-Lace

Lace

*EDIT: Practically as soon as I wrote this they all came back online. No worries! I’ve been tinkering with some plugins, pruning out old or no longer useful ones as well as installing and activating new ones. One new install in particular may catch the average readers interest.

The most noticeable change is the new comment system that I have installed. It is much more powerful than the build in WordPress one, as you can see if you glance around below. My favorite feature so far is the fact that it is now connected to Facebook! Log in with your Facebook information to leave comments using your information and profile picture from your account. You also have the ability to post a news story on your wall that mirrors your comments, and things of that nature. Explore, play around, see what there is to see! I’m going to bed!*

http://izationlabs.com/audio/WIZL Channel 7 News Short.mp3

Okay. So, now that we’ve established that that was just a joke, (If you didn’t know that, I thank you, because that means my recording was of decent quality) I’ll tell you what I am actually introducing.

• First and foremost, I have been testing my new Blue Snowball microphone. I know, from the name alone it doesn’t sound that impressive, but trust me it is.  It is an 80 dollar microphone that connects to the computer via usb. It pulls its phantom power from the USB bus, and has 2 hemispheres and three settings. Mode 1 is a unidirectional cardoid microphone. Mode 2 puts a -10db PAD on the same cardoid mic, and mode 3 activates the omni-capsule, the other side of the mic, meant to pick up environmental sounds. I have to say I love this not so little microphone.

This thing is amazing!

That’s a quarter below and held next to the mic for scale.

The reason I bought it is because I was tired of messing with headset microphones and typical passive mics that just don’t get the job done well. The next step up was either this, or a 200 dollar mic that requires a pre-amp for the phantom voltage. That’s the beauty of this little thing. If I need to go to some foley recording outside, then I can just pack up my laptop and this little microphone and do it.

A passive mic would work, but not with anywhere near the quality. And one of those more expensive mics might give me a better quality recording (I say might because this little microphone absolutely blows me away) but it would never be as portable or accessible.

• The second thing I wanted to introduce isn’t really a big deal. I downloaded a nice little audio plugin that lets me embed the player that you saw at the top of this page. Now if I feel really inspired and make some good music or recordings, I can just let people listen to it by clicking the play button right at the top of my blog! **Due to memory issues, the plugin is currently disabled. Click the link above to hear the clip.**

The weird thing is that it is only my laptop, and only on the connection relative to my laptop. Everyone else can connect no problem, even my roommate. What in the world is going on here? I don’t think it is anything that I did personally, but I could be wrong. All the site will do is return a 500 server error.

So that is a little upsetting. I’m sending this while waiting in Sill hall, getting ready to sit through a 4 hour electronics lecture. Joy. If you need to contact me, use the Contact Us page, at least that can still get mesages through to me. On the other hand, I can’t even send messages using my mail client. I have to log into a web based mail client to send, but not to recieve.

I’m beginning to think that campus is not entirely Mac friendly.

If anyone has any ideas, let me know. Thanks.

Lace

As an exchange in services (and because we are just cool like that), my oldest brother ‘Ryan’ has joined IZationLabs as an admin, and I have done the same on his site, the link to which is here.

Hopefully this way we’ll be able to fix those darn punctuation errors and spelling issues that arise from typing too fast and just not paying enough attention.

In other news, my significant other and I are headed to an Unofficial Propeller Expo tomorrow in Norwalk, Ohio, where we will get to see all sorts of electronics projects based on the Parallax Propeller microcontroller. There will also be some people speaking about computers and other kinds of technology there. The best part, however, is that a bunch of sensors and microcontrollers are being given away practically for free! Pictures and a breakdown of the event soon to come.

Cheers!

Lace

Well, time for another site update. The functionality continues to improve as I find more and more useful plug-ins for use with WordPress. The most recent and most noticeable improvement is a plugin called Lightbox.

If you’ve ever been over to Instructables and clicked a photo on their site before, you have already seen the Lightbox effect. Rather than try to explain it to you, try clicking on the photo up above.

The only issue I have is that I can’t seem to get my photo blog plugin to play nicely with my lightbox install. I hope to get that worked out in the near future. Another nice new feature is the admission of a log in widget on the right hand column of the web site, which turns into a mini user links area once you’ve logged in. Also useful is the Online visitor widget that has been added right above that.

In other news, the future of the College-Now pages looks promising! There is a C-N introductory page up now, to help everyone get acquainted with College-Now and understand why I talk about it so much. If you are looking to get an account so you can upload a project, or if you are interesting in submitting well written, professional looking, technology oriented blog posts, please click register under the log in area to the right on the main page, or click here. For the rules and guidelines of project posts, click here.

I’m still working on the forums, this is proving to be more difficult than I would like. But the truth is, if things went smoothly all the time, I would get so bored.

Lace

I have to say that I am a big fan of xkcd. I just love the kind of humor that can be found there. I have every comic. Here’s a taste of my own, in a new kind of post that I am proud to introduce.

The sketches posts are… well, just that, sketches. They might be from napkins, a random sheet of paper, my notebook, sticky notes, or even my arm if I can’t find anything else. It might be a funny thing from my life turned comic, or it might be design ideas for a new robot or piece of machinery. If anybody else wants to contribute, feel free to contact me! A word of warning: my drawing skills aren’t exactly first rate! Remember, it is the meaning behind the sketch that matters, much like everything else in life. Everything has meaning. You can’t have an interesting sketch/life without some meaning hidden deep inside.

Whoa, getting a little existential. Better go get the air cannon out and shoot at things that ought not be shot at.