2010
Looking back at 2009
Year 2009 was quite challenging. I was able to do lots of new things at 2009. Here are the list of things I have learnt over 2009. First I have started with iPhone programming and for that I have bought a new macbook for working in iPhone programming. I had a Canon FS100 camcorder and I wanted to download my videos on my macbook. I was attracted by the iMovie and started to learn very basics on Video editing.
The passion for Video editing kicked off and I started to carve for more on video editing. I bought Final cut Express to get into editing. By the time I took few videos I understood that I need some good quality sound. So I went for an inexpensive external audio interface (MAudio Fast Track Pro). I did few Live recording of Audio. This put me a flare on Audio editing. I was not able to afford for a Mac pro / Macbook Pro for my video / audio editing stuff. I bought a Mac mini which is really helpful to accomplish my video editing tasks.
By gods grace I was able to edit 2 Christian Video Albums as a beginner and the outcome was so professional. I was wondering how I was able to make it and finally understood the person behind my work. The person is no one other that Jesus Christ. He was kind enough and by his grace I was able to accomplish great things with minimal resource available.
And on my spiritual side of my life I was bit slow due to some personal reasons which put me down always when I tried to come out of it with my strength I was not able to get out of it. However God didn’t let me go down. He lifted me up and gave me a new strength and his love. The turbulence in my life made me lose all my loved ones but by the end of 2009 things were back to normal and my loved ones came back to me and now I am happy and thankful to my savior who has done this work for me.
The promise that Lord has given me this year was “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6 ~ KJV )“. Here is me wishing you a peaceful year 2010.
2009
Working from new Facility
Here is my new facility located 5 kilometres from my home. It is located at Manapakkam, Chennai. My previous facility was located 25 kilometres from my home. It would be a tiresome journey when I used to drive 25 kilometres in traffic and now just less than 7.5 kms and I do have shortcuts which leads me to the office in 4.7 kms.
2009
Google Chrome Extensions: Blog This! (by Google)
I just happened to see the cool new Chrome extensions available online. Currently the extensions does not have too many extensions but it was really awesome to see the extensions at work and how it was placed on Chrome.
2009
Zoom R16 – Audio Recorder/Interface/Controller – Working in OS X 10.6
I own a Zoom R16 Audio Recorder / Interface / Controller. I love the product as it is extremely portable. I use it for recording live programs and music. I was happy with the output and performance I got from the entry level recorder. The drivers worked well on Windows XP machine. I installed Cubase LE 4 and checked the performance of the interface and controller. They were flawless.
However the real problem was when I had to use my Macbook running Snow Leopard 10.6.2. The drivers were simply not working. I was pretty unhappy about the drivers not working on Snow Leopard. I did some googling and found few posts which mentioned they have the drivers working fine.
Unfortunately as mentioned by them I was not able to install my drivers for Snow Leopard. Yesterday night I sat to hack and see if I can make it work for Show Leopard. Finally after a little hacking I found a way to fix the issue.
Here is how I got it.
- First I downloaded the latest driver that was available on the Zoom.co.jp website.
- Then I extracted the contents of the drivers to a folder. After little more digging I could find an archive within the package which has got the kext required to run the audio interface.
- I used kext helper to install the driver.
- After installing the driver using kext help I restarted the machine.
- I was able to see my “Zoom R16 Driver”
2009
Ready Reckoner for Chords
I am learning music and wanted a quick reckoner for chords. I found some piece of information on a website and thought of making it little better. Here is a quick reckoner to find out chords.
| Major | 1 – 3 – 5 (M, maj) |
| minor | 1 – 3b – 5 (m, min) |
| Augmented | 1 – 3 – 5# (aug) |
| Diminished | 1 – 3b – 5b (dim) |
| Suspended 4 | 1 – 4 – 5 (sus4) |
| 6 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 6 (6) |
| minor 6 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5 – 6 (m6) |
| 7 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7b (7, dom7, dominant 7) |
| Major 7 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7 (maj7, M7) |
| minor 7 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5- 7b (m7, min7) |
| 9 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7b – 9 (9, dom9, dominant 9) |
| Major 9 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7 – 9 (maj9, M9) |
| minor 9 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5- 7b – 9 (m9, min9) |
2009
Trip to Top Slip
Top slip is a tourist spot located near Pollachi. My wife, I along with Bro. Babu Muthusamy booked a taxi and went to the spot. The taxi driver was very friendly. He helped us getting the tickets for camera and entry tickets. The road which leads to the spot was very bad.
After a journey of 60 minutes we reached a place very near to the spot. We enjoyed the green pastures and tiny stream flowing across and wanted to take few snaps. We got down the taxi and to take photos. A naughty monkey rushed to the taxi and escaped with a parcel. We were not able to guess what it took. It opened the parcel to see what was inside. It was the drivers coat. It threw it away to a deep pit (I am assuming it was stinking badly). After this incident, we were getting into the taxi. The monkey was not allowing the driver to get inside the taxi. I driver walked away few yards and I drove the taxi for few yards.
The forest was green and natural. I enjoyed the natural sounds. I wish I had a audio recorder with me so that I record the natural sounds from the forest. After a long journey we finally reached top slip. We went there in a odd time that there was nothing there. But it did not make us lose the spirit we had before. We shared with 3 families a trip to elephant camp. One of the family head was speaking to me saying that he was a tour cabs owner and never seen elephants in the forest in 15 years of service. He said that it was waste of money to go to the elephant camp. But contrary to his views we were able to see lots of wild elephants in the forest which were descending to drink water from the stream. We took snaps and I got some footage on my video camera. It was total fun that we had on the drive to elephant camp.
After coming back from the drive back to top slip, we were hungry and wanted to have some food. Unfortunately the cook in the hotel did not turn up. As a result, no food was available in top slip. We just started our taxi and wanted to go till Parambikulam (Kerala) tiger reserve. As we reached there the security was asking for entry tickets to be purchased. Our driver told the security that we are going to take food from the canteen inside. We were allowed to drive inside the Parambikulam tiger reserve till the canteen. There we saw beautiful peacocks, deers, crocodiles etc. Parambikulam was more deep inside the forest and was well maintained. We had good lunch there (Kerala style food) and drove back happily home. While returning we took lots of snaps on the sunset and nature.
2009
A Trip again to Pollachi
To release the stressed out brain, I thought of taking a break. So I took off couple of weeks from my office and started out to Pollachi. As it was a long weekend there were no tickets on the bus / train to reach Pollachi. So I was forced to take a flight to Coimbatore and go for a drive to Pollachi.
We reached Coimbatore after 50 mins journey from Chennai. The flight was small but good enough for us. We reached Pollachi around 10 ‘O’ Clock. I was hungry at the moment and had tasty food from a small hotel out there in Pollachi. The good was hot and good to taste.
I had a chance to eat Pollachi style veechi paratha which was nothing but stuffed paratha with egg fry. After eating tummy full we headed out to Aathu Pollachi which is 8 Kilometers away from Pollachi.
2009
Learning to Learn
It is hard for people to learn if something is hard for them. All the way people generally feel lazy to learn. Only a few come forward voluntarily to learn new things and they excel in their lives. I have seen people learning as much as they can and wondered how ever in the life they could do all these things? Learning is not a borne quality, rather is cultivated by the parents, teachers, elders and environment.
I ability to learn may differ from person to person. But only the person who is showing interest to learn knowingly / unknowingly excels almost in everything. I know the whole world knows about this. But how many are practicing to learn? Every minute we spend lavishly wasting out time, there is someone who is overtaking us in some way or other.
I am feeling that I missed all time I wasted. But still not left my confidence go down! So think yourself start learning whatever you can and get the most out of your learning. Learn to learn.
2009
Do you have a minute?
I don’t time even to breathe says a man to his wife. Yes, I am a perfectly normal human being and I do understand that these days are one of the toughest period to live. The cities are crowded and busy and have no time to think. I thought about this for a minute and found that it is not only for the money people come to cities. It is for better living and better facilities. But all these facilities are bringing down the peace of a normal human being.
I was talking to one of my colleague who got frustrated by the stressful work he was doing and no time to spend with the family and kids. Whatever people earn may be good to live a cozy life. But what will happen to the quality time the family and friends would expect from people.
In real life do we have a minute to spend with our loved ones?
2009
New Camcorder ( JVC Everio GZ-HD 7 )
- 60GB Internal Hard Disk Drive
- Three 1/5-inch Progressive Scan CCD
- 10x Optical/ 200x Digital Zoom
- Memory Card Slot for SDHC/SD
- 60GB Internal Hard Disk Drive for up to 5 hr. of Full HD recording
