Tartini in Tune

I've been using various tuning apps on my iPhones for a couple of years now.  I think I've had around six or seven, and most of those I've paid for.  They've pretty much all worked, after a fashion, but I've never been all that happy with any of them.  They're usually finicky about the sound level.  They fall over if the tone they pick up is a long way from what you're trying to tune to.  They're just not that visually appealing.
When you start to play a note, the usual process goes something like this: No, can't hear anything.  No, still nothing.  Nope.  (Play louder)  Maybe.... Yes, you're very sharp.  Err no wait, I meant flat.  Play louder, can't hear you again.  Oh, that's perfect!  (When even with my tin ear I can tell the horrible sound I'm making is still clearly a million semitones from being in tune.)
In steps Tartini.  It's iPad (or computer) only at the minute, but what a revelation! It's easily the best quality tuner that I've used - both in terms of picking up a sound, and giving a stable predictable indication of what you're playing.  For that alone it'd be the pick of the crop.  But that's only skimming the surface of what this app will do.  Where it really blows everything else away is that it doesn't just attempt to replicate a hardware guitar or chromatic tuner.  It's like the people behind this have really thought about what you want from a tuner, without any preconceived ideas about what your typical hardware tuners are.
The app opens up, showing you a music staff. (Well, by default it shows a compressed view with around 10 octaves, but it's easy enough to change it back to a standard music staff.)  You play a note, it shows up as a line on the staff.  If it's a little flat or sharp, then the line isn't perfectly centered on the staff.  If you're nowhere near the note that you're trying to tune to, it's very obvious.  Simple, and obvious once you see it, but brilliant to make that jump from the traditional hardware tuners that you've probably used before to something which takes full advantage of the hardware available.
It doesn't just stop there either, as you play notes it will tag them on the staff - including sharps and flats.  Also included is a vibrato monitor, which gives you a visual indicator of whether your vibrato is centred around the note as well as smooth and consistent.
The icing on the cake is that it records all the visuals so you can scroll back through and analyze your performance if you're so inclined.
There's also PC/OSX/Linux versions of the software - see the University of Otago site. (I've not used these much at all, they're not as pretty and it's just far more convenient to use the highly portable iPad for this kind of stuff.)  If you're interested in delving into the details of the software there's source code and papers about it on the site as well.

And it's all free.

I can't complement it enough.  Go and get it, even if you're just a hack of a muso like me.  You'll love it.

Henge Dock Review

   When I use my laptop at home, I typically have it plugged into an exeternal keyboard, mouse, soundcard (yeah, thanks for that line in jack rather a microphone one Apple), monitor, webcam, speakers, mouse, iPhone sync cable, camera connection cable, printer/scanner.  You get the idea.  I'm really happy with the setup.  I can take my laptop with me when I go away, or use it on the couch when I want to.  But most of the time, it's just like having a desktop machine (which I think is more productive than a laptop).
     However, even with having most of the accessories running off a single usb hub, I still have a few things to connect/disconnect each time I "dock" my machine.  Power, monitor, usb hub, speakers.   This isn't that much hassle, but it was often enough to deter me from taking my laptop out of the study and using it on the couch.  Also, a tangle of cables coming off the side of your computer is never pretty.
     So, since Apple doesn't make a docking station, (I do like something about the Dell my employer supplies!) I wound up getting myself a Henge Dock.
     Firstly let me say, after having had it for a few weeks now, it works great!  I love being able to yank the machine out of its dock and take it to the lounge room at the drop of a hat.  When it comes time to return it to the study I just drop it into the dock and everything is connected, quick and simple.  It just works, and I like it.  The dock seems very well made, nice tight tolerances on all the mouldings, no visible mould lines, a rubberised strip on the base to keep it steady and stop any vibrations.  However, there's a few small things about the product that could be improved.
     Firstly, lets talk aesthetics.  To my eyes it just doesn't look quite right.  This is probably exacerbated in my case because I have a white macbook.  The white of the henge dock is a different white to the macbook.  I'm no colour expert, but I'd say the dock is a little more grey than the macbook.  As in, it's a smudge darker and also a different colour tone.  It also doesn't seem to have the same level of gloss, or that tiny hint of translucency that the macbook does.  It's only a small thing, but enough that it doesn't look like part of the same product.

     It's branded, and I dislike obvious branding.  Written across the front of the dock in some godawful font is "HENGE DOCKS".  It's very jarring, so much so that I'm considering masking and painting over it.  On the side they've also put the henge dock symbol.  I can understand that they want to get their branding out there, but I think the way this product is labelled would be hurting them more than helping.

     As for usage, I've only got one minor gripe - you need two hands to undock it.  One to hold the dock down, and the other to remove the laptop.  I'm sure I could tape/screw/glue/clamp the dock down to alleviate this, but it's not ideal.  How about having some sort of internal lever system which pops the laptop up off its connecting plugs, allowing you to then just pick the laptop up?  This would allow you to do the undocking operation one handed.   It sounds like a small thing, but if you've got a coffee/iPhone/child in one hand, then a one-handed undock would be brilliant.
     Initial setup of the dock was a massive hassle.  In theory it shouldn't be too bad, thread all the supplied extension cables that you want to use through the dock and plug them into your laptop.  Put the laptop in the dock.  Screw in the locking nuts to stop the cables from moving.  However getting all of the plugs aligned correctly was harder than it should've been.  This was in part complicated by the magsafe connector.  Having the magnet snap the power connector into the laptop while I was trying to line up all the cables gave me a great deal of grief.  Still, it only took about half an hour to set it up, which isn't so bad.  Until you want to take the power supply away with you.  Then its a hassle to set it all up again.
     This is partly due to the "universal" nature of the henge dock - it comes with three little plastic sleeves for the magsafe connector, one for each type that Apple has made.  So you wind up wrestling with the magnetised connector which wants to snap to the laptop whenever the two are close together, the little plastic shim which needs to stay in between the dock and the connector, all of the other cables that are in the dock, the dock itself, and the laptop.  I would've needed about 6 hands to set things up easily.  However, once it's been set up it works well.  I think I'd rather buy a second power supply than have to go through that again though.
     Apple probably has patents preventing this, but I'd love it if the dock came with a power extension cable (it comes with ones for the audio/usb/firewire/network ports, cudo Henge Docks) so you only need to do that cable setup once.  Then if you're going away and want to take the power supply, you'd just pop the connector off the henge dock, the same way you'd pop it off your laptop.
     For all that I've just spent a few paragraphs griping about the thing, I do like it.  There's nothing else like it on the market for Apple laptops, and it does its job very well.  I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for a docking station for their MacBook.  I just think that with a few tweaks it could be a brilliant product, and it's a shame not to see it live up to its full potential.

Purple Carrots

     In follow up to an earlier post, my purple carrots are maturing nicely.  Here's a few I plucked out yesterday.  They taste...  Carroty!  So even if they don't have any miraculous health benefits I'll be happy to eat them.

Woogie Review

     The Griffin Woogie is an iPod touch or iPhone case with a built in amplified speaker, all packaged in a soft toy:

Griffin Woogie

     I've had a Woogie for a few months now, and have some fairly mixed feelings towards it. I think the case is very cute, and my 2.x year old loves it - as a soft toy.  As a case and powered speaker designed for toddler though, it's got some shortcomings.

There's a speaker in there.  Somewhere.

     My first issue with the case is the volume of the speaker.  It's pretty quiet.  I didn't expect it to be loud (don't want to hurt the kiddies ears) but it's not even as loud as the built in speaker on my iPhone 4.  It's really too soft for in-car use, which was one of the main reasons I bought it.  Maybe the low volume is meant to lull kids to sleep?

Non removable battery box.

     The battery box and other hardware are non removable, which means that there's no chance of dropping the Woogie into the washing machine.  You can wipe the outside with a damp cloth and that's about it.  To be fair, the case has been remarkably good at shrugging off small spills, but I still think it's a big oversight on a plush product designed for children.
     The switch to turn the Woogie on and off is also at the wrong end of the battery box.  Meaning that you need to fully remove the box from its pouch whenever you wish to turn the Woogie on or off.  You need to do that a lot as well, otherwise the batteries go flat, it's got some serious phantom power drain issues.  I expected that you could leave the Woogie turned on and it would only use batteries when playing music, or plugged into an iPod, but that's not the case at all.  If you don't turn it off at the switch the batteries will be flat in a day or two.

Tidy little slot for inserting battery box.

Battery box halfway into its pouch.

     On the positive side, the battery box does tuck tidily away into a neat little pouch.  And while I think the audio plug should have been located inside the iPod/iPhone pouch the cord isn't really long enough to be a problem.  Before I got the Woogie I was concerned that it might be a choking/strangling hazard, or that the cord would just get caught on things and yank out of the iPod all the time.  That's really not the case though, it's never been accidentally removed in use.


     I can live with most of the products shortcomings, but the lack of volume from the speaker is really disappointing.  Speaker volume should be part of the basic functionality of this thing, but it's really its achilles heel.  I think it's a great idea but it just wasn't thought through that thoroughly.  I still use it a fair bit - but mainly with a first gen iPod touch which wouldn't have any sound otherwise.
     Cute and well manufactured, but not that well designed.

ToughSkin is Coming!

     Yay!  Speck have finally released a version of their fantastic ToughSkin case for the iPhone 4.  See the Speck site for details.
     The ToughSkin cases are pretty unique, they offer a great deal of impact protection along with super chunky styling.  These cases look like you could, in a pinch, use them to retread your car tyres.
     On the 3GS version the silicone was support by a plastic skeleton frame that you clipped onto your phone first.  This skeleton was designed with little protrusions which in turn held the silicon case on nice and snuggly.  It was a neat system and worked really well - none of the saggy bulgy squishy loose problems that I have with the Otter Box Defender which is currently on my phone.  The Defender is also not very grippy - which is a major reason I like to have chunky silicone cases. I thought Otter Box were meant to make premium products?  Though having said that, it seems the current Defender case now incorporates a substrate, similar to the ToughSkin.  My "first generation" one was purely silicone.
     It seems like the ToughSkin for iPhone 4 has taken this skeleton/substrate design one step further - the  ToughSkin "skeleton" is actually a complete hard case for the phone now, which could be handy.  The downside of a chunky super sticky case is seriously reduced pocketability.  The case also comes with a belt clip/holder which doubles as a stand - it works well but sorry, I'm not a phone belt clip kind of person.
     Very happy that they've finally brought this market - can't wait to get my hands on one.  It's taken a lot longer than I expected - I've got an email from Speck customer service from June 2010 saying it'd be on the market in "about 5 weeks".  5 weeks, 7 months - whatever. ;)