook. I still need to set Windows up on the Macbook after installing the new hard drive.

I do have my eyes on getting a Windows gaming laptop. An OCZ gaming laptop is what I have my eyes on. See the model I am interested in here at this URL: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/diy_notebooks/ocz_diy_15-gaming_notebook-small-intel-nvidia_edition.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

I installed Kaspersky Internet Security software on Remembrance

I installed a one year licensed copy of Kaspersky Internet Security on the Windows XP 64 bit Remembrance computer. It may have shut down my use of vent a chat software I use in Eve Online to effect group game play. Otherwise I have no problems with this Internet security package.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Tree tabs and mixed tabs add ons for firefox.

This video from a Linden Labs staffer explains these useful firefox add ons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFz66w8wAEY

or search tree style tabs and mixed tabs on goggle. You need the mixed tabs for the tree tabs to work.