Tag: MacBook Pro

Very Short OS X Mavericks Review

I updated both of my Apple computers to OS X Mavericks. I haven’t really done much on the iMac since upgrading. I’ve been using the MacBook Pro while watching the two World Series games. I have two things to note about Mavericks:

1. The Good. I used to get about two hours, maybe a little less, worth of battery time. Since upgrading, I’ve gone from 99% down to 93% in about 30 minutes. That seems like a really good start as far as the battery life improvements go. Granted, I haven’t done anything more involved than posting to Twitter, reading Facebook, and posting this update to WordPress. Nothing major, but still a good start.

2. The Bad. I don’t know if this is related or not, but the time to boot up is insane. It’s like Windows bad. Really bad. I didn’t time it, but it took a seriously long time. I was very disappointed.

That’s all I have for a Mavericks review. I hope it helps you, loyal readers.

And in case you were wondering, David Ortiz just hit a two run home run to give the Red Sox the lead in the sixth inning of game two.

Go Red Sox!

Comic Book Kitty

Comic Book Kitty

Jen and I are both at home, sitting on couch using our laptops. I have a goal to learn how to write an iOS application. The deadline for that goal is roughly some day before I die. I want to install the development tool kit onto my MacBook Pro, but I have to upgrade my OS first. As I sit here waiting for the download to finish, it occurs to me that I have never submitted the cat to Photo Booth.

That oversight has been taken care of.

Consolidation

I consolidated every GarageBand file I’ve ever created onto one machine tonight. Some came from my iPad 2, others from my New iPad, a few from my iPhone, many from my Mac mini, and many more from my MacBook Pro. My MacBook Pro now contains a folder for finished songs, including sub folders for the last two RPMs, a folder for songs I would like to finish within the next month or so, and a folder for song ideas that I don’t know what to do with. I was especially looking for two ancient songs that I know I have unfinished recordings of somewhere, but after coming up empty across all of my various Apple devices, I think I know where they are. On SVHS tapes in ADAT format. Yup, definitely going to start those over again. My 8-track days are over.

I am king nerd. Bow before my uber nerdliness.

iOS Question, Answered

A little lunch time Googling told me that I was right in my assumption that you cannot change the default browser on an iOS device.  It is possible if you jail break your device, but I have no interest in doing that.

I guess I will just have to copy links out of emails and other apps.  Not too big a deal, but I do want to use Chrome instead of Safari for now.  I really don’t know why.

I was a die hard Firefox user until I got my iMac.  For some reason when I set up the new computer I installed Chrome right away.  I don’t think I installed Firefox at all.  I actually use both at work as I have my own Google account and we use Gmail for work and I prefer to keep them separate.  I want both accounts open so I use two browsers.  Chrome for work, Firefox for personal.

Since getting the iMac I had rarely used my MacBook Pro.  During the February music goofiness I used it quite a bit and without really thinking about it I was using Chrome for all of my browsing.  Given that I kept all of the song arrangements and lyrics on a Google Document, and that every single idea I had got uploaded to the ‘net somewhere, I did a lot of browsing during the music making.

I guess Chrome just quietly won me over.  I don’t think the browsing experience is any better or worse in iOS, at least as far as rendering the pages is concerned.  I do prefer the tabbed functions in Chrome to the multi-page functions in Safari.  Maybe I’m just a nerd.

Yeah, I’m probably just a nerd.

RPM Day 23

It’s almost 8:00pm here and I haven’t done my stupid daily update that is boring all of you to tears.  Never fear.  In the words of the Yardbirds, Here’s ‘Tis.

Earlier this week I had announced that this particular song:

was complete and done and finished.  Today I changed my mind.  I remixed it.  It’s not much different, just a little more care was taken with it.  Oh, and I put some seriously retarded goofiness into it as well.  Gotta love idiots who put flangers onto drums, right?  Am I right?

This little song:

Was not finished, but now it is.  I used a fuzz box.  How have I made it this far into life without owning a real fuzz box?  Fuzz boxes and Phasers are the big overused stomp box gimmicks for this year’s project.

This particular little ditty:

Was also not finished, but now it is.  This holds the distinction of being the only song in the batch of 14 that did not have any work done on an iOS device.  This was all done on the full GarageBand on my MacBook Pro.  I think you can hear the difference.  I am a little sad that I didn’t do the whole thing on a computer now.  The iPad and the iPhone are just so damn convenient   I mean it would have been tough to have written a song in the car in a parking lot waiting for a take out order to be ready if I had to do it all on an actual computer, right?  Am I right?

So that’s three songs that are finished, finished, finished.  There is one other that used to be finished but I have decided it will get a new vocal take on Monday.  There are two other songs that have vocals that I want to re-record, at least in part, that still need lead guitar parts.  Then there are seven (7) more that don’t have any vocals yet.  RPM requires 10 songs.  FAWM requires 14.  I have 14 in progress, I could call FAWM done now but I won’t.  Finishing the vocals for a total of 10 songs on Monday is definitely doable.  Getting up to a total of 14?  That’s a little more difficult.

We shall see.