The Most’est of the Post’est

So yesterday, I was lamenting the demise of my 3rd favorite program. From a creative perspective, this sucks. About 10 years ago, Adobe put a collective boot up the ass of its users by getting rid of “Go-Live”. It was a Web GUI coders dream. It wasn’t the easiest program to learn, but it was way powerful. In my college career, I learned to program in HTML which at the time was ok but there were GUI tools that could do hundreds of lines of complex code easily. This realization is what drove me to Go-Live. Instead of being flummoxed and confused with complex code, I began using GUI drag and drop tools that programmed behind the scenes and made my wildest dreams come true. It was a programmer’s nightmare or an artists dream. No more crappy rules to remember, structures to mess with, no syntax worries. WYSIWYG drag and drop – that codes. Sweet. But as my grandfather said: “All good things must come to an end…” And GoLive was discontinued in 2007 and replaced by it’s dumbed down cousin – MUSE. MUSE was not nearly as powerful as GoLive, but it came with fairly decent templates that a slightly technical type could use. It still had some of the cool power that GoLive used to have, but it was now neutered and only a fraction of what it once was – I’ll use the metaphor of a “Eunuch”. Now, alas Adobe has euthanized even the Eunuch – MUSE – and gave us “Spark”. Where the hell is Adobe going with this? It’s so basic that that the proverbial “Monkey with a hammer” could use it. Do I want Dreamweaver? Hell no – it’s so complex I feel that I could theoretically send a man to the moon before I could finish a web page. What is the driving force behind this? Lazy Millennial’s with their cell phones and social media??? Lazier technophobic, baby-boomers who are still think that the web is a passing fancy? Gen-X’ers who never really learned the fundamentals of either lay-out or coding, that put no stock in tools to help build websites at home and are willing to just offshore their intellectual property and are solely money driven? Or just bad leadership decisions within Adobe? In any event, I’m just pissed.

-Rat

So, here I am working this evening and F4211 is giving me fits as usual. Flipping Planner environment and C code. So, I finally figured out my RatsNest basement dilemma. The issue is that the old Airport utility that manages the apple products no longer works as advertised. With one of the iOS releases, you can now manage Apple routers, much to my chagrin. So, now that’s fixed. I ran the cable for the AppleTV POC and the wife likes it. I ordered DirectTV Now with the free AppleTV for a steal. It really feels like petty larceny, but who am I to argue with a 10B LargeCap Company? So, I finally get to cut the cable TV cord with Comcast – yeah! Now I get honors to also cut the VOIP cord. Heh, heh. I’m going to MagicJack and porting my number. I even get to give back the router for 10$/month and the extra box for 5$/month since I have a Cable modem that supports DOCSIS 3.0. Just need to somehow get 2 more AppleTVs. I guess I can just order another DTV service. I made kind of an interesting email move today going with proton mail. They are a service that encrypts their content and you can get a service with VPN to block the cable provider and keep them from spying on your content. Facebook should learn something.

-Rat

Wow! I just learned how to put a picture in my post. Very cool.

So, I have been wrestling with my Apple infrastructure in my basement. It was stable with one Apple router, I added a second and it was just crazy unstable. The whole reason behind this was to create a wifi network/infrastructure in the basement that rivaled my upstairs. Which when actually examining it, it wouldn’t be that difficult due to the lack of signal strength. I am trying to connect the AppleTV in the front room, what a pain. Tonight I need to reset the Apple routers again for the third time. Hopefully, it will work for me. I think I’m just going to order from DirectTV and go with the DirectTVNow on the Apple TV and be done with it. However, I need to some longer cables. Maybe 2 50ft CAT 6 cables. Also been looking at a Gigabit Ethernet Switch – 16 port and manageable. My Router is only 4 ports and is could easily need 4 more. Maybe just look at the Asus ROG Tri-band 5300 instead. That would give me 4 extra ports on the 1st floor by the cable modem. Move the current 5300 to the office via wire to extend the wifi footprint out to the backyard. I actually could use both.

-Rat

Brought home my new pedals yesterday but have had no time to play. Also received my 360 UFO IP camera for the basement, the bastards didn’t send a power supply so I had to send it back. Hopefully, I can get another on special. Last night, went to the gym but had to kind of cut it short to get back home to help Vikash. Got to do my 30-30 and push some weights around and do basic stretching. As it turned out, Vikash didn’t need any help but still felt guilty not logging on to lend moral CNC support. He didn’t complete builds and maintenance until 2:30am. That’s frickin’ brutal. On a related but separate note, I just made the cutoff at Costco for the gas pumps. Hopefully our bikes will be ready tomorrow.

-Rat

So, yesterday I busted out the M5 Synth Pedal and was having some fun. Very cool. I have no idea what pedals I would want to purchase, but I think this one with a Cry Baby will do nicely. I still have the Octavix coming with the Cry Baby, but I think I will find out that the Octavix is probably duplication since the M5 does so much. But I need to find out. I think I still need something like a tube screamer or Plexi – something that does a lot of signal overdrive. I will admit, it’s fun farting around. Was doing some Nirvana rifts and with the pedal, it sounds like Cobain. Fun. I wanted to set up the Apple TV today but my CAT 6 cables are about 15ft to short so I need an F-F Ethernet connector. Ordered it from Amazon. Should be here Tuesday – ha. On a different note, Vikash and I took our bikes in to get them tuned up, flats fixed and checked out at Ricks. They had a coupon so I saved 40$ – nice. Vikash got his for free since it was a Trek and never looked at from a checkup perspective. Lucky guy. We can pick them up on Wednesday. The wife ordered a new fridge, should be here on Thursday. The other one was way to big for the space. This one is counter depth and is more expensive to the tune of about $500.

-Rat

Anyway, got my M5 synth pedal delivered today, can’t wait to bust it out. Last night, I didn’t get to bed at a decent hour 🙁 11:30pm. Ugh, a rough morning and was falling asleep at my desk at 3pm. I hate these crappy builds because they impinge on my social life and free time – every other week: less sleep. I’ll be glad when this is over and we are live. Yes, while it pays the bills, id rather be doing something else with my free time, say guitar or painting. Ha, DV done. Starting PY. Taking my bike in tomorrow morning to Rick’s Bike Shop in Palos Hills. I am going to have him put my new inner tubes on and look at the tires to see if there is any reason my tires can’t stay pumped. Just got an email and luckily, our data refresh has been cancelled this weekend due to concerns with overwriting business configuration. Thankfully, tonight should be an early night, everything is going smooth. I’ll post some new header pictures, artsy-fartsy pictures of my guitar, pedal, and bike.

-Rat

So, yesterday I decided I wanted to learn how to read music. I ran across my old music books from my old guitar teacher, Joel – that’s another story. I started on the high “E” string and learned some really basic EFG stuff, then moved to the “B” string where I’m finding it difficult to mix in the BCD stuff. Yea, its only my first day but hey, I have expectations that I can warp my mind enough to learn this stuff. So I busted out the Washburn acoustic to fart around with. I just killed 45min no problem. Now I have to do my daily code builds. I hope I can get through this crap so I can go to bed at a decent hour tonight. I really want to start getting up at 5am. Want to do some early workouts in the way of stretching, tai chi, and running. Today I was scouring the net and “Reverb” app to get a few pedals. So I ordered a “Line-6, M5 synth pedal”. a “Elecro-harmonix Octavix Octave Fuzz” pedal, and a Dunlop “Cry Baby Mini Wah”. Cant wait to test drive these, it should keep me occupied for weeks. My modeling amp can do quite a few of these natively but not very well, but nothing beats the raw pedal power. Should be fun. As it turns out, my Evil Twin is a pretty good amp. It needs some TLC in the way of new tubes and some pots replaced. Later this year for that – after I get a new soldering iron. I have an old clunker that is the size of an 80’s blow drier and weighs a ton. I need something small and nimble for my projects.

-Rat

Just saying. On a completely unrelated note, the gym has been tough this week. I started doing 30min of elliptical interval training vs. instead of just 3 straight miles on the track. There is a setting called 30-30. It does 5 sets of 30sec interval runs with 30sec interval walks, and a 3min rest (walk) period between sets. It seems like its way harder from a cardio perspective although its much easier on my joints. However, I am finding that its not so gentle on my back. We shall see. On to the basement for some needed guitar practice. I feel like I’m getting a tad better. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Lets roll JamPlay!

-Rat

This last week has been busy… Valentine’s day, Ash Wednesday, my wife’s birthday, had a weekend away with the extended family, I finally got my attached NAS drive – surface scanned and attached, I carved out an iSCSI cloud volume for ITunes, downloaded all my ITunes, started practicing my guitar in earnest, the Cyber with the new cab is really cool – lots of Strat fun, gained 2 pounds over the weekend – thanks Gibson’s! We bought a new fridge – finally (ABT Electronics is very cool). Hopefully we will cut the proverbial Comcast cable cord soon and go with DirectTVNow, Apple TV’s and a MagicJack for VOIP.

Its wonderful having Vikash at work now. I can actually have a night off or a weekend without work. I was getting burned out and angry. Not a good combination. He is now my CNC partner in crime. On Saturday morning I stopped at the local bike shop for some new inner tubes – a nice shop with nice and helpful people. I may even get a chance to get a new bike for my birthday if I start riding like I want to. I want to do 2000 miles this year on my trusty Schwinn.

-Rat

Just another day in paradise? Not really. Gotta work still. I received my stretching strap yesterday from Amazon. Need to find some exercise pads to put on the floor at home.  No time for much.  Working a ton of hours for work project.

-Rat