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You are here: Home / Archives for Technology / Electronics

Figuring out how to use my iPod Touch in my car

February 26, 2011 by Chris

i2!RDS Universal FM Transmitter So now that we have an iPOD Touch, I started thinking about how we can use it through our car stereo? Unfortunately our Pontiac Pursuit’s (which is called the G5 in the US) audio system doesn’t come one of those line in inputs, so there goes that idea. The only other option open to us is to get one of those Universal FM Transmitters.

In a nut shell, you plug your music device into the Universal FM transmitter. Then this runs into the power supply in your car, or the old cigarette lighter if you will. Side note: I’ve been smoke free for 5 months! The transmitter connects wirelessly and syncs up to your car FM band thus allowing the iPODs signal to run through the stereo.

The one we picked up is called the i2! RDS FM Transmitter for iPod from Aerielle. We went searching for reviews on FM Transmitters and found this one to be reliable and fairly inexpensive. The best price was through Tiger Direct.

i2! RDS Universal FM Transmitter The i2! is simple to use.

After plugging everything in, you look for the 2 buttons on the front that are stacked together. You hold down both of these buttons at the same time for a couple seconds.  Now you will notice on the very small digital display screen, numbers that represent your FM stations, rolling from lowest to highest. This action is telling you that it is scanning for FM signals/bands that ARE NOT being used.

It will then stop scanning and a number will start flashing. This number represents a station or band width that it can use to send the signal from your device into the stereo. You then press down on one of the 3 per-set buttons near the bottom of the unit to save it in it’s memory.

If i2! displays more flashing numbers after you choose the first band that it shows you, then set them up and remember the station/frequency number so you can use it for another time. This might come in handy if later on down the road, the first station you saved is being taken over by a radio station. Now you can tune your car stereo to that location and begin to use your iPOD!

Damn, I can’t imagine driving without it now!

Keep on Jammin’




Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Recreation, Technology Tagged With: aerielle i2!, classic, Ipod, nano, Touch

We just bought a Kindle 2 eBook Reader

May 11, 2010 by Chris

Wow, my wife just bought a Kindle 2 eBook Reader! She bought it on line through Amazon. It’s a 6 inch screen and comes with some really neat stuff. I never really thought that we’d pick up something like this, but we did.

kindle 2 eBook reader

It comes with dictionary, text only web browser (this is in the US only damn it!), and a wireless 3G device. Our new Kindle 2 is slim at just over 1/3 of an inch, which is as thin as most magazines. The device is light weighting in at 10.2 ounces, lighter than your average paperback.

The Kindle looks quite paper like in it’s display without the glare that you sometimes get in some devices, even in bright sunlight. I wonder if you can adjust the brightness of the screen itself. Our notebook screen is not all that bright in the sunlight which pisses me off when I’m in the backyard trying to do some work. They claim the battery life on the Kindle is very long, up to 1 week on a single charge. It carries up to 1,500 books. You can find a fair amount of free books at Amazon and other book stores online. We’ve already downloaded some onto our notebook to be uploaded to our new Kindle when it arrives.

Read-to-Me is a neat feature my wife told me about. With it’s experimental Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder/owner made this feature unavailable. Perfect for after more then a few light refreshing liquid beverages, ha!

She bought a electrical wall mount charger, car charger, ear phones and last, but not least the Amazon leather cover. I’m forever scratching electronic screens, I should take a pic of my phone so you can see what I mean, so this will come in very handy.

The only bad thing about buying it here in Canada is the custom and duty taxes $33 (CAN) that comes with it, but hey, no use complaining too much. We should be getting out little hands on it this Wednesday, so sometime after that expect another post about our new addition to our home!

Do you have a Kindle? How do you like it?

Keep on Kindlin’!

Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Home and Lifestyle, Recreation, Technology, Web and Technology Tagged With: Amazon, books, download books, ebook, internet, kindle, kindle 2, mp3, read, reader, Shopping, text to speech

The Fender Phone from T-Mobile, that’s what I’m calling it!

January 24, 2010 by Chris

I found the new T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Phone quite the novelty item. Hum, not sure though if I’d go running out there to get one. I realize that it is a limited edition (I’m sure they’ll make more) but if I was a real super fan of Eric Clapton then I’d bite.

We were watching the final episode of The Tonight show with Conan O’Brien that we taped on our PVR (TVO) last night and this ad came up talking about this product. With Eric Clapton and a wall of Fender Stratocasters behind him, hell ya, that got my attention real fast!

The thing that honestly grabbed my curiosity was an application for the phone showing the strings of a Fender guitar, I assume, and Eric strumming it, ha genius!

For the life of me I don’t know what you’d use this for? Is this app created just for it’s novelty or is it intended for tuning your guitar if the battery on your guitar tuner is dead? If so then they might be onto something here folks.

Fender will also be coming up with it’s own apps for it later on. If anyone out there knows of any apps for phones that Fender has done in the past then please tell us! I don’t have a phone that uses apps, I use it for calling people that’s it!

The look of it fascinates me. The Faux Wood’s fiery grain pattern to it, just like the one that a vintage Fender guitar has is always a smart way to go for that classy appearance. It comes loaded with some of Eric Clapton’s tunes on it, which ones I can’t say. The phone holds a 16GB microSD card in it as well. Just like in the past I can hear some people saying what the hell do you need a 16GB card in a cell phone for anyway?! That’s similar to what Bill Gates said about 4 MB of RAM that came installed in the early 80’s computers I believe?

So has anyone out there picked one of these bad boys up? If you do have one these phones then what other apps come with it and which other ones did you but to use that is guitar oriented?

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Technology, Web and Technology Tagged With: 3G, cell phone, Conan OBrien, eric clapton, myTouch, t mobile, The Tonight show

Moog Taurus Pedal

November 14, 2008 by Chris

The Moog Taurus pedal is an analog synthesizer that is played with your feet. It helps fill out the song your playing with that real church pipe organ/deep base register sound. The best example of this sound is when The Police used this pedal at the beginning of Don’t stand so close to me. This ancient, blast for the past, is precisely what your looking for, if you want that little extra something for your sound!

If you’ve ever seen a church organ up close or in pictures, then you may have a better idea of what this instrument looks like. Hey, if you ever went to someone’s home and they had one of those ‘ol cheezy home organs, then you’d have a good idea as well! The Moog Taurus pedal looks exactly like the pedals at the bottom of these organs. You play it with you feet!

The Moog Taurus Pedal has been around for ages. Bands that have or had them in their musical arsenal are bands like RUSH, YES, Pink Floyd, the Police and many other rock, fusion and metal performers from yesterday, right up to the present day scene!

The thing that got me thinking of this was while playing with CounterPoint the other night. Chris Noto, the best bass player that I have ever had the privilege of playing with, brought it up while taking a break. He said his brother has one and that he’d love to get it from him if he could, and believe you me, this guy REALLY knows what he is talking about. The way this guy plays the bass, if he had one of these things, it would sound like he is playing 3 instruments at once! Just imagine what it could do with your sound.

So check out the links on this page and learn for yourself what this could do for your band’s sound.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Guitars, Home and Lifestyle, Instruments, Musical influences, Musicians, My experiences, Recreation, Technology, Toronto Bands, Video Tagged With: chris_noto, chris_squire, church_organ_sound, church_pipe_organ_sound, CounterPoint, different_instrument, genesis, guitar, guitar_pedal, Moog_Taurus_Pedal, sound, Styx, taurus_pedals, the_Police, YES

How about those Yamaha audio mixing consoles

August 25, 2008 by Chris

I’ve was talking to my buddy Rick from the now defunct G-Force Media, and we got to talking about Mixing equipment. He has this ancient Yamaha board and he swears by this thing! It’s very HUGE looking and kinda intimidating to sit down behind with tons of knobs everywhere on it.

As we were chatting on the phone he sent me this link that he found while searching online. He wanted to show me this company called hi-tech audio’s site. He is interested in getting one of these Yamaha Audio Mixing Consoles that was listed on the site. He says that he desperately needs a much smaller and flexible console to meet his needs of transporting it to and from gigs. I don’t blame him one bit, that puppy is heavy! The one he’s keen is the Yamaha LS9-32.

The first thing I noticed about the site was that it is very pleasing and easy on the eye as well as being quite easy to navigate. No pop ups and flashing lights to distract you from what your there to see. They specialize in Yamaha, Digidesign and Digico products, and Rick says they’re top shelf products. Who better to know that then Rick.

Hi-Tech Audio are Yamaha commercial audio/digital console/restocking and service dealers. They also seem to be a Digidesign Venue Dealer as well as dealers for the Digico D5 and D1. Doing some searching on the side, I was impressed by some of the line up that Digico has to offer. If I had a few extra bucks to throw around, then I’d make these guys rich. I’d also need a much bigger and more sound proof home to go with it.

The price for this particular board is well within his budget. I noticed that they also have in their Resource Center these digital Audio Training sections which I thought was neat! He even went as far as looking up some of this company’s clients and was impressed by what they did in terms of their products. He is one of those guys who actually reads the manuals (I must admit that I’m not one of those guys) and checks out a ton of forums online so the resource center may be of some interest to him. As he talked about the board, I decided to check out the rest of the site.

After talking with my friend about some of the pros of using Yamaha Mixing Consoles I stumbled upon one part of the site that discussed church sound systems. Oddly enough, my mother works at a church rectory and they are doing some major renovations to her church. While visiting my parents last weekend she brought up this topic and said that they are in the market for a new sound system and it just got my attention.

I know that in the case of Churches, simpler is better. The digital Audio Training will be a good selling point for the technically challenged church staff. The last time I went to see my mother at work, the video player’s screen kept on flashing “12:00” … and it’s been that way for years. Come on, some of us here must be guilty of this one! So after we got off the phone I sent the link off to mom and hopefully she can pass it off to head priest there for further viewing. Who knows, maybe they’ll get one of the Church audio systems that I came across.

Rick just sent off an e-mail to these guys and hopefully he’ll get prompt reply. Stay tuned for the results of his search and maybe I’ll get him to reply to this post for a great detailed analysis of his adventures with Hi-Tech Audio.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Music, sound systems, Technology Tagged With: audio, audio consoles, audio mixing consoles, budget, church, company, consoles, d1, d5, Dealer, digico, digidesign, digital, equipment, G-Force, hi-techaudio, Media, mixing, rectory, Resource, sound, system, Tech, Training, venue, yamaha

Who Killed the Electric Car

August 16, 2008 by Chris

Has anyone out there seen this fabulous documentary called Who Killed th Electric Car? My wife and I have just finished watching this doc for the second time, and it just keeps boggling the mind.

ev1car1.jpg

I realize that this is quite the off topic subject for a guitar blog, but I just honestly want to gauge where everyone sits on this one. I’ve just started off my summer holidays, with the worst stomach virus that I ever have had and taking a number of days off from work to boot, and I stumbled upon this PBS doc while being a zombie on the old couch.

I realize that you should always take everything you see/hear with a grain of salt, but what if only a fraction of the info. about this story is true? Only a fraction … it would make all of us part of the biggest scandal/scam in the history of man! I don’t know about you, but this one really makes me think about it.

Can this thing really be bad/unhealthy for us? Could this thing really bring down the economy? Has anyone ever driven in electric car and lived to tell the tale? What terrible thing can come out of this new technology? Are they protecting us from something? Well here’s a story on experiences with the thing we call the EV(electric vehicle)!

I vividly remember at dinner at my in-laws house one day, many years ago, that flashed into my mind during the first time we saw this documentary.

For many months there was this odd looking red car, it looked like the front part of some B movie futuristic air plane, sitting in my in-laws neighbours driveway. The owner of the house, a long time family friend, was out of the country for an extended period of time and I was anxiously awaiting him to return so I could inquire about this futuristic car thing. Then, the moment that I had been waiting for!

I saw the neighbour and his buddy pull up into his driveway and started to go into this car. I told them, just before serving dinner that I’d be back soon, meaning I’ll be back … well much later. To make a very long story short, they told me that it was a HOME MADE electric car! Yes a home made one! I got to sit in this thing and said, “you gotta take me for a ride in this thing, PLEASE!”

It got up to around 100 kilometers an hour, you could go about 80 km. and to recharge it you just had to charge it into any 120V outlet. They ran a chord from the dryer in the basement to do this, really I saw it. It had not bad pick up and the best was when the car stopped … you didn’t hear a thing! And yes, I lived to tell the tale!

I understand this post is not the equivalent to the protester’s in the documentaries site has on line for you that is in favor of the EV1, but it’s all I have to personally share with you!

ev1car2.jpg

I apologize for the rambling on and on about this, but I think my meds have a little something to do with this post as well!

Keep on Jammin’ (and always be healthy before all of your vacations)

Filed Under: Culture, Electronics, Great sites and products, History, Technology Tagged With: alternative cars, alternative fuels, documentary, economy, electric, electric cars, electric vehicle, EV, EV1, GM, GM electric car, inquire, kilometers, PBS, pbs electric car, pbs who killed the electric car, scandal, who killed the electric car

The Performer tuning system by Transperformance

August 11, 2008 by Chris

The Transperformance tuning system called the Performer, will make tuning your guitar on the fly very simple. It is an interesting dream of many guitarists, whose idea’s have finally become a reality.

I’ve been recently researching modern day guitar tuning technology and I have found some very different approaches in how to achieve this.

On my other blog, Guitar Licks and Tips, I have introduced some of you to the tuning system called Powertune technology from a German company called Tronical on Gibson’s Robot Guitar. This type of tuning system that I talk about there, can be added and removed later if desired. The Transperformance system cannot brag of such luxuries.

performer1.jpg There are 4 components to this system. They are the 1 touch tuning, the LCD readout, the tuner assembly and finally a foot switch. It has the mind boggling ability to hold up to 144 pre-set types of tunings, wow! It has the range of up to Tens of thousands of distinct tunings possible. But how many does one really need? Better way too many then not enough I guess?

The Performer does not manipulate the actual sound of your guitar. It works separately from the pick ups. It does require a 12 volt battery that lasts around 120 minutes though. I can not find the total weight of the product, but I am investigating further.

The testimonials are top notch don’t get me wrong but this thing sure looks heavy to me. If you’ve ever picked up a Les Paul then you may understand my train of thought. It can be used on Fenders, thank God, as they have shown on their site. I’ve never seen this product at all, so wish me luck in finding one here in town.

In later posts, I will break each individual component of this system to the best of my ability, so stay TUNED, ha!

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Electronics, Guitar Equipment, Guitars, Technology Tagged With: performer, performer tuning system, performer tuning system by Transperformance

So who is and isn’t a musician here

April 17, 2008 by Chris

I was just wondering to myself today about how many of you, my good readership, are musicians and who isn’t. I’d like to know for a number of reasons. No, this is not to embarrass anyone or start some kind of mid evil Inquisition folks.

It’s just to:

(1) to tailor topics.
(2) and concentrate on certain categories

Just a simple answer would do here folks, nothing earth shattering.

You could state “Musician” or “Non-Musician”. What instruments you play and maybe what type of gear you have. If your a “non-Musician”, then tell us what genre of music gets you going! If you have any interesting or entertaining events might be good for a laugh, I know we all have 1 or 2 of them up our sleeves!

So state your case and get back to us … we’re waiting!

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Culture, Electronics, Entertainment, General, Home and Lifestyle, Humor, Sales and Marketing, Shopping, Technology Tagged With: art, blog categories, blog topics, folk, genre, genre of music, informal survey, inquisition, instrument, instruments, interest, jammin, laugh, mid evil, Music, music genre, musicans, musician, Musicians, non-musicians, play, readership, simple answer, type, your interests

A Harry Potter guitar

April 6, 2008 by Chris

This should say it all!

harrypotterguitar.jpg

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Electronics, Entertainment, Guitar Equipment, Guitars, Humor, Recreation Tagged With: custom guitars, different guitars, hand made guitars, harry potter guitar

Now I am pissed

March 26, 2008 by Chris

I am a non violent person who has never hit anyone. I tend to turn the other cheek and it takes a hell of a lot to get me mad, just ask anyone who knows me,but this time I have to take a stand!

canadarm.jpg

A Canadian company called MDA, makes the pride of this country, “The Canadarm”. For many years, we the Canadian people have cheered on this great piece of Canadiana! This is company who has received 100’s of millions of our hard earned tax dollars to research, develop and make this extraordinary piece of space technology. Never since the Avro Arrow has the average Canadian been more proud of a product they can call their own!

dextre.jpg How can the ruling government of Canada, the Conservative Party (the same ones who dismantled the Avro Arrow), do the same stupid thing twice? Once again these idiots are running and ruining the Canadian High Tech industry!

Here is a 1-800 number and e-mail to contact these bastards to let them know how you feel, it’s your right, your tax dollars and our pride on the line here folks!

1-888-780-6444
info@mdacorporation.com

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Electronics, History, Technology Tagged With: angry, avro arrow, bastards, Canada, canadarm, Canadian, Canadian Government, canadian tax dollars, canadian technology, Canadiana, conservative party, country, dextre, e mail, earned tax dollars, government canada, government of canada, hell, international space station, jammin, mad, mda, other cheek, pride, research, space technology, stupid thing, tax dollars, Technology, violent person

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