One of the most significant issues we saw was related to sites not detecting that IE on Windows Phone is a mobile browser and therefore providing desktop content. This often results in sites displayed with tiny text that you need to zoom in to read and then pan around. It also often means more data is transmitted over the phone’s data connection because the content isn’t mobile optimised. Images are large and many more ads are downloaded and shown.

- IEBlog

Yesterday I posted this screenshot of Gmail.com running on IE on Windows 8 Mobile. Three things immediately jump out at me:

1. This is a band-aid fix. This may serve up more desirable versions of webpages but functionalities that are webkit dependent will not work leading to user frustration and development frustration. (If Windows 8.1 mobile is like Windows 8 Mobile, IE doesn’t support file uploads for instance)
2. If you’re still using User Agent strings in the era of Modernizr and Head.js, you’re doing it wrong. Its a simpler and more elegant solution

Quite frankly, no one cares about checking for mobile IE users. If google is willing to serve up the above for Gmail, why should any of us care? I’m not arguing this is the right attitude but it is the reality MS is facing. At my current job, we have one client who actively checks for Windows Mobile glitches, and its only because they run a full-MS tech stack from ASP.NET to Surfaces, to Windows phones and of course desktops.

The short answer: Use the internal E-mail Client

This is one of those posts that seems laugh worthy but I spent the better part of the last 40 minutes trying to get screenshots off the lone Windows 8 phone in our office. Its currently running the factory install, we use for testing hence no MS account or SIM card, and it mostly sits in a corner in the office unloved.

None of the default apps on the Nokia phone have any sort of web share, so you’re SOL and require Nokia registration (which appears to require a SIM card) for the Nokia apps. 

I should have shot for the lowest tier solution first

Love your iOS or Android device, this is what Gmail.com looks like on Windows 8 mobile

The problems

• Apparently when connected to Wifi only and never have had a SIM card, you cannot sign into Windows Store. 
• You cannot use File upload on any webpage. I first tried to sent the screenshots to my iPhone using Good Reader and then a free image sharing service, neither worked
• GMail on windows 8 mobile looks akin cellphone internet on 2007 on a Blackberry. It didn’t even work, no chance for e-mailing.
• The time servers on Windows 8 mobile appear to be messed up and it requires a trip the settings to fix.

Ouch.

For some reason, the Susy website doesn’t make it abundantly clear how to install Susy.

I’m going to go ahead assume you have Node / Ruby / Sass installed and Compass. Suzy requires Compass version 1.x.x or later (as it is part of compass). 

1. Check your compass version 

From the Terminal check your compass version:

compass version

It should return something that looks like this:

Compass 0.12.7 (Alnilam)
Copyright (c) 2008-2014 Chris Eppstein
Released under the MIT License.

Note: Running the compass installer as of writing this will install a 0.x release. You will need to install the prerelease version. If you see Compass 1.0.0.alpha.x  or later, skip step 2!.

2) Install Compass prerelease

From the terminal run the following command:

sudo gem install compass --pre

This may take a few minutes and you’ll see a lot of install in your terminal

3) Install Susy!

Now we’re finally ready for susy. From the terminal run:

gem install susy

Congrats! You should be in business. Note you’ll need to install Node.js, which can be downloaded here, Ruby which which can be downloaded here (OS X comes with it preinstalled), Sass which instructions can be found on how to install here, and you’ll need to set up a compiler like Grunt.js or Gulp.js or an application like CodeKit or Prepros to run compass to compile your SASS.

Happy Coding!

Photo Credit; Wallstreet Journal’s poorly titled “India’s Answer to Google Glass: The Smartshoe”

I’m a bit tired of the wearable revolution. So far the wearable market has been solving the problems I don’t have and the most interesting “wearables” predate the wearable term.

• Garmin Foretrex GPS 101 GPS watch: 2001
>
• Go Pro Video Camerea: 2005
• iPod shuffle: 2005
• Nike+: 2006
• GPS Dog Collar (for hunting): 2008?

What’s interesting is all of these products have been designed for a task, and not a nebulous omnipresent platform, not an always worn such as the much lauded Nike+ Fuelband or Google Glass or even Google Wear watches. While I wouldn’t argue to dissaude to dream big, we’ve had wearable tech for decades in various facets. The only difference today is the mode of thinking as an always on platform. Just as there’s no correct pair of shoes for all situations, its silly to think there’s a wearable correct for all sitations.

I asked our luxury automaker client’s agency for a high resolution icon to use as their favicon…

…I can’t tell if they are inept or trolling me, but the 134 x 134 image included vector logo ontop of a smart layer of a 4000 px x 3000 px background complete with multiple images, adjust layers, layer styles, and layer masks. 

Image credit: Apple.com

For years I have had (and I know many others) the fear of the iOSification of OS X, where OS X slowly regressed from desktop operating system to iOS stand-in. I was unnerved by Lion and Mountain Lion’s feature set of Mac App Store, Push Notifications, Natural Scrolling, Launchpad, full screen apps, GateKeeper and Game Center.

10.9 was either the eye in the storm or the pivot away from borrowing from iOS, which amounts to the best OS X upgrade since 10.3 which drastically improved OS X to the point that it was no longer necessary to boot OS 9. Mavericks may haven’t had much on the exterior, instead of superficial iOS feature looting you had truly desktop features: tabbed finder, tags, time coalescing, app napping, compressed memory which resulted in a magical update that improved performance and increased battery life.

Now we’re getting a unified vision of the path of iOS and OS X, its a unified universe where each operate independently but when paired unlocked a unified experience that no other can offer. Start writing and e-mail and resume on your Mac. Airdrop files easily from iOS to OS X and back. Tether to your iPhone automagically. For the user, the experience becomes even more seamless. It exemplifies the old Steve Jobs maxim: “It just works!”

Developers as are thrown a much needed bone with SpriteKit, Scenekit, Cloudkit, HomeKit and of course Swift. If Mavericks was the retuning of OS X, then Yosemite and iOS 8 is switching the fuel.

Software may not be as exciting to consumers as hardware, but ultimately Apple real strength has always been software. Sure Apple’s hardware offerings are routinely in the highest end camp but they are easily reproduced. The software is not.

Apple is readying a new software platform that would turn the iPhone into a remote control for lights, security systems and other household appliances, as part of a move into the “internet of things”.

Apple plans to take on rivals Google and Samsung and make a “big play” in the world of smart home technology at its Worldwide Developer Conference on June 2 in San Francisco, according to people familiar with the matter.

This will reinforce the view, held by some in Silicon Valley, that Jetsons-style home automation is the next frontier in technology as growth in smartphone sales begins to slow in developed markets. - The Financial Times

Maybe I’m unimaginative and not visualizing the big picture but I still haven’t thought of practical applications for appliances beyond security, lighting, heating and entertainment which are all systems; not one off devices.

Even as a “user interface” developer *cough* front end *cough* , I see no point to obfuscate my interactions with my refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. 

There has to be an obvious gain of functionality/ease-of-use to offset the additional complexity. An iPod despite being more complicated to use than a CD or Tape player has so many advantages that any issues with managing digital music libraries on a computer was easily nullified by the ability to carry massive catalogs of music one’s pocket. Adding wifi/internet/bluetooth support for a car for diagnostics/vehicle health would easily offset the trouble of downloading an app and pairing it with the car. Can we extend this beyond systems and large ticket items?

I look forward to seeing how Apple envisions the future. My guess is they’ll provide the platform (elegant and beautiful in execution) and let the manufactures figure the later out, for better or worse.

One of the most dangerous things I’ve seen happen to people who are just starting to code is being told that it’s easy. - Kate Ray, Technical Cofounder of Scrollkit, TechCrunch

Kate also suggests completing tutorials even when you’re unsure of what you’re doing, which is an extension of the profound advice I’ve never been able to source, “When learning to code, always type it, do not copy and paste”

A Day A Week

The past few weeks, I felt myself getting close to burnout again, so I instituted a rule for myself. One day a week, work is off limits – answering email, writing a blog post – anything. For one day a week, it’s off limits. I tend to rotate between Saturdays and Sundays, but it’s completely up to your schedule. To ensure that I stick to it, I tend to save errands and personal obligations for the weekend, forcing myself into a schedule without work. - Andrew Dumont, Always On

I’d tell Andrew to take it a step further. I know its impossible for some people but the smartest thing I’ve ever done professionally was separating my work e-mail from personal e-mail, and removing my work e-mail from my personal phone thus when I check my personal e-mail, work is never lingering in the background.

Establishing Boundaries is crucial. Weekends should be away time, as we already have much less vacation time than most other developed nations, and it works against us. Its okay sometimes a project has a deadline that requires extra work. Its not okay if every project requires extra work. That’s bad planning.

Why Hackintosh?

Once upon a time I installed OS X 10.5 onto a Dell running a Pentium-D (a CPU incidentally that never shipped with any OS X based computer) but without a proper graphics card or compatible audio chipset, it was mostly for show.  It was surreal seeing OS X running on a non-Mac. Having had a PowerComputing PowerCenter, I remember the days of the clones but this was something different. I only booted OS X two or three more times before deleting the partition but having witnessed a hackintosh, the idea has always lingered…

I’ve posted several times about the death of the Mac Pro, most notably my rant “The Future is Gated Community” and even my list of “Recommended Mac Pro Upgrades”.  I love OS X but at this current juncture, Apple doesn’t offer a computer that truly meets all my needs. I considered the 27 inch iMac (with the additional GeForce GTX 780M and Core i7) but graphically, it left too much to be desired. 

Quo Computing: The Answer? Sorta

A few weeks ago something that’s always seemed like a pipe dream became a reality once I discovered the “Quo Computer Z77MX-QUO-AOS” motherboard, a redesigned Gigabyte motherboard with a wink-wink, none-too-subtle-nod, and nudging of the elbows, “Run any OS”. By any OS, they meant none other than OS X.

After reading up on the Quo Computer, it started off as a successful kickstarter project that actually resulted in a working motherboard (although they never were able to deliver some of the promised stretch goals like built in Wifi/Bluetooth). 

Despite its short comings, Quo produced a motherboard that spec wise resembled a Macintosh: Firewire 400? Check. Firewire 800? check. USB 3.0? Check. Thunderbolt? Check, with 4 PCIe slots (two 3.0 and two 1.0), 4 DIMM slots (max 32 GB of ram) and an LGA1155 socket for a Core i3/i5/i7 CPU.

It wasn’t the motherboard to end all motherboards being a CPU socket generation late, limited RAM, one solo 16x PCIe slot (and a secondary 8x PCIe slot), one PCIe slot that’d enviably be blocked by a graphics card but it had something no one else had; a special uEFI rom for the motherboard that allowed it to magically boot OS X. Magic indeed, the ROM isn’t provided by Quo but a mysterious group called HermitCrab Labs.  

What Quo promised is something that even Gigabyte hadn’t been able to promise previously, a hackintosh that didn’t require a complex dance to install OS X. I was intrigued.

Parting out the PC… erm, Mac

For my computer I decided to use the following hardware:

• Fractal Design R4 Case
• Quo Computer Z77MX-QUO-AOS Motherboard
• Intel Core i7 3770k (3.5 GHz)
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 2 GB*
• SeaSonic Platinum SS-860XP2 Power Supply
• Crucial Ballistix Sport 16 GB DDR3 Ram (PC3-12800)
• Lite-On Super AllWrite 24X SATA DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive

*originally I attempted to use my EFI Rom flashed AMD Radeon 6870 which didn’t function properly

Photo: MacBook Pro Retina with TechSpot’s instructions loaded

Despite being a life-long Mac user, I’ve always been a power user, using two-button mice in the OS9 days, to flashing video cards for my G4 and so on. 

The sacred text for this leap of faith was a single lone article by TechSpot using the Quo Computer motherboard. It provided everything one needed to get the Quo Computing mobo going on a single page. So based on this one article and TonyMacX86 I ordered roughly $1100 of PC hardware to built my own Hacktintosh.  All my storage was already in my existing Mac Pro, consisting of 5 HDDs, 1 Samsung 840 Evo 750 GB SSD, and two USB 3.0 WD drives.

6 internal storage is overkill but no Mac produced today can have multiple internal storage devices.

Putting together my PC took a usual amount of time, the Fractal Design R4 is a very large case, roughly the same dimensions as a Mac Pro (mid-tower seems like a short sale). 

Setting it all up

After setting everything up, I plugged into my Hacktinosh a FAT32 formatted USB thumb drive containing the latest ROM for the quo computer mother board (from Hermit Crab labs), and hit the END key and brought up the motherboard rom flasher. SUCCESS! Next I plugged in my SSD from my Mac Pro… and it booted! The screen was jibbled up (after a quick read, I forgot to enable the video) Once enabled OS X booted, complete with graphics acceleration from the onboard Intel HD4000.

I was able to boot both 10.8 and 10.9 without any problems.

After the computer was booted, RAM seated securely, I discovered AMD Radeon 6870 did not work properly in the Hackintosh which meant dropping $270 on the computer, raising the price from $800ish to roughly $1100ish.

This process wasn’t painless but required very little on my end.

By default the QUO is identified as a Mac Pro 2008, which means using popular hackintosh utilities like Champlist are not necessary

Benchmarks

Everyone loves benchmarks, so how does this computer stack up? 

Geekbench Score      

32 Bit

Single core: 3306  

Multicore: 12787

64 bit

Single core: 3683 

Multicore: 14249

The best way to check the performance is to go here as Geekbench provides a nice chart to single core, multi-core and 32 bit / 64 bit performance but I’ll summarize. 

Single core

Without much surprise, the Hackintosh in single core performance is only bested by latest core i7 iMacs sporting the new 4770k/4771k i7s as  Quo computer is a generation behind for CPUs. Otherwise, single core performance is above every Mac in production in this particular benchmark. 

Multi-core

The multicore performance is quite a different story, as any computer post 2009 running 8 or more physical cores is distinctly faster than the Hackintosh, meaning 2009+ Mac Pros with 12 Cores post nearly double the performance.

Interestingly, both the iMac i7 4771k 27 inch iMac and my Quo Computing Hackintosh post better benchmarks in single and multicore performance than the $3000 Xeon E5-1620 Mac Pro. 

Graphics + OpenCL

Now before you jump to point out that the Mac Pro 2013’s include dual FireGL Pros,  currently there are not any easy ways to benchmark the graphics performance with the Mac Pros. LuxMark v2.1 remains the sole benchmark I could find and the database is borked so I couldn’t reference the Mac Pros.

Currently, the FireGL Pros are not the fastest OpenCL benchmarks and a 2012 Mac Pro armed with two AMD Radeon 7970s will best it. That said, the 7970 still is faster than the 760 found in my Hackintosh. 

The important thing to take away is that $1100 gets you the performance of a maxed out 27 inch iMac or entry level Mac Pro. Sadly, Geekbench does not include any graphics benchmarks.  

The GeForce GTX 760 is a more powerful gaming graphics card than any Mac shipping. I may return the 760 for the 770 as its only $50 more and it’d put the Hackintosh in a realm untouched by anything other than assholes who could afford  8+ core 2012 Mac Pros with 7970s.

RAM

The Mac Pro 2013 has one distinct advantage over my hacktinosh, with the ability to have a maximum of 128 GB of RAM. Even my previous Mac Pro could sport 64 GB of RAM.  

Core i-series  are limited to 32GB or 64GB, which biggest defining characteristic. Unfortunately, most common CPUs are limited to 32 GB including the Core i7 3770k.

Also it is worth noting that the Mac Pros uses 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM vs the 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, ECC has been long stated to take a small performance tax for the error correction but I couldn’t find any modern articles. If I had to hazard a guess, the memory I/O performance would be neck and neck with the 2013 Mac Pro.

32 GB certainly isn’t prohibitive for most use cases, and with the improved memory management in Mavericks help further it. It is also double the maximum RAM in current MacBooks. However, it is worth noting. The Mac Pros have been the only Macs capable of > 32 GB of RAM as of writing this.

Strange Problems Encountered:

• When installing my CPU I managed to bend (without realizing) two of the CPU pins on the motherboard. I had to use an exacto knife to straighten these out. Nerve racking to say the least…
  
  
• By default the internal video chipset isn’t enabled, this requires enabling it. Its clearly outlined in the guide but I still managed to skip it.
  
  
• I couldn’t use my old AMD Radeon HD 6870 in my Hackintosh with my 27 inch monitor (2560 x 1440). This was likely due to the hacked EFI rom that I loaded onto the card so the card would display the OS X option boot. Not all the ports are detected due to the flash so perhaps the EFI rom doesn’t play nicely with the motherboard’s uEFI rom (despite displaying video at the BIOS). The only solution was to buy an nVidia card or forgo using my monitor.
  
  
• A slightly loosely seated ram caused powering up to fail randomly. Since it was booting occasionally, I didn’t think to check the RAM at first.
  
  
• An addendum to the problem above. It appears the loosely seated RAM caused the BIOS to corrupt, fortunately the vanilla BIOS reinstall automagically and reapplying the new ROM for uEFI only takes seconds.
  
  
• Installing the GeForce drivers were a pain. My drivers installed were from 2011. I found on TonyMacX86 a user who was kind enough to upload the drivers he had, however these did not work. After much digging, I found that nVidia quietly has OS X drivers for its graphics cards which can be found here. Installing these and the sequential update (found in the control panel for the nVidia card) did the trick. I also installed the optional CUDA drivers during the process, it is unknown if this helped.
  
  
• PC cases are still ugly as I remember they were in the early/mid 2000s. Garish LEDs and plastic pains are still the norm. Lian Li cases for sale at NewEgg were not worthy of the praise. Fractal Design is about the least offensive option on the market.
  
  
• Cubase’s stupid USB eLicenser complains that the hardware configuration is different. Isn’t the point of damned USB Dongle that I should be able to plug and play? I already hate the damn thing so much that I keep debating if I want to remain in their DRM hellish scheme. Now I need to contact them? C'mon. Shouldn’t I be able to plug this thing into any computer I please and launch cubase? This is a problem with Steinberg, not Apple or Hacktinosh related.
  
  
• iTunes gives me an error -50 but appears to work. Messages asks for my keychain access not sure which password its requiring, it isn’t the admin.

Unresolved Issues

• For reasons unknown (even after taking a dive into forums and messing with my bios) 3 out 4 boots, the computer boots with the CPU cranked to 4.3 GHz. This causes everything to run poorly, graphic transitions are slideshow and the mouse skips across the screen. This may be the deal breaker.
  Solved: This appears to be a RAM timing issue in the Bios with a performance setting turned on. It plays nice with Windows but mostly confuses OS X.
  
  
• Strangely, I cannot select my Bootcamp partition. Yes I realize Bootcamp itself is a OS X -> EFI interaction but prior to flashing my Motherboard, it would by default, boot my Windows 7 install. Hitting F12 at the motherboard’s launch only lists the OS X partitions with bootable volumes. Selecting the HDD with the Windows 7 install does nothing (OS X launches like normal).  Perhaps installing Windows 8 is order.
  Solved: This goes for an undocumented feature but you must enable in the Bios  uEFI + Legacy to boot 
  

Had it not been for the QUO computer motherboard, I don’t know if I’d undertaken this project. Once the computer was set up, I literally was able to take my copy of OS X from my Mac Pro to my Hackintosh (and even back to my Mac Pro and back yet again to my Hackintosh).

I would have gladly paid for a Apple Mac with a user replaceable PCIe graphics card preferable a few drive bays. My previous Mac Pro lasted me 6 years. That’s an incredible feat! I can’t imagine a 2013 Mac Pro lasting until 2019 as good chunk of the longevity was locked up in  upgradability.  However there are rumors of a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 and AnandTech reports success of running a GTX 780Ti over Thunderbolt 2 (Anandtech’s tests of PCIe scaling speeds are surprising and makes this proposal sound much more reasonable). Perhaps given time (PCIe enclosures to come down in price, and compatibility to improve) this will be a viable option, and my “desktop” will just be a MacBook Pro docked.

Final Thoughts

So, will this Hacktinosh replace my Mac Pro? Possibly.  

Currently having the boot my computer 3 - 5 times to get it boot the CPU’s actual clock speed (even with Turbo boost  and EIST disabled) defies logic and doesn’t bode well. While i’m not a big gamer I do like games. If I’m dropping $270 on a graphics card , Windows better boot dammit. Solved

I don’t terribly enjoy having to tinker with my computer.

 Having lived through the early days of OS X (and early as OS7) I didn’t particularly enjoy the random kext hunts I had to perform to get audio cards work, to manually sudo -rm bad SATA drivers for a SATA card that was causing my computer to freeze or the ever present .plist garbaging that 10.1 and 10.2 required so much of.  My expectations are much higher for my computer as the bar is so much higher today. 

The highest end iMac 27 (paired with an Core i7 + GeForce GTX 780M) seems like a much more attractive option than the entry level Mac Pro as by Geekbench stats, the iMac fractionally slower surprisingly the same at GPU activities short of OpenCL. With OpenCL currently relegated to few processes like Codec mashing, the iMac 27 inch (Core i7+ GTX 780m) is for most intents and purposes is a faster computer than the entry level Mac Pro.

However, this doesn’t come cheap at $2,349.00 (more if you add more ram or SSD) and even the highest end mobile chipsets can’t hold a candle to midrange desktop cards. 

I really only have three options: 

• Take a leap of faith with my Hackintosh and keep the hardware.
• Continue using my battle worn 2008 Mac Pro.
• Save up for a $2349+ purchase for an iMac (and some sort of storage array).

None are ideal.

Update 5/9/14: 

Hackintosh Boots Windows. Gaming wasn’t much a problem in most games at 2560 x 1440. The i7 + GeForce GTX 760 means instead of 2x FSAA and 2x Anistrophic filtering to 8x/16x in most games. Everything appears to work in Windows with three successful boots to consecutively without the stutter CPU timing issue. 

Update 5/9/14: 

I’ll be posting benchmarks from GeekBench. The Hackintosh is right in line with the Core i7 iMacs (CPU wise). May have fixed the CPU issue…

Update 5/10/14: 

The CPU timing issue appears that it was a RAM frequency issue. The motherboard has some sort of performance enhancement for memory that was enabled. Assuming the computer continues to behave normally, I’ll check off the unresolved issue. 

Update 5/11/14: 

What the hell?

I decided to return the 760 for the 770. I left my computer booted to Windows 7, downloading steam games and I came home about 5 hours later to find my computer making beeping noises and unable to wake. The beeps were coming from the HDDs, particularly two Seagate drives.  Over the past 2 decades I’ve heard clicks of death, grinding but never beeps. According to Seagate, they shouldn’t beep. I’d chalk this up to the motherboard except there were two independent beeps and both coming from the HDDs bay. I’m baffled.

 Rebooting didn’t help and only when I physically disconnected almost all my drives did the Hacktinosh boot. Fearing the worst, I pulled my Time Machine HDD and my SSD and popped them into my Mac Pro. At first my SSD refused to boot but my time machine HDD was working fine. After some tinkering, it looks like my sled for the SSD is toast and at least one or more other HDDs.  Popping in one of the beeping HDDs into my Mac Pro revealed the drive was intact and S.M.A.R.T. status was ok and it did not beep.  Since then I’ve managed to mount every single HDD in my Mac Pro without any problems. Crisis adverted! (Sorta)

This makes me wonder: Is my 860watt power supply not enough for the massive GeForce GTX 770? Unlikely.  Did my windows just pick a time to go down in flames? Why did my PC refuse to boot then when the Windows HDD was disconnected? Why did it beep when the GTX 770 was disconnected? (What was the beep for that matter?) Did my PC overheat? It didn’t fry itself as it was able to boot still. Do I have bad RAM? Something is amiss and I don’t know if I feel like tracking it down. 

Update 5/14/14: 

I was unable to figure out the problem with the HDDs, it looks like there’s an issue with the SATA controller or something to that effect. I didn’t want to risk my data.  The conflict is NOT booting OS X. OS X runs great.

However, there’s just something that isn’t right with the computer, there’s been erratic behavior (the mystery clock speeds and SATA issues). I’m not sure if its bad ram, one bad setting, the new graphics card (I removed it and it still had problems), not enough thermal paste… Anyhow I tossed in the towel and packed up the box and sent it all back before the warranties were up. To help with the burden of cost, I assumed I’d be able to let go of my Mac Pro and recoup some of the losses by selling it but I am unable to.

It seems the ideal hackintosh is a setup where you have a safety net, more than just a time machine drive but rather a backup Mac Mini or the Hackintosh is your secondary computer, (primary being a MacBook). I’m still operating in a reverse world where my primary computer is a desktop my MacBook Pro Retina is used strictly for work so none of my personal data really exists on it. 

I still think a Hackintosh is viable option and if I had a little more disposable income (and more space), i’d of kept the setup. Maybe my media pc will become a hackintosh…. :)

Percussion lines in many electronic music genres, particularly hip-hop/rap tend to sport larger-than-life drums. Its a sound that’s easily recreated but not immediately apparent if you’re new music creation / composition.

This isn’t an all inclusive post on every possible technique but rather a starting guideline.  For brevity’s sake, I’ll be using a pre-existing loop as my template, this isn’t a requirement but rather an easy starting point. Loops are a tool just like a virtual instrument, but easy to abuse. Using using pre-existing loops may get good out-of-the-box results but you’re exceptionally limited in your expressive abilities, loops are best manipulated to become something new. 

This loop is pretty straight-forward and I selected for a few traits, its relaxed and isn’t a percussion line that I’d associate with the beefy/meaty qualities of a hip hop boom-bap percussion line.

This is the raw unprocessed loop. Unprocessed is a relative term as this loop was obviously recorded/arranged/mixed by someone else other than me, but I have not altered it in any way.

Effects

Most people are familiar with Photoshop so I’ll be using it as my analogy. Photoshop has plugins/filters that allow certain effects to achieved quickly. Back in the late 90s, web design was particularly fond of plugins, garish lens flares, drop shadows and bevels. Some of you may even remember AlienSkin Eye Candy, which became the standby for cheesy flames and textures. Many would-be graphic designers relied too heavily on the effects, and not enough on the composition. Effects are best used when they’re subtle, they should never be the focus.

Audio is similar, there isn’t a magic plugin that will make things suddenly sound amazing, and its easy to over do it. However, effects are more part of the process chain than visual arts as they alter the dynamics of the sound. A better analogy would be in audio they’re both like photoshop plugins and core-techniques like masking, levels, blending modes and so forth.

If you’re not sure what the difference is between a limiter and a compressor or overdrive vs distortion, you should probably start reading up. Its a blog post in itself. 

Even if you’re not a mixing engineer, core techniques are necessity. You should be familiar with EQing, and not just EQing but parabolic EQs and multiband EQs. It may sound daunting at first but they’re easy to pick up on after you start using them.

As a genera starting point there’s a few things you can do easily to make drums sound bigger. EQing and Compression should be your first attempt but this can only do so much.

A mild Overdrive (I used PSP Vintage Warmer) makes drums a bit crunchier as it simulations over-saturation akin to analog hardware. Analog isn’t intrinsically better than digital (so don’t start believing the hype) but it does have some desirable properties that can be emulated/simulated rather easily in digital. 

For hip hoppers, older drum machines like early MPCs often either defaulted or were limited to 12 bit sampling instead of 16 bit. Bit depth dictates sound pressure levels in audio. The higher bit depth, the higher dynamic range (range between absolute silence to the maximum volume). Lower the bit depth, the dirtier a sound will sound (often hissier). To keep with the image editing analogy, bit depth dictates the amount of total colors can be used. With audio, it dictates how many steps in sound pressure. The grittier sound that’s associated with 12 bit samples sonically can be desirable. Its not a dramatic effect but it does add to the “roughness” that can be heard in many golden-era hip hop songs.

Below I’ve added a mild overdrive and bit crusher, effect to lower it to 12 bit with a very slight EQ adjustment to tone down the the 2khz-5.5khz range to tame the high hats.

Layering

Percussion isn’t just about effects, a very popular and very old technique is to layer different percussion sounds on-top of each other. This works best with kicks and snares. Pairing drums often requires a bit of guess work but the results are well worth it. 

Below I selected one-shot drum samples, neither of which would be my first choice to start a track with. Below I’ve compose loop that nearly matches the kick and snare pattern but not entirely at the end. 

Combining the two sets of sounds will yields what now sounds like a percussion line fitting of a hip hop track. Notice that in the loop below that in the later part a few of the kicks are absent from the original loop. This creates a level of complexity, when only the original loop’s kick can be heard.

These sort of techniques can create change ups or drum fills, even in hip hop you shouldn’t ever lock yourself into a 4 or 8 bar loop without any change ups/fills.

Between effects and layering, its easier to create larger-than-life drums. Experiment and play around.

Additional Beginner Tips:

The Snare Pattern

One other tip that took me a few weeks to figure out the very basics  for hip hop patterns, the snare almost always falls on the ¼ and ¾ notes, with minor deviations. Kick patterns vary more. Club sounds tend to be more minimalist whereas underground/indie percussion lines vary more, and often sound (and are) like they are lifted right off an old vinyl record.

Don’t over mix the high-hats

Just as this the title suggests, beginners tend to over mix the high hats, having them at the forefront. Usually high hats are more recessed and lie much lower in the mix. Avoid cranking the volume and do the opposite, and let them hang in the background. 

This concludes the very basics on making fatter drums, feel free to drum me a line.

A cross platform competitor to Codekit

(complete with Live Browser Refreshing, Preprocess Compiler, JS minifier, Remote Device Inspect Element and HTTP serving)

Aug 15 2015 Update:

I’ve posted a much better written, in-depth,  Prepros 5 review, you can read here. The review below is for Prepros 4. 

Not long after writing it, I retired Prepros 4 for CodeKit 2/Grunt. It’s filled with typos, crimes against English and edits. Most of the comparisons were to CodeKit 1.0, which wasn’t nearly as flexible as CodeKit 2.0, and before BrowserSync (for Grunt/Gulp). 

Introduction

Time for a story… Once upon a time, when you coded the front end of a website, you wrote your CSS and JS in their native format. Today, you have your pick of precompiliers:  SASS, LESS, Haml, Stylus,  Jade,  slim,  CoffeeScript, Livescript

I have a love/hate relationship with precompiling languages, I’m not always convinced I’m writing better CSS than if by hand but the management capabilities.  (Edit: I lied, I love Sass, vanilla CSS is evil) They do amazing things, with a few simple for loops, I can easily generate an entire responsive grid but they lend themselves to nested tag hell, and encourage over redundant classes. However, this is not about my opinions on SASS.  For the most part, I’m pro-SASS.

Everyone’s work flow is a little different. I tend to favor GUIs when they empower me more than the command line.  I started with Grunt JS. Grunt JS does its job admirably from the CLI, which makes a utility like Prepros less a necessity than applications for Git management.

These days my workflow is a combination of Sublime Text 3, Sketch, Photoshop/Illustrator, Tower, Kaleidoscope, Colorsnapper, GifBrewery, ImageOptim, Muir, and Prepros.  I’m not afraid of the Terminal, and still use it do all my config apache setups for OS X but I have a fondness for GUIs, especially ones that make tasks much easier. Prepros is nearly the same level of awesome as Tower is for Git management.  I spent much less time messing with terminal and more time coding, designing and developing. 

Propros…

Prepros’s HTTP works even with local devices and devices on separate VPNs.

Prepros isn’t the first Node JS-wrapper-alternative, that keeps you out of the command line. I tried CodeKit, and I wanted to love Codekit but it never quite fit into my workflow. Ironically while writing this review, Codekit matured to version 2.0, although I was unable to obtain it due to the vague “server error”.

It worked wonders for simple projects, mostly projects that I could host on my local machine (PHP, Wordpress sites), but was the square peg for a round hole when dealing with legacy coldfusion sites, the lone ASP.NET site and anything that involved complex VMs. CodeKit also seemed to crash more than it should have, and on occasion had some issues with Grunt files. Lastly, CodeKit insisted on reloading the front tab in Safari or Chrome regardless separate if was part of the site I was working on every time I hit save on a HTML/PHP file.  CodeKit wasn’t bad, in fact it was quite good but these quirks were enough to keep me just using the command line running Grunt watch over Codekit.

The error log is easily the panel you’ll spend the most time with. Failed compiles will appear red, and passing compiles show as green.

Prepros’s user interface isn’t better than CodeKit but from a strict dev perspective:  its everything I want. It is not the world’s most intuitive app and it looks and feels decidedly like a Metro app. Fortunately, Prepros lives in the background and you’ll rarely be looking at the app outside the error log.  It only took me less than an hour with with Prepros to convert me into a buyer.

For my test, I used Zurb’s Foundation, installed it via command line for an Expression Engine based project  for a decently budgeted client. After configuring Apache and Expression Engine on my local machine, I fired up Prepros and with a simple drag and drop, and brought the project folder over to Prepros.

After a few failed compiles, and a few tweaks to the default Foundation file and Prepros, everything was working. Precompiler? Check. JS Concatenation? Check. Live Reload? Check.  

Window panes present all preprocessing elements

Victory

It was that easy. The file output paths were auto detected, my App.js minified properly along with my SCSS files. Editing my import list didn’t cause any troubles.

The HTTP server worked sharing between VMs, (VMware and Parallels), the iOS simulator, iOS devices (tested on iOS6 and iOS7, iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad 3), Microsoft’s Surface (RT, running version 8), a Nexus 7, Android Simulator running 4.x and even a lone Windows Phone. The inspect element worked on all the devices, although hiccuped on VMs, and IE tended to complain about console.log errors in the JS for livereload.  My guess is the particular livereload.js isn’t IE9 and below compatible.

Hitting save on any file will inject the relevant CSS changes or cause the browser to reload for JS, HTML changes.

Things got even more interesting when I installed Muir for iOS. Muir lets iOS  and Android devices follow the currently open page. Paired with Prepros, you never have to touch your mobile devices. 

The highest compliment that I can bestow on Prepros is it makes my job easier. 

Nerd fun: poking around in the innards of Propros shows that Prepros is a Ruby/Node application

Pros

• Painless, almost zero problems
• plays nicely with built-in Apache
• detects VPNs, and multiple net connections
• internal HTTP server plays nicely with VMs, simulators and separate hardware
• Adds inspect-element (lite) to remote devices.

Cons:

• No speed increase noticeable over Grunt.js,
• Lacks many core features that other task managers offer
• GUI feels un-mac-like
• Included LiveReload.js can throw up errors in IE
• Inspect Element can view but not manipulate attributes. 

Prepros vs Codekit

So which is better? Prepros or Codekit?

Prior to CodeKit 2.0’s release, I’d of been able to answer this with absolute certainty, Prepros but that isn’t true anymore. 

Codekit 2.0 boasts Libsass (a SASS compiler running in C# instead of JS)  and a re-write of most things. CodeKit ventures deeper into management as a Bower wrapper and source mapping. For those who are looking to avoid the OS X terminal at all costs, Codekit is the better choice.   Both applications are best used with locally hosted files.  If you’re looking for , inspect element on remote devices, ftp compatibility and cross platform support, Prepros is your man.  

Update #1: I purchased CodeKit 2.0 as an upgrade.  My initial impression so far is annoyance as it does not appear to place nice with Apache configs and instead prefers MAMP configurations.   Without re-setting up my current project, I can’t do an easy 1:1 test. Dragging over the project files returned compile errors. It took me a few minutes to discover Sass 3.2.x isn’t compatible for Codekit 2.0. 

From Codekit 2.0’s release notes:

If you have Sass 3.2 and/or Compass 0.12 installed on your system, you may see an error about a “superclass mismatch for class Literal” when performing any Compass actions in CodeKit. To resolve this, run gem uninstall compass and gem uninstall sass on the command line to remove earlier versions of these gems from your system.

I’m not looking to bork my working project near the end, so it might be awhile before I can do a head to head comparison. If you’re free of VM hell and running local MAMP configs, this might be the better route but Codekit hasn’t played nicely with the legacy ColdFusion 8 sites running off a Windows Server 2003 VM using Vbox. Prepros is more akin to using Sublime Text, drag the folder over and just go to work.

Update #2: Nov 12 2014: I posted a CodeKit 2 review, which covers Prepros vs CodeKit. Prepros 5 has been released since this review originally went live.

Update #3 Aug 15 2015: The opinions posted here were wantonly out of date and poorly written. This was from my Tublme days when I tried to use Tublme which didn’t have spell check and made editing a huge pain in the ass. I added strike throughs on some lines rather than delete my old opinions as it did represent my thoughts of me, nearly 2 years ago.

Conclusion:

Prepros seems more flexible (edit: than Codekit 1.0), especially for VPN/multiple subnets and for anyone using Apache built in to OS X. I’m not a MAMP user so I can’t comment to it’s compatibility in regards to MAMP.

Its well worth its $24 price tag. Users looking for a cross-platform solution, and wins on default for Windows users.

Version reviewed: 4.0.1

Prepros official website

Cost $24

Hi Greg,

My name is <redacted>. I am a recruiter at <redacted>, a five billion dollar financial service company.

To be honest with you, I was emailing you to see if you might be interested in a full time position as a UX Designer.

<redacted> offers a competitive salary, good benefits, supportive leadership and career growth. If you are interested in promotion, this is the place to be as we value our internal associates and will guide them in their career.

For more details on the role, please visit <redacted>

If this is of interest to you, please apply online, indicate you were contacted by a <redacted> recruiter and circle back to me directly.

We are on a short time line to surface viable candidates for this role and will be setting up interviews this week.

Best Regards,
<redacted>

Alright, I’ll give this recruiter cred for cutting to the chase within three sentences, but leveling with me that you’re trying to woo me with a job when you’re a recruiter is like a car salesman admitting that he/she wants to sell me a vehicle. They get points for naming the company they’re recruting for but if you’re fishing in a fairly popular pond, you have to use better bait to get a bite.  The above e-mail only got me to click the attached URL so I could write this blog post.

Tips & Pointers for recruiters:

• Generic corporate speak doesn’t make you sound profressional, it makes you sound bland, boring and stuffy even if you dress it down with causal speak.
• Using tired lines like “good benefits” is pretty relativistic and reads more like “not full benefits” or “we can’t brag about offering vision or dental”.  You and I may have very different views on “good benefits”. Use quantifiable things how many paid vacation days or flexiable scheduling. People like perks, and they are easy to compare versus one’s current position.
• Dropping lines about company revenue doesn’t say anything about profitability, culture, or enviroment. In the finance sector, moving around millions of dollars is just another day. My company is only working with a few million in a year but all of us do well. Deep pockets doesn’t mean anything is going to magically trickle down to me.
• If your job posting only describes the things wanted in a candidate, you’ve already lost me. I’m gainfully employeed at a job I like, in a company that’s kick-ass, with and owner and a boss that cares. There’s plenty of people in my position.  You may get “Joe Candidate” looking to make the next big jump but you’re not going to get any response from me or anyone like me. I can already tell you that I’m likely not a good fit for a financial firm based on previous interviews when job hunting in the past but you might be different and I’d never know. I didn’t even make it to searching Glassdoor.com to see what employees thought of the employer. 
• Most of us are already are getting plenty of job offers.  Most of us do not want them. Think like a job seeker, and post your jobs to relevant communities. Do you offer remote work? There’s a board for that.  Do a little homework and you won’t have to try and lure people from their current positions.
• Looking for a particular skill? Have you tried local meetup groups? Usually you’ll find a mix of the happily employed and the ones looking for new opportunities. You probably don’t have to even attend, just e-mail the organizers to see their position on job postings.
• Do not cold call your candidates. Did you ever get that call from Comcast wanting you to upgrade your cable? Remember how you had to be curt to get out of 3 minute sales pitch? Exactly. Desperation is not an endearing trait. If you must call them, schedule a call.

Employers who are desperate for talent need to recognize that salary alone isn’t all that matters. Parents with young-ones are going to appreciate the ability to work from home or have flexiable schedules. New home owners probably will love extra vacation days or even optional furlow days to spend time fixing up their house. Sports enthusiasts will love being able to leave early to see the big game. Gamers and night owls will enjoy starting work 10 am.  Think like a human. We all work, but we are people outside of our jobs.  Pay alone won’t land you amazing candidates.

And Americans pay more for these slower wireless speeds than anyone else in the world: in Germany, where customers can freely switch between carriers by swapping SIM cards, T-Mobile customers pay just $1.18 per Mbps of speed. In the US, our mostly incompatible wireless networks lock customers in with expensive handsets they can’t take elsewhere, allowing AT&T and Verizon to charge around $4 per Mbps each and Sprint to clock in at an insane $7.50.

 American politicians love to stand on the edges of important problems by insisting that the market will find a solution. And that’s mostly right; we don’t need the government meddling in places where smart companies can create their own answers. But you can’t depend on the market to do anything when the market doesn’t exist. “We can either have competition, which would solve a lot of these problems, or we can have regulation,” says Aaron. “What Comcast is trying is to have neither.” It’s insanity, and we keep lying to ourselves about it. It’s time to start thinking about ways to actually do something. - The internet is fucked, The Verge

The Verge puts it pretty eloquently: “The Internet is a utility, just like water and electricity.”

Its no secret that Comcast is continually rated as one of the worst companies. There’s little question as to whyGoogle announced potential Google Fiber candidates