Try QLab from Figure 53. It allows sound designers to totally pre-program their show without the hassle of showing their soundboard operators how to run different pieces of equipment and have to teach them decent fades. This software application does it all! With a few extra licenses which are very reasonably priced, one can easily run an entire show including video, fog machines, motors and lights all from one Mac running Tiger or Leopard.
The interface is very intuitive with mostly drag and drop. It is very easy to number cues however a person wants! The best thing is that the software is constantly being updated. QLab’s web site www.figure53.com is continuously being updated with new information for support and case studies. The case studies show some truly amazing setups where designers setup QLab to do some pretty cool things with their shows! One case study that was published showed that a one person performance could be run by triggering cues from a rigged cell phone that beamed commands to the computer! This is of course and extreme example, but for the person who simply wants to run sound cues, it is a great piece of software.
At UW-La Crosse we use a FireStudio 410 FireWire audio interface with QLab which allows us to control eight different speakers at the same time! With eight speakers, one could easily make sound pan all around the room immersing the audience in the scene!
The video license allows one (assuming that they have a powerful enough computer) to drive eight different displays at the same time with full video! I would have loved to have this soft of sophistication in my shows in High School!
A plus is that QLab is not very resource intensive at all. I ran Christmas Carol with many sound effects all happening relatively quickly on a PowerMac G3 with zero problems.
Also, since QLab runs on OS X, its stability is great. I have not had one single freeze when working with QLab.
Rock Solid Stability + Great User Interface + Free = One Great Application!
Need an application to record or edit sound? Try Audacity. I personally think it is one of the best open source tools I have ever used. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and doesn’t require too great of resources. It will do so many amazing things including import and export MP3’s, WAV’s. It allows you to do multi track editing so when you are doing things such as building sound effects, you can easily adjust one part of the effect instead of having to mix everything down to a single stereo track! It comes with a ton of built in effects that you only get with the expensive sound programs all for the price of Free!
The Audacity team is constantly making improvements to the software to make it even better all the time. I use it with my Peavey USB mixer to record whatever I need and it works great. Audacity also works great with the Snowball from Blue (A USB microphone) and many other USB devices.
Whenever I worked on sound at UW-L be it for the sound design class or for a show, Audacity was my best friend. It made my life a whole lot easier than using the other programs that people have to pay for!
This software is great for people trying to create podcasts with Windows. It is very simple to record and edit your audio. What I usually do when I want to create a podcast is start in Audacity with recording and making editing changes, then I will export the file to MP3 and move it over to Garageband (Mac application) for final touches and to make an enhanced version with pictures.
Sharing a computer with an XP machine as the host and the Guest being a vista machine does not work regularly! I ran across this problem last week when I had just setup a color laser printer on computer running Windows XP. I thought that this should be a piece of cake because Vista should easily find the computer and printer with its more advanced networking discovery. I was wrong! Vista found the computer that I had shared the printer from no problem but then when I tried to add the printer from the XP machine. After sitting there for a few seconds, vista said “Access Denied” in a popup window. First, I thought that I did something wrong so I checked the firewall settings on both computers and also checked their sharing settings and everything was fine.
So I did what every tech does…hit up Google. Turns out, using a printer from an XP host doesn’t work with the normal network printer discovery wizard. Instead, you have to go about setting up the printer a totally different way and then it finally works. What you have to do instead in Vista is when you add a printer from an XP host is select local port instead of network printer. Then a little dialog box will come up. Type in the name of the \\computername\printersharename and then you should be able to connect to it.
Example: \\MYCOMPUTERNAME\PRINTER1
I have no idea why Microsoft couldn’t make the standard print sharing system work but that’s how it is I guess.
I recently in the past month subscribed to hosted Exchange for my email. I decided to go with Exchange 2007. Previous to that I had used Exchange 2003 for about two years and did enjoy my Outlook Web Access experience. There were a few bugs that were annoying such as the contacts area but that was manageable. After switching to Exchange 2007 the first thing I notice that I am not able to live without is the month view on the calendar! I cannot believe that Microsoft did not keep this feature in OWA. I always view my calendar by month so being limited to viewing my calendar in week view is a HUGE pain! Seriously, how hard would it be to keep the month view in OWA? Hopefully when Microsoft sends out their big exchange update they will fix this problem because it is really annoying to me!
Everything else in the new OWA is top notch with many new enhancements that make it more like Outlook than ever before, my only complaint so far is the calendar!
As of right now, these are the only options available! (Day, Work Week and Week) Where is my Month View?
Google just released an online presentation app to go along with its Docs and Spreadsheets applications. I just began to play with it, but so far I am quite impressed with the interface. The app can import from PowerPoint documents that are uploaded to the system which is very cool. It also comes with many different design templates and layouts which look very professional. Working with text and other media objects on the slides seems very easy. As with Docs and Spreadsheets, collaboration is allowed which makes it possible for multiple people to work on a presentation which is great and much easier to do in this environment rather than working with just one file and trying to merge the changes.
I see this app having great potential when used in conjunction with an app like SKYPE or Google Talk because it would allow meetings to take place online without the need for expensive specialized services. The presenter can start a show and then give people the url of the presentation. From there, users can login with their Google accounts and watch the presentation that is controlled by the presenter. There is even a chat feature built into the presentation window so that people can give you feedback even if you choose.
The only con that I see to this system so far is that there currently is no way to save a presentation file out of the app yet, so once it is in the presentation app, you are pretty much stuck to staying with it this way.
I hope that in the future export options are made available and I also hope that this can somehow integrate with Google Talk to make this a really great online presentation system.
The system does require you to signup for a free Google Account which I recommend everyone do because Google has many great services that everyone should take a look at.
Windows Live Writer is an application that is not well known in the Microsoft Live offering. It is buried in the Beta’s section of the website.
Today I am reviewing Microsoft Live Writer, an application that helps you post to blogs of various technologies including Moveable Type, WordPress and Microsoft’s very own Spaces platform. This application is very simple to setup and use and that’s why I think it’s an excellent application to feature. In fact, Microsoft Live Writer is my writing tool to post to the BeardmoreWeb blog.
After a very simple installation the software opens with a setup screen that asks what type of service you will be using. In my case I choose “Another weblog service” because I run a WordPress blog.
After that, it brings me to a simple page that asks me the url of my website and my username and password for the system.
Once you have entered in your login credentials, Live Writer automatically detects and analyzes your blog to determine how it will post data.
Alright then, now you are good to edit your blog with this awesome interface which allows you to add files, pictures, hyperlinks and even pictures from Microsoft’s Virtual Earth system.
The program is great for making quick posts to your blog without having to worry about logging into the blogging interface. The thing that I like so much about this app is that it makes it easier for a writer to imbed items into their blog post. For instance, when I want to add a picture to a WordPress blog, first I have to upload the picture, then I have to try to remember how to insert it into my blog post, then after that it is still only a thumbnail. With this app, I can easily customize an image, make it just the right size and also do some neat effects from right within one application!
I look forward to the final release of this app and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a much better way to post to their blog.
I would like to welcome mississippiriverwild.com to BeardmoreWeb. This site is for Mississippi River Wild which is an organization that is in support of keeping the Mississippi river an enjoyable habitat for all.
This is a volunteer project that I did to help the organization get started. The group is just getting off the ground so check out the site in the near future to see what events they have planned to help the Mississippi River.
I just wanted to give everyone a status update as to what I’ve been up to lately.
First off, I have transferred to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to finish my Bachelor degree in Management Information Systems from the Carlson School of Management.
My new address is 2515 University Ave. SE Apartment 109. Minneapolis, MN 55414.
My new work phone number is 608.498.4950 (Courtesy of Grand Central)
Second, I am no longer with CESA #4. I have turned to doing technology consulting for various organizations. One such organization that I will be spending quite some time with is Redman & Associates LLC. My official title is Technology Consultant. I will be working mostly on the website and the day to day needs of the company. Most of this work will be done remotely.
Second, the TV tuner that I used in my brief demo of Media Center for Vista is a WinTV PVR 2 USB which is made by a company called Hauppage. NewEgg currently has it for $124.99 (click here to go to newegg’s listing)
Third, The Build that I had on the Dell Inspiron 1520 that I did the demo with is here
Fourth, I will see what I can do with the video, we ran a little long so a large part of the presentation did not make it on the tape. Check back in a week and hopefully I will have posted something by then.
Also from my presentation, I would like to remind you that for home use, The version to go with is Vista Home Premium, unless you want all the neat features of Vista Ultimate then spring for tha, but for general computing Vista Home Premium will be perfect.
For more Vista and microsoft information there is a great podcast Windows Weekly which has a ton of great information about what is going on at Microsoft. This podcast is part of the TWIT (This Week in Tech) podcast network run by Leo Laporte (former The Screen Savers host from TechTV)
Please let me know if you have any questions about what you learned at the demo and I would be happy to answer them. E-Mail
here designers setup QLab to do some pretty cool things with their shows! One case study that was published showed that a one person performance could be run by triggering cues from a rigged cell phone that beamed commands to the computer! This is of course and extreme example, but for the person who simply wants to run sound cues, it is a great piece of software. 
