The Apogee ONE

I will occasionally write reviews here of products that I’m particularly enthusiastic about, or which I find myself using frequently. The Apogee ONE is just such a product: it’s a very high quality digital audio interface (I just made my high-school English teacher cringe by stringing five adjectives before a noun).

But first: what the heck is a digital audio interface anyway?

Simply put, it’s a device that translates an audio signal (for example, the sound of my voice captured by a microphone) and converts it into a digital signal that can be processed by a computer. Specifically, this little device has an input (actually multiple inputs, though you can only use one at a time) and a USB output that plugs into your computer (specifically, your Macintosh—I don’t believe that Apogee supports Windows PCs). Let’s say you want to record a podcast; you’d plug in the digital audio interface into your computer via its USB port, then plug a microphone into the audio interface, then start your recording program (Garageband or Logic Pro for me) and record something.

Sure, you could use your computer’s built-in microphone, but an external mic is almost always a higher quality. For example, you can use a directional mic that will only pick up your voice, and not all the rest of the noise in the room. The reason you use a digital audio interface, and the reason that some people will pay large amounts of money for one, is because you want to have a very high quality recording. Specifically, you want to have fidelity, a fancy word derived from the Latin word for “faithful.” You want the recording to sound as much like the original as possible.

That’s what the Apogee ONE does; it maintains a very high quality digital signal that’s faithful to whatever you plug into it. More importantly, it does so in a very simple manner.

Here's how I set up the Apogee ONE for podcasting.

Let’s talk about inputs: first, you don’t really need one. The Apogee ONE has a built-in microphone, which is a rarity in the world of digital audio interfaces. Specifically, it has an “internal reference condenser microphone that has been fine-tuned by professional recording engineers.” Whatever. The fact is, it’s a very good microphone by itself. Most of the voiceovers you hear on my podcast are captured using only the Apogee ONE.

Second, it has a “break-out cable” into which you can plug either a standard 1/4″ plug (such as a guitar cable) or any XLR device (most professional microphones use an XLR input). If you’re using a condenser microphone, it can optionally supply the standard +48V phantom power required to drive them.

There are two other plugs on the device: one is for the USB cable that connects to your Mac, and the other is for a headphone or speakers. The latter is important; many applications (for example, Logic Pro) assume that any audio interface you’re using will be handling the output as well as the inputs (Garageband is a bit smarter, in that it lets you set them independently).

Finally, on the front of the device, there’s a single large knob. Depending on the context, it either lets you select the input device (internal mic, external mic, external instrument, or external mic with phantom power) or set the gain level for the selected microphone. There are also a pair of LEDs (invisible during normal operation) that show amber when you’ve reached peak level, and red when you’ve exceeded it.

When you’re not using it, the device and all the associated cables pack up into a little stretchy carrying case. It’s given me trouble-free operation (with very high quality) for almost a year now, and at least 15 episodes of my podcast. It’s available at Amazon (and other retailers) for about $249.00.

Tascam Digital Pocketstudio DP-008

I’ve used Logic Studio, GarageBand, and a host of other multi-track recording systems before and, in all honesty, Logic and Garageband are probably much more suited for professional use. But the simplicity of the Pocketstudio makes it wonderful for experimentation and composing, and basically just “messing around” with music. It’s not going to replace the high-end, computer-controlled systems, but its ease of use gives it a special niche.

For example, if I want to record a guitar track, all I really need to do is to turn it on. It has two built-in microphones on the front of the unit, and they do a perfectly adequate job. For better quality, however, I can plug the guitar into the 1/4″ input socket in the back, and this eliminates extraneous noise.

With Logic, for example, there’s a ton of overhead for even a simple recording. From ensuring that the audio interface is connected to setting up tracks in the software, there’s a ton of complexity. With the Pocketstudio, it’s just plug-in and go. Frankly, a (small) number of knobs and buttons is a much simpler interface than trying to use a mouse to navigate through multiple levels of menus on the computer screen.

The DP-008 lets you record two tracks at once (i.e., you can’t record a full band all at the same time). It records to a standard SDHC card (I’m using a 16GB model, which lets me record hours upon hours of music). The back has 2x XLR mic inputs (phantom-powered if desired), 2x 1/4″ guitar/bass/mic inputs, a 1/4″ plug for a foot switch, a 1/8″ headphone jack and volume control. Side ports include the SDHC card slot, USB port, and a socket for an optional power adapter.

Tascam also has a four-track model that’s significantly cheaper (and is actually almost pocket-sized), but is missing the XLR inputs and balanced outputs of the 8-track version.

Here’s a sample track that I put together in under 30 minutes yesterday (this would have taken hours in Logic). It includes 2x ukulele tracks, 2x vocals, plus a rhythm track.

All the stuff that I usually have with me

Clockwise (from top left): wallet, iPhone 3Gs, guitar pick, Citizen Nighthawk watch, fountain pen, external microphone (enhanced video/audio recording with the iPhone), a Yahoo!-branded Jawbone Bluetooth headset, keys, eyeglass cloth, Buck knife, change, small Leatherman flashlight, another key, and my trusty Levenger pocket briefcase.

With great fanfare, Facebook announced Places yesterday, their version of the somewhat popular geo-location services that haven’t really swept the nation. Like their competitors/partners Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, Yelp!, and a few others, the idea is that you can, from your mobile device, “check in” to a location and let your friends/stalkers know where you are.

Facebook Places; no check ins allowed

There’s just one problem: they left out the “Check in” button. Either that, or I’m too stupid to use their application. When I run it, I get a screen that shows me where some of my friends are, so it’s obviously working for them, but it sure isn’t working for me.

According to their FAQ, the application is “available to users in the United States.” I suppose it’s possible that I’ve been transported outside the US, or that California seceded from the Union in the last 12 hours, but I think I would have heard about that.

So this is the review that I would have written had the product I would have written about actually worked.

In all honesty, however, I’m sure it’s a really, really great feature. I have no idea why the “Check In” button is not available; presumably some technical issues with Facebook.

It’s not creepy at all. If it is, then the San Francisco Chronicle has instructions on how to opt-out of having your location shared.

(My favorite part is the final ukulele solo as it fades out.)

It’s very creative, and it’s an insightful look into the process required to produce something of this quality. If you’ve ever been involved in professional music production, you’ll understand that much goes on “behind the scenes,” and this video gives you some insight into that.

The new version (2.1.1) makes no mention of the power issue in the release notes, but it does mention these new features:

• You can now disable IM alerts
• The dialpad is now more responsive (ed: I wonder what that means?)
• The behavior of the volume, when Skype interacts with other apps, is better
• When your status is set to Do Not Disturb, notifications are not shown when the app is running in the background.

I suppose its possible that these may have addressed the power consumption issue, and a brief (30 minute) test this morning did not show any unusual power drop while running Skype in the background, so it’s possible this may have been fixed as a bug.

I plan on running Skype in the background today, so I can give you a full update later.

I think it’s worth pointing out that Skype is not really focusing on its iPhone app. If you visit the main Skype site (link above) and click the “Go mobile” link, you’re treated to a page discussing Verizon, Blackberry, and Android 3G. There’s a small button at the bottom of the page for “Other mobile solutions” that takes you to a page where you can choose Skype for either iPhone or Symbian. In addition, Skype has been extremely slow (compared to other app developers) in responding to iOS updates and hardware changes such as the new iPhone 4.

Kodak DC20

In August, 1996, I purchased my first digital camera, a Kodak DC20. This was, in fact, one of the very first (if not the first) “consumer” digital cameras. It was well within my price range at the time, which was indeed rather limited.

Unlike today’s digital cameras, this little gem did not have a built-in LCD display, high-speed USB transfer (USB had not been invented yet), a flash, or any of the other features we consider normal. Its resolution was measured in kilopixels, not megapixels, with a maximum photo size of 320×240 pixels. It connected with the computer via a serial cable terminated with what appeared to be a 1/8″ headphone plug. There was not an electronically-generated shutter sound; instead, there was a reassuring but mysteriously mechanical “thunk” when you pressed the shutter button. It would hold approximately 20 images, even at that low resolution.

Nonetheless, that camera captured some of the most important moments in my life. We had moved to England earlier in 1996, and so the Kodak’s digital images record much of our wanderings and explorations in and around the area where we were living. It also captured my son, age 5, on his first day of school.

Some of the best images from that camera are included below, in their full original size and glory.

It’s actually a fairly straightforward way of enhancing and customizing an existing theme; it’s better than hacking at the original theme’s code because, should that theme get updated, your changes would be lost.

I have a website called the Daily Funnies where I’ve used this technique. In this case, the parent theme is called Genesis, a theme framework. If you follow that link, you’ll see that the basic Genesis theme is black and white. It offers very flexible page layouts, however, and is easy to customize.

I created a new theme called “Funnies.” This theme consists of a single file, style.css, that includes the parent Genesis stylesheet and then overrides some of the specific style rules. For example, I changed the navigation bar from black to a dark green, and then used green for links and other components of the site. The result is as you see it here:

the Daily Funnies

(Note that, by the time you look at it, it might have changed a bit, as I am continuing to play with it.)

In addition to replacing or extending the stylesheet, you can use child themes to add new PHP functions (in the file functions.php) or even to replace the existing templates (for example, you might replace the home page with a new layout).

"Dante's Gates of Hell" by Flickr user Trey Ratcliff

I’ve used WordPress for my personal blog for a several years (I’ve also played with TypePad and various other blogging systems, but that’s beside the point). In my job at Yahoo!, our bloggers got along with various home-brew systems for a several years, so we decided to move most of our professional bloggers to WordPress.

Many people have called WordPress a serious, enterprise-class blogging application (I’m not going to cite any sources here, mainly because I don’t fully agree with it). Yahoo!, of course, has a somewhat different opinion about what is a truly world-class solution for performance, security, and integrity.

WordPress is a best-of-breed blogging platform, which is why we chose it to use at Yahoo! It does, however, have serious architectural and structural problems that had to be overcome before it could be fully accepted as part of Yahoo’s Media infrastructure.

The story of how we created a highly scalable, fully redundant, extremely secure installation of WordPress at Yahoo! is the subject of a presentation that I have proposed for the South By Southwest Interactive festival in March, 2011.

Before that presentation makes it to the conference, however, it has to be voted on by the conference attendees. If you’d like to hear about this, go to the South By Southwest PanelPicker and vote! The presentation is called ”WordPress and Yahoo!: a marriage made in hell.”

I am not a hugely political beast. I am a registered Republican, and there are times when I regret that. I find that my personal opinions tend toward the middle of the road, and both Democrats and Republicans are often too extreme for me. And, I’m sure I don’t fully agree with Dan on everything, but I respect him as a person, as a business person, and as a thoughtful politician who earnestly desires to do good. He’s running a “come from behind” campaign against a well known, well-financed, and thoroughly experienced incumbent, Zoe Lofgren, and he has a lot of work to do to win this election.

A political campaign, especially for one as high-profile as a run for Congress, is essentially a non-profit business. It’s a business, however, that’s only operating for a very short time; in this case, the work of the campaign will be over by November 3rd.

Like all businesses, it needs a certain amount of infrastructure and technology to keep things running. In addition to setting up and managing Dan’s website (running WordPress 3.0.1, by the way), I’ve set up Google Apps on his domain, so that we now all have unified email, calendaring, and document sharing. I’ve set up a virtual phone system using My1Voice, and I’m running his Facebook page and his Twitter account, both of which get automatically generated posts via TwitterFeed.

I’ve still got a to-do list a mile long, and very little time to get things done. However, I have to admit that there’s a ton of free or low-cost applications out there on the web that can handle the vast amount of things we need to do. We’ve already hit some headaches—for example, we discovered a bug in Google Docs where, instead of creating a new document for you, it redirects you to a help page if you happen to be signed in to more than one Google account at the moment. My personal goal, however, is to be unnoticed; if I do my job well, then things should just work, and Dan can focus on the important issues of running his campaign.

Hollywood has used this technique with great success; look at the recent reboot of the Star Trek movie franchise. A wormhole, some time travel, and the whole scenario starts over from scratch.

I’ve maintained a blog, off and on (mostly off), since 2003. It’s been a random collection of, well, crap. Some of it very, very good crap (if I may say so myself), but most of it crap, plain and simple.

So consider this a reboot of my blog. My old blog content still exists, though it’s moved to a permanent archive site. It’s searchable, and there is still stuff of value there, but I’m going to focus my efforts here.

“Focus” is a very important word: one of the problems with a blog like mine is that it was very unfocused: mostly a random collection of stuff I found here and there, and things I wanted to rant about. Here, I’m going to try to be more focused: I really am interested in the intersection of technology and our society, and I want to keep things focused on that.

I also want to be more consistent in my updates. I cannot guarantee a new post per day, nor a new post a week, even, but I do hope to do better than I did before. And I invite your participation and feedback as, together, we explore new worlds, search out new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.

Urbanears Plattan headphones, army green

I’ve now been using these headphones for more than a week and, quite frankly, it’s pretty upsetting. A few years ago, I paid more than $300.00 for a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise canceling headphones, and I’m seriously thinking of throwing them away.

Don’t get me wrong: the Bose headphones aren’t terrible. But the bass is so amplified, so overwhelming, that the impression I get from them after hearing the Urbanears is that everything sounds muddy. The Bose have the advantage of noise cancellation, which actually works very well if there are repetitive, droning sounds (like a window fan, and air conditioner, or airplane engines). And the Bose are extraordinarily comfortable; I could wear those for hours and never get tired of the feel. The Urbanears have a tendency to pinch my ears after an hour or so, and the material of the cushioning is more like vinyl than leather so that my ears get sticky and sweaty after a bit.

I also had the opportunity to compare the Urbanears with a pair of Sony headphones in roughly the same price range; very similar in sound, though I think the Urbanears are a bit brighter and have more clarity (and my friend who loaned me the Sonys agrees).

My summary of the Urbanears:

• Pros: Absolutely superb sound clarity and reproduction, approaching the quality of the best studio headphones and monitors I’ve used; elegant design; foldable; spare plug on the side lets a friend connect and share the music with you; microphone and button to let you use them with the iPhone (adapters for Nokia phones or simple stereo plugs are also provided).
• Cons: tends to pinch and get sweaty after a while; no active noise cancellation; makes me hate my $349 Bose headphones.

All in all, a very good value for $60.00.

Urbanears Plattan headphones in Yellow

This afternoon, I came home to find a package from Sweden waiting for me. It was a pair of Urbanears “Plattan” headphones that I had ordered a few weeks ago.

Urbanears is an upstart headphone company; they say that

Urbanears is a collective out of Scandinavia, motivated by a common interest in global relationships and shared involvement in the relevance of the living brand. Urbanears promotes a deeper connection to color, form and people while providing the freedom to transcend individuality and unify the sound experience.

High ideals, certainly, and they’re certainly eye-catching, but how do they sound?

I’ll have to admit that my very first impression wasn’t good. I had been listening to my $349 Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones at work, and my initial impression was that the sound was very flat with the Urbanears. After flipping between several songs on my favorite playlist, I soon decided that these weren’t flat; the Bose headphones were indeed very muddy, with artificially-enhanced bass and poor quality high tones.

Having spent some time in a recording studio, the best analogy I can make is that these sound like a set of highly-balanced studio monitors, with an extremely flat response. I can hear high notes better with these than I ever had with the Bose. The clarity is amazing, at least to my aging ears.

I don’t think these are for everyone. If you live for the thump of the artificially-enhanced bass lines in some music, you probably won’t like these. If you like classical, jazz, or more complex music, you’ll probably appreciate the clarity.

This is just my initial impression, so I hope to report back in a few weeks to see how they stand up to repeated use.

Note: some minor corrections based on comments.

Robert Scoble hits the nail on the head when he says that, “On my phone I only use voice about 5% of the time I use my iPhone.” He was responding to Louis Gray’s post on how he switched from iPhone to Android.

It amuses me to hear the ongoing debates about call quality on AT&T vs. Verizon vs. Sprint, etc. My personal experience is, of course, nearly irrelevant (since my personal experience may have little to do with how you or someone else experiences it), but I’ve been with AT&T for 10 years now and cannot yet find a reason to change.

I live in a house in the hills east of the Santa Clara Valley. The nearest cell towers (of any variety) are over 3 miles away. I get one bar of signal strength no matter which carrier I use. When I had an Amazon Kindle (which uses SprintVerizon for its “Whispernet” service), I often had difficulties downloading books to it. Recently, I’ve installed an AT&T 3G Microcell in my home, and I now get 5 barsstars. Likewise, at work, there is an AT&T repeater. In addition, since AT&T is a partner of Yahoo!, we get a substantial employee discount on service. So, you see, I have a huge number of incentives to stick with AT&T. In addition to that, however, is the fact that I’ve almost never had connectivity problems; I suppose that, if I lived in downtown San Francisco where I competed with tens of thousands of other users, I might have problems, but I don’t.

But, to return to the original discussion—I use my iPhone so rarely as a phone, the carrier is nearly irrelevant. I use Skype on my MacBook Pro more often for voice communication than I use my iPhone. Unlike Robert Scoble and Louis Gray, I don’t have companies tossing various models of Android at me to let me try them for a few weeks, so I can’t compare. But the essence of my argument is that, for many “mobile professionals,” the telephone carrier is almost irrelevant. Both AT&T and Verizon are “good enough,” and we should be making our purchase decisions on other factors, such as the battery life (which seems to stink on every so-called “smart phone”).

Louis Gray agrees when he points out that the call quality isn’t what moved him from iPhone:

Yes, AT&T has been dramatically underdelivering in terms of quality and functionality, but this did not drive me away from Apple as much as the lack of choice did.

If you are a person who spends most of his or her time on the phone, then call quality should be a determining factor in which phone you purchase. For the rest of us, the user experience, battery life, underlying platform, and so-called “ecosystem” of applications and support are vastly more important than which carrier we choose.

Practice makes perfect

Actually, a better phrase is “Practice makes permanent, so always practice perfect.” It’s astonishing to me how often someone will give a presentation when it’s obvious that they haven’t looked at it in months, if at all. Nothing reduces your credibility quite like saying, “Huh, I didn’t know that,” when the slide of last quarter’s sales figures comes up on the screen. Always make sure you run through your slides in a rehearsal before you present, or otherwise you’ll look like a loon. A rehearsal, by the way, does not mean merely skimming through and reading silently; you actually need to plan on saying what you’re going to say in the presentation (see the next tip).

When you rehearse, you should pretend that you’re actually presenting; make sure you allow time for questions, and make sure that you know how long the presentation will take. You look like a fool if you are on slide 31 of 60 when you’ve reached the end of your allotted half-hour and there’s a crowd of people standing outside waiting to use the conference room. You should know, within 10%, exactly how long your presentation takes.

Don’t read the fucking slides

Is there anything more annoying than having someone put up a slide that says, “Sales increased in the last quarter,” and then to say, “Sales increased in the last quarter,” as if the audience is composed of fucking idiots who cannot read? If you’re going to read the fucking slide, then just create a PDF version and email it to everyone at the meeting and save us all an hour.

Use presentation mode

Every commercially-available presentation software has a mode for editing or creating slides, and another one for presenting them. If you’re presenting, then put the damned thing in presentation mode. I watched a presentation the other day where the presenter kept it in edit mode the whole time, sometimes accidentally moving text blocks off the screen while he was attempting to point out things on the page.

Turn off interruptions

Yes, I know you use Gtalk and Yahoo! IM and IRC and who knows what, but turn them off when you’re presenting. You’re trying to impress people with your professionalism, not give them a laugh when your best friend messages you during the meeting with, “Damn, I just farted and the whole building smells bad.”

Turn off your cell phone. You can’t keep other people from interrupting you with their tinny version of “Don’t Stop Believing,” but you don’t have to inflict that on everyone.

Turn off your email notifications. Do you really want, “New message: Are you as hot as I am right now?” popping up during your presentation to the CFO?

Don’t turn off your screen

Seriously. Most people have their laptops set so that the screen will go dark after some minutes of inactivity. It’s quite common to get involved answering a question, and then suddenly have the screen go dark. It’s hugely distracting; people’s attention is suddenly diverted to the now-dark screen while the presenter frantically wiggles his or her mouse or trackpad, trying to get it to come back on. With some projectors, it will take a minute or two to warm back up again.

If you have a Mac, get Caffeine. This is a little utility that looks like a coffee cup that sits in your menu bar. Click it, and it will turn black, and your screen will no longer automatically turn off. Click it again, and it will turn white, and everything will work normally. I’m sure there’s a similar utility for Windows, or just right-click on the desktop and change the screen settings to not automatically dim/turn off the screen.

Be prepared

Finally, make sure you know how to connect your laptop to the projector. If they projector uses a VGA connector and your laptop has a DVI, then make sure you have an adapter. If your laptop and presentation software supports dual screens, then make sure that the presenter screen is on the laptop and the main presentation is on the overhead screen. Arrive a few minutes early, if possible. It’s stupid and expensive to have a group of highly-paid professionals sitting around while you impress them with your skills or lack thereof in attempting to get everything working.

If you follow all these tips, praise and promotions are sure to follow.