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Nabuhay ako muli

Been a while since I last blogged. My Macbook Pro died on me – specifically, the hard drive failed without any warning. I didn’t want to blog when not using Ecto, which supports previewing of all my custom functions (ie footnotes, markdown, etc.)

Incidentally, SpinRite was of no use since it wouldn’t work on the MacBook Pro; it would only load to a certain point then not respond to any keyboard input – hence couldn’t get to the actual testing/maintenance/recovery operations. Fortunately, Data Rescue II saved my ass – again. So I was able to recover all my data from the dying drive.

I ended up getting a 3.5″ 120GB IDE drive with external enclosure for about 3k bucks, which I installed and ran OS X from. It’s such a pain in the ass to not be able to move around when you have your laptop booting and running off a 3.5″ drive as you need it powered from a wall-wart. But the price of a similarly sized 2.5″ version is just too much.

In any case, the service center where I usually have my stuff repaired pre-ordered a replacement drive without me having to show or leave the laptop with them for a few days (the benefits of being a trustworthy customer). They let me keep and use my laptop until the new drive came and I only had to visit once – having the drive replaced within the hour.

So I’m back, and will now use the 3.5″ drive as a dedicated clone of my laptop drive – in case something like this happens a third time (or any succeeding time for that matter).

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Leap of faith

In an interesting turn of events, I’ve purchased something on faith rather than doing any proper research on it. Actually I didn’t really have a choice since the product’s “nature” to this day is hidden in total secrecy.

One of Neil Diamond’s guitarists Hadley (aka “Radley”) Hockensmith is selling units of his invention called the “Harmonic Converger.” It is a passive device that among other things, eliminates the “fizz” commonly present in digital modelers.

The official information page of the Harmonic Converger (which from this point on I will refer to as “HC”) can be found here

So I’ve purchased one – and thanks to Mara, I’ll [hopefully] be getting it at the end of May.

I’ve also taken the liberty of taking some select audio clips from the internet showcasing what the HC can do. Most (if not all) taken from a really old “HC Test Drive” page created by Radley and a couple of HC users down at Boss GT Central

Obviously the pedalboard being used was a Boss multi-effects processor – specifically, a GT8 like mine if I’m not mistaken. Read More

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AlphaTrack

So I finally got the AlphaTrack after all this time. Actually I already had the unit since Pia came back – however, the unit had outdated firmware. And for some strange reason, Frontier didn’t have software available to download that can upgrade it.

Yet, as mind-boggling as the decision not to have such software seems; Mr. Brian George, the head of the AlphaTrack development, was kind enough to take the time to find a way to send me a new updated unit as a replacement.

Today, I just spent 3 hours in the post-office/customs to get my replacement unit of the AlphaTrack. I just have to say that I hate Philippine customs.

They are, quite frankly a bunch of bloody thieves. They really find ways to swindle you out of your money and not give you a choice about it. You’re literally at their mercy, and it pisses the hell out of me that you can’t get these motherfuckers fired for their unreasonable actions. Read More

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Some music stuff

In the past, I mentioned lusting after some recording gadget really bad – then I followed it up with a subtle deliberate statement of my intention of getting it in another post as soon as it was out. Then on yet another post, I mentioned failing to acquire said item while I was in the US.

Anyways, when I say “it will be mine” – I goddamn fucking mean it! Ok, so didn’t really say it (I did for the T5 though) – what I meant to say is that I never ceased to follow up the status of the said product from the parent company even when I got back home – Until I finally got the following response:

Hi Carlos,

Actually they should be on store shelves right about now. GC has recieved a shipment. Sweetwater and other dealers should have them as well. Depending on their shipping choices some may get them today or over the next couple days.

We will be posting driver updates with more features this week too so make sure you go to our website and get them if you pick up a unit.

Read More

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RSS feed updates

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I’ve been tracking my feed activity through Mint, via a “pepper” 1 What they call “plugins” for Mint that can track FeedBurner stats… so I did some .htaccess jiggery-pokery 2 A term I blatantly filched from Mark Gruber of DaringFireball.net to make the URL redirect to the FeedBurner site without you guys having to do anything. So while you clicked/subscirbed to /blog/rss.xml in my domain, you were most probably redirected without noticing it to http://feeds.feedburner.com/nargalzius/nblog

Which brings me to this post; I’ve found a way to track my feed’s activity locally – hence FeedBurner isn’t needed anymore.

While I did delete the FeedBurner account and had it redirect back to my original feed, in case some subscribers still have http://feeds.feedburner.com/nargalzius/nblog as the registered feed address in their respective RSS readers, now would be the perfect time for me to urge everyone to change the feed URL back to http://www.nargalzius.com/blog/rss.xml

And in case any new reader is wondering what RSS is – I’ve discussed [in great length] it here.

Notes

Notes
⇡1 What they call “plugins” for Mint
⇡2 A term I blatantly filched from Mark Gruber of DaringFireball.net