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Hooray for My New HP!

HP Laptop Pixel Disaster

So, I bought this new laptop…  A great deal…  Dual core, lots of memory, big LCD screen.  It was the display model, but the only one left, so we took it.  It looked brand new without even a fingerprint.We get the thing home and love it.  Unfortunately, the same day my wife discovers that the same model is being sold for $250 less at a competitor!  “Oh, no,” we said, but we ended-up being able to match the price and all was well.

And they all lived happily ever after…  NOPE!

We woke up one morning to discover that the LCD screen is eating itself!

Huh?  Yeah, you read right…  Eating itself.  In fact I would describe it as a growing ink blot.  First a pixel or two, then 50, then thousands!  I had never seen anything like it.  Don’t worry though, because that superhero called Mr. Warranty was still protecting us, if not the store post 14 days.  I looked up HP’s generous pixel policy and decided that there would be no problem getting it serviced.  Then I discovered that my wife had lost the receipt and that the store only keeps receipt records for two weeks (sounds like bull to me).   :’( …But then my wife miraculously found the receipt in the back of our stroller.  Duh, I mean that’s where everything we can’t find ends up.  Once, I couldn’t find one of my kids…  Guess where they were…  Just kidding…  Turns out HP didn’t even need the receipt anyway!!!   Shoot, HP even sent me a shipping box free of charge.  Their customer service was top-notch….

Until…  Guess what.  They “don’t cover that”…

Apparently there was some sort of internal crack in the LCD screen that was gradually exposing pixels to oxygen, which is what makes them turn inky-black.  I can’t possibly see how this was anything but an obvious manufacturing defect, but they refused to service it none-the-less… That is, unless I was going to fork over $430!  Aaaaah, HP, I hate to tell you this, but I bought the thing for $500…  Oh, and I’d rather hack off the LCD screen and just plug in an external monitor than pay you $430 to fix a manufacturer’s defect that should be covered under warranty.

Wait, it doesn’t end there…

I decided to call the store, even though 2 months have elapsed, and very calmly and politely explained the situation asking “if there was any recourse.”  To my surprise and delight, the store has agreed to replace the computer with an equivalent model!  Wow, what a relief….

Oh wait, still more…

Wait for it….   My wife lost the receipt again!  Unfortunately, it is nowhere to be found this time.  Personally, I think one of the kids ate it.

So, in a day or two, when we get our laptop back, I guess we are going to hope that a credit card purchase statement will be good enough for the store to go ahead and still replace the model.  Otherwise, I’ll be stopping by Lowe’s soon to pick up a hatchet and maybe Best Buy for a cheap monitor.  I don’t even know if there is an appropriate emoticon for that…

Posted via email from Music Tech Talk on Posterous

iTunes – A Love/Hate Relationship Part 3 – "A Most Curious Development"

During my troubleshooting process, I discovered a number of perplexing complexities. To assist in my story-telling, I have used Snagit 8 to grab a few screen shots. We rolled back to a previous version (8.2), as mentioned in Part 2. iTunes itself, seems to function fine, and I discovered that I can actually purchases new items now…

Here is the trail of screen shots:

OK, fine… I’ll just authorize the computer again. Things seem to be working OK otherwise…

OK, That wasn’t so bad… A little confusing though. So, I tried syncing again…

One of the reasons I use a lot of playlists is to avoid this very problem. Since they no longer exist, iTunes loaded every song in the library to the iPod, completely filling it up. Of course, now I am unable to tell whether it has “authorized” the use of my previously authorized purchases. Should I erase the whole thing and start over? I’m getting a headache.

Great. Been there, done that already.

I was just thinking about how nice it would to spend today going through 1,000s of tunes to look for duplicates. I think I am going to give up for now and post about a new attempt later… That is if I haven’t already thrown my iPod down the garbage disposal.

iTunes – A Love/Hate Relationship Part 2- "Leaning Toward Hate"

In a rather timely fashion (meaning in relation to Part 1 of this post), we recently attempted to upgrade to iTunes 9.0.Death. OK, that’s not exactly its official name, but for PC users, it might as well be. Once installed, this fantastic piece of software engineering, (sometimes referred to as a virus or malicious code) attacks your once-functioning iTunes interface and initiates the slow and painful process of making you regret having ever purchased Apple products.

Let me explain. First, if you plan to use iTunes 9.0.2.25, make sure you have never purchased or never wish to purchase and songs from iTunes. Why? Well, 9.0 offers the added convenience of never being able to load your purchased music onto your iPod again! And on top of that, you can forget using the iTunes store or authorizing your account, because that too will be met with failure. (Note: All of my Tips and emphasis today will be in Apple Red, as well as the word “Apple“)

With iTunes 9.0, the upgraded features are endless! When you upgrade your software, you can be sure that none of your playlists will function when you’ve removed 9.0 out of pure frustration and tried to roll back to an earlier version! Why? Like many upgraded versions of software, previous versions can’t open them. …And when you upgraded iTunes, your playlists were upgraded along with everything else. Now, if you organize using playlists like me, you are probably really happy right now.

Well, that’s really not an option, I guess… But you still get to do it. Who cares, anyway? None of the songs you recently purchased and hadn’t had time to load will be there anyway.

While we’re on the subject, APPLE, here are a few other great features that have no doubt continued on for another software revision. I will present these features in the form of a question. You know, like Jeopardy (sort of)… A term my PC is now quite familiar with:

1) A: Because we would be offering a level of convenience to customers that we are not prepared to offer. Q: Why is it so hard to make an interface that allows you to download from your iPod to your computer inside of iTunes?

2) A: This is required to make you feel like paying too much for a Mac would be worth it, as the downloads couldn’t be this large for them too. Q: Why is it that your software loads like it is the size of Windows (your favorite product, I’m sure) and needs to be “upgraded” every-other week?… To another full 88 Giga-watt version.

3) A: Because we can… Q: Why does my iPod turn on when I am inserting the headphones? …Even when locked. What possible use could that have besides annoying your customers?

4) A: Yes, and as stated, the world. Q: Do you intentionally seek to alienate PC users in order to take over the world? Come on, you already have the movie industry in your back pocket… What more do you want?

5) A: Jello. Q: Is iTunes 9.0 in fact a virus intended to maliciously destroy all PCs everywhere?

And finally:

6) A: We don’t care about your Apples, none of our software will work right with it anyway. If you really want to take over the industry, try selling your products for a reasonable price and making them 100% compatible with PC software. That means, there shouldn’t be PC and MAC versions. There should just be one version that works. Really, you should just blame Steve Jobs for letting Bill Gates steal the original good ideas from Apple in the first place… and move on with life. Q: Will you just admit, that stability of a platform really means nothing to a public that uses PCs as a vast majority?

OK, I am not really as bitter as this post might lead one to believe, but it was fun venting for a while. Seriously, though… Before you release new versions of your software, give your PC-user rivals the courtesy of having tested it thoroughly beforehand. We don’t want to be your beta-testers, Apple. I’d hate to think there is going to be a bad one in every bunch.

iTunes – A Love/Hate Relationship

Who doesn’t own an iPod these days? We’re on our third one… One for me, one for my wife,

Forget Timex watches, nothing “takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’ “ like an iPod. That one only partially works now, but it really didn’t have any problems after the first 2 incidents.

Recently, we’ve started converting all of our CD’s to MP3 and loading them up on our iPods. You can’t beat the portability and large personalized selection of music. …And besides being a memory hog, iTunes has, for the most part, a fairly nice interface. I’m particularly fond of iTunes’ visualizer. Plus, the AAC audio format, while Apple-stubbornly propribit, 24bit, AAC, audio compression, bandcamp, dmgardnermusic.com, iPod, iTunes, love/hate relationship, MP3, musictechtalk, shuffleetary, does seem to offer a fairly clean MP3 quality for playback.

But, here’s the deal… I can’t stand MP3 quality sound (or the-lack-thereof).

This is one of the main reasons I have switched to Bandcamp to demo my audio samples for my website. I can upload high quality samples with ease. …And when it comes to MIDI generated samples, the higher resolution audio file you can use, the better.

It’s seems like technology has advanced enough to start using higher quality formats in portable devices. I mean, come on… CD quality is 16bits. I thought I read somewhere that you have to at least use 24bits to begin to represent a true decay of sound to the ear. 24bits is going to sound a lot clearer and more realistic, at any rate, especially in regard to reverb and aural environment (ambience). Certainly, mastering requires at least that much for lossless reproduction. I’ve used as high as 96kHz, 64bit masters, and you don’t have to have a fine-tuned ear to tell the difference. Honestly, I’d rather listen to records than hours of MP3s.

Quite a bit… And sometimes, I am quite fond of it, while at other times I feel like smashing it with a hammer.

Here’s something annoying: Why is is that when my iPod is shuffling within a playlist, it stays in that playlist… But, when I shake the iPod, it automatically changes mode and jumps to anywhere it pleases? This is particularly annoying when you’re working out and accidentally bump your iPod. I know you’re thinking right now, ‘we’ll why don’t you just turn it off?’ My response to that is:

So, after much consideration, I have come up with the following suggestion:

Finale 2009 and Samson CO1U Mic Driver Conflicts

I have recently written about projects that used my Sonar 8 compatible Samson CO1U USB Studio Condenser Mic. It has been a great, versatile mic for under $100. However, I was never really able to use the provided software (not required to use mic), because it would always unexpectedly shutdown. I just discovered that this is directly related to driver conflicts with Finale 2009. Initially, I had no problems, but recently, Finale would refuse to open, offering only the dreaded Microsoft software problem reporting pop-up.

I clicked on the little “to see what data this error report contains: click here” link. Upon careful examination, I noticed something strange.

Under “ModName, “the pop-up banner mentioned a driver named something like samsonsoftpre.dll. I can’t remember the exact name, but it was obvious where it came from.

Next, I opened up Start/Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs and proceeded to uninstall the the Samson SoftPre Software. Finale opened just fine once the removal was complete. So, if the rare occasion arises that you are using both a Samson CO1U Mic and Finale 2009, this may help you solve the problem without reinstalling Finale, or at least, save you some time.

One last note… I am obviously having issues with Microsoft Windows Movie Maker too, as the screenshots reveal. I will be troubleshooting that problem shortly, but suspect the driver conflict is related to Internet Explorer 7. It as been suggested that I uninstall IE7 and see if the problem persists… I’ll let you know!

Introduction

This will be my first post, so I felt an introduction might be in order. The purpose of this blog will be to discuss various applications of music technology and provide examples of personal and study-related projects. I will include details on the processes used to create each project in addition to tips, tricks or obstacles I have encountered along the way. Initially, I may be spending more time on learning how to blog than posting anything useful. I may go ahead and post the completed projects and add explanation as time permits.

Currently, I am working with Sonar 8 Studio Edition and have found it to be more powerful than any tools I have used to date, yet limiting and frustrating at the same time. As my posts progress, they will describe not only the projects created in Sonar, but the process of learning how to use the program as well. The learning curve will be apparent from my first projects to the last.

I will present various other projects and/or compositions that may be useful to discuss and hope to talk about the work other people are doing too. I want to learn as much as I can and share what I have already learned with others that might be interested.