Finances are simpler when drawn
Posted by Aaron in Infographics on August 12th, 2010
The New York Times has a clever feature by Carl Richards, The Sketchpad: Personal Finance on a Napkin, explaining finances with drawings on napkins. The image above may be my favorite. What’s yours?
My new bag: Timmy’s Tactical Attache
Posted by Aaron in Technology on August 10th, 2010
I just got the Timmy’s Tactical Attache from Thinkgeek.com. Prior to buying the bag, I searched the internet looking for reviews of the bag. I didn’t find much, and there weren’t many pictures on the Thinkgeek site, so I’m posting my own review here.
Overall, the bag is impressively well made. The matieral is a bit thin but the fit and finish are fairly good (with a few exceptions that I note below). The bag is on the smallish side. It’s perfect for me, but don’t think that you’ll be hauling around your collection of oversize atlases in this bag.
(Click any image to enlarge)
A flowchart to explain Incepti…
Posted by Aaron in Infographics on August 10th, 2010
A flowchart to explain Inception movie. Start the debate. http://flic.kr/p/8pCs11
Ralph’s Inter-City Bus Guide: …
Posted by Aaron in Uncategorized on August 8th, 2010
Ralph’s Inter-City Bus Guide: A guide to the “Chinatown” busses in DC, NY, etc. http://www.contentous.com/bus/
Open Source Software I’m Using
Posted by Aaron in Technology on March 25th, 2010
I’m a big fan of open source software. The philosophy of it appeals to me — a community of like minded individuals who are dedicated to making the world a better place through the creation of software. The functionality appeals to me — often the tools are as good or better than their commercial equivalents. And the price really appeals to me — free!
As a sometimes coder, I can understand and appreciate the amount of time and dedication goes into writing software.
I should note that an excellent resource for finding open source software is the Open Source as Alternative site. You can search for commercial software — say “Photoshop” — then find open source alternatives. With reviews and ratings, the site helps you decide if there are viable open source alternatives for your problem.
So here are the open source software I use.
Can’t Live without Them
These are the open source programs I use without fail, every day or very regularly. To me, these are really the best of the best.
Audacity: Hands down. I use this audio editor every week to edit audio files from my church and at work. Great options and the beta version (as of this writing) adds some great features.In the world of open source software, this program is very well developed with a professional feel to it. Read the rest of this entry »
Skype to the rescue
Posted by Aaron in Technology on January 13th, 2010
The power went out in our building a few days ago. This would no’t have been a big deal but it was on the day of a big event that was going to be teleconferenced to some remote participants. When the power came back, our phone system was fried and not working. Panic ensued.
We discussed a number of different options. We could use a cell-phone conferencing feature, but we judged them to have inadequate sound quality to pick up the conversation in a large conference room. We could purchase a new phone and run a long telephone line to our fax line, the one direct outside line that was working (because it was bypassing our internal PBX system). But that was still judged to have too many risks (using a new phone during an event).
Happy New Year: 2010
Posted by Aaron in Photography on January 1st, 2010
Happy New Year everyone! Blessings to you this year.
(Photo is originally from 2009 Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.)
Decade in Review
Posted by Aaron in Infographics on December 31st, 2009
Wow, you’ve got to see this. Phillip Niemeyer does an “Op-Chart” for the New York Times in which he illustrates the decade with 120 icons, arranged by year and theme.
NYTimes Year in Review
The above is just a sample — click through to see the entire chart.
Hong Kong
Posted by Aaron in Asia, Photography on December 23rd, 2009
From the Hong Kong fish market and harbor at Sai Kung:
Professional quality audio for $350
Posted by Aaron in Technology on December 16th, 2009
A few months ago I put together a package of audio equipment for recording our live events at the office. The problem was that we were previously letting our great events go unrecorded, meaning those who couldn’t make it would miss out on our great programming. In addition, when the conference room really filled up, the audience sometimes had difficulty in hearing more soft-spoken presenters. So we needed both sound recording and sound reinforcement. And we needed it on a budget, because we are a nonprofit with a modest budget.
Early Recordings
So here’s what we did. At first, we purchased an Olympus DS-30 digital voice recorder (~$100). The Olympus has a great microphone in it with a bunch of different recording settings. We chose the high quality (HQ) mono — we didn’t need stereo for what were going to be voice recordings. (I just learned that the Olympus can be programmed to turn on and start recording at preset times. Very handy, and I’ll show you why in a subsequent post.)
Eliminating Distractions with Directional Microphones
We used the recorder as-is very successfully for about a year. But the Olympus has an omnidirectional microphone, meaning it would pick up sound from anywhere in the room. That means lot’s of distracting noises were picked up — coughing, paper rustling, doors shutting, etc. So we upgraded to some directional microphones, which accept sound only from one direction. When they are pointed at a presenter, they pick up his or her voice well but they reject sound that comes from “off axis” (meaning sound from the side or behind a microphone).