mashby | The personal blog of Michael Ashby

October 2, 2006

2006 Jack & Back

11th Annual Jack Daniel's Bike to Jack & Back This weekend, I am going to ride in the 11th Annual Jack Daniel’s “Bike to Jack & Back”. It’s a 150 mile bike ride to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis.

Luckily, I’m not doing this alone. I am on a team called “KC Cruisers” and we’re riding for Kathleen Cullen, a friend who works for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, who was diagnosed with MS about 13 years ago. She’s unable to ride, so we’re riding on her behalf and I need your help.

Obviously the purpose of the ride is to raise money, so I’m asking everyone who reads my blog to make a small donation. Believe it or not, even a small $5 donation is a big help and is greatly appreciated. The only catch, is that it has to be done this week. All you have to do is go to this link and select the “Sponsor Me” image on the right side of the page. From there you can make your pledge online without having to create an account or do anything fancy. What’s nice, is that you can also post a message that will appear on my sponsorship site.

September 28, 2006

Amanda Congdon Hits Nashvegas

Yesterday, I came across this post on NashvilleIsTalking.com about how video weblog celebrity AmandaCongdon was coming to Nashville. If you’re not familar with her work, she was the original host of the hugely popular video podcast RocketBoom.

She’s now on to bigger and better things and her current project is called Amanda Across America. She is traveling across the country from New York to L.A. and creating all sorts of new media along the way. From Flickr photos, to blogging, to video podcasts, she’s interviewing interesting people and appears to be having a lot of fun along the way.

September 18, 2006

I Need A Redesign

I was invited to attend the The Middle Tennessee Blogger and Podcaster’s Group Meeting, which was held yesterday in Smyrna at Espresso Joe’s. I wasn’t really prepared to talk and in doing a little song and dance on the spot, a reoccurring idea popped up again which got me to thinking.

I didn’t know that they were going to actually record a podcast at the meeting, but that’s exactly what they did. The format of their recording was a little off-the-cuff and I didn’t have anything really prepared, so when they passed the microphone to me, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Their podcast is centered around the cities of Smyrna and Laverne. Since I live in Antioch, I didn’t really have much to add. M. was kind enough to throw me a lifeline when she asked, “What have you been up to?”

I talked about the new podcast Simply Digital and then was reminded about NPUG and talked a little bit about that. There was a lot more that I could have talked about, but the conversation turned to something else, which was fine by me. I was happy to be off the hot seat.

September 16, 2006

Having A Hard Head Can Sometimes Pay Off

The Axiom 25 Transport Controls One of the things that I was most excited about when getting the MacBook, was the software GarageBand. Having a background in music, I was eager to begin playing with this digital multitrack recorder. I pictured myself laying down tracks for a new song that Holly just wrote, or to creating a new theme song for a podcast I’m working on. In fact, the first program I fired up after booting up the MacBook was GarageBand. 🙂 As much fun as GarageBand was, after using the software for a few minutes, it was clear that I was going to need a keyboard controller if I was going to get any real work done. Trying to use just the computer keyboard was not going to work.

As you might expect, since I’m both a musician and a geek, I already have three synthesizers in the garage. However, those keyboards are from “back in the day” and don’t have a USB interface. So the only was I can get data out of them is to use a USB MIDI Interface such as the MidiMan 2×2. That was going to set me back at least $50, so I decided to dig a little deeper and see if I could find something more suited to my needs.

September 14, 2006

MT Upgrade

A man giving the thumbs up sign Just a quick note to say that I’ve upgraded I just upgraded Movabletype, the software which I use to manage the content on this weblog. It’s not a major upgrade, but there are a few additional features and tweaks that SixApart has done, which I like a lot.

The interface has been cleanup a bit and simplifed. They’ve added tags and a few built-in plugins that should make managing the weblog a lot easier. As much as I like the new stuff, you never know if something has gone wonky after an upgrade, so if you run across anything that doesn’t work, or is just a little off, please contact me and let me know about it.

Thanks in advance!

September 13, 2006

Simply Digital Episode 5 Has Been Released

Hard to believe it, but Simply Digital is already up to Episode 5! It’s been an exciting month as I’ve become more comfortable with the podcasting process. Overall, I’m very happy with how things have progressed with the show and where it’s heading.
In the first month, we’d had over 350 listeners (80+ per episode avg.), with some as far as Fairbanks, Alaska, Chengdu, China and North Shore, New Zealand. We’ve accrued $.98 in Google Ads, been featured at Palm Addict, Palm 24/7 and Rohdesign on several occasions. We even landed our first sponsor PDAParts.com. Not every statistic just listed is great, but all-in-all not too bad.

September 8, 2006

Surprise! I’m A Keyboard Guy. Who Knew?

I always knew that I had a special fondness for keyboards. Just read my article on the IBM 101 and you’ll see what I mean. I’m very picky about the touch and feel of a keyboard. Maybe it stems from the fact that my first keyboard was a Commodore 64, and I’m just trying to re-create that experience. I don’t know. I just know what I like and don’t like and I just figured that I was particular about the feel of the keyboard and that was it. Well, since moving to the MacBook, I’ve learned that it goes deeper than that.

I gave up my beloved “Clacky” when making the switch from Windows to OS X. My old IBM keyboard isn’t a USB keyboard, although there is an adapter, and it doesn’t have the Apple key, so I made the decision to let her go. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I opted for the Kensington SlimType Standard Keyboard for Mac, figuring that if I can’t get a buckling spring feel, I’d go for a laptop feel, which I also enjoy. I thought about getting the Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard, but no one has one in stock here in Nashville and I so dislike the Apple keyboard it resembles I was unwilling to make the $150 gamble.

September 7, 2006

Choosing Apps: Office Suite

MS Office Puzzle With my e-mail client chosen and my web browsers chosen, the next item on my list was to find a good office suite. The three main applications I needed in the suite were a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool. Those are the core apps that I use every month in some capacity, so regardless of what I chose had to have those pieces included in the suite.

The de facto standard for office applications is Microsoft Office and Microsoft has a mac version called mac: Office. Having already spent a great deal of money on a new laptop, accessories, etc., I wanted to make sure I was making the right choice and not just responding to a knee jerk reaction to buy mac: Office, so I decided to try a few other alternatives out there.

Just what options are out there for the Mac? There may be more, but the ones I looked at were OpenOffice, NeoOffice, iWork and mac: Office. I also took a short peek at what Google had to offer as well.

September 6, 2006

Choosing Apps: Web Browser

Screenshot of browsers in the Mac OS dock In my previous article, I wrote about my hunt for the perfect e-mail client. That journey was kind of hard and it’s not over with yet, because I’m still on the hunt. However, my next search was much easier — finding a web browser. Why was it easier? Because having multiple browsers installed on your computer and then switching between them is a piece of cake. Although I settled on one primary browser, I didn’t have to saddle my cart to just one horse.

Since I work in web design by trade, I can never have enough browsers in which to test my work. Now that I’m on a Mac as my primary machine, I was REALLY eager to get my hands on the major browsers and kick the tires a bit. Here’s a run down of what I installed and my thoughts on each one.

September 4, 2006

Tobacco Road Cigar Tasting — Ashton

A bundle of Ashton brand cigars Last Thursday there was a cigar tasting at my favorite cigar store, Tobacco Road. It’s just my kind of business — locally owned and operated, one-of-a-kind, great staff and great selection. Every other month or so, they host a cigar tasting. A distributer comes in, passes out a sample cigar, talks about their product line and offers an in-store discount. This was my third tasting for the year and as usual, it was a lot of fun.

Walking in, I waved hey to some of the guys and walked to the sample table. There was a small crowd gathering around and they were getting what sounded like the tail end of an explanation on the Ashton line. As I stood there, it dawned on me that one of the main reasons that I come back to Tobacco Road is the fact that I’m recognized by the staff and owner. I can’t say that everyone that works there knows me by name per se, but that doesn’t really matter. “Hey man.” is just as good as “Hey Mike. in my book. Cue theme song to “Cheers“, Where Everybody Knows Your Name.