Dav Waldron's Blog

So it seems, contrary to popular belief, that Santy thinks I have been a good boy this year. I have received from him 2 most wonderful new toys which move my plans to unleash horrific music upon the world even closer to reality.

Tosh and Pod - a double act to be frightened of...

So what is it?

Well it’s a Toshiba Satellite LD350 – 214 which boasts an Athlon Dual Core CPU, 2 GB of RAM (soon to be upgraded to 4GB when I have some spare cash), 250GB hard drive and a 17″ screen! So it’s “portable desktop” rather than “laptop” territory which is great as I need to be able to take it to and from practice etc.

On top of that we have the Line 6 Pod X3. This is a guitar (and vocal!) multi-effects processing unit that can replicate the sound of many different amps, cabs, microphones and of course, effects units. It also acts as a MIDI device when connected via USB into a computer and after some fiddling around with stuff this afternoon, I managed to get it correctly installed on the Tosh.

Next remaining step is to install some manner of recording software and learning how the frak the Pod works I also need to get some manner of backpack or bag to carry both devices, their power supplies, cables, etc. Have had a few recommendations already in that regard, so no worries.

My current problems are two-fold:
1) my flat is WAY too small to set this stuff up in it.
2) my decent guitars are all out in storage since the closure of the BatCave.

So I’d already planned on moving house anyway, so that’s grand, all that remains is getting to the storage place and grabbing my axes.

Fun times ahead

On Thursday night last, I was at the Boards.ie Windows 7 launch event.  First of all, big thanks to Microsoft and Edleman PR for having us and for our free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.  I’ve been using Win7 since RC1 came out in June and I’m quite happy with it.  I’d definitely recommend making the switch if you’re a Fista user and if your hardware’s a bit older, it still seems to run pretty well on low-end tech (they had it running pretty smoothly on NetBooks with Atoms and 1GB of RAM which is decent).  We got to see the whole thing in action and also how the inter-connectivity of a multi-device house might work.  Will, one of their Dev team, had a great presentation showing off some of the interface features (multi-touch looks good) and had a machine running Home Server as well as an XBox 360.  He demoed how it all came together and shared libraries with a lot of ease.  It’s a good system and for a lot of people, it’ll work very well.  I’m considering setting something like this up at home myself – Microsoft’s plan seems to involve family licences at a reduced rate, but I’m not sure if Home Server is included in this – I sense some research ahead!

The long and the short of it is, I recommend an upgrade to Windows 7 to anyone who’s a Windows user.

More importantly though, after the presentations, @thaedydal, @cloudsteph, @darraghdoyle and @doneganland were in the reception area of Edleman’s office where they have photos on the wall of some of their various campaigns.  They included this one:

Promo shot in Edleman PR of Twink

As we were looking at it, I commented that My mother is quite friendly with Maxi and knows her from her Maxi, Dick and Twink days, so she’d know the other two members of the group too.  Someone (I honestly can’t remember who) made some comment which sparked a conversation about whether or not my mother would take any shite from Twink – I know for a fact that she wouldn’t as she wouldn’t take any shite from anyone!

So I ask you dear readers to please answer my first ever poll which is appearing in the side bar there on the right and ask yourself – “Would my ma take shite from Twink?”