The long-awaited results of our IELTS test I was writing quite a bit about are finally on the table, unwrapped…

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I wrote two or three posts ago that I played at the TechnoSphere 2007 pre-party live with my new MIDI controller console and it was spectacular. Now you can see it with your own eyes.

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You know, I’m fond of reading books. My true obsession is books by English and American science-fiction writers. William Gibson, Philip Dick, Arthur C Clarke just to name some of the favorites. I read all of them in original and, being non-native language speaker, face some problems with new words, idioms and phrases. I have several huge dictionaries bi- and mono-lingual as well as five desktop dictionaries on my laptop (Cambridge Advanced, Oxford Concise, Macmillan Advanced Learners, Collins Co-build, Oxford Collocations), but imagine how inconvenient it is to jump from a page to a laptop or a paper back then back to the page. This is why I seriously considered buying some good voluminous pocket electronic dictionary.

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We called British Council on Friday and I forgot to leave a note here for those who follow our little adventure. They promised to send the results to us on Monday, and put the special emphasis on that even though the marks will be ready, they won’t share them with us over the phone.

Well, as I think about it now, it’s quite a judicious move, isn’t it? Anyone could learn my results by simply calling them, and I don’t really like anyone to do this. So, let’s see what arrives. I wonder how long it is going to take, but it shouldn’t be more than a week for sure.

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This Saturday I played live for the first time! Certainly, I tried it in the past, but it wasn’t a real thing — just some simple toying with the software. This Saturday thing was different.

It wasn’t a huge rave that would be definitely over the top for the first-timer, however they put together a small yet convenient stage, added some lighting equipment and sound. There were about 200-300 people when I was performing and it’s more than enough to see how it goes and get the idea of what has to be improved and how. I liked the audience. Many of them didn’t know what “live” means and came asking the same question. It’s good when people care to ask if they don’t understand; it shows they wish to get the picture, learn something new… It was my pleasure to educate them a bit and show how it’s going to be on fingers.

Here I am in the middle of my hour and a half long set. I had huge butterflies in the stomach until the last minute, but eventually it went very well. You can see, I was playing from the HP notebook though the TC Electronic Konnekt 8 firewire audio interface (Andrew, thanks for a hint on this hardware, it’s a dream even though it has some driver problems) and controlling the setup from my custom-built 8-channel midi controller board. The sound was crisp, bright and very clean as the interface is capable of 192kHz/24bit. I didn’t use this much as the CPU in my poor old laptop was almost overloaded, but the potential of the interface is unlimited and I wish to find a way to record the stuff next time for your “offline” listening pleasure.

I would say, my compositions went great and much better than I expected. People were cheering and jumping all around me and the dancefloor. That definitely gave me an inspiration, new ideas and the willingness to go on with performing.

That was a nice start indeed! The next step I’m planning is to create more material for another, better set and climb on a slightly higher stage. :)

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As you may know, we cherish the idea of immigration. Immigration to the sunny and sandy Australia. Last Friday (May 31, 2007) we flew to Kiev to take our IELTS examination, which always takes place in the British Council.

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May 20, 2007 is an official birthday of the MIDI controller we were struggling over with my farther since September 2006. In fact, it was he who struggled most of the time elbowing his way through the technical obstacles. My part was only in the original design and programming of this babe. Just have a look. Isn’t it beautiful. Let’s admit it, the front panel looks gorgeous. I was planning to use the device with Ableton Live and it drove the design almost completely. There are eight channels with five knobs, three buttons, two LEDs and a slider for each. All elements can be flexibly assigned to any controls within the application. Originally, I planned the yellow knobs for sends, red for EQ and green for panning, but as I play on I feel that the function may change sometime soon. The top row of buttons with LEDs (right below the knobs) is mutes.

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Many times I felt that I wish to mark some article I stumbled upon to get back to it later, or what’s better to save it somewhere for continued reference. There’s no doubts there are many of us in this club. As you may know, I’m working for BlogBridge these days. Recently, we added a shining new wonderful plug-in framework that lets you or any 3rd party coder extend the functionality almost in a boundless way. Personally, my head is swelling with ideas to the point of explosion. That’s the main reason I’m starting the page where I publish extensions I write for the application. Be sure, I use them actively myself, so that’s not just a metaphysical exercise — it’s very serious stuff. Treat it accordingly. :) Alright, that was a bit of introductory blah-blah, and here’s the real meat: Main BlogBridge Plug-ins Page Pins Archive 1.0 Plug-in You can find the details on the plug-in page, but trust me, it’s that you always needed.

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Today I bookmarked an article, and it’s extremely rare event just because usually I don’t see anything I would like to get back to and review later. Certainly, I don’t mean any reference materials, that are the essential part of my business life The article I give extract from below is a great reminder. The reminder of all key moments you have to keep in mind when working and improving your working experience. Of course, many of the points are hard to implement as it sometimes scary to drive off the beaten track, but I believe some of them are ready for instant application and will make you feel more in control of your only life. Even though our modern lives have an incredible number of time-saving devices, we seem to end up working more and more all the time. From time-saving devices in the home (microwave, the robot vacuum, and dishwasher, to name three), to time-saving devices at work (spreadsheets, email, Internet, etc.

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A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to Twitter, registered, but then… I don’t get the idea. To me, saving every minute and organizing my entire life to make more room for personal stuff, this is an ordinary waste of time. I guess, I’m too practical for this and share the opinion of David Peralty up to the last word. However, I know thousands of teenagers would love it from first sight if they knew it was there. They always look for some chat boards, forums, and IMs to kill time.

Check out this post from Blogging Pro:

I just joined Twitter about an hour or two ago (my twitter), and my second impression is that it’s slow moving. I can get a whole blog post or two done before Twitter updates a preference or posts a message. My first impression, before I even signed up was “this is rediculous!”

I really don’t get Twitter. To me, it is like updating my instant messenger status information on Google Talk and whatnot, something I forget to do regularly, leaving my friends to wonder, “why has David been sleeping for four days now?”

(from: Twitter: Useful or Not?)

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