March 2004 Archives

Today I finally laid my hands on the ONLY Triton Extreme in Singapore (as yet).

Touch-wise, it felt like any typical unweighted keyboard. Sound-wise, it was very, very commendable. Umpteen electric piano variations, jazz brush kit, zillions of funky basses, brass, synths... Didn't have time to run through everything but it generally feels 'mature' and not raw or fake.

Feature-wise, it had what I was looking for:

Effects. My old 01/W could only apply two effects across the board, whereas this baby can take 5 different effects with up to 5 individual tracks in a sequence. [For those who are losing me - when you want to produce a full song you can combine up to 16 possible tracks (e.g. keyboard, bass, percussion, strings...) together. Sometimes you want the piano and strings to have a bit more reverb. However you certainly don't need the same echo in your percussion. This is where you can apply different effects to different tracks, something which my 10-year-old workstation can't. ] You can also apply 2 master effects on top of that, across all 16 available tracks.

Storage. I tried plugging in the VanPod to one of the Triton Extreme's USB ports. The great news is that it was able to browse my iPod's hard drive! The bad news is the boys at the shop couldn't transfer a pre-recorded song from the keyboard to the iPod. They were stuck on the last step, which had to do with 'bouncing' the song (it had to be exported to .wav format first). We will continue this little experiment in the next week or two, when their resident expert returns to work. No major issue; after all I could still connect the Triton Extreme to my barely-used D1600 hard disk recorder with CD writer. Or any external CD writer with USB connectivity. The 512MB Compact Flash card I bought at the recent Computer Fair will also come in handy, as there's a slot for it. Wicked isn't it?

Fancy thingamajig: That bright blue globule at the top left corner of the keyboard. They call it a valve. When I press a button and turn a knob or two, my sound becomes punchier. Wow. I don't know how to explain this thing. Yet.

Price: Not very pretty, and still rather vague seeing how it isn't supposed to be launched yet, anywhere in the world (so they say). But it is probably slightly cheaper than previous Triton models which also come with less sounds (not that you'd need several hundred of them at any one time).

Expandability: Apparently, none. KORG has put every possible expansion board INTO this baby, so there is nothing left to, ahem, expand into.

Colour: Dark blue. Almost black. Some buttons light up red. The big touch screen is bright blue. I hear the older models are being phased out, so it looks like I'll never own a sleek silver Triton (ha!).

Due date: Singaporeans will have to wait till late May or June for more units to be shipped. Dang. Sigh.

Now here's a novel piece of news: AOL seizes spammer's Porsche. According to them, this dude made over a million friggin' US dollars spamming people.

Don't just take his Porsche! Take his mansion too!

My church group and I are finally watching The Passion this Thursday. I don't think I've ever felt so enthusiastic watching a show full of gore and violence. It isn't for the faint-hearted; already two people have died (a woman and a minister) of a heart attack from watching it.

Interestingly, watching The Passion has prompted a 21-year old Texan to confess to a murder he commited in January.

Yours truly was feeling a little under the weather this week, hence the lack of blogging for a record 6 days.

VanPod is doing fine. The Belkin voice recorder works marvellously well. I made a recording in church last Sunday. I could hear the voice of the guest speaker clearly from the back row. A couple minutes later, my nearly-exhausted battery died unceremoniously, making a buzzing sound which I tried to stifle violently. Bad Pod!

In other, more important news, I finally got to see the light of the Holy Spirit during my weekly Bible Studies session. As we bowed our heads for the closing prayer, I saw through the darkness of my eyelids an incandescent bulb of light where each of my friends were sitting. When I opened my eyes to figure out what was going on, I only saw their physical selves. When I closed my eyes again, I saw a dazzling white light where each of them was sitting. As my group leader (sitting on my left) prayed, through my closed eyes I saw white flames and sparks coming out from his side, just as he mentioned key phrases such as giving God thanks. Amazing, isn't it. The Spirit lives in each of us who believe, let's not forget that!

After spending a few days playing with my new 40GB iPod and ripping loads of CDs, I realised - or remembered - to my chagrin that my own PC's hard drive is only 30GB.

Go ahead. Laugh.

Public service announcement: I bought an iPod.

Actually, make that two. There was an offer at the IT Fair at Suntec City where you could purchase a 40GB iPod for the normal price, and an additional 15GB iPod would be yours for just S$200 more. So I decided to give my little sister a present :)

Playing around with it for the past two hours has given me mixed feelings. What I like about my iPod:

1. Its pristine, white exterior and slender body makes me feel so good that I went into hours of euphoria.
2. No moving parts! And the dial. And the little ticky sounds it makes.
3. Of course, the fact that it now works with PCs.
4. Also the fact that I bought the second, 15GB iPod for only S$200 (that's US$117 to you, bud)
5. The expandability options / accessories it has (though I wish some were inbuilt).
6. Forty gigabytes, baby.

What I don't like / questions to work out:

1. I nearly had to purchase a separate USB cable so I could connect it to my PC (in the end I got it as a free gift). They shouldn't penalise PC users who want to give Apple products a shot. Can't they include the cable for free, by default?
2. No playing of music while charging and loading songs in the dock? Still trying to figure this one out.
3. Why is iTunes ripping my CD tracks into a non-MP3 format? There are now too many different formats on my computer and it's a mess. Thanks to Kristian for the tip! Everything's back in order.
4. The cost of changing the internal battery at Apple's Service Centres.
5. The same problem with any other steel surface: fingerprints.
6. The fact that, even after properly 'ejecting' my iPod, I get warnings that I had unsafely removed my device. (Windows compatibility error?)
7. When, just when can non-US users purchase music??
8. [Update: It's rumoured (?) that an iPod has been used by a woman to bludgeon her boyfriend to death for erasing 2000 of her MP3 files. Hmmm.]

Apart from that, I really am happy with my purchase.

I finally watched a (nearly) full episode of American Idol tonight. The wild cards who were given a second chance weren't all that bad, though some were obviously better than others.

A quick run-through of how I think each of the eight fared:

Jon Peter Lewis. Before I heard him sing, I thought, wow, he looks like a cross between Beck and a hobbit. Unfortunately performance-wise I didn't think he had the X-factor - it was just off a notch. I didn't get to watch his supposedly groovy moves, because I had already walked out of the room, unable to bear seeing him standing still in the first 10 seconds of his song in a grungy outfit.

Elizabeth LeTendre. I think her singing was OK but memory fails me. Frankly I have forgotten what the rest of her performance was like.

George Huff. One of the few things against him is he looks a little goofy (did you see his parents, though?). He reminded me of Urkel, the gawky guy with the big spectacles in Family Matters. But that makes him memorable. He also has an amazing voice, a positive attitude, and good stage presence. He will make it.

Katie Webber. Ah, I thought she was rather pretty, though I had to supress the urge to laser off that distracting mole on her cheek. From what I understand she took previous criticism well, and improved her act. She had good stage presence, too. I could tell she enjoyed herself. However, there is just one small problem: She couldn't hit the right notes all the time. She's a maybe - with more voice training she might be able to make it.

Leah LaBelle. Didn't like her. She's still young and has potential, but I don't think this is her day. I also didn't like how she continued griping about Simon. The man's not the nicest guy on the block, but I think he gives pretty sharp advice. She should be mature enough to take feedback positively rather than shut out the words she doesn't like to hear, because at this stage in her life, she should grow.

Suzy Vulaca. She was the best female singer, though Jennifer runs a close second. She had stage presence; she chose a song which probably meant something to her in this show; she took Simon's advice well and he appreciated the effort. She has power and accuracy in her voice... and she looks a bit like Diana Ross. And - Paula liked her top. I think she could do a Whitney Houston much better than Katie. I can imagine her face on a few albums already.

Jennifer Hudson. I think she has a wonderful personality. She also has power, though it did fluctuate slightly. She picked a very good song to demonstrate her range and volume. I thought the pink dress slagging by Randy and Simon was overdone, but she could carry off something more fanciful next time. She will make it.

Matthew Metzger. Ugh. I'm sorry, but he didn't have a great voice, and he didn't pick a good song either. He didn't have enough power and pitch to pull it off, and it was a waste as the chorus could have been tremendous. I'm thinking he could have chosen something a little warmer and jazzier. However, he does have a nice smile. He could be a face model.

So I have three strong favourites, and one wild card of wild cards.

In a previous post I mentioned how the EOLAS patent could very well disrupt the way browsers work. Now I am glad to report that the US Patent Office has invalidated this patent, meaning that life can go on as normal, and Microsoft (among other brower makers) doesn't have to pay US$521 million in damages.

However there is a 60-day appeal period and I'm sure the company won't be sitting around waiting for big money to slip out of their hands when they could try, try again. A new battle is probably about to begin...

I've been out of the web design business for four months, and haven't received job offers from strangers ever since this blog was featured in the Computer Times a few years ago.

So I was a little surprised that someone emailed me today, saying he liked my designs on online T-shirt gallery-shop, Threadless.com, and asking me to redesign his company website, which happens to be in French. Monsieur wanted to know how long it would take, and stated that the final product would be a mockup.

But I never put anything up on Threadless.com. I logged in and sure enough, the system confirmed I had made no submissions. However it did show that my email address was visible to the public, which was not a good thing. The email was addressed simply as "Hi," without referring to my name. How remote could that be?

Next, what on earth makes Monsieur think I'd do a great job of his website, by simply looking at a T-shirt design? It must've been a kickass work of art. It's making me delusional. Now I'd like to think I did submit something many years ago under a pseudonymn which I've forgotten. Like, it's become some sort of cult legend and I don't even know about it.

Back to reality. I figure this guy has sent an evil bot to sift out our email addresses. He then goes around massaging the egos of various members of the design community, hoping to get a free ride in the process. I may be paranoid, but I'm not too sure if I should reply to his email.

Designers of the world, beware!

Another report of my unusually exciting weekend. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was excellent, as expected. I went to the concert with 3 church friends (two of them were the couple I mentioned in a previous post). Standing ovations and two encores, what can I say.

The programme confirmed some initial suspicions based on years of classical music training and 'appreciation' classes. I'm still so-so with Schubert but at least I was vaguely familiar with his Unfinished Symphony [here's a funny joke about it]. I still find Mozart a little flighty though those three movements were more tolerable than most other concerts I'd attended. And I still like Rimsky-Korsakov.

Looking at the Orchestra's schedule for Singapore, it seems that they changed their plans to play my most favourite piece, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major. Shucks.

Our stall seats were pretty good, if you're the sort who likes getting up close and personal. There was also enough space to fit a couple of deck chairs at the end - seriously. I could literally see the beads of sweat on maestro conductor Marcello Viotti's forehead. I could see the notes on the music scores. I could tell that a handful of musicians' faces were turning red under the light (or Singapore weather?). One bassist had white locks, reminding me of Santa Claus. The harp was huge, golden and ornate - almost divine. Never knew harps had pedals.

We spent our intermission time exploring the passageways in the concert hall. We could hear the Orchestra rehearsing in another chamber, through two 'vents' along the wall, at the frontmost part of the hall. Not that we could understand what they were joking about.

During the final rounds of applause, Viotti signalled for his star musicians to rise. One of my friends noticed that both flutists stood up. The conductor signalled for the second flutist to sit back down. Instead, the musician left in a huff. Fascinating. Anyway we had two encore performances; as expected they were trademark Strauss waltzes, loud and swift. An excellent evening.

Met up with Yams and Denzie last night. Gakkers (recently married) joined us later at the Dubliner's and showed us his wedding band. I actually did something that didn't involve 1) Computers 2) Housework!

This afternoon I had tea with the ladies, and we were joined by Shin and Wen (who is getting married soon). Yams would be leaving Singapore for home tomorrow so I was really glad to see her again.

After chatting for a while, I realised my knowledge of pop culture has shrunk to sub-zero levels, after years of deliberately not watching TV (save for the news and sports channels) and listening to local radio (fake accents, and not enough of my favourite music).

Some shockers:

• I didn't know Harry Potter's girlfriend was Chinese.
• I haven't watched a full espisode of Sex in the City (even while I was in the UK).
• I don't know the names of any actors in Buffy. Sarah Michelle-something?
• I have no idea who's been winning in any reality shows, after Survivor 2.

In my own lame defence, I have watched the William Hung video - only because they were showing it at a conference I attended recently.

But anyway. It was great catching up with people I hadn't seen in years. It was probably my most exciting weekend so far this year.

Got back from work at about 11pm, had a paltry leftover dinner, and finally got down to reading the newspapers!

So Kerry's had a near clean sweep of Super Tuesday. But Bush has a huge war chest. At the end of the day it will boil down to staying power - no point being ahead in the opinion polls now. Next thing to watch: Who's Kerry's Veep going to be? The New York Times has an unusual proposition: Bill Clinton.

And how on earth did Howard Dean win Vermont when he's left the campaign? Oh, it is Vermont, after all...

And Arnie's pushed through Resolutions 57 and 58 so there won't be 'armageddon' cuts in state spending. To quote him:

I love it when the people go to the polls and they flex their muscles and they let their voices be heard...

Funny how I imagined this scene from Tarzan...