Author: DOuG pRATt

A bad day to get a good computer

Most of yesterday was not good. I fell very ill, very fast in the morning, and you don’t want the details. By the time my new computer was delivered, about 4:30 in the afternoon, I was sufficiently recovered to try getting it working, assuming it didn’t give me any trouble; and, thankfully, it didn’t. I installed the cards taken from the old computer, started Windows 7 Professional, it found drivers for the cards, and everything worked. After that, only 117 security updates were needed to make the system ready. I’ll install Service Pack 1 when it’s released to the public on the 22nd.

My only complaint about the new system — an Acer Veriton M275-UD7600W — is that the CPU is an Intel E7600, which is a dual-core processor. I noticed the difference in performance when testing multi-threaded MP4 encoding with WinFF. The quad-core Q6600 on the now-dead Dell Inspiron could process over 140 frames per second. The E7600 managed only 80 fps.

But the good news is, I had no trouble capturing video to run the test. Before getting the system I had read about complaints that Windows Live Movie Maker doesn’t have a capture option. Not true, at least with my video capture board. As seen in the screen shot, it’s listed as a webcam. In fact, Windows Live Movie Maker works much better than XP Movie Maker, which sometimes had audio/video sync problems and frequently locked up on me. Here’s the test video I caught in a single take.

[media id=231 width=512 height=408]

The return of Barnes?

Barnes Newberry has been off-the-air for going on a year, after ten years of hosting his “Highway 61 Revisited” show on WUMB (UMassBoston). Barnes had what can be termed a “falling-out with management,” and I’ve really missed listening to him on Saturday mornings. I’ve been told there is the possibility of Barnes returning to the airwaves sometime in the Spring. Here’s hoping he can put it together. Stay tuned!

Techno geekery

Here’s the scene on the all-season porch. MSNBC is on the venerable Sony 32XBR100, with captions on, and I’m reading those while the sound comes from Pandora on the Roku player, which is a p-in-p box in the corner. The song is John Lennon’s “Nobody Told Me.” Cutting to commercials, the caption for a Nissan spot says, “Mama told me there’d be days like this,” timed perfectly at a moment when Lennon sings, “Nobody told me there’d be days like these.” Not a big deal, but it was fun, and what else am I going to do while waiting for the new computer to be delivered?

What’s wrong with oldies radio

Oldies stations have left the 50’s behind — demographic is too old — and even the 60’s is being nudged out, now that the 80’s have been added to the playlists. But even when the 60’s was the sweet spot for ad dollars, the stations kept far too few songs in rotation. Here’s but one of many examples. Tommy James’ hit “I Think We’re Alone Now” would get played to death, but we’d never hear his great single “Mirage.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXMEhRmKeyM

The good news is, Pandora and Slacker have, and play, everything. Music Choice on cable TV is good too. And that’s why, unless I’m the car, I don’t listen to oldies radio.

Lawrence O’Donnell calls out O’Reilly

Lawrence O’Donnell has Keith Olbermann’s former 8 PM weekday slot on MSNBC, and tonight he’s ripped apart “Irish bully” Bill O’Reilly. O’Donnell’s style can occasionally be combative, but tonight he’s his more typically controlled and metered self, and he’s done a good job of picking apart O’Reilly and what passes for news at Fox.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Joe Sinnott in Dutch, Ian Anderson in Space

Mark Sinnott has announced that his dad, Marvel Comics legend Joe Sinnott, will have some of his fantastic art on display at the Dutch Ale House in Joe’s hometown of Saugerties, NY. The opening for the two-month showing will be next Sunday, February 20 at 3 pm, and I’m hoping to be there with D.F. Rogers, esq. Denro has done an incredible job of locating issues of comic books for Joe that he worked on decades ago, where Joe had only the story title on file because the publisher didn’t have a specific issue in mind for the assignment.

Mark is the world’s biggest Jethro Tull fan, and at this moment one of Ian Anderson’s flutes is in orbit on the International Space Station, with astronaut Catherine Coleman.