if there is ANY thing we do, it's EVERYthing
Nicholas Wautier
I do stuff... Lots of stuff... I play music, I take pictures, I write a blog... I do more than that, read the blog if you want to know more.
Home page: http://www.wautierent.com
Posts by Nicholas Wautier
The Social Network Movie
1656 days
Well, David Fincher is at it again, this time in the director’s seat for the October release of The Social Network, a story about the founders of Facebook. While Jesse Eisenberg certainly makes a convincing Mark Zuckerberg in the trailer, I wonder how much of the movie is opinion, and how much of it is historically accurate. I also wonder who the sources are. On one hand, I feel sorry for Zuckerberg, as the movie won’t exactly paint the most attractive portrait of him… On the other hand, I see a bit of poetic justice that his life is about to be shared with the world, just as his website has made the lives of so many others so transparent. I’ll be looking forward to this one.
Saturday Mornings
0658 days
Just a quick note, I’ll be tied up nearly every Saturday morning for the rest of the year. I will have my Action DJ schedule by the end of this week, and I have been offered some bookings with other agencies. As always, feel free to contact me with any booking inquiries.
Busy Week
0668 days
So tonight I have a wedding at Stone Harbor, tomorrow I’ll work my Saturday shift at CCCP AND play a wedding in Appleton. Then, starting Thursday, I’ll be working with Monty at the Outagamie County Fair all the way through Sunday, with a wedding on Saturday night to boot.
Today I’ll be heading down to the main office of Cellcom to get my new BlackBerry Curve 8530, so be sure to fill it up with texts and tweets!
New Project — Mixxx
0669 days
When I’m out on the DJ circuit, the majority of the music I play is still on the traditional, audio CD. It’s not that I don’t trust a laptop, or that I don’t have my music stored on a hard drive, I just refuse to move to a media that doesn’t yet have an adequate control system. I currently use the Numark CDN-88 to play my CDs. It’s virtually skip-free, rack-mounted, and allows on the spot censoring, looping, same-disc advanced programming, and even some minor vinyl emulation features. Each function has it’s own button, clearly labeled and conveniently located. Besides, who can deny the utility of a real, solid mixer with EQ, volume, cross-fader, and monitor controls? Sure there are products out there like Traktor Scratch and Serrato, but they seem to focus a bit too much on the turntablism aspect of DJ life, an area that I rarely get involved in.
I want the hot cues, memorized loops, and 1-to-1 control mapping of Serrato, the precision and latency (or lack there of) of Traktor. Where both packages fall short is in library management. Luckily, I have found Mixxx, an open source DJ platform. Mixxx has a strong developers community, and a surprisingly large user base. While it doesn’t even come close to fixing my library problem with the commercial applications out there, it is open for me to write my own additions and modifications, which I plan on doing.
I see major potential to grow the capabilities of digital media management programs, especially in the realm of music. A library should do more than just display what is available, and it should be more than just searchable. If my software is tracking my setlist, why can’t I make comments on the setlist? As a wedding DJ, I frequently play the same or similar songs back-to-back, and rarely have the need to listen to a playback of the entire event. A library program should be able to look at the song I’m playing, then back at previous sets to help me find the next track to play… And it should prevent me from playing songs that frequently bomb. The system could look at my ID3 tags, and help me with harmonic mixing, providing features similar to Mixed In Key…
The bottom line is, i have a few dreams… Big dreams… But, I may need some help along the way. Mixxx, for the most part, is written in C / C++, a language I have not yet studied. Also, the Mixxx project is about 8 years old, so I’ve got a lot of (poorly commented) code to catch up on. Now, my first step is to introduce myself to the other devs on the mailing list, and see where they think I should start.
ThePirateBay.org hacked… Isn’t it Ironic?
2682 days
According to CNET, popular “filesharing” website The Pirate Bay has been taken down after falling to an SQL injection attack that leaked the username, password, e-mail address, and IP addresses of 4 million of their registered users. The site went down today for about 2 hours, I assume to attempt to fix the vulnerability.
While this list of “the internet’s most wanted” would probably sell for several million dollars, a few sources (1, 2, 3) are claiming that the attack was meant to educate, and they have no intent to sell the information they gathered.
Leaving aside my opinions on file sharing and looking only at the legal ramifications of downloading copy written software, photos, and videos, you’d think that users would want to cover their tracks a little bit. While I don’t expect everyone on the internet to understand how to set up a proxy server, or more importantly, how to build a proxy server… but you’d think they’d be smart enough NOT to create an account containing personal information on a site that aids their illegal activity. ThePirateBay is fully functional without creating an account, so somebody please tell me what benefits you get for giving away your information! Even if there is a good reason, why wouldn’t you just use someone else’s password?
Twitter is… Making Money?
0683 days
So Twitter has just dropped a bombshell, one that I should have seen coming long ago. I first found out about the @earlybird account from the writers at Twittown. They said it just as well, or better than I can, so I’ll just share their text:
Twitter pulled back the lid this week on their latest monetization mechanism, one that has bargain-minded tweeple all abuzz with excitement – a Twitter account, called @earlybird, which will tweet exclusive Twitter-only offers to followers about time-sensitive events, deals, and sneak previews. Twitter will be partnering with selected advertisers and channeling their Twitter-only offers, via retweets, through the @earlybird account.
… …
It’s important to note that Twitter itself isn’t playing a part in crafting any of the deals offered through the @earlybird account, and they’re not originating any tweets themselves. It’s not a pay-per-tweet system, but rather, a system in which advertisers, if chosen by Twitter, can choose to pay the microblogging platform to retweet tweets that they’ve already made. Twitter isn’t creating any content here, and they’re barely doing any heavy lifting to get @earlybird up and running, yet it’s likely that they’re going to be raking in some serious cash.
No crap they’ll be making some serious cash, I WANT IN THE PROGRAM! Deal hunters will be in love with this account and (depending on pricing of course) business would be unbearably short-sighted to pass up an offer for this system. Whether trying to clear “stuck” inventory, to discounting a typically high-margin product, a single RT by @earlybird could rake in 20,000 impressions BEFORE considering search traffic, web-page imbeded tweet streams, and potential RTs from users. The key, however; to the success and proliferation of @earlybird will be in their ability to provide quality content to their followers. Just because the account is run by twitter doesn’t mean it’s above the guidelines of any other account. If they send out too much garbage followers will disappear, effectively destroying the value of placing adds with @earlybird.
My 3DTV Reprise
0689 days
by Nicholas Wautier
in Gadgets
I had previously written, I’m getting a little annoyed with the strength of the push for 3D within the last year or so. My proposed “$100 device” is exactly what Sony is selling, which makes the true cost of 3D much more transparent than I had previously stated. And, they’re doing it for HALF THE PRICE I estimated! In my previous article, I made SEVERAL errors in estimating prices, including the fact that I compared two TVs that weren’t exactly comparable… In fact, the 3D Samsung, is the THINEST TV I have ever seen. I know, because we had one at Camera Corner, which is why I’m writing this rebuttal to begin with. If I had really done my homework, the price difference between 3D and non-3D (assuming that it’s time to upgrade your current system) is closer to $400 vs the $1500 I had estimated previously.
Normally, I’d be the guy to save the $400 if I didn’t really need or want the feature, but after USING 3DTV with a PS3, I am hooked! It actually made a few games EASIER to play! This is because, unlike movies, cameras in video games don’t need to be focused. I, as a viewer, am free to look at whatever I want, and will see it clearly and precisely, exactly in the location I expect it to be in. And I forgot to mention, you can ALWAYS turn the 3D features OFF, so you won’t be wasting money on extra glasses for your friends.
Evolution of the User Interface
0690 days
by Nicholas Wautier
in About Me
Here’s a 8 minute video I came across proposing a new, multi-touch, desktop computer interface, dubbed “10/GUI”. While 10/GUI does sound exciting, there are a few small drawbacks that I see in the concept. The operating system uses a 3 and 4 finger drags and pinches as a core means of navigation, sometimes even requiring both hands. While I love the idea, how do we make this work for those who don’t have 10 fingers?
Photographs vs. Snapshots
0691 days
by Nicholas Wautier
in Photography
I recently attended a photography seminar titled Eleven Simple Secrets to Better Pictures, led by John VanSteenberg of Tamron USA, Inc. and learned a great deal about taking pictures intended for sale. I would HIGHLY recommend Mr. VanSteenberg’s class to any newcomer that aspires to sell their prints or photography services.
One of the first, and most poignant points of his discussion was the separation between Snapshots, and Photographs. While it may be fun to take a bunch of quick snaps with your camera, people typically buy and frame prints that speak to them. This is exactly why many of my photographer friends still buy simple, point-and-shoot cameras even though they already own several, far superior, SLR cameras. Snapshots are quick, fun, & easy. Photographs take time, reflection, and a creative eye. To paraphrase Robert Hughes, for every photograph you take, there were 14 billion you didn’t.
VanSteenberg also made a solid case for shooting in RAW rather than JPEG, which I’ve been doing for a while, simply because I could. RAW images have much more room to correct exposure at the high end, and with a proper workflow program like Aperture or LightRoom, they’re nearly as quick to modify and print as their compressed counterpart. While this seems obvious, it made me realize that there must be some compelling reason for the RAW format. I’ve been reading The Raw Pipeline to educate myself and it does an excellent job of explaining how image sensors work, and why JPEG isn’t necessarily bad, but falls far short of the abilities of RAW. It also pushes the use of a particular color calibration chart, which I never have used, but I plan to start using after reading why I should.
The most important things I learned out of these endeavors:
- Take a shot, then walk away, zoom in, and take the same shot… Notice the subtle differences between the two photographs.
- There is a difference between looking at an image and seeing it. You must take time to process an image and give it the consideration it deserves. A poor exposure can be corrected on the computer, a poor composition can’t.
- The pros DO use PhotoShop, but keep it subtle!
Up and Running!
0704 days
So after nearly a week without my website, http://www.hostmds.com has restored my service and ALL files (even the ones I have cleverly hidden from the web). While I could sit here and write a scathing review of their slow response and lack of customer notification, I remind myself of the old adage: “you get what you pay for.” Considering there is no limit to how many databases I can host, the amount of data I store, or the amount of data I transfer, and factoring in that I am able to host multiple domains on the same server without making it blatantly obvious to the visitor, I think I’m getting a fairly good deal. Since I know 95% of my visitors are led here by my RSS feed, which is hosted off-site, I can easily redirect my traffic to another, temporary location. If this site were actually generating revenue for me, I’d be hosting somewhere more reliable.
My apologizes for the outage and lack of updates while I was down, but it led me to a few great writing ideas I’ll probably take up in the future.
- My week without a website
- My week without a phone
- My week without e-mail
Hopefully next week, I’ll be writing a couple new articles I’ve had in my head for a while:
- My 3DTV Reprise
- Twitter Contests — Just Do It Yourself!
