I finally bought a new laptop computer. When I say “finally”, I mean that this is the first full-size laptop I have bought for myself personally since 1999. This is the fifth laptop I have owned in thirty years. I suppose that’s because I am more of a desktop kind of guy, and lately I…
Category: Technology
Preamps
The first audio recorder I used for film was the Zoom H4n. Then I upgraded to the Roland R-26, then the Zoom F4, and finally to the Sound Devices MixPre-10 II. Each time, I congratulated myself that I was stepping up to a recorder with better preamps, or so I believed, but I could never…
Sound Devices MixPre-10 II Review
I have acquired a Sound Devices MixPre-10 II, which is a big step up from the Zoom F4 I have been using primarily for nearly three years. This review will largely be written as a comparison between those two devices. [Be warned that many of the features of the MixPre-10 II are not present in…
Zoom F4 Battery Life
In early 2017, I purchased a Zoom F4 digital recorder. Though I had been recording location sound for film for years, this is the first device I have owned that was designed for filmmaking. Prior to that, I had been using a Roland R-26, which was a step up from my Zoom H4n, which was…
Samsung Galaxy S10
Last October, somewhat on impulse, I upgraded my phone to the Samsung Galaxy S10. It all began when I met up with a friend of mine and saw that she was taking photos with her phone, not with a DSLR. This was a surprise to me, since the photos she had been posting looked like…
Whip-poor-will Overload
I haven’t been to all of them, but I suspect that the Hercules Glades Wilderness is the crown jewel of Wilderness Areas in Missouri. It is not the biggest, but it is scattered with glades — some quite large and picturesque, has an extensive and well maintained trail system, and even has a set of pretty…
Panasonic GH4 Crop and 4K Window
Five years late to the game, I am picking up a Panasonic GH4 for filmmaking. This is for a specific project, which I needn’t discuss here. I have just spent some time making sense of the crop factors and the 4K windowed video, and here is what I have figured out. First of all, “crop…
Hey, Baldie!
I just realized that I can’t remember the last time I saw a film in a theater that wasn’t a superhero film, a Star Wars/Trek film, a James Bond film, or a Harry Potter film. Maybe it was “Ready Player One”. I decry all the superhero films and sequalism, and the audiences who won’t risk…
CentOS vs. Ubuntu
The newest release of WordPress requires a minimum of PHP 5.6.4, and so does Laravel. My primary web server has been running PHP 5.4.16, so I needed to upgrade. It was running on CentOS 7.0, so I figured it was time for a complete refresh. I spun up a new VPS with CentOS 7.6 and…
Samsung Galaxy S6 Active Redux
My phone since December 2015 has been a Samsung Galaxy S6 Active. It is more than three years old, and until last week, it was still going strong. No performance or stability problems. The screen is still perfect. Even though I don’t use a case, there is so little external cosmetic damage that I don’t…