ASUS AI Mesh

I’m a big fan of ASUS for their routers and have two of them at home, an RC-AC3100 which is an amazing gigabit router and a RT-AC66 (their first AC router). Last night I got a firmware update for the 3100 and saw the new AIMesh feature.  AIMesh is similar to what Google is doing with their Mesh routers however the big thing is you don’t have to buy a while new setup since AIMesh works with some older ASUS routers as well. Here is a nice article from Gizmodo that talks about AI Mesh as well. Continue reading “ASUS AI Mesh”

Integrating the Logitech Harmony Smart Control and Google Home


I’ve been a longtime fan of Logitech Harmony remotes having owned several of them in the past. If you aren’t familiar with them, Harmony remotes are programmable universal remotes sold by Logitech, that allow you to automate multiple operations like turning on TV’s DVD’s and other components in home entertainment systems among other things. I had a bit of time over the holidays and decided to upgrade my old Harmony 650 remote to the new Harmony Smart Control system. I even integrated the system with voice control using a Google Home Mini which is a nifty little WIFI enabled speaker that includes Google Assistant. More about that later. Continue reading “Integrating the Logitech Harmony Smart Control and Google Home”

SONAR X2 R-Mix: Remix / Remaster Case Study

Overview
I recorded my first album with a jazz quartet in 1991. OMG, 21 years ago last century – has it been that long? The original recording was released on cassette tape (!) and is now long out of print. Over the years I got requests for a reissue of this recording from friends and people curious about the music on that project. I had a DAT tape of the final mixes which I had fortunately transferred to WAV files before the tape died (those things have a limited life as I found out the hard way). Unfortunately whenever I’d listen to the mixes, they sounded dated and suffered from some fundamental issues that made them unpleasant to listen to:

  • Hard panning of the instruments. (makes mixes uncomfortable to listen to especially on headphones)
  • Relative levels of instruments were unbalanced
  • Center of mix lacked definition
  • Lack of dimension and air
  • Missing mastering attention

On a couple of occasions I tried using various mastering tools to rectify some of these problems. However the deal breaker was always the faulty imaging – anything I did would ultimately end up negatively affecting the rest of the mix without adequately addressing the fundamental problems. While working on SONAR X2 earlier this year, I saw R-Mix’s abilities to isolate a voice in a stereo field and remembered this project – would R-Mix be the tool that to use to fix that mix?  I’ve always been a fan of Roland’s V-series technology, so the idea of virtual remixing piqued my interest. Continue reading “SONAR X2 R-Mix: Remix / Remaster Case Study”

Google+ rocks

I have to say after using G+ for a few days I am really digging what they did here. I have hated Facebook from day one due to its awful privacy issues, spam and buggy user interface.

While there are a few rough spots its quite remarkable how well the service works. And I really dig the object orientedness of the circles paragigm for managing visibility of posts. It takes a little getting used to, but once you understand the concept behind it its very intuitive and natural. Kudos to Google and I hope people move to G+ from FB. I can see myself using it for a lot more than just casual posts – its very scalable.

My google plus feed can be accessed directly through plus.noelborthwick.com.

Log off! – day 8

Its the last morning at Moab before we head to Torrey. We revisit Arches National Park to catch a couple of spots that we missed last night. The sun is bright so we don’t get the play of colors that sunset and twilight brings, but the views are still pretty spectacular. There isn’t time to do any trails unfortunately so we do a drive through Fiery Furnace and Devil’s Garden.
Continue reading “Log off! – day 8”

Log off! – day 2

It’s Tuesday and we finally got Wifi access at the hotel we’re staying in at Page, Arizona, so I have a chance to upload some more pics from the last couple of days. We spent Sunday morning in Zion National Park and managed to do a couple of hiking trails in this beautiful park. Here are some pics from Zion National Park:
Continue reading “Log off! – day 2”

Log off!

Excited to be starting our vacation/tour of the South-West! All set with my baby Taylor travel guitar freshly set up by Jim Mouradian – not quite that logged off 🙂

Left Boston yesterday flying to Las Vegas and then drove to Springdale, UT where we are staying overnight to check out Zion National Park. I’ve never really travelled through desert country and the terrain and sights are spectacular. Will post some pics and notes from the trip as we go along, internet availability permitting.
Continue reading “Log off!”

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New Weblog added

Hello and thank you for visiting my site. As a result of webmeistress Ramona’s tireless efforts, my new weblog Minidump is now online!

For those of you who aren’t computer nerds (lucky you), a Minidump refers to a log file containing a small snapshot of your computers memory, when your Windows computer crashes. That snapshot is useful to find out what went wrong. If you are a Mac person, never mind – your Mac never crashes, right? 😛 I thought it might be appropriate to call my blog a Minidump, since it will mostly consist of small dumps of my memory, most of which is faulty anyway. I’m hoping this blog will facilitate getting some memory snapshots prior to complete hardware meltdown. 😉

I’ll be more inclined to keep this site up to date, since its so much quicker to add interactive content now.

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