Faux Abbey Road – Live

July 3rd, 2010 | Categories Musicians

The Fab Faux perform the second side of Abbey Road. This live, in-studio staging is a spot-on quality performance of an ambitious project.

Interactive Exhibit for Lockheed Martin

May 16th, 2010 | Categories Featured, Multimedia

This is a quick demonstration of a recently completed Interactive Exhibit for a Visitors Center in Washing DC. Sorry about the shaky video. I shot it with my phone.

Steve Wozniak Magic Trick

April 3rd, 2010 | Categories Magic

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak performs a magic trick (a Ring and Rope routine) at the Santa Clara CA Apple Store on iPad launch day.

KORG iElectribe for iPad

April 2nd, 2010 | Categories Gear

electribe 250x181 KORG iElectribe for iPadI’ve had my eye on the KORG ESX1 Electribe for years. No trip to Guitar Center was complete without stopping by their dusty floor model and punching buttons as the lights flashed and tubes glowed. But I never could bring myself to drop $500 on this sleek jamin’ sampler. My Tribelessness ends tomorrow morning with the launch of the iPad.

Way to go KORG for bringing it to the pad. iElectribe for iPad was released yesterday and is probably already in the iTunes library of thousands of fans of bleeps and bloops. It’s a no-brainer purchase at $9.99. In fact, one can snag this software and an iPad for about the same cost as the ESX1 hardware.

Digital knobs may be a drag (pun intended) but I am guessing it won’t be long before we see a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth control surface show up iPad ready. Are you listening Frontier Design Group?

Here is a link to the KORG web page on the iElectribe.

Dark Side of the Moon – 8 bit version

April 2nd, 2010 | Categories Musicians

Brad Smith is a video game programmer in Ontario. What does he do when he’s not coding modern gaming wonders? He codes for vintage game hardware. Below is an excerpt from his epic note-for-note, 8-bit recreation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, as one would hear it through a Nintendo Entertainment System circa 1983. Download the whole “album” from Brad’s web site.

My 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette – For Sale!?!

February 9th, 2010 | Categories Gear

corvette and b52 250x185 My 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette   For Sale!?!About eight years ago I bought a “dream car,” a 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette.

I have admired Corvettes since 1973 from watching Bill Bixby in a show called The Magician. He played a mystery-solving magi who lived on the top floor of the Hollywood Magic Castle. He would drive his white Corvette up a ramp to park in the back of his private 747. Gas was cheaper then.

Corvettes were well out of my price range in the ’80s. But I found that if you let them age for 20 years, they become quite affordable.

My ’82 Vette has been a fun car. It was once written up in Corvette Magazine, and I even built a little tribute web site for it. But it’s really about time I drove something built in the 21st century. I posted the Vette on CraigsList a few weeks ago.

IMG 0917 1023x379 My 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette   For Sale!?!

My daughter was 5 years old when I bought the Vette. She loved playing with her dolls in the rear compartment when it was parked in the driveway. Here is a photo from the day I brought the car home:
haley vette 2002 500wide My 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette   For Sale!?!


Eight years later, on the eve of selling the car, I parked in approximately the same place, and crammed her into rear compartment to take another photo.

IMG 1996 1024x768 My 1982 Collectors Edition Corvette   For Sale!?!

The 1982 Collector Edition Corvette is a unique vehicle. A special multicolored design called “Silver/Beige” incorporated decal graphics, multiple pin stripes, and custom interior leather, and the first ever Corvette hatchback. Chevrolet only made 6,759 of this special edition. Mine even has an 8-track tape rack in the glove box. Groovy.

Flash Fight – h.264 Free for Five More Years

February 4th, 2010 | Categories Multimedia

bluelego Flash Fight   h.264 Free for Five More YearsThe MPEG Licensing Authority (MPEG LA) announced yesterday that it would extend the royalty-free period for use of H.264 for free streaming video through 2015.

This is just the latest punch in the fight for online video codec ubiquity. Last month both YouTube and Vimeo posted beta tests of their HTML5/h.264 offerings.

Last week Steve Jobs flaunted his Flash-less device around the Yorba Linda stage. Blue lego after blue lego paraded across the shiny iPad screen, as Apple took another not-so-subtle shot across the bow of their ex-BFF; Adobe.

There are over 30-million Flash-free iPhones around the world. Even with a few million more high profile Apple devices about to hit the street, the rumors of impending death to Flash are greatly exaggerated.

The extension of free h.264 licensing did not impress the open source community. John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, tweeted this prophetic warning regarding the announcement; “It’s good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it’s like 5 more years of free to lock you in 4ever.”

This should be an interesting year for fans of video streaming codec legalities (all 12 of you.)