HiWire

Alice in Chains – Down in a Hole (the unplugged version is nice, but the song works better with the noise and distortion of electric power – I think this is my favorite Alice in Chains song)

Murderhobo | 1 For All | D&D Comedy Web-Series

Happy Birthday!

Good call... I'll look into it. A few moments later Went down the Pi hole and found the Khadas Tone Board... anyone tried it? https://www.khadas.com/tone https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-wesiontek-khadas-tone-board-dac.4823/

That's my conclusion, too. The good ones get pricey fast. I can barely figure out a machine I'd get to run Plex for myself (not that I need it)... I wouldn't dump anything on my dad that would require a manual to operate.

Thanks! I guess the other option would be a mini PC of some sort.

I use Logitech K380 Bluetooth keyboards ($30 or less) for our office iPads when a lot of typing needs to be done. The Apple Wireless Keyboard works too, but it is obviously very expensive. We tried the Zagg keyboard covers a few years ago as well as the Logitech Slim Folio... it really depends on the user.

I was talking to my dad this weekend and he wanted me to investigate a DAC/front end for his stereo system. His current source is a Technics 5-disc CD changer from the 90s, amplification is a Technics surround sound receiver of the same vintage (early-mid 90s), and no-name cables. I was thinking a Schiit Modi 3 might be a good start, but the system would need more smarts, so maybe something with streaming/network capability and DAC would be better. He does have music files stored on a bunch of hard drives, so maybe one large 6-8TB hard drive to consolidate them along with a wifi + interface head? He has an Android tablet, so maybe he could use that to control the stereo stuff. He wants to keep the amplification, so definitely something with RCA outputs...

Happy Birthday!

Paul's Boutique – Beastie Boys

At the Close of a Century – Stevie Wonder

Sounds great... looking forward to watching this.

I thought there were a bunch of software tools available to repair old recordings (e.g., remove noise, hiss, pops, etc.), both commercial and for home users. The Zenph re-performance company found a method to "re-perform" recordings in unrecoverable states of repair, but there hasn't been anything new from them for a few years.

What is better than Garfield? The joy of catching up to almost 11 years' worth of brilliant short animations. What a labor of love. Off to the Vet – Simon's Cat

Look what showed up today... Maximum Impact – D_Drive – the best in classical Japanese metal guitar. I'm sure Bill and Ted would find it... Excellent!

Shakira – She Wolf Dignity is highly overrated Also – thank you for the half-time show And thanks to YouTube's algorithm... Take On Me (A-Ha) – Mariachi Entertainment System – wow, those high notes...

The Bathurst 12 Hour race at Mount Panorama (Australia) happened this weekend... very eventful and a surprise winner:

I prefer LibreOffice – I don't think the official OpenOffice fork is being actively developed. We receive LibreOffice docs from partners from time to time – I always convert them to MS Office docs right away for my coworkers. LibreOffice has been getting much better in feature parity compared to MS Office and they can mostly share documents without a problem using the MS Office 2007+ formats. Mostly I use LibreOffice for opening a difficult file, as it doesn't seem to mind about locks and permissions in the strict sense that MS Office does. In my opinion, most people could probably use LibreOffice as a free MS Office replacement without too much of a problem. Hardcore business users are going to balk at the clunky interface style and less streamlined advanced options (and re-learning), which is why Microsoft's office apps are still in business. I don't like that LibreOffice still uses Java for its Base (database) app, but there have been murmurings of moving it away from Java for years.

A few of the basic ones: https://www.howtogeek.com/340435/whats-the-difference-between-microsoft-office-for-windows-and-macos/ https://www.maketecheasier.com/disappointing-differences-microsoft-office-for-mac/ I've come up against a bunch of things that are different between PC vs Mac Office from my coworkers asking over the years as well (smaller things in windows and drop-down lists) that simply aren't there in the Mac apps. Since we're a mainly Mac office, sometimes we don't know what we're missing other than by searching the web.

There are definitely feature differences between Mac Office and Windows versions of Microsoft Office applications. Casual users won't notice, but power users (particularly in Excel, but also sometimes in Word) will notice a lot of Windows features are completely missing in the Mac versions. And, of course, some Windows Office applications are completely missing Mac versions (e.g., Access, Publisher, etc.). The great thing about running a Mac is that you can use both, though. Install Windows 10 via Boot Camp or Parallels/Fusion and you can switch over when you're hitting those feature limitations. Some of the Microsoft Office365 licenses allow installation on multiple devices, so then you're only out the cost of the Windows license (which you can bring over from a spare Windows 7 install key: https://www.howtogeek.com/266072/you-can-still-get-windows-10-for-free-with-a-windows-7-8-or-8.1-key/). Then you just have to remember that the CMD key is the Windows key and the Option key is the Alt key. The Office files are totally interoperable between modern versions of Microsoft Office, e.g., 2016+ (and I recommend only using the newer Office 2007+ XML file formats: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx because the file sizes are smaller, they are an open standard, and they get corrupted less often). Other applications are slightly less than 100% compatible with complex Office files, like Apple's iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) or LibreOffice.

Happy Birthday!

I blasted through the Out of the Blue 30th anniversary CD thread yesterday – typical of discussions on the Hoffmann forums regarding classic albums with many reissues, the results were inconclusive. Steve Hoffmann started it with a recommendation and then offhandedly mentioned it wasn't one of his favorite albums and he was doing everyone a favor by listening to it. ... things went downhill from there. The upshot is that most people seemed to like it and then they started picking nits about audible dropouts in various tracks on the remasters (as well as on the original LPs) with no update on the succeeding 2008 reissue CD (without the bonus tracks of the 30th Ann.) along with side discussions of vinyl versions, Japanese and Austrian CDs, cassettes, etc. TL;DR: Some people may be overthinking this

Happy Birthday!

Thanks! There's a 14-page thread about it on the Steve Hoffmann forums: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/electric-light-orchestra-out-of-the-blue-new-remastered-cd-sounds-good.106924/ Gonna take a while to get through this...

Painkiller – Judas Priest guitar cover by Yuki from D_Drive I am getting their album, Maximum Impact and D_Drive will be touring in the US this year. Voices Moar guitar