GPH

I installed Snow Leopard yesterday on my MSI Wind U100 (1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD) and I'm pretty damn impressed to say the least. I had been running Windows 7 Pro for a couple of weeks and it ran OK with some big slowdowns from time to time. SL, on the other hand, runs very smoothly, with all the visual effects, just like what you'd expect from a recent Mac, except the Wind only cost me 240$. It seems to manage intense multitasking much better than XP or Win7 on the little Wind. The cool thing also is that I installed Snow Leopard in such a way that I can download system updates without breaking the whole thing. Now, I just need to find a way to sync my iCal and address book with my MacBook and I'll be a happy camper.

Really? Did you do a clean install or just an upgrade? On my Santa Rosa Macbook, all the Apple apps are much snappier than they ever were on Leopard and I don't have any problem with third-party applications. Boot time and shut down time are much faster also. At this point, I'm not sure if it was worth 30$, but I'm curious as why you think it sucks.

Wharfedale Diamond Pro 8.2 Active Studio Monitor

This is the world we live on (oh oh oh) And these are the hands we're given (oh oh oh) Use them and let's start trying (oh oh oh) To make it a place worth living in This should do the trick... wait, it's still Genesis!

Cool, you're all set then. Do you write or record music? Or movies? Apps like Finale, Pro Tools or Final Cut could be great to have for free if such a thing is possible.

Essential commercial applications that I use almost daily: - TextMate - OmniFocus - AppZapper - Parallels Desktop - Matlab - Mathematica I doubt you could get the last two for free though and perhaps you don't even need them.

Happy birthday!

Yup, running OS X on non-Apple hardware seems like a mess when you want to update your software.

If you're interested in netbooks, there are plenty of cheap options around. Go to your nearest electronic store and try the different keyboards, that's what makes or breaks the deal IMO because the specs are all pretty similar. Otherwise, I'd get a second-hand MacBook, it's by far the best laptop I've used.

Happy birthday!

Trends TA-10, as listed in my sig.

Lambda Signature / Lambda Pro comparison ------------------------------------------------- I've spent some quality time with both headphones in the past week and I wanted to write down a couple of observations. The setup I'm using is the one in my signature, which is far from being high-end, but I feel it's pretty good at bang for buck compared to some rigs I've heard in the past. I'm using the Denon DA-500 over the Pico right now because I still need to buy a mini to RCA cable to connect the Pico to my amp. A few things before I start. First, the pads on the Lambda Pro are still big and fluffy while the ones on the Signature are much thinner, but still in good shape. I don't know if that would make a huge difference, I leave that to Stax experts to decide. Previous Stax headphones I've heard or owned: SR-202, SR-404, SR-Gamma, SR-001 and SR-007, and I've owned another pair of Lambda Signature at one point. I used a couple of my favourite "testing" CDs: Genesis - A Trick of the Tail (original ATCO) Opeth - Damnation Fritz Reiner/CSO - Pines of Rome by Respighi and La Mer by Debussy (Living Stereo) Camel - A Nod and a Wink Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (Toshiba Black Triangle) Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um The first I noted after listening to both headphones back to back is that there isn't a world of difference between the two, you can easily tell they're from the same family. I'd say they're much closer in sound than, let's say, a HD600 and HD650. Still, there are enough substantial differences to identify which is which and even though I haven't done a DBT (and don't plan to), I'm fairly confident anyone here could hear the differences. I'll divide my impressions in a few categories to try to put coherency in my poor English writing skills. Details -------- Showing off details is a category where the Signature truly outshines the Pros. The Sigs are excellent at extracting micro-details from the music and I can hear some small things like soft cymbal hits that I barely get on the Pros. On the other hand, I find that the way the Sigs present details sometimes detract me from the music, while the Pros are a little bit better at presenting the whole portrait and not just focusing on details. The Pros sound "fuller", especially with rock music while the Sigs can sound quite thin at times, but the trade-off is that the Pros sometime put fog on small things I'm used to hear. Dynamics ----------- That's another category where I feel the Lambda Signature is superior to the Pro. It's quite easy to hear the difference while listening to Respighi's Pines of Rome. I'm not sure how to put that in words, but I think the contrast I hear in terms of dynamics is due to the more sparkly treble of the Signature and its slightly deeper bass. It's not to say that the Pro isn't dynamic, but I just feel its presentation is a bit more dull and less lively than the Sigs. With that said, on recordings with spiky treble, the Sigs can sound quite aggressive while the Pros tame this spikiness a bit. Also, the Sigs sound more impactful to me than the Pros which is quite apparent when focusing on drums. The snare sounds tight as it should and the cymbals have just the right amount of "splashiness". The Pros are not bad, but they sound slightly unnatural to me in that aspect. Frequency response ---------------------- Starting with the bass, the Sigs go slightly lower than the Pros. Also, the Signature's bass is tighter and it's easier to pick the notes individually. The Pros blurry the bass definition a bit and it's harder to hear the string "clacks" of a contrabass or just to get the "bounciness" of a bass guitar. I bet using a proper Stax amp could cure a part of this problem, because each of the SRD-7 setups I've heard in the past always had lesser bass quality compared to setups featuring electrostatic amps. For the midrange, I'd say both are pretty similar, but as I said earlier the Sigs sound more lively. Both of these cans are not particularly great at reproducing mids IMO, at least compared to other electrostats like the SR-001 and SR-007. They sound a bit thin for the lack of a better word and they fail at reproducing the richness male and female vocals can have, though I think they're a bit better with female vocals. Treble-wise, the Sigs shine once again, the presentation is more "crisp" and sparkly while the Pros sound almost rolled-off by comparison. To be honest, the Sigs are one the best headphones I've heard in terms of treble reproduction, with the counterpart that poor recordings sound really poor and shouty. Soundstage ------------- I've always liked the Lambda series soundstage since the first time I heard a SR-404. They sound very open with a wide presentation from the far left to the far right. Compared to what I remember from the SR-007, the Lambdas have a wider soundstage, but it's harder to pinpoint the instruments in space with precision, something that the O2 mastered perfectly. Still, it's hard to dislike the air and sense of space given by the Lambdas. For what it's worth, I don't hear any significative difference between the Pros and the Sigs for that aspect. Conclusion ------------ As a monitor or when listening to well-recorded music, I'd use the Sigs hands down, but when confronted to poorly-recorded rock or jazz music, the Pros can offer a more forgiving and perhaps more "fun" sound. They're both good cans, but to my ears the Lambda Signature is the superior one. If I could associate one general characteristic with each phone, I'd say the Lambda Pro are more "round" while the Signature are more "precise". In the end, it goes down to what each user prefers.

Happy birthday !

Koss E/90 ftw! What will it be used for?

OSM's first concert of the 2009-2010 season, I really enjoyed the evening.

Just got back from a 3 days canoe-camping weekend at Mont Tremblant. Had a lot of fun, drank a lot of beer, but I'm pretty exhausted right now.

Yup. They seem to be in good condition too.

Disregard the above, I just reinstalled Firefox and it solved the problem. Kind of weird, it's the first time I've ever had a major problem with FF.

I'm having a weird problem in Firefox. Whenever I try to download something and use the "save" option instead of "open" in the dialog box, it crashes Firefox. It's configured with the "always ask me where to save files" option in the main preferences tab and the only two add-ons I use is AdBlock Plus and Xmarks. Is anyone having the same bug? I googled that and didn't come up with anything useful.

You need to try one of those Duggeh, they give you a free t-shirt if you finish everything. Very tasty for what it's worth, but I was only able to eat about three quarters of the burger.

Porcupine Tree - The Incident So far, I like the album more than FOABP, probably as much as Deadwing and far less than In Absentia, Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun. Still, it's good quality music as always and I'll definitely buy it when it comes out. I dig the electronica effects throughout the album, it's been a while since PT used those.

I've had Snow Leopard for two days on my 2007 MacBook, runs perfectly fine and I have not encountered any problems so far. I have yet to install all of my usual apps, so I don't know if everything will work, but I notice an appreciable improvement in speed for all the Apple built-in applications, most notably Finder, Spotlight and Preview. The bootup time is also faster, but my computer is pretty much always open so it doesn't change anything for me. I think it's worth 29$, even though the improvements are not earth shattering, and we might appreciate it more in the future.

Porcupine Tree - The Incident

I don't know how it is in Vancouver, but the sex shop business seems to go pretty well in Montreal.

Buon compleanno! Hope you have a couple of Rochefort 10 and St-Bernardus Abt12 in addition to those you mentionned.