Reviews of Things I Have

I got my My Book (is that how you would say that?) awhile back, mostly just for Time Machine backups on my Mac. I’ve had hard drives die on me before, and nothing sucks worse than losing your all your work, music, and data.

The drive has a rotation speed of 7200 RPM. The version I got, the Triple Interface, features USB, Firewire, and eSATA connectivity. I use Firewire for its speed and to keep my USB hub less tangled.

While multiple capacities are available, I opted for the 1TB version, and partitioned it so 250GB would be used for Time Machine backups and the rest would be free, open storage.

It is ” hot-swappable” and, more or less, plug-and-play. Though you will have to format it for whatever particular system you’re using.

The software the hard drive comes with will probably be useless to you. In fact, the useless Western Digital software icon still clutters up my menu bar, seemingly completely unable to be uninstalled.

Even still, the Western Digital My Book Home Edition External Hard Drive (1TB, Triple Interface) works wonderfully, certainly helps to ease my mind, and didn’t put the dent in my wallet that other comparable drives could have.

The other day at work I needed to do some intensive, non-Notepad HTML work but found myself at a computer without Adobe DreamWeaver. So what did I do? I grabbed a copy of KompoZer, the open source WYSIWYG HTML editor based on the now defunct Nvu.

There are other free alternatives to DW, like the old Netscape Composer or even the version of FrontPage Express that came bundled with IE4 (I actually used it as my editor of choice years after IE updated). KompoZer is noteworthy in that, despite its lack of price tag, it is feature rich and gives DreamWeaver, a very expensive program, a run for its money.

Here are some quick pros and cons I wrote down as I was using it:

Pros:

• Tabbed WYSIWYG, Source, TAG, and Preview work areas
• HTML color coding
• CaScadeS CSS editor applies in real time
• All the standard object and formatting buttons and shortcuts
• DreamWeaver-like selectable tag hierarchy
• Spell check (not on by default)

Cons:

• Saving your work changes the view from source to normal
• Pasting rows bug
• Lots of automatic styling in tables and images
• Minor arrow text navigation bug
• No automatic HTML tag closing like DW
• Minor table cell align bugs (un-checking a box doesn’t revert to default)
• Selecting content between tables bug
• Automatic markup cleaner, while nice, removes empty lines used to better interpret code

Granted, those rough lists aren’t quite a thorough dissection of this rich and well-worked program, but, as you can see, the software is not without its bugs. They’re mostly minor, like source code not displaying properly as you navigate around, but they will get on your nerves.

Okay, verdictville. Is this program worth its salt? Definitely. How does it compare to its big brother from Adobe? It’s close, but not quite as good.

KompoZer is a great WYSIWYG HTML editor for quick, simple work. If you haven’t the dough for something better, it’s well worth a look.

http://kompozer.net/

The Boss DR-5 is essentially a drum machine for guitar players. It features a wealth of famous Roland drum sounds, including the essential TR-808. In addition to the large assortment of drum sounds, the DR-5 also contains various pianos, strings, synths and other instruments.

The pad layout should be comforting to any guitarist, due to the pads being arranged like a fretboard. Basically, there are six strings and six frets, and you can use arrow keys to move up and down the fretboard. This is especially useful for those of us that have specific fretboard patterns we are comfortable with, and the translation from guitar is really quite intuitive.

The DR-5 also features a guitar tuner and amp simulation, both of which work quite well. A rather interesting and quirky bonus is the ability to control the synth banks with any electric guitar. The tracking isn’t phenomenal, but if you have high output pickups and only play single, staccato notes – it’s actually quite usable, and a great feature for those of us who’d like to use synth sounds with our guitars but don’t want to pony up for the Roland guitar synth.

In addition to the guitar-oriented aspects, you can also do multi-track arrangement on the DR-5, and save songs for later use. I haven’t delved too far into this, as it requires extensive manual reading and I don’t really plan to use this feature. From what I can tell, this unit can be used as a 4-track audio recorder, as well.

MIDI is present, so you may use an external midi controller to operate the DR-5, or use the DR-5 as a MIDI out. I plan to use it as the latter, for recording purposes.

With the Turbo Start guide from Roland’s website, I was able to quickly perform all of the functions it described, without any issues. However, I imagine that to truly delve into the total functionality of this unit would be quite a chore – it’s one of the least user friendly pieces of gear I’ve ever owned.

The Boss DR-5 – cool, weird and kinda hard to use.

I had myself an Angry Whopper from Burger King for lunch the other day, and, let me tell you, it may have been the angriest sandwich I have ever purchased.

The whole thing was sort of a mess, and it left me feeling confused, bloated, and on the verge of implosion.

For those who are unaware, the Angry Whopper is a BK Whopper hamburger with the traditional fixings, plus pepperjack cheese, jalapeños, “Angry Sauce,” and “Angry Onions.” (The last two items are what give the sandwich its upset personality, and, as far as I can tell, are on no other items in the Burger King Menu.) I think mine may have had bacon on it too. I don’t recall; my memory is blurry.

The jalapeños were spicy but not too spicy. The sauce was pretty hot as well but equalized a bit by the mayonnaise. The “Angry Onions” were comparably somewhat spicy and may or may not have been mostly/entirely synthetic like maraschino cherries… I didn’t question it.

Like many fast food items, the first bite of the Angry Whopper was ravenous. The second, slower but still determined. The third, cautious and modest. And so on and so on, until the last bite was taken as if it were the desperate, final lashing of a cruel and merciless torturing.

In conclusion, I give the Angry Whopper from Burger King 1 “Oh, my God, what did I just eat?” and 2 “Uhhhgggg, why do I do this to myself?”s.

Also, the fries were a little too greasy.

The Korg CA-30 is a chromatic tuner for guitar, bass, and other instruments. Since it is chromatic (not confined to any one scale or set of notes), it is especially good for ukuleles, violins, mandolins, or any other instrument outside the traditional E-A-D-G-B-E monotony.

It features a built-in microphone for acoustic guitar, along with the obligatory input jack for electric instruments. The large LCD screen displays a precise, not-too-jittery needle for accurate sharp and flat adjustments, aided by three LEDs above the screen. The left red LED means you’re too flat, the right says you’re too sharp, and the green one in the middle says you’re right on the money.

Tuning can be changed to different Hz variations for musical non-conformants and the unit has a detection range of C1, freakishly low, to C8, crazily high. Those are scientific terms, I think.

The Korg CA-30 Chromatic Tuner is a solid investment and depending on where you get it from, prices range from the low teens to almost 20.