A Day That Will Live In Infamy

Taking a moment here to remember the lives lost in the tragic and malicious attack on Pearl Harbor.

I was blessed with the opportunity to visit Oahu in 2001 and the biggest impact made on me was by the memorial to the USS Arizona. It was a very somber place and (nearly) everyone on the tour was quiet and respectful while visiting the monument. I think that such monuments help us to remember that freedom in this world is often paid for in blood and that the pursuit of peace, while not always possible, should be done in earnest. We should also not take lightly, and support, those who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us.

T-Mobile WiFi Phone Service…Or Lack Thereof

I’m taking a moment away from my normal train of topic to tell you a little about my experience with T-Mobile’s new WiFi cell phones. My brother and I decided to try out the new service about two months ago and gave up using our Motorola Razr V3 models to trade to a Blackberry (for him) and a Samsung T-409 (mine). The Nokia T6806 was the only other choice offered and after carefully comparing it against the Samsung I was convinced that Samsung has a better built product. I won’t go into the reasons why here but one of the big things was that it literally ‘felt’ cheap. Nokia makes great phones to be sure but this thing felt like a toy. No thanks!! Once I got into the the Samsung I started missing nice features that the Razr has like the ability to change button placement and function shortcuts. This thing has no such abilities and requires that you work ‘their’ way. Lack of customization is a big thing to miss once you’ve had it (go Moto!!!). On the other hand the camera is better, the speaker phone is better, the buttons feel better…..the display numbers are big enough to read from more than 6 feet away even when the screen goes to the dim mode for power savings. The battery runs down faster than the Moto and that is a bit disappointing. The power charger/USB-data/earphone connector is lousy and non-standard…..unlike the Moto.

My problem with the phone, the big one, it is similar to my brother’s problem but is more related to simply having the connection drop when an incoming call occurs. What happens is this, I’m on the WiFi talking with someone and an incoming call occurs…..but the phone drops the one call, switches to the other network and then takes the other incoming call….without any interaction from me. Worse, it happens the other way as well if another incoming call occurs while talking to the new caller….the exact same way. Occasionally it just drops the other network and the caller and then connects back to the WiFi. This happens a lot but unfortunately it does not happen 10 times out of10 this way. In other words, it does not fail consistently….just often. Occasionally the phone just drops a call for no good reason and connects to the other network. This is just plain discouraging. Such are the problems of early adopters. Too bad T-Mobile does not recognize how bad their service, or their phone software, is.

Update: I should add that the phone has three different alarm settings that have now all but eliminated my alarm clock.  Very effective.  I never even used the one on the Moto-Razr as I wasn’t aware it had the feature.

Here are a couple of pics of my phone from the T-Mobile site.

Update: 8-08

Having now used this phone for about 9 months I wanted to comment on my experience again.  I NEVER use the Wifi feature (the original reason for getting this) but depend on this as my alarm clock both at home and when traveling.  The camera, while still better than the Moto-Razr, has been replaced by the purchase of a Canon A580 (awesome and cheap!), and I’m still disappointed by the proprietary USB/Power jack.

Fostex 16 channel Model 450

This is my Fostex Model 450 16 channel board. It was made in the mid-late 80’s for the so-called ‘high end’ home studio market. It IS a nice board but is mostly cheap plastic and the faders are not high on quality. The sound is not bad though for the $100 it cost me and the 3 hours or so it took to clean all the pots. Not having to re-patch is a real blessing. This is what I have connected via the Behringer UCA202 to my PC.

On another note, I have owned a couple of other Fostex devices and do NOT generally recommend them. Their customer service group is a joke.   Unless you’ve already worked with a piece of Fostex gear and know it’s reliability I would not recommend that you get one of their products. I will upgrade from this board the next opportunity that I get as I need a board that takes up less space and have no requirement for bus assigns.

In the meantime I’m giving the board to a young friend of mine who is interested in getting educated in sound and composes some weird, yet interesting music.  I’ll link to him soon as I get the board to him.

fostex 450 manual

Yamaha MQ1602 Inside The Board

I thought it might be fun to show what the inside of this mixer looks like. I acquired this board last year and gave it to a friend after I cleaned it up but also took a couple of pics first.