Spencer Katt descriptions of Windows

These are quotes from what is reportedly the last Rumor Central column by "Spencer F. Katt" from eWeek magazine (December 15, 2008 issue, pages 48 and 49).

Windows 3.0 - the first usable version of Windows

Windows 3.1 - the first of Windows to actually work

Windows 95 - the first version of Windows that anyone would actually want to use

Windows 98 - the first version of Windows that no one actually needed (soon to be followed by many more, including the ultimate unneeded OS, Vista, which would supersede.........)

Windows XP - the first version of Windows that enabled productive work to be done.

Pro Tools vs. Mackie Traktion

Some quick thoughts regarding the interface on these 2 programs. Pro Tools is probably the "industry standard", and you don't hear much about Traktion. I use both - Tracktion in my home studio, and Pro Tools LE at the college where I teach, in the piano studio.

Now, I used Pro Tools waaaaay back in the mid-90s, so I've watched it "grow up". But still, I find the Traktion way of doing things much more intuitive. Not having to switch screens to mix or edit really helps my workflow as I'm mixing, whereas Pro Tools requires a switch back and forth between editing and mixing.

To insert a plugin - in Tracktion you drag it down to the track - in Pro Tools you have to insert it into an aux bus on the mixer. This means that if you're in the middle of editing a passage and decide to add a plugin, you've got to leave editing, switch to the mixer, insert the plugin, yadda yadd yadda....

So does Pro Tool 8 still bounce tracks in real time? NO! That means that it takes 45 minutes to bounce down a 45-minute track. Tracktion's bounce speed is limited only by your computer system, not the second hand.

Still, Pro Tools is a good thing to know. I still like Tracktion better (and I get more work done faster with it).

What should I do first?

As someone who tracks a lot of different areas (technology and music are the two top-level categories) I've been struck this morning by the vast plethora of possibilities. So how is a businessperson supposed to decide on a course of action? As a musician and as a businessman, I'm told that I need to be marketing myself - and here are a ton of places where I can do that online. MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, BrownBook, YellowPages, tons of musician directories, personal website, iTunes, Twitter, Feedburner.... the lsit is essentially endless.... and oh yeah, don't forget about video marketing and podcasting and....... It's probably the same way it's always been (which method of marketing is the most efficient for a given product) - the difference now being that I can do all of this myself given my skills in using online resources (plus some serious html/data manipulation skills - which are not necessary for many of these tools. Writing, however, is an essential skill.) But how do you decide what is a good use of your time? For me, I tend to avoid the "hot new thing" - Twitter being the thing at the moment. Yes, I'm on FaceBook, and linkedin, and mySpace, but none of them are a religion with me. I do a podcast on occasion, and several blogs like this one - but again, none of these are my focus. I do them for research purposes, partly - and partly for business reasons and online visibility - and partly because it's interesting. I've looked at Twitter - but I have work to do, and can't take the time to care what a particular Biz Guru is doing at the moment. I need time to think about what I'm working on, and to interrupt that thought-flow with a 160 character message about how someone is at Starbucks and the line is real long is ludicrous - even if they were Seth Godin (though I doubt Seth would be tweeting about Starbucks). So how do you decide? Dunno. I'm still experimenting with all the online marketing things. It's not boring!