Path Finder 4- Not enough reason to switch

I tried Path Finder 4 this morning. The useful features for me seem to be the drop space and the tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing is supposed to make it easier to transfer files but I still find it slower and more difficult than a two-column view like Total Commander.
It seems a little quicker for launching applications vs. launching from the application folder in dock. It's nice that you can copy text out of a document in preview mode.
Path Finder seems better than the Finder but not worth paying for or having to deal with using it as well as the Finder. I think I need to use it more to evaluate.

Bugs/Missing features
It can't undo file moves or renames. Not really sure what it can undo.

Mac security

Clamxav and Henwen
I looked into some mac software today. I downloaded Snort which monitors network traffic and Henwen which is a graphical interface to Snort. I also got Clamxav which is a virus checker. Clamxav takes a long time and has no pause button. I haven't detected anything so far.

Console
I tried to find a good log viewer for a while. I had forgotten about Console. I do think they could have named Console to have log in the title. Console is a bit short on features.

.hosts
I made some edits to my hosts file to block some time-wasting sites. There is evidently some synchronization problems with this. If you visit a site, block it in hosts file, close browser and reopen access will still be allowed. Clearing caches doesn't affect this. I guess this is not done by the browser but by some backend DNS service.

Common Criteria
I also installed the Common Criteria stuff from Apple. There isn't much documentation but it seems that all this does is install the Audit Log Viewer.


X-Statistics
Give some basic info from log files. I didn't find it useful.

Neooffice, Openoffice x11, and Abiword

I was annoyed by Neoffice's slowness so I took a quick look at the alternatives. Openoffice X11 had a very bad looking interface but even worse the font look jagged and distracting. It was faster.
Abiword has trouble with my document- letters are cutoff. There isn't much in the way of navigation besides a Table of Contents. I might be able to make it work if I saved as Rich Text. Very snappy performance.

T-amp vs. Panasonic reciever

I tried out the t-amp (@$20, low energy, small) against my Panasonic reciever (@$250, high energy, big) and there was no clear difference in quality. There may have been more presence on the Panasonic but I suspect it was modifying the signal.
If I were doing it again I'd get the t-amp. Now I'm not quite sure what I'll do with the Pansonic.

Panasonic sa-he100 amplifier- using with power strip causes overloar

Occasionally the amp was shutting off with an overloaded message. I would have thought that this would mean it was getting too much audio input. In reality it got better when I plugged the electricity directly into the wall.

Audio recording problems tonight

From the Behringer mixer there is a lot of hiss. If I have any of these above the middle I get it: Gain, level 1, and main mix. I have all the other inputs down.
These results occur whether or not the mic is on or even plugged in. It also does not matter whether I listen through headphone jack or main out.

I wasn't able to use Audacity's monitor function but then suddenly it started working. It may be that you have to start a new project or track.

It wasn't until I started recording that I had these systemuiserver problems.

Wrong directions

Sometimes when you are in a strange city you have to ask directions and the person, without complete confidence, sends you in the wrong direction. I always feel the same way after talking to tech support.

Unable to record this evening

Recording and any other efforts are shot for the evening. When I tried to record today nothing was showing up. The monitors within the software were showing sound coming in so it was a software issue. I talked to Apple Support an experience which as usual made me never want to deal with Apple again.
I refused to accept the first guy's answer that it was a microphone problem- (Sound could be seen in monitor waveforms and heard in the headphone monitors!).
I talked to a second guy and we did a lot of reboots and cord changes but no preference or system changes and eventually it worked. So neither of knows anything more about what caused it.

Performancing blog extension and keeping blogs synced

I'm finding Performancing easier to use than Blogger due to keeping posts persistent (not having to Publish or save as draft) and having a convenient history. Unfortunately editing the same post with both causes many extra line breaks.

I'm going to use this space for edits to other posts until I figure out what I'm going to do.
Garageband advantage- Because it exports to iTunes it has a syncing advantage.

Garageband vs. Audacity

Recording feels like an endless eye-doctor session. Do you like this one... or this one? This one... or this one.
Garageband's real-time filters can be a lot of fun but I'm starting to find a few features frustrating.

Garageband disadvantages

• Pausing recording. To pause you click the play button again this then creates a gap until the end of the measure. If you then record again it makes another section. You can join these two sections together but this is extra effort.
  
• Recording in correct track. I'm very often recording in the wrong track. I'm getting better about this. I would select a time within a track and think that would switch me to the instrument that is in that row.
  
• It would be nice if you could use metronome without recording.
• With Garageband muting and soloing tracks seems more difficult than it should be. Solo isn't really solo. When a solo is added then all other solo buttons are kept- it functions like a checkbox rather than a radio button. The mute button already functions like a checkbox.
  

Garageband advantages

• Adjusting for people's timing and tone problems- Due to my tin ear I'm having some trouble with detecting the changes in tone but it is very clear how it can moves songs toward the beat.
  
• Monitor works correctly- I haven't gotten the monitor function working with Audacity.
• Tuning feature- Tuning feature is useful for quickly figuring out what note you are playing.

Other notes

• There is quite a bit of background hiss that I need to find the source of.
• There are bad sounds with my 't's and 's's
• When I tune the guitar the strings are often sharp. I thought that strings over time, unless they are tightened, strings only went down in pitch.
• I wasn't sure how many beats/min to say the song was. I was able to use Metrognome to tap it out.
• There are two disadvantes to the in-ear headphones I'm using. A lot of the original sound come through so it is harder to get an accurate picture of what recording will sound like. Also some sound escapes the headphones and is picked-up during recordings.
  

Behringer uB502

If I was doing it over I would probably get the m-audio.

• Simplicity- Having one less cord would simplify this setup.


• Power- Since its bus-powered it would not use electricity when not in use. Behringer doesn't even have power/switch.
  
  


• Portability- The total weight including the powerbrick is probably quite a bit more.


• Multi-track- so possible to record two separate tracks at once and have two tracks go into computer.


• Sound isolation- no interference from laptop.


• Quality- m-audio's sound processing is no doubt better than the laptop's.
  
  

Sound recording

After fixing three problems, I got my computer to record yesterday. I'm using a Behringer UB502 mixer with a Sennheiser e825s microphone. The tape outs don't work using outputs from the mainline fixed this. I had to change the sound input in system preferences. Because Audacity only showed one option for sound input this made me forget about other options. Finally the gain had to be turned up quite high.
I kind of expected there would be that microphone hum but there is really no sound when I'm not speaking.
I'm dealing with a mess of wires.

Audacity
I'm still using Audacity to record. Their webpages have a good amount of general recording advice they also suggest Shure microphones such as the sm57 and sm58.
Shure's website has much more support for users

Audacity made the most sense for crappy recordings since it was so light weight.
I haven't tried Garageband again yet. But I may continue to use Audacity unless I find the UI confusing.

Bugs- The mac install is poor. The help file doesn't install. Also the folders are packaged outside of the app. This means I created a new folder somewhere in the applications subtree to house everything instead of in the main folder.
Metrognome
Metrognome is the best of the metronome programs I downloaded. It does sound like the beta version of audacity has a click track. Might be cool to see how the clicks match with my sounds in the waveform.

Is search making organizational document editors obsolete?

I was looking at Notational Velocity and thinking about looking at Voodoo pad but I'm wondering if search has made these irrelevant. I think it is still relevant on the web because you don't know what is available. If I wrote it though I know it exists even if I don't remember what I thought about it or where it is.

Cable reception problem

We have cable so it seemed odd that we would have a reception problem and what was even more odd was that it only affected the network channels. Since the signals all came from the source I couldn't understand it.
It turns out the problem came from having the ethernet cable box next to the cable line. I still don't know why it only affected the networks.

RSS on Firefox

It would be nice if I could get an RSS reader in Firefox. Using Vienna is nice but since I end up wanting to browse in Firefox it feels like I'm interrupting my train of thought if I go through all of the rss and then go through the windows in Firefox. Switching back and forth between each is even worse.
Also having two less icons showing up in my crowded dock would be nice.
Still Wizz is not good because it doesn't give short descriptions or have a preview pane.
Vienna does sync well with Safari but if you use Safari you already have a good integrated RSS reader.

I want to restrict my internet access

I want to restrict my internet access to an hour a day and still retain the admin rights to my com puter. Is this possible?

Google Base as a cure for Amazon

I wrote a book review on Amazon this morning and never posted it. I don't like turning over my thoughts, howerver sloppy, to anyone. I trust Amazon not to be like some sites -taking user-submitted information under a free model and then charging for it. But this isn't good enough. I'm not even sure I'd be allowed to reprint one of my reviews here.
On the other hand it doesn't do much good for a review to languish on an isolated site. Google Base may be the solution. You retain your data and it allows group reviewing of the same work. There is no system for rating others' submissions yet but that may come or be developed by a third-party.
Update: I reread the Amazon agreement and it said that their rights are non-exclusive.

iView, Finder, Shoebox, Qpict

Requirements
Image managing software should not create a second copy of files. Have robust meta-data editing capabilities. Not keep your data- data this program generates should be accessible to other programs.

iView
Bad
Does not allow partial deqownloads
Does not adjust if underlying image is moved
Not allow common keyboard shortcuts such as Get Info
Company Website RSS feed is invalid
Annotation does not affect original files. But pro version 3 does have XML export.

Good
Doesn't create its own copy
Fast!

Finder
Doesn't allow the editing of meta-data of multiple files. Disqualifier.
No second copy.

Shoebox
Shoebox would be great if it weren't buggy. It allows the creation of heirarchical metadata with many preset categories. Has ability to do inverted selections. Unfortunately, no matter what filter I use I am seeing every image.
Other problems:
No RSS on site so I won't be able to tell if these problem get fixed. I added it in VersionTracker to check for updates.
Many negative reviews on VersionTracker.
Unresponsive customer support.
Pictures with no place data. (? Not sure what I meant here.)


Qpict
Keeps your data. Can't add keywords to spotlight. There is an XML export but who can import this XML?
Help is only offline.

Note:
Do apps work fine if left as a disk image? I kind of like not moving things to application folder while evaluating them.

Casio ex-z750

Light usage
Does the Casio need more light than my old Canon? Taking the same shot at ISO 400 f2.8 the Casio shoots at 1/15 while Canon s400 shoots at 1/30. Camera monitor indicates white balance better on Casio, is the loss of light there?
I forgot if you double megapixels you'll decrease the light.

Note taking
I've use the camera for far more note-taking than pictures. It is quick to start a new recording and can record for hours. There are issues. The sound quality is poor and the files large. It would help my organization if I could pause the recording instead of making many separate files.

Image stabilization
The camera's biggest flaw is the lack of image stabilization.

Samsung PM-a840

I got a new Samsung phone. It is light, small, and more nicely designed than most of their products. Some things it does poorly are photos and hand writing recognition. The manual is very incomplete. The Sprint website supposedly has a feature that will allow me to enter my contacts there but I wasn't able to use it yesterday.
Update: It turns out they were migrating their website. There was no information on this- they just let the site hang. After the move it was still not clear. There was an address book under PCS mail but it didn't show any way to sync with phone. After calling Sprint it turns out that this is done under the Voice dialing section. Sync is not currently working there- it looks like due to the website move.
I get better reception with this phone- the old one was nearly unusable in the house. I had to go to specific locations (which changed day-to-day) and stay there to make the call. This still occurs but is better.

Phone continues to work well. The voice memo comes in handy- although there is a limit of 10 memos. The features I use are phone, memo, and alarm.