I’ve written my first article for Helium. Feel free to read it here.

Tags: Helium, podcasting
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Here’s our third song, “Bubble.” Jen wrote the lyrics for this one. I did everything else. This is the first song we’ve ever collaborated on. As I mentioned before, this song was inspired by a chat Jen had with a friend on Facebook. Enjoy.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:03 — 7.5MB)

Tags: music, podcast, RPM Challenge, The Sidebars
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I’ve been thinking about money a lot lately. I suppose a lot of people are. In an attempt to keep more of mine, I made some phone calls. The first two were successful; I managed to get my home phone and cell phone bills lowered. The total savings only amounts to about $30.00/month. But I won’t complain. (I’ll be able to save even more in a few months when I can get out of my current cell phone contract by switching to a different carrier.) I then had two unsuccessful phone calls. Both (not surprisingly) to creditors. It’s no shock that the last two companies weren’t interested in helping me lower my monthly payments. But it didn’t hurt to try. I’m also considering looking into the government’s new program to help lower mortgage payments. My apprehension with the program is that it seems like it’s geared more towards homeowners who are under threat of foreclosure. And I’m glad to say that I’m not in that boat. Still, it’d be nice to save some scratch on the mortgage payments. Guess I should take my own advice and just give ‘em a call.

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Tags: life, money
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Wesley left this comment on my last post:

By the way, I think a lot of people would really appreciate (I know I would!) a blog post about how to get a work-at-home job.

I think this is the first time I’ve had a request in the history of this site. So, I figure I better deliver.

It’s true that I do work from home. But I wasn’t able to just go out and get a work-at-home job. When I was hired by my current employer in February/2006, I had no idea at the time that I’d ever be working from home. I worked in the office for about 1.5 years, starting out working a combination of day and evening shifts, eventually working overnights. In the summer of 2007, I decided it was time to get off the graveyard shift, and at that time, i asked my office manager if, after I cycled back over to daytime shifts, I could work from home. My company had a couple people already doing that at the time, and I thought it’d be great if I could, too. i explained to the office manager why the situation would be good for me (no worries over transportation being the big one) and also why it’d be good for the company (I could be more flexible in my availability, as I wouldn’t have to worry about transportation). The office manager agreed to let me work from home, as long as I was willing to pay for all of the equipment I needed to make it happen. I had to buy a desk phone, an amplified headset system that connects to the phone line, and most importantly, a computer. (I already had a computer, but it was a Mac, and the software I use for work is Windows-only). I was able to save money by getting almost everything I needed on eBay. I had the software installed onto the computer, and I was ready to go.

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Tags: work
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Been awhile since I’ve updated this site. In this audio blog entry, I give some new ideas on the ghetto iPhone, talk a little about work, give an update on The Sidebars recording and more.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 23:26 — 16.2MB)

Tags: iPhone, podcast, The Sidebars, work
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Last week, my town had its first-ever (as far as I know) Twitter meet-up. Both Jen and I attended. It was great. We met some cool people and had a lot of fun. But I was definitely nervous beforehand. I told this to Jen. She used to be much more sympathetic to these aspects of my personality. This time she simply said, “Get over it.” Guess sometimes what you really need in life is some tough love. But this blog entry isn’t about that. I’m going to write a bit here about the nature of my social anxiety, and try to find a better understanding of its source.

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Tags: California, life, San Luis Obispo, Twitter
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One of the many things I’d like to do is build a master iTunes library of my music. The idea is simple: rip and store all of the music I like to one place. Preferably an external hard drive used only for the music library. Then, over time, as I upgrade to new computers, the library drive could just be moved to each new machine. Storage capacity on hard drives is finally at a point where it’s economically possible to do this. This lead me to consider the different file formats available for audio conversion. As I’d like this library to last through the ages, I want the sound quality of the music stored within to be at the highest quality possible. Of course, the best way to do that would be to encode everything with zero compression. Some very basic math shows that a typical album’s worth of music is less than one gigabyte of actual data. So, a one-terabyte drive would easily hold right around 1,000 albums. Or in other words, my entire music collection. This would be the best case scenario. But as I mentioned in a previous post, I’d like to (eventually) get an iPod Touch. And even the highest-capacity iPod Touch, with 32 gigabytes worth of storage, would fill up quickly with these uncompressed files. So, some file compression will be needed. I decided to test the three major compression formats available in iTunes: MP3, AAC and Apple Lossless. I set both MP3 and AAC to the highest possible quality setting (320 kbps). Apple Lossless has only one setting. I encoded the same song, “Adventures In Solitude” by The New Pornographers, using the three different formats. I then listened to each version on my studio (see: *good*) headphones. Before I go into my findings on the audio, here’s a comparison of file sizes (the song is 4:16 in length):
MP3: 9.8 MB
AAC: 9.8 MB
Apple Lossless: 23.6 MB
As you can see, MP3 and AAC come in at the same size, while Apple Lossless is about 2.5 times bigger. Now, on to the audio taste test.

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Tags: iPod, iTunes, music, The New Pornographers, YouTube
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The 3G iPhone came out last year right around my birthday. I was all set to get one when I found out that I wasn’t eligible at that time for an equipment upgrade through AT&T. Without the upgrade credit, the cost of the phone would’ve been around $600.00. Way too expensive. AT&T told me at the time that I’d be eligible for an upgrade in March/20009. Today is March 3rd. And sure, I’d love to get an iPhone. But the problem now is the costly nature of AT&T’s iPhone rate plans. The least-expensive rate plan for iPhone is around $70.00/month. I’m currently paying $40.00/month for a bunch of minutes I don’t use. Tacking an extra $30.00/month on to that for the privilege of Shiny Toy ownership is stupid. So I’ve been researching my options. I’ve looked at comparable phones/plans through T-Mobile and Verizon, and haven’t really found anything that suits my needs. I’d really like to have access to mobile Internet/data, and only have to pay for a small amount of airtime (minutes). I’m not someone who lives on the cell phone. Most months, I probably make less than 20 minutes worth of actual mobile phone calls. I was out for a walk last week, contemplating what to do, when I was struck with an idea. Apple’s iPod Touch has almost all of the functionality of the iPhone. But the iPod Touch has no 3G connectivity. It can only communicate with the outside world via Wi-Fi. And while there are plenty of public Wi-Fi networks out there, Wi-Fi isn’t as expansive as 3G. So how hard would it be to provide constant Wi-Fi connectivity to an iPod Touch? It wouldn’t be that hard at all with a Wi-Fi enabled cell phone that can share its Internet connection. Unfortunately, the only cell phone providers that use Wi-Fi enabled phones have expensive rate plans. The least-expensive option I’ve found is through ghetto-tastic cell phone carrier Boost Mobile. You can get unlimited data/Internet access through Boost for about $10.00/month, and then airtime for ten cents/minute. That’s exactly what I need in terms of a monthly plan. Problem with Boost is, the company’s phones suck. Not one of them is Wi-Fi enabled. Some of them, however, have Bluetooth connectivity. I was thinking that it might be possible to get mobile Internet to an iPod Touch using Bluetooth from a Boost phone. As of right now, the iPod Touch doesn’t officially have Bluetooth connectivity. But Apple-obsessed nerds have found an inactive (sorta) Bluetooth chip inside the iPod Touch. I wonder if, after a good jailbreak is released for the iPod Touch, industrious hackers will figure out a way to use that Bluetooth chip. If they do, it could open the door for Internet connectivity via Bluetooth sharing. So i could then pair a Boost Mobile ghetto phone with an iPod Touch. Hence, giving rise to the ghetto iPhone. Maybe?

Tags: AT&T, Boost Mobile, iPhone, T-Mobile
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Awhile back, I was tagged by Lans for this “Seven things” meme. My response is overdue. Here it is:

1.) I had my tonsils and adenoids removed when I was seven years old. I had chronic earaches/infections from the age of five. After a few years of treatment, and many trips to many different doctors, an E.N.T. specialist decided that tonsil/adenoid removal was the next logical step. Overall, I think the surgery helped. Plus, I got to stay home from school for a couple weeks while I recovered, and I got to eat a lot of ice cream.

2.) I locked myself out of a live radio station while I was the only one in the building. It was a Sunday morning board-operator shift. A friend of mine, who had worked the night shift before me, locked the hallway door on his way out. No one ever locked that hallway door. I left the studio to go to the washroom, and felt that panic as the door latched behind me. Sure enough, it was locked. To make a long story short (and there definitely is a story), I eventually got back into the studio. Even though the station was completely off-air for awhile, no real harm was done. The station changed formats 1.5 weeks later (something that was already in the process of happening) and everyone was let go.

3.) I traveled cross-country to meet someone I only knew through a chatroom/e-mail. And this was back in 1996. Long before the days of [insert name of your favorite social network site here]. I don’t think this story is all that remarkable 13 years later. But it seemed like kind of a big deal at the time. I had fun. I rode Amtrak between Chicago and Richmond, Virginia. It was a nice distraction from life at a time when I was really miserable.

4.) I have won many prizes through television/radio contests. It all started when I was an eight-year old kid. I won a bunch of passes to places in the Wisconsin Dells through a TV station contest. Since then, I’ve managed to win concert tickets, cash prizes (last one was for $1,000), free meals, airline tickets, DVD’s… I don’t even know what else. Sad to say the streak ended after I moved to California. Guess I don’t listen to radio as much as I used to.

5.) I ran a worldwide Robotech fanzine when I was a teenager. I actually started it when I was twelve years old. Like most things in life, I had no idea what I was doing. I sent an announcement about the fanzine to Starlog magazine, and they published it. I wanted to distribute the fanzine for free, and the response I received was overwhelming. It got close to 100 people from all over the world (this was before the Internet, remember) and I managed to get several issues out before I got burned out by the work. It was also expensive, and I didn’t really want to charge for the fanzine. The local newspaper even wrote a story about it. Again, it seemed like kind of a big deal at the time.

6.) I told no one before Jen and I got married. Well, except for a pizza guy and a couple Internet friends. But, that’s how we wanted to do it.

7.) I once took my dad’s Aerostar minivan out for a ride. This is only memorable because I don’t have, nor have I ever had, a driver’s license. In fact, I’m legally blind, and can’t actually get a driver’s license. But my mom insisted that my dad take me out as a teenager and give me some basic driving lessons. He did. A few weeks later, I was home alone, and really needed to get to town. I nervously pulled the minivan out of the driveway, and drove it safely for about two blocks before I returned home. I was too scared to make it all the way to where I needed to go. Fortunately, I did a good enough job of parking the Aerostar that no one seemed to notice it had been moved. I called a friend of mine who lived nearby, and got him to give me a ride instead. That is the one and only time I’ve ever truly driven a vehicle. It’ll probably be the last.

Props to Beth Harte for kicking this thing off. Per the rules of this meme, I now have to tag seven other people. I will not be offended if any of you who are tagged don’t follow through with a response. Here’s my list: Wesley, Jacob, Farris, Mike, Andy, Kim and Richard.

Tags: Enlighten Up
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