AmpliTube

Turn your iPad into a fully featured electric guitarist's studio with one simple app!

AmpliTube mimics a typical guitarist's setup, providing you with an amplifier, effects pedals and a little recording studio, all on your iPad. All you have to bring to the party is your electric guitar, some talent and a pair of headphones. Oh, and a cable to connect your guitar to your iPad (or iPhone - there's a separate version available). There are two main types of cable on the market - the AmpliTube-branded iRig. Both work equally well with the AmpliTube app, but we prefer the iRig for build quality.

The level of detail in the photorealistic amps and effects pedals is superb - it's just like using the real thing. The downside of this is that the casual guitarist could well be put off by the level of complexity involved in setting an amp up, but thankfully there are presets available for each amp with names like 'Smooth lead' or 'Seattle'.

In the free version of this app, you get just three pedals (Noise Filter, Delay and Distortion) and one amp - with more available as in-app purchases. You can also purchase a version of the app with five amps and 11 pedals and make a significant saving compared to buying every item individually. But even with this version of AmpliTube, you still need to make in-app purchases to get all the extras, such as the upgrade to an eight-track recorder.

Other features of note include the ability to import songs from your iPod app (or over your Wi-Fi network), so you can play along with them. The lengthy importing process is a real hassle, but once it's done you can slow down the track and loop individual sections. Results are mixed, however - slowing down songs seems to result in a lot of audio crackle.

The app did crash a few times on us too, but these are relatively small niggles compared to the fun that's to be had here. Its nearest competitor is Griffin's iShred, but AmpliTube beats it hands down for sheer versatility, even if iShred works better with the iPod app.

Where Are All the Supernovae?

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was lucky. In 1572, he saw a bright supernova explosion in the constellation of Cassiopeia. Just 32 years later, his German pupil Johannes Kepler observed a similar event in Ophiuchus. Ever since, the Milky Way has produced not a single visible supernova, although John Flamsteed may have observed a pretty faint one in 1680. Indeed, there have only been eight in the past 2,000 years. Yet astronomers believe there should be at least three per century. So where are they?

In all likelihood, a supernova probably does pop off in the Milky Way every few decades. But since they occur in the thin Galactic disc, their light is heavily obscured by interstellar dust. "The supernovae seen by Tycho and Kepler were relatively close to us in the Galaxy," says David Green of the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge. "No doubt there have been others much further away, which would have been obscured more."

Supernova explosions leave expanding gaseous remnants, like the famous Crab Nebula. Also, the cores of the exploding stars collapse into dense neutron stars, some of which are detected as pulsars. But counting supernova remnants and pulsars doesn't help much in pinning down the true supernova rote. Ages of older remnants are poorly known; our inventory is far from complete, and most neutron stars go unnoticed.

Still, the predicted supernova rate is consistent with the figure derived from supernovae detected in other galaxies, so it seems likely that we just haven't seen them. But it's not all bad news: future telescopes will operate in a wide range of wavelengths, giving us a better chance of observing them, and therefore proving that they're really happening.

Korg iMS-20 vs ReBirth

Both of these appps are retro-styled emulations of classic studio kit that have shaped the sound of dance music for the past 25 years. Forget Garageband, these apps represent retro beat and groove creation at their most synthetic.

Heritage

Just as Gibson and Les Paul set a benchmark for rock guitar, so Roland's TR-808, TR-909 and TB-303 defined and detonated hip-hop and house. And all three machines are perfectly recreated in ReBirth. It was released on iPhone in 2010, and thanks to the extra finger room of the iPad all three classics have room to shine.

Korg's MS-20 may not be as famous as the Roland originals, but in many ways it's an even more fashionable and prized synth. The MS-20's raw powersynth sound has been key to tracks by the likes of Daft Punk, Soulwax and The Chemical Brothers. The iMS-20 is a gorgeous recreation of this classic plus a drum synth, sequencer, mixer and effects - all you need to make a banging tune.

Ease of use

As synths go, the MS-20 is a simple unit but the way its oscillators and filters are arranged (and patchable through the addition of cables to the front panel) allow some truly ear-shredding sounds. It's not particularly easy to 'make a sound' but you can spend hours happily tweaking, and the built-in presets (a luxury unavailable on the original) are a great head start in learning what certain sounds 'look like'.

Rebirth on the other hand makes it amazingly easy to bash out tunes. You now own a pair of 303 bassline machines linked to 808 and 909 drum machines. You program your beats and melody in the exact same laborious, stunted way you programmed the original machines and then you hit play. With no practice, no talent, and no idea what you're doing it's childsplay to make amazing, technically accurate house. This is because - thanks to the fiddly, near impossible to master interface of the 303 in particular- that's exactly what the makers of all those hit records did.

Authenticity

Fiddling with ReBirth's knobs-opening and dosing the sound thanks to the Multi-Touch interface - is the sound of acid house. The built in compression, distortion, reverb and delay effects help push the sound to the same dizzying extremes. Meanwhile the sound of the iMS-20 is richer and nothing short of incredible for an app. All the grit and grime is intact. Forget any 'cello', 'choir' or miked 'drum kit' sounds: this synth is raw vintage.

Private spacecraft orbits Earth

The commercial space industry celebrated a landmark achievement on 8 December 2010, when California-based company SpaceX launched a spacecraft into orbit and successfully brought it back to Earth. It's the first time a commercial company has ever recovered a spacecraft from orbit, and it paves the way for private spacecraft missions to ferry supplies to the International Space Station. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called the feat a 'dramatic step forward'. "We're witnessing the dawn of a new era, whose ultimate result could be routine, safe access to space with industry, academia and governments regularly sending payloads and people to low Earth orbit. That's the goal," he said. SpaceX used its own Falcon 9 vehicle to launch the Dragon spacecraft, which is capable of carrying a payload of six tonnes and could eventually be crewed by up to seven astronauts. Both the Dragon spacecraft and the first stage of the Falcon 9 are designed to be reusable, which is a key part of long-term plans to reduce the costs of spaceflight a factor of 10.

After lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Dragon spacecraft orbited the Earth twice before re-entering the atmosphere. An advanced heat shield protected it from temperatures of up to 2,200"C. It then deployed parachutes before gently splashing into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

"This has really been better than I expected there's so much that can go wrong and it all went right," said the company's CEO Elon Musk following the mission, which took less than four hours from lift-off to landing.

Later this year, Space X plans to carry out a five-day mission in which the Dragon will approach within 10 km (6.2 miles) of the International Space Station and communicate with its crew before returning to Earth. After that, a full cargo mission that docks with the station and delivers supplies should take place.

SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract to make at least 12 flights to the International Space Station, following the retirement of NASA's Shuttle fleet later this year after nearly 30 years of service.

Japan's Energy Options in an Non-nuclear Future

Few months after the explosions and radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in japan, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, has announced that the country will not build any new reactors.

If Kan really means it the government will have to abandon the plans for expanding nuclear power it adopted only last year. To make up the energy shortfall, Kan has set the ambitious goal of using renewables.

That is most likely to mean wind, according to a report released last month by the Ministry of the Environment There is "an extremely large introduction potential of wind power generation", it says, especially in the tsunami-hit north-east of the country.

'The potential of wind is huge because of the contribution from offshore generation with japan's long coastline," agrees Tetsunari Lida, founder of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Tokyo, who advocates a 100 per cent switch to renewable energy by 2050.

At present japan produces just 3 per cent of its electricity from renewables: solar; wind and geothermal. Nuclear contributes 30 per cent.

Taking into account wind strength, available land and the potential for offshore farms, the report estimates that japan could install wind turbines with a capacity of up to 1500 gigawatts. More realistic estimates in the report suggest that with appropriate financial incentives, turbines with a capacity of 24 to 140 GW could be installed. Assuming the turbines operate a quarter of the time, this would provide up to 35 GW of electricity on average, matching the combined output of about 40 of japan's existing 54 nuclear reactors.

Next in line is solar energy, which the report estimates could provide between 69 and 100 GW without taking up any productive agricultural land.

Perhaps surprisingly, given japan's 120 active volcanoes and the 28,000 hot springs associated with them, geothermal energy scarcely figures in the ministry's report. At best it says, only 14 GW is available, but much of that is inaccessible because of restrictions on development in national parks. At other sites, exploiting geothermal energy would disrupt springs currently used as spas.

A switch to renewables will require huge amounts of new infrastructure. This will need to be paid for by offering special tariffs as incentives for providers to feed energy from renewable sources into the grid. By coincidence, on the morning of 11 March - the day of the earthquake the japanese cabinet approved proposals that would achieve this. "It's under review by the parliament and could provide a really big push for renewables if it's passed" says Lida.

The contribution from renewables to japan's electricity supply is currently almost static, having increased from 3.1 to 3.3 per cent between 2008 and 2009. Lida blames "poor policy support'' for this lack of growth. So it is possible that as the shock of Fukushima fades, support for renewables will go the same way. However, polls reported this week suggest that two-thirds of japanese back a shift away from nuclear power.

Making the upgrade

This time, sensation-seekers, I'm going to talk about the three different bits of hardware in my office that I considered upgrading, and how I walked myself through each decision.

Device 1: Compact digital camera.

Reason for upgrading: A maturing technology. My three-year-old, but highly-beloved, Nikon P6000 pocket camera is exactly the sort of camera I like: small enough to slip into a pocket, but big enough to operate comfortably, and with a sprinkling of advanced features that allowed me to use it as my sole travel camera.

Last year, I did some work for a pal and he generously gave me his Olympus PEN E-P1 camera as a thank-you gift. I soon fell in love with the Micro Four Thir-ds system. It filled a gap for me: I travel a lot and take a lot of photos. and I am hellaciously fussy about the results. As great as my Nikon is, there's no ignoring the facts: it has a tiny image sensor and you can't swap out its fixed zoom for a more appropriate lens ... like Panasonic's magnificent 20 mm f1.7.

With that lens on the Olympus' body, I had nearly the optimum travel camera. It had most of the important features of my Nikon and it wasn't that much larger.

One problem: the Olympus doesn't have a built-in flash. What a pain in the butt! Also, the E-P1 was one of the first Micro FourThirds cameras made and I was eager to see how far the cameras have come after two years.

February seemed like the perfect time to upgrade. Olympus and Panasonic released new Micro Four Thirds cameras. The new Olympus was much like the E-P1, but it had a flash; the new Panasonic was barely larger than the Nikon. After a temporary dalliance with Nikon's fairly awesome P7000 (with its heroic assemblage of mechanical controls), I knew it'd be one or the other.

What I did: I bought an external flash for my Olympus.

Why: After poring through technical specs and advance reviews, I couldn't get excited about either new camera. I was hoping for a major advancement in Micro Four Thirds that would materially improve the Olympus, but I sure didn't see it in the reviews.

The clincher came when I found a couple of intense hardware teardowns and learned that both cameras were using two-year-old image sensors. I want the next-generation component: the one that'll allow next year's Micro Four Thirds cameras to shoot gorgeous photos in low light. And honestly, my big problem with the E-P1 was no flash. Fine: buy a flash. Sometimes you're so enamoured with having The New Version that you forget that the point of the expensive exercise is to solve problems.

Device 2: iPad.

Reason for upgrading: Er ... it's the iPad 2! I love iPad! That's, like, one whole iPad better than my iPad 1!

What I did: I stuck with my original iPad.

It's not that the iPad 2 isn't a huge improvement. Its CPU is a monster. When I ran it through its paces for a review, I didn't test its speed with an engineering benchmark suite. I used real-world apps. One task that took my old iPad more than three and a half minutes to process was chewed up and spat out by the iPad 2 in just 52 seconds. Whoosh!

Oh, yes, and the cameras and the Smart Cover and the gyroscope. I duly tested and wrote about it all. After I filed my review and I started thinking about the iPad like a consumer instead. I recognised all of those features as Nice Things that nonetheless I didn't really need.

But the speed!

Yeah. Well, Apple does a great job maintaining iOS as One Platform, With liberty And Time-Wasting Apps For All. Any app written in 2011 and probably even 2012 will work on my iPad 1. In the end, the speed of the iPad 1 isn't a handicap; the speed of the iPad 2 is a bonus.

Given that I wouldn't do anything with an iPad 2 that I can't already do, I'll wait until next year to upgrade.

Device 3: MacBook Pro.

Reason for upgrading: My current MacBook Pro is three years old. That's like having 125,000 miles on a car. You don't drive it to the scrapyard, but you know that it's entered its zone of Obsolescence.

There's always a faster CPU on the horizon. Tastes change, too. My 2008 MacBook has an ExpressCard slot. In theory, it'd open up a world of hardware enhancements. In practice, I wish it were an SD card reader.

Plus, my MacBook is my daily-use computer. I pound on it for hours a day, seven days a week and I've carried it around the world. Wear and tear is starting to show. The trackpad button hasn't worked since I splashed some coffee on it, and I'm lucky if the battery lasts 15 minutes.

What I did: I bought a new MacBook Pro.

If I'd upgraded last year, I would've had a slightly faster Mac, an SD slot, a working trackpad, and a nine-hour battery. Nice ... but this year, I got a CPU whose architecture is a whole generation ahead. It's clear that Apple's investing heavily in this new ultra-high-speed. multi-channel Thunderbolt I/O port. too. If the standard takes off, my new Mac Book will work with all of the great new high-performance hardware that's going to be released in the coming years. And if Thunderbolt fizzles ... who cares? It's still a functioning Mini DisplayPort.

This is a Mac that will get me through the next three years. That's a big deal given the scale of Mac OS X 10.7 and the OS to follow. I just need to not spill a drink on it.

The past month served as a reminder that hardware should only be replaced if it's about to stop working (whether it's worn-out or just not up to challenges that didn't exist when you first bought it) or if the new one can transform the way you work. Otherwise, you're just being a big, dopey consumer.

I did the smart thing. I thought my way through three potential upgrades, and only made one purchase. lucky me: it was the $2,000 item.

Use your iOS device as a MIDI control surface

If you don't want to wait for a commercial iOS-device control surface for your favorite DAW or virtual instrument, and you're willing to forgo some advanced features (two-way communication, for example), designing your own is much easier than you might think. You'll want to use OpenSound Control (OSC) because it is designed for network communication, and if you're not targeting an application that supports OSC, you'll need to convert the OSC messages to MIDI.

Hexler TouchOSC ($4.99 from the iTunes store) is an iOS application that hosts OSC control surfaces and handles WiFi communication with your computer. The free downloadable companion program TouchOSC Editor lets you design the control-surface GUI on your computer (Mac, Win, or Linux) and upload it to your iOS device. OSCulator ($39, Mac, osculator. net) lets you easily map OSC messages to MIDI messages and provides a MIDI port for routing these messages to your MIDI applications. The process for Windows is a bit more involved; it is documented on the Hexler website (hexler.net). Here are the details for a control panel that I use frequently with Propellerhead Reason.

Combinators Ready

TouchOSC Editor offers graphic elements for use as buttons, faders, knobs, labels, and LEDs. You can get as device specific as you like in your design, but you'll save lots of time and probably build a more useful control surface if you keep it generic. One way to do that with Reason is to target the Combinator module. That lets you control any Reason device by wrapping it in a Combinator and mapping its controls to the Combinator's.

Figure above shows the layout I use on my iPad. It controls as many as four Combinators along with four mixer channels into which the Combinators are routed. I've avoided labeling any of the iPad elements for the Combinators, relying instead on the labels on the Combinator to remind me of their function. I can use this iPad control surface with any Reason song that has a Combinator in it, ignoring any unused Combinator and mixer controls.

Once you design a control surface and upload it to your iOS device, launch OSCulator and ensure the iOS device's TouchOSC outgoing port matches OSCulator's input port (8000 by default). Touch the iOS device graphic controls one at a time and each will appear as a separate message line in the OSCulator window. These lines are ordered alphabetically by control name, so if you rename the controls in a logical fashion as you create them in TouchOSC Editor, you'll be able to easily identify the line corresponding to each control. (Edit only the part of the name after the last slash and limit yourself to lowercase letters and numerals.)

The next step is to set the MIDI event type, number, and channel for each line. Then lock the OSCulator document (Command + L) and save it. You'll need to open this document each time you use the TouchOSC control surface.

You can use your target's MIDI-learn function to map OSCulator's MIDI output to the desired controls, but in Reason, it's easier to set up OSCulator as an Advanced MIDI input and use Reason's built-in MIDI routings. Use a different MIDI channel for the mixer and each set of Combinator controls, and use Reason's Hardware Interface panel to route the controls by channel to the corresponding Reason devices.

Wah-Wah Pedals

Wah-Wah pedals are not just for guitarists anymore (and never were).

Of all the effects available to musicians, wah-wah is probably the most distinctive and most easily identified by nonmusicians. It’s usually associated with electric guitar—many classic Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton solos would be very different without it—but it’s frequently used for electric violin, bass guitar, electric piano, and Clavinet, and occasionally, even brass and wind instruments. In the right hands (or should I say feet?), wah-wah can be one of the most expressive and evocative effects that technology provides.

Mothers of Invention

Several companies experimented with tone-shifting effects in the ’60s, and the innovative Thomas Organ Company, which first imported Vox amps and instruments to the U.S., developed and patented the wah-wah pedal. In late 1966, Thomas engineer Brad Plunkett mounted a transistorized mid-range boost circuit whose frequency was controlled by a potentiometer in the housing of a Vox Continental organ’s volume pedal. One of his coworkers played a guitar through it, and voilà, wah-wah was born. The company’s CEO decided that marketing efforts should target sax and trumpet players rather than guitarists, however. Vox’s original 1967 wah-wah had an image of big-band trumpet player Clyde McCoy—famous for a 1930s pop song on which he used a “high-hat” mute for a similar effect—printed on the bottom plate.

Fortunately, others within the company recognized its potential as a guitar effect, and Plunkett continued tweaking it for electric guitar. Someone at Thomas Organ apparently thought the effect sounded like a baby crying and came up with the brand name Cry Baby. No one bothered to trademark the name, however, and Cry Baby pedals from a variety of manufacturers followed. Rock guitarists popularized the sound, and soon wahwahs were being made by Vox, Foxx, Maestro, Morley, DeArmond, Dunlop, Boss, Budda, Fulltone, and most major guitar and amp manufacturers.

Wah’s Happening

Wah-wah pedals work by manually sweeping a bandpass or lowpass filter’s resonant peak, dynamically changing the signal’s spectral content. You create the classic wah-wah sound by rocking the treadle either rhythmically or synchronized with picking your guitar strings for a sound that resembles vocal phrasing. You can also achieve a vowellike tone by positioning the treadle somewhere in the middle of its range to simulate a formant by emphasizing a particular frequency band. Strumming muted guitar strings while pumping the treadle has driven the hook of many a funk track, too.

Although wah-wah pedals are ideal for sweeping synth sounds with your foot, you could achieve a similar effect by assigning a MIDI expression pedal to control a resonant filter’s frequency. Most guitar-amp-modeling plug-ins for DAWs include a wah-wah in their arsenal of virtual stompboxes. Wah aficionados insist that different makes have their own personalities, and indeed, an assortment of design types yield different but similar effects. On stage or in the studio, as with any kind of vintage instruments or effects, purists insist that nothing beats the real thing.

Mobile Networks and Digital Dividend

Mobile networks, also called cellular networks, are based on different kinds of multiple access schemes in their radio interface (communication between mobile station and base station). Traditional multiple access schemes, such as Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) are utilized in first-generation (1G) and second-generation (2G) systems.

Mobile Technology

Analog FDMA-based networks, such as Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT), and Personal Handy phone System (PHS), are called first-generation systems. The first digital mobile networks, such as North American TDMA (also known as D-AMPS because of the same frequency band used), and cdmaOne, European Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), and Japanese Personal Digital Cellular telecommunication system (PDC) are called second-generation (2G) systems. Enhancements of 2G systems, such as packet transmission - General Packet Radio System (GPRS) and Enhanced Data calls for GSM Evolution (EDGE) - are usually referred to as 2.5G.

In specification work, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines the common name IMT-2000 for 3G systems, and the third generation partnership project, 3GPP, takes care of standardization work for the entire mobile network family - GSM (2G), GPRS (2.5G), EDGE (2.5G) and UMTS (3G).

Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

UMTS as a system is an evolutionary step for voice and data calls of different transmission rates measured in kbps or Mbps. The key idea of UMTS is to be as dynamic as possible and to use system resources for different purposes (for example FACH or RACH channels for both signaling and low data traffic needs). Voice calls range from low quality to high quality (6-12 kbps, for example), depending on the user profile. Data services also vary (from 0 kbps to 2 Mbps), depending on the application needs. Various data applications like video streaming and games are aggressively marketed, even though the applications most expected today are email and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) solutions, and the major goal of UMTS is the reduction of response time in these data transmission applications.

The UMTS network contains Radio Access Network (RAN), Core Network (CN), and Network Management System (NMS). Radio access network is also called UMTS Terrestrial RAN (UTRAN), and radio access (radio interface) is also called UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA). GSM is also part of the UMTS network; thus the UMTS system has similar types of interfaces and network elements as in GSM. Due to similar architecture, the UMTS part of the specification is similar to the GSM part of the specification (for example, in the names and use of signaling channels or radio interface parameters); therefore, a good knowledge of the GSM is very helpful in understanding the UMTS system.

Digital Dividend

The latest development in mobile technologies is LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology which will be mainly used in frequency bands which were released after the transition to digital TV broadcasting - digital dividend. 3GPP Long Term Evolution is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree that produced the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies. It is a project of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), operating under a name trademarked by one of the associations within the partnership, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The LTE specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbps, an uplink of at least 50 Mbps and RAN round-trip times of less than 10 ms. LTE supports scalable carrier bandwidths, from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz and supports both frequency division duplexing (FDD) and time division duplexing (TDD).

The mobile industry is seeking an allocation of at least 100 MHz of Digital Dividend spectrum in all regions, awarded on a harmonized basis. With such an allocation, the vision of mobile broadband everywhere can be transformed into a reality. Spectrum (or frequency) harmonization, where countries across a region use the same spectrum frequency, is vital. It is critical for the successful, cost-effective deployment of any wireless service as it provides the economies of scale which drive down handset and network equipment costs and encourage innovation. Without such harmonization, handset costs could be prohibitively high, which would reduce uptake. This would harm not only consumers and the mobile industry, but also reduce the benefits that mobile technologies bring to national economies. If spectrum allocation is not coordinated internationally, then many smaller markets may be neglected by device manufacturers, who would naturally concentrate on larger markets, with greater potential for volume sales and a higher return on investment.

Apple, iPad and Fashion

Anyone who dismisses the iPad as simply a big iPod touch is missing the point. Because of its size and the fact that it's based on an OS designed solely for touchscreen devices, the iPad could be called the first truly usable tablet. It's a great way to read, watch TV shows and movies, surf the Web (sans Flash, yes), take notes and even write longer-form items (with or without an add-on keyboard), and do a hundred other things. Businesses are finding ways to use them, as well.

With every new tablet released, pundits proclaim the arrival of an "iPad killer"- claims that echo the many false predictions regarding the fate of the iPhone. The fact is that the iPad has a big head start, and Apple and the huge community of developers will continue to make it better. There's no such thing as an iPad killer-get used to it.

iPad 2

The iPad 2 is here. All of you people who refuse to buy the first version of any product can now emerge from hiding and buy an Apple tablet device safely and securely.

As with all new Apple products, the iPad 2 is fascinating because of the choices the company made about which features to add (cameras and a magnetic case), which ones to change (thickness and weight), and which ones to leave out (an iPhone 4 - class Retina display).

But for me, perhaps the most interesting thing about the iPad 2's release was the pair of Apple-created apps that appeared alongside it: Garage Band (which also runs on the original iPad) and iMovie (which ran on other iOS devices, but has now been expanded to run on the iPad 2).

Tapping Out Rhythms

Let's get this clear: I'm no musician. I can play a bit of piano and I can sort of sightread music. But my musical education ended when I was in my early teens. Over the years, I've noodled around a bit in the musical corners of Garage Band on the Mac. But I never had as much fun as I did in the first few hours I spent playing with GarageBand on the iPad 2. The introduction of "smart'' instruments and the tactile nature of the iPad make the difference, I think GarageBand's Smart Instruments eliminate the learning curve usually required to make pleasant sounds: Once I set my song in D major, the smart guitar transformed into eight complementary chords, which I could play it' by touching the chord name, strumming in the strings, or choosing one of four auto- g play styles. Within 15 minutes I had created f2 a multilayered track with guitar, bass, organ, and drum parts. (My apologies to Fountains of Wayne: I butchered "Hey Julie." But I had fun doing it.)

Now, the tactile thing: To use GarageBand on the Mac, you have to use a mouse or (if you're really cool) a USB keyboard or a guitar with a fancy input. Playing music with a standard keyboard isn't fulfilling. But tapping out chords on an iPad screen, and running your fingers over virtual guitar strings? Fun. It's that simple. Not that Garage Band on the iPad is frivolous or dumbed down.

Unless you just don't like music, you will never get more for your $5 than by buying GarageBand for your iPad.

Making Movies

iMovie on the iPhone showed that a simplified video-editing app could work on an iOS device. iMovie on the iPad 2 shows that it doesn't even have to be that simplified. The app actually makes the radical redesign of the Mac version of iMovie make sense. iMovie on the iPad isn't the same as iMovie on the Mac, but you can tell how the two are related, and I'd imagine that they'll become even more so in the future.

iMovie on the iPad has room for an editing timeline, a preview window, and a view into the iPad's video library, making it easy to pick clips and add them to your project. I was able to piece together a video, trim clips, set transitions, and even record a voice-over in no time at all.

Unfortunately, iMovie can't use video files that aren't in the specific format shot by iOS devices. That will limit its appeal until more cameras start to support the ability to shoot video in formats iOS devices can understand. As a result, I won't be using iMovie on the iPad to edit my home movies just yet. Unless, that is, I ditch my camcorder and just start shooting everything with my iPhone 4.

But that quibble aside, let's step back to appreciate what iMovie on the iPad represents. This is a tiny, thin tablet that can edit high-definition video files without breaking a sweat, and then package them up and shoot them off to YouTube or Vimeo. A few years ago my iMac struggled to edit SD video.It's amazing the strides Apple has made, and it's no wonder the company chose to release this new version of iMovie to show off the increased power of the iPad 2. It's impressive.

The App Story

These days, so many stories about Apple focus on the success of the App Store, especially the sheer number of apps that are available. With the release of iMovie and GarageBand, Apple is sending a slightly different message: It's not just the number of apps; it's the quality of those apps-and of the devices that run them.

Conclusion

Finally, let 's send all the best wishes we can to Steve Jobs and his family. He's on a medical leave of absence again and I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later what the reason is this time but let's hope he recovers quickly. I'm not saying that for Apple's sake as I think the company will be just fine without him. Hopefully he'll return fully recovered to the helm of Apple during the year.

Turbo Pascal Compiler Secrets

My first programming language was Basic which was soon replaced with Pascal. I started programming in Pascal in high school in early 1980s. At that time I was working on a CP/M computer which had Turbo Pascal installed. I still remember how easy was to write, compile and tun the program. Turbo Pascal was first developed by Anders Hejlsberg who later sold it to Borland. It was the most successful implementation of a Pascal compiler.

Later I was working on PC and Turbo Pascal was my primary programming tool. Since then Pascal is my favorite programming language. Now Turbo Pascal is replaced with Delphi but the beauty of Pascal programming language remains.

I was always wondering how Turbo Pascal compiler works, how the code is compiled. There are few places that promise to reveal Turbo Pascal internals. Many times I was thinking to write my own compiler but never started because I didn't know how to make one. Now, after I have read many books on compiler design, I know the algorithms and tricks but unfortunately have no time for such project.

iPad - The Most Quickly Adopted Electronic Product Ever

Putting out the iPad in 2010 was a brave move by Apple. It's a product in a category all of its own. Introduced into a dismal economic climate. But Apple's gamble paid off-the iPad was the company's most successful launch in its history, and the iPad itself has been lauded as the technology product of the year.

You only have to have a go on an iPad to see why it's been so popular. It takes the usability gold that is the iPhone's multi-touch display and makes it more luxurious. While the iPhone is designed for information and communication on the go, the iPad feels like something you could comfortably use in the home as well as out and about.

Quite aside from ergonomic 'look and feel' factors, though, the iPad is an incredibly powerful device. The A4 chip that Apple has designed especially for the purpose is incredibly snappy - in most tests the iPad is the fastest of all Apple's mobile devices. The software update should bring multitasking to the first version of iPad which will make it a much better device for working on documents.

It's not perfect of course - the onscreen keyboard is a compromise however you look at it, and it should never be mistaken as substitute for a proper computer. But as a games, web, communications, and media device, the iPad is exactly what the gadget consumer ordered.

iBooks

The suitability of the iPad as a reading device could give authors who have difficulty in getting their work published conventionally access to a whole new market. Apple could set up an iBookstore for independent publishers where submitted works are categorized and for a small fee made available for readers to download. This cuts publishing, storage, marketing and distribution costs and will help sell a good many more iPads.

iPad is the most quickly adopted electronic product ever

Apple's iPad is becoming history's most quickly adopted consumer electronics launch, according to Bernstein Research.

iPad sales are hugely eclipsing the 350,000 DVD players sold in year one, the previous "most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product." says the report. "The iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion."

With other tablets reaching market this year, is Apple under threat? "We expect the slew of upcoming competition to fall flat from a user experience standpoint while struggling to materially undercut the iPad on price," said Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Hubert remarks, "The net book market is getting absolutely crushed by the iPad."

I love iPad, it is a fantastic and universal gadget.

JTAG Cables and Programmers

JTAG is a popular serial interface used in professional embedded systems and commercial electronic devices. It is used to program, read and debug on-board electronics. Since all chips on the circuit board can be connected in a chain there is only one JTAG connector needed. Unfortunately this connector is not standardized and there are many different pinouts used. Different pinouts and different applications have resulted in many JTAG programmers for specific devices.

A popular use of JTAG cable is to program routers and Xbox devices. In fact, almost all programmable electronic devices support JTAG interface, but the connector is not always implemented. While the JTAG itself is standardized there is no universal programmer. You will have to get one for each device type you need to program.

The simplest JTAG programmer is only an interface between parallel port and JTAG. A software running on PC controls signals on parallel port which via JTAG interface control JTAG signals. A more sophisticated JTAG interface has own microcontroller and connects to PC via USB. JTAG programmers/interfaces are cheap and you can even build a simple JTAG cable!

Digital Data Recovery - Problems and Solutions

Computers are used even in places where we wouldn't expect them like in appliances. Computers make devices more intelligent but also more vulnerable in the case of failure. Take a look at digital cameras. We use giant flash memory cards that can store thousands of images. We expect that they will stay there until we will delete them. However, any camera malfunction may corrupt memory card data and erase files. Fortunately, digital images form memory cards can be recovered. This is possible because in order to completely erase files the memory card would have to be overwritten with new data. In the case of failure this is not what has happened. Usually there is only some corruption at the file system level which can be fixed by digital data recovery.

The same principle applies to hard drives. All the files saved there will remain where they are until the data is overwritten. Even when you delete file the data remains there, only the file becomes marked as deleted and thus invisible to the operating system. This principle is used to recover files from hard drives and other storage media. However, it can happen that hard drive fails completely. It may be because the electronics has failed or there is some mechanical problem. Fortunately, the data is still saved on the disk platters. The only problem is that we can not access it. The only solution to get the files is to repair the hard drive to the level the data can be read. This can be done by any hard drive data recovery service. They have all the tools and knowledge to recover digital data from hard drives and other storage media.

To prevent data loss there is one simple and effective solution. It is called data backup. All you have to do is to regularly back up all the important data. It is enough to copy important files to a CD or DVD. Another step in securing the data is to create complete disk images. This way you will be prepared in the case of disk failure. If the hardware has failed or digital data recovery software can not restore the files, you will simply use the latest backup to restore the files. Having own backup of files is the cheapest data recovery service.

There are many ways how to make a cheap backup of a hard drive. No expensive hardware or software is needed. You only need to be aware that the failure can happen. Digital data recovery can in many cases restore lost files, but why pay for it when you can create your own cheap recovery solution?

First DDR4 DRAM modules

Samsung Electronics has announced new generation of DDR (Double Data Rate) memory modules. DDR4 modules offer increased performance and lower consumption (up to 40%) comparing to DDR3 memory. The DDR4 chips will be manufactured using 30 nm technology. DDR4 modules will offer speeds of 1.6 Gbit/s to 3.2 Gbit/s. Taking into account that memory prices are decreasing--the cost of 1 GB of DDR3 RAM is approaching $1. The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD) technology, a new technology that has been adapted to high-performance graphic DRAM to allow DDR4 DRAM to consume half as much electric current as DDR3 when reading and writing data.

Some Facts About Deleted Files

When we delete a thing it usually doesn't exist anymore. It is deleted. We rarely expect to be able to undelete anything. But computers and all other digital equipment behaves differently. It is not possible to "normally" delete digital data. You can only change it. Of course, when you change the original data you have deleted the original information. But the data is still there, only the information was deleted.

This fact can come handy when we accidentally delete some file. The first step of deleting a file is to move it to the recycle bin. From here it can easily be restored back. But when we empty the recycle bin the file is lost. But we can still get it back because it was not deleted, it was only marked as invisible (deleted). It is possible to undelete or recover files even if they were removed from the trash can. However, this possibility lasts until some other file overwrites the original deleted file.

Because of the way how operating systems delete files many companies have problems. Whenever they would like to get rid of old computers they can not simply dump them. All the hard drives contain files. There might be sensitive data or even confidential files, passwords or credit card numbers. Therefore, before each computer leaves a company, every hard drive must be erased. To properly erase the hard drive and to actually delete all the files and to prevent data recovery, all the data on the drive must be overwritten many times. One pass is not enough because of the way how hard drive writing heads write new data on the drive. With some advanced technique it would be possible to recover once overwritten data. However, such equipment is expensive and not available to everyone. But for intelligence agencies this is not a problem, so adequate measures need to be taken.

Hard drive data recovery is possible but you need tools and knowledge. Because of many reasons computer users lose their data there are many data recovery companies. They can recover data from damaged or broken hard drives, failed digital cameras, RAID systems or any other digital media.

Use Proxy For Anonymous Browsing

You have probably already come to the situation where you wanted to visit some website but not from your computer. There are many reasons why you want to browse the internet anonymously. The main reason is to hide your IP address. When you visit some website you provide a lot of information about you and your computer to that website. From the IP address it is possible to determine not just your country but also more precise location. Although it is not easy to connect the IP address with particular person, sometimes it is simply not desired to expose your location or properties of your browser.

There is a very simple way to avoid exposing your details to the destination page. You can use a proxy service to bypass your direct connection with any website. This is a service that acts as an intermediate computer which accepts your web addresses and returns requested web pages. So the target website sees the proxy computer and not your computer or your browser. This way you are not accessing the websites directly and your IP address and other data is not exposed to the world but only to one computer. The only disadvantage of browsing this way is that the communication is a little bit slower because of the additional "element" between your computer and web server. This additional element is a computer which downloads pages and sends them to your browser. But this is the only price you will have to pay for anonymity.

There are many free proxy services. Just Google for "free proxy" and you will find many websites offering this service for free. Browsing is still pretty simple. Instead of entering the wanted web address into the address bar of the browser you enter it into address field of the proxy page and press enter or click the "go" button. This website will download web page and send it to your browser. You will get exactly the same content as you would get by browsing directly. This is not true if the server returns data according to the visitor's country. In such case you will probably get some local content. When you browse through proxy you access the target website with the IP address of the proxy website which may be hosted in a different country.

Proxy servers or websites offer some additional functions for even better protection. One of them enables you to prevent storing cookies. Cookies are some data that is stored on your computer when you visit certain pages. The second protection function is to remove JavaScript code. This code runs in your browser when the page loads. You can enable or disable these options on the same page where you enter the target address.

In most cases you can browse directly because there is no need to hide yourself. But in some cases it is better to browse anonymously and not reveal your true identity. You can also use proxy websites to access your website from other countries in order to check if right ads for that country are displayed. It is up to you to decide when to browse this way. Anyway, proxies enable us to effectively hide out location and computer data.

FM Radio - Free Music on Every Corner

Radio is probably one of the most popular free services. We can listen to it just everywhere. At home, at work, in the bus, in the car, while we walk, etc. With the term "radio" we usually mean a sound service that we can receive and is usually free, without any subscription or expensive equipment. With radio you also get free music. You can listen to it while working or you can relax and enjoy listening to your favorite band. There are many ways to get such free sound service. Each has some advantages and disadvantages but the fact is that the old FM radio as we know it is far the most widely used broadcasting service.

You can listen to radio stations that are broadcasting over internet. This service is still free, but you need access to the internet and a computer. There are also some devices (network players) that support internet broadcasting, but you still need access to the internet, either wireless (WiFi) or over local network. The advantage of internet broadcasting is that there are thousands of stations so it easy, at least in theory, to find a station that plays music according to your taste. Cable and IPTV systems also offer radio stations but this is limited to the place where you have the connection.

Satellites also offer a lot of radio stations. But to receive satellite stations you need a satellite receiver, so this type of reception is only suitable for home listening. There are also mobile satellite radio services, but in general they are not free. You have to pay a subscription. Despite the fact that satellite services are cheap and you get large coverage areas, this type of broadcasting is not suitable for general reception. Satellites do offer a huge choice of stations, but the receiving equipment is pretty complex.

Therefore, terrestrial broadcasting is the most popular platform for radio. While AM broadcasting is still used in some countries, mainly for international broadcasting, it is the FM radio that we can find it on every corner. There are many reasons for its popularity. It is free, you only need a simple and cheap receiver. Receivers are now integrated also into mobile phones, MP3 players and many other devices. The quality of FM (frequency modulation) is very high. With quality stereo reception and some high-end receiver you get superb sound quality comparable to vinyl records.

Because of many advantages of terrestrial broadcasting there are many stations interested in using this media. Of course, the radio-frequency spectrum is a limited resource and only a small fraction of the whole spectrum is allocated to broadcasting. Therefore, we can fit only a limited number of stations into this band. In addition to this, to prevent harmful interferences there are many strict rules on frequency planning which further limit the number of possible radio stations that we can receive.

But despite all the disadvantages and limitations the FM radio will be used for many years to come. Interestingly, there is still no comparable digital broadcasting system that could replace the old analog radio.

Web Hosting Facts

Web hosting is more than just putting some files on the web server. It is also a relationship between website owner and web hosting provider. The purpose of websites is to continuously offer access to web pages. Serving web pages without interruption or failures all around the clock. Of course, 100% up-time is not our goal and it would cost us a lot of money. A reasonable expectation is about 99.9% up-time. This means that on average 8 hours per year the system could be down. This is acceptable and doesn't cause much trouble to either website owner or visitors.

The things change when there are frequent malfunctions and the website is inaccessible for hours or even days. This is where we can start distinguishing good hosting from a not so good one. If the hosting provider doesn't have good support then the website owner quickly becomes frustrated and if the problems are not solved within few hours the web hosting service looses that customer. Loosing many customers means also loosing reputation. Bad reputation is the last thing a web hosting service provider wants.

The next important fact about hosting providers is the service they offer and/or advertise. To attract customers many web hosting providers promise unlimited "everything". Is this possible? Well, yes and no. Theoretically they don't limit disk size, bandwidth, number of domains, etc. The truth is that the web server is a physical machine, a computer with limited hard disk, limited processor capabilities, limited amount of memory, i.e. the computer is a limited resource. In addition to this, our web server is not hosting only our website (unless we have such hosting plan). Usually it hosts hundreds of websites. All the server resources are limited and shared between all websites hosted on this server. So you should understand properly the word "unlimited".

Another important fact about web hosting is connectivity with the internet. The connection between hosting provider and ISP should not be some bottleneck which limits how fast our pages load. The hosting provider should have a fast and reliable connection with the internet backbone. Pages that load slowly and even more slowly when the server is loaded are not visited frequently. We might loose visitors only because of poor internet connection of our web hosting provider.

Before we decide for web hosting company it is a good idea to check all key factors that contribute to fast and reliable hosting. We can contribute a lot to speed up our pages if we limit the resources that are needed to load the page. Pages without all the bells and whistles can also be useful to the visitors.

Web Content Management Systems

In general, a Content Management System (CMS) is a system that manages work flow, usually in a collaborative environment. This system is a collection of procedures that simplify some complex or repetitive tasks. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. Website management is one of the tasks that needs some system to create, edit and manage content. Web pages are a typical example of content. You need some editor to create pages, some database to store them and some system to generate and retrieve pages when they are needed.

Web Content Management System (CMS) is a web application designed for creating and managing HTML content--web pages. Web CMS is used to manage a large collection of web resources (text, HTML code, images, PHP scripts, etc). Web CMS functions usually include: content creation, content control, content editing, maintenance functions, and functions special to each CMS. In general, web content management software applications provide authoring tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease. Therefore you don't have to know anything about HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX or other fancy codes.

Web content management systems use a database to store content, metadata, or additional data that might be needed by the system. A web CMS usually contains a presentation layer which displays the content to web-site visitors based on a set of templates. A template is a basic page layout that contains content place holders, page styles and other page data that does not change.

Most web CMS applications use server side caching to boost performance. This works best when the web content is not changed often but visits happen on a regular basis. Administration of web CMS is typically done through web-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a desktop client. A web CMS typically requires an experienced administrator to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators. It allows non-technical users to easily make changes to a website with little or no training.

There are many open-source web Content Management Systems you can download and use for free. Some well known free CMS systems are Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal to mention only the most popular. Those mentioned are based on PHP scripting language. There are also other CMS applications based on other languages like.NET, ASP.NET, Java, Java Bundle, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.

From only viewing the web page you never know for sure how it was created or generated. Creating web pages with powerful CMS is pretty easy and fun--you can forget about code and HTML tags. You can now focus on content and creativity.