colinfitz.com

So my clubnight Laundry licked off again last weekend. We’re really happy with the venue, it’s a cavernous basement with old style charm but perfectly accessible for a club setup with two interconnecting rooms with a bar that stretches between the two.

We kicked off at 10pm and the place filled up really quickly. Giles started off with some Cosmic Disco sounds followed by the hypnotic rhythms of Claire and Conky. I played for an hour between 12 and 1 – started off very deep moody tunes but turned it up a north soon after with some more funky bouncy stuff later on. I re-recorded the set so you can listen to it here: www.colly.tv

Here is a quick video from the night:

Laundry will be happening on the last Friday of every month in Hogan’s – entry is free so if you are in town please pop in and check us out!

Download the mix here

I finally caved in. After years of slagging off Mac fanboys and their undying love for Mac products – I’ve joined the team and actually got one myself. I’ve used Mac’s plenty before but I just never got what everyone thinks is so great about them. Apparatntly they are easy to use but coming from a strong windows background everything just seems weird and unnecessary. I’m still struggling but I think I’m getting there….

I decided to take the plunge as pretty much all serious DJ’s use Mac’s and not PC’s – a PC has a good chance of crashing and you really do not want that happening when you have a crowd of a few hundred people in front of you. Plus I wanted to give it an actual proper go and see what all the fuss was about. It’s only been a day so far but I’m still struggling. The whole ‘Macs are easier’ thing is bullshit, depends on perception, many things I find are less intuitive than on a pc. I find on a pc you have many different options and ways to complete various tasks, some ways are better than other depending on what you are doing. I’ve heard that once you get over the learning curve you’ll never look back, I hope that happens soon!

The one thing that is good is when it comes to external devices like audio/dj gear - apparently they ‘just work’ – I’ll have to see how that goes for me when I hook up my controller and soundcard, cause i’m having issues with sound quality on my pc, getting a lot of snap crackle and pop…

It does look good although the screen has to be at the perfect angle to see it properly which is annoying. It’s also heavier than my last laptop but it does have a CD/DVD drive which my last one did not I suppose. The Multi Touch touchpad is great, you can scroll up and down web pages by using two fingers instead of one. Although there is no “Right Click” which is annoying, you have to hold a button on the keyboard and click – easier my ass.

Hopefully I’ll get used to it soon. When I do I’ll make sure to spend my Sunday afternoons in Starbucks pretending like I’m working on something really important like a screenplay – and generally thinking I’m better than everyone else.

Terrorist acts committed by the United States of America against a sovereign nation since WWII

1.China 1945-46
2.Korea 1950-53
3.China 1950-53
4.Guatemala 1954
5.Indonesia 1958
6.Cuba 1959-60
7.Guatemala 1960
8.Belgian Congo 1964
9.Guatemala 1964
10.Dominican Republic 1965-66
11.Peru 1965
12.Laos 1964-73
13.Vietnam 1961-73
14.Cambodia 1969-70
15.Guatemala 1967-69
16.Lebanon 1982-84
17.Grenada 1983-84
18.Libya 1986
19.El Salvador 1981-92
20.Nicaragua 1981-90
21.Libya 1986
22.Iran 1987-88
23.Libya 1989
24.Panama 1989-90
25.Iraq 1991-2002
26.Kuwait 1991
27.Somalia 1992-94
28.Croatia 1994 (of Serbs at Krajina)
29.Bosnia 1995
30.Iran 1998 (airliner)
31.Sudan 1998
32.Afghanistan 1998
33.Yugoslavia 1999
34.Afghanistan 2001-02
35.Iraq 2003 – present

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way.

This is truly one of the most amazing little programs I have ever discovered, and I can’t believe I had not seen this years ago.

It’s a very simple program that installs in your browswe; IE, Firefox Chrome and many more, and quite simply securely remembers all your passwords for every site you want, and fills it in for you whenever you need it to! Its really a Godsend and I can’t see myself ever being without this again.

It’s totally secure, only works when it knows its you (You obviosuly have to log in with one master password at first) but after that you’re done. If you log in to a new site it does not recognise, it will descretely ask you if you want it to remember these details in its secure online database. Even if you start working on a new computer, just install lastpass, log in, and you’re done! So simple and so effective.

So get yourself over to https://lastpass.com now and get on it!

This has to be my favorite piece of comedy ever. This short skit has spawned more jokes and prompted more one liners that anything else, only the movie Anchorman would be close.

I highly recommend you watch this, is absolutely brilliant…

Fantastic animation here showing just how big the universe is:

I love the way wordpress has some funky little plugins. This one: http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-to-twitter/ auomatically tweets any new post you do on your wordpress blog

test

If you are not using Google Chrome yet – I highly advice you download it right now, and make it your primary Browser. I’m absolutely loving Chrome, especially since they brought extensions into the game. The quality of the Extensions in Chrome are simply fantastic, here are my recommendation for the Top 10 Must have’s – some are just simple little usability boots, but others will transform the way you use a browser!

LastPass: This is simply incredible. Install this on any browser, on any computer, and it stores all your passwords securely, in the cloud! It literally means that the next time you put in your password to login to a website, last pass will pick it up and you will never have to enter it again! Simply magic!

Picnick Image Editor: We all need to quickly edit an image from time to time, be it simply resizing the photo or cropping the dimensions, or maybe something a little more complex even. Picnick brilliant integrates into Chrome and with one click you can be editing any image on a web page and then save to file or upload to even save to Flickr etc – absolutely invaluable

New Tab To Tasks: I LOVE this one. If you use Google Tasks – you’ll know its a brilliantly simple way to keep a to do list which is in your gmail and you can get it on your iPhone etc. Although if like me you do not actually make the effort to look at it enough, here is the answer: This extension integrates Google Tasks into any new Tab, so this way you cannot help but see your tasks more, so you’ll get more of them done and also put more in too! I feel more productive already!

Google Mail Checker Plus: This one beats the pants off the standard Gmail Checker which is one of the most popular Chrome Extensions. It’s an in-line popup showing you your mails without loading up gmail in a new window, but also lets you delete, Archive, Mark as Read or Spam any mail with one click. Super Efficiency!

Google Mini Maps: This extensions lets you open up a mini map window on top of your current tab to find something on a map without loading Google Maps in a new tab. it’s Lightning quick too. Stay tuned to this one for some nice updates too.

AniWeather: A lovely little weather forecast extension that gives you a nice little popup with all the info you want, highly customisable. Also pops up a tiny reminder of the weather in the bottom corner whenever you start the browser

AdBlock: This version of AdBlock for Chrome does a great job of blocking those pesky ads we all hate on certain sites.

IE Tab: As fantastic as chrome is, sometimes certain sites just don’t work properly, usually due to developers not updating their work to the latest standards. I hate having to revert back to IE – but thankfully this extension displays any page/site using the IE Engine, so you’ve now got the best of both worlds!

Smooth Gestures: A brilliant “Mouse Gestures” extension for Chrome that left you do things like navigate back and forward between pages by just using your mouse. Absolutely essential.

SlideShow: Lastly one of the best, more impressive and also useful extensions I found. This turns any page with images or a gallery – into a beautifil fullscreen slideshow. Works great with Facebook, Flickr, Google Images and many more.

If you are still using the windows default Internet Explorer to browse the internet, shame on you, its a truly shockingly bad piece of software and should be banned.  Firefox has been very popular for a long time and when it first had a big release I thought it was the best piece of open source software ever. It was just so much quicker and less bloated and I could not stand using IE afterwards.

Recently, the guys at Google had a go at making their own internet browser and when it was first released I gave it a test drive out of interest. I was very impressed with its speed and simplicity – but soon went straight back to Firefox as I missed many of the aspects of Firefox which gave it the edge, mainly Extensions.  Firefox has loads of great little add ons that personalise it, like the  weather forecast in  the toolbar, options for downloading files, and my favourite being “Mouse Gestures” where you can navigate ‘back’ and ‘forward between pages by holding the right click and dragging.

However, Chrome now has Extensions (well, in the developer beta anyway) and this has just booted it way past firefox.

Check out https://chrome.google.com/extensions for what is available.

The DJing community and the greater dance music scene mourns the loss of a clubbing staple today. Iconic turntable manufacturers Technics will be stopping production on their universally loved Technics 1200s and Technics 1210s.

In a statement re-posted on dance board Global Hardstyle, the company behind the production of the Technics turntables Panasonic announced that they would cease the manufacture of Tehcnics turntables in February next year, citing an increasing decline in sales as the motivation behind the line’s demise.

The Australian arm of Panasonic issued a similar statement today, expressing their disappointment that the brand’s 35 years-and-running legacy was to be put to bed.

“It is a sad day today but due to low sales globally in analogue turntables a decision to stop production has been made on Technics Turntables,” Panasonic spokesman Ian North explained. “For Australia this means we will receive our last shipment in March.”

With the disappearance of Technics decks now imminent it’s becoming increasingly clear that the digital juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing down.

I had written a large piece on what a shocker this was – almost the beginning of the end for Analogue Mixing and the declaration of the new reign of Digital… However it turns out Panasonic are only discontinuing one range of turntables:

Clarification came from Panasonic UK to squash rumours. And It’s not what you might think. So here goes – the 1200MK5 and 1210MK5 WILL be discontinued leaving the 1210MK5G as the top of the range and most definitely NOT discontinued. It never was a limited edition, just a flagship special edition model. And the 1200 and 1210 MK2 will continue as normal. So now there’s some distance between the MK2 and MK5G models instead having a middle MK5 deck to confuse matters. So it’s vanilla Technics or the more expensive piano black extra pitched blue light luxury model left in the range.

Salesforce have just announced a new Enterprise Collaboration playform. It’s kinda like Google Wave meets Facebook + Twitter. Looks very impressive!

I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets confused sometimes by political terms – even ones as simple as the differnce between Left Wing and Right Wing.

This is a nice little image that makes it all pretty clear. Click on the image for a larger version.

This and other similar ino-images can be found here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

There are a multitude of different ways you can use Traktor wit different setups – it will work with any Midi controller – so really its down to personal preference:

The M-Audio Evolution UC33e is a solid reliable controller with loads of Faders, Knobs and Buttons to which you can assign loads of different things to Traktor. As far as value goes for multi use Midi Controllers, this seems to be the best. Comes very highly recommended from Kid Handsome too! 

If you want a more DJ-Specific all in one controller, one of the most popular setups is the Vestax VCI-100 – I also believe this to be a good all round safe choice for a setup using Traktor.

Both the VCI-100 and the UC33 are just MIDI controller’s – they do not contain Soundcards (The Xponent and the Vestax VCI-300 Do however). So, to Monitor with Headphones you will need a soundcard. The Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ seems to be a good choice.

What i like about the Vestax VCI-100 is is DJ specific and not just a generaic controller that can be mapped for use with Traktor etc. This may not matter to some but I’m just used to all in one DJ controllers so its my preference. It has the basic’s laid out as you’d expect and it if you are used to using CDJ’s and a mixer etc, with a few extras on there too – some which are assignable for multi use. It also has platters which many say are pointless in Traktor but again, its a personal thing as some people still like to use them on occasion.

The other thing I like about it is that it has a very solid userbase and a dedicated following. From my background of working in the software industry I know how advantageous this can be. www.djtechtools.com is one of the leading websites for digital DJ’s and they have their own custom version of the VCI-100 that they have made a custom mapping for, and then applied an overlay on the actual unit itself. It can be bought from here ($600 including shipping, works out at €400).

What I plan to do, is use both the VCI-100 and the UC33 together. The Vestax will do the normal stuff and I’ll map the UC33 for some effects and other features I might want to use in Traktor. I’d live to give some of the more advanced features that Traktor has to offer – I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out and I’ll let you know more in a few weeks.

I’ve recently started Using Traktor Pro – I got together a collection of videos & links that would be of help  to many so I thought I’d share them here:

Native Instruments Tutorials:

Part 1 – User Interface: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXOZlK4veR4
Part 2 – Looping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl21UN5XuEY
Part 3 – FX Setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTd3i79-QFU
Part 4 – FX Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQX0DoQNVpU
Part 5 – Crate Flick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIV4qdHTmw
Part 6 – 4 Decks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P9KTmPC68

Richie Hawtin on his Traktor (3) Setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1H9W_iLff0

MrCuss
Midi Mapping Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQjJs…eature=related
Midi Mapping Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw9Y5gikiKc

Ean Golden – DJ Tech Tools:

VCI-100SE Walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWl79ae6fkM
Traktor Audio/Setup Guide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znUwbqczWIg

Cue Points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLQuukGhgxI
Beatgrids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAW8X9RSt7A
Assigning Effects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsbMJTTGDGo

Dynamic Buildups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMP7yMvNja8
Dafer FX Theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjA0xPkXMs
Live Loop Recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgKt-2Sik48
Create Drumroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xuu0IKP-yE

Links:

Traktor 3 DVD Tutorials : http://www.dv247.com/computer-music-software/native-instruments-traktor-3-tutorial-dvd–48172 – its a ripoff – I don’t think its wroth buying as the tutorials above will cover most of it.

Traktor Pro Bible: http://www.traktorbible.com – proper softcover book by an expert covering all aspects of Traktor pro. Also expensive but I have ordered it – I’ll let you know what its like.

Traktor World: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/home/?pwfilter=dj&page=djworld&content=966 – hardware guide, compatible controllers, DJ Interviews etc.

Can’t think of too much more but any links I’ve missed please post here

This is just a design concept video, but the future is really not that far away.

Pretty cool.