Straps n Backups
I can’t say today was completely nonproductive. Before I go any further, if any of my Unique Photo friends read this, I apologize for what I’m about to say…you guy’s didn’t have what I bought at B&H. Anyways, I tried out ordering from B&H Photo in NYC, I wanted a wrist strap for my camera. No problems with the order, so that was certainly good. I decided I wanted a wrist strap for the side of my camera instead of the typical “I’m a tourist” neck strap. After trying to figure out for at least a good half hour how to put the damn thing on, (didn’t come with instructions, but I think it’s one of the indications that Canon has a sense of humor… that, and why they don’t include lens hoods unless you pay for an L series lens…I digress.) I finally got it and it’s pretty nice. Definitely an improvement. I’ll still keep the other one around though, just in case I decide to revert back.A little “Studio Rebuild” update… I’ve got a 2TB G-Tech G-Raid drive on the way. All of my audio projects and software will get backed up onto that via Time Machine. I’m looking forward to setting that up. It’ll be nice to have that piece of mind knowing that nothing else will get lost should I have any other “surprises” creep up… I find it ironic that when I had the problem at the concert it had to happen during Thriller… Anyway, moving on.I’ve really got to give my friend Drew mad props. (Drew = My gear guy at Sweetwater, also my “brother from another mother”). The story is a bit convoluted, so I’ll try to sum it up. There’s a software company out there who makes audio plug-ins that are quite widely used throughout the industry. They let their widespread success get to their heads, so they developed this “upgrade” program that would require users to pay exorbitant fees after a year or so from the purchase date, to be protected from the possibility of them releasing new software. So, for example, if someone paid over $3500 in software titles, paying another $600-800 just for the idea of “maybe” getting a new version in another year’s time was not exactly money well spent. Luckily there were many others who agreed with me and voiced complaints. I’d even boycotted them for some time, using other software to get my stuff done. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.Anyways, back to Drew getting props:This software company just recently changed their “upgrade” policies (FINALLY!), to a flat-rate system. As it was explained to me, whatever you had, you now pay a much more reasonable flat-rate to have your software updated to the latest version. I’m not going to go into specifics just in case the “flat rate” is different for other people. I’d suggest talking to your pro-audio equipment provider if you have questions (Which should be Drew to begin with, and if it isn’t you need to contact me so I can get you his info!). Being that I’d just upgraded my computer to Snow Leopard, and the latest version of Pro Tools etc, I had practically nothing when it came to audio plug-in software. Thanks to Drew, I’ve got just about all of my plug-ins back and once everything’s installed, I’ll be fully operational once again. Haven’t been there in a while, so a huge thanks to Drew.Wow, my MacBook’s backup is 445GB. I’m goin’ to bed, I wonder if it’ll be done tomorrow morning. We shall see!