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I’m not sure what’s more frustrating, that I didn’t think of this or have one handy on any of the countless shows I’ve worked on where I’ve had to do on-site VO recordings at the theatre, or that I had two or three of those collapsible containers in my old apartment, and I’m pretty sure I got rid of them when I moved last fall! (He says, contemplating digging through boxes stored under the bed to be sure…)

(via MAKE)

Toolmonger � Blog Archive � Universal Battery Charger

The guy I spoke to told me that they couldn’t hold the computer or RAM upgrade for me (I even offered to pay over the phone, but they wouldn’t do that), but assured me that they had it in stock, no problem. I made it clear that sending a fairly highly paid union scale technician over to pick it up was going to be expensive, especially since I had to wait for the RAM to be upgraded about an hour (and had to do it after hours in OT because we were crazy busy), so I couldn’t afford to send somebody on a wild goose chase if they didn’t have it, and he again assured me that it would be no problem.

Of course, I get there, and they’ve got the computer, but, “Oh, we’re out of the RAM for that machine. We might be able to get it by Thursday (this was Tues), but we can’t promise.” After a bit of back and forth, they agreed to waive the upgrade fee if I had to come back at a later time for the upgrade, or get it from another store (normally, it’s installed free with purchase of the machine, but after the fact, there’s an install charge to upgrade).

This is a preview of Great Customer Service!. Read the full post (604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

I’d been looking for a good work jacket for next fall and winter, since I’m tired of getting my everyday jacket filthy at the shop all the time. I had been considering the Carrhart version of this sort of jacket, but that was more than twice this price. I had Jay send me a link to the site, and thought you guys would appreciate it, too.

–A, who is trying to stock up on some new posts for y’all as fast as he can, it’s been way too long that he’s let the site sit dormant!

-A

Get:
-One box of Pillsbury Devil’s Food Cake mix (the kind with the pudding in it)
-Two eggs
-1/3 cup oil
-A cup or so of Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate chips

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all the ingredients together until all the mix is, uh, mixed. Place heaping teaspoon size globs of the resulting dough on cookie sheets (for best results, cover the sheets with parchment, makes cleanup crazy easy, and keeps the bottoms from burning).

Bake ‘em for 15-20 minutes.

Let ‘em cool, and enjoy!

For extra credit, pretty much any other standard cake mix works well (although it’s my personal belief that the magic is in the mixes with pudding!). If you prefer a thinner cookie, you can go up to 1/2 cup of oil. Don’t make the mistake I did once, transpose the measurements of 1/3 to 1/2 cup as 1/2 to 2/3 cup. They were edible, but very messy!

–Andy

P.S.-Shouldn’t they be called bakies?

First, there’s Martian LifeBoat, which lets you define a thumbdrive (or any removable drive) as a “lifeboat", with a predetermined backup set. From then on, any time you plug that drive into the computer, it automatically backs that set of files/folders up onto the drive (with an option to skip the update if you desire) and then (again optionally) unmounts the drive. When you need it, the data’s there as a disk image, ready to be restored or transferred. During tech, I’ve found it useful for keeping offsite backups of my QLab files and cues. I’d love to find something (or see an update to Lifeboat) that can sync the copy on the removable media instead of just a one-way backup, but the price is right, and it’s incredibly useful as is.

Second, I’ve been in the midst of reorganizing all my effects libraries onto an external drive, and I needed something that would let me take a text file track list and rename a directory of WAV or AIFF files based on that list. After asking the folks on the Theatre-Sound List for recommendations, I was unanimously pointed towards A Better Finder Rename. After a quick demo, I was won over, it does this easily, as well as just about any other bulk renaming task you can throw at it. Again, very reasonably priced, so be sure to check it out! Although I haven’t tried it myself, they’ve also got A Better File Rename for Windows, that those of you who aren’t on Macs can try, too.

This is a preview of Two awesome Mac utilities (and one for Windows). Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

But I’ve got some tips, some stories, and more, all coming as soon as I have a chance to breathe and type them up. Including, in the very near future, a showdown on at least 3 (and maybe more, depending on what I can track down/scare up) models of sub $200 in-ears, and one mid-range pair, some of which are truly astouding, even compared to ones more than double the cost.

–A

Here’s one from the archives that I can’t believe I never posted before.

Let’s see…conductor shot? Check. Overhead shot? Check. FOH Infrared? Check. Simpsons? Check!

When I was out as the A2 for The Full Monty, our last tour stop had their own permanent color camera for a FOH shot, which they ran through a VCR to modulate it to Ch 3 for easy distrubution via the building’s cable system. Since it was a much better shot than the color camera we toured with, I tied into their system for our color shot. Since it did actually get TV signal, we couldn’t resist throwing “The Simpsons” up on the PSM’s console during some downtime between shows. Maybe next time we need to pack an antenna…

(And yes, those are moving lights in the overhead shot. Real estate was tight. I had to play lots of Bogen 3D mount games the first couple in’s until I get the art of getting a clear enough shot down, and even then it was a good thing the PSM didn’t need it during the big flashy numbers, since those two wigglies were dancing their little hearts out.)

I discovered a neat trick on a recent trip to Syn-Aud-Con’s “Hums, Buzzes, and Things That Go Zap!” workshop in Salt Lake City. If you take the barcode your airline (well, Delta, anyway, can’t speak for others) sends you in your e-ticket confirmation and copy the photo into your cellphone (I’ve got a Treo, which works great for this), you can bring that photo up on the phone and hold the screen under the barcode scanner on the check-in kiosk to log in super quick.

It’s faster than using a credit card to identify yourself, saves paper, and saves the hassle of having to find a printer if you’re at the hotel and forgot/lost the printout for your return trip!

Best, Andy