Tech Blog - Page 2

Apple launches iCloud this week with the release of iOS5 and while many of Apple's products have taken other inventions and further innovated them, I'm not sure the music in the cloud solution that Applehas created raises the bar.

IK Multimedia's release of the iRig Mic and the IKlip Mini (I will be publishing a review on these products within the next couple of days, until then check out Tris' great review) proved itself to be an immediate success to musicians, podcasters and journalists alike.  Since then, IK has been working on the ultra-compact standard Core MIDI interface iRig MIDI and the accompanying application SampleTank for iOS. Both are sure to be more great additions to this intriguing line.  

If you’ve become totally accustomed to using the “iPod” app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you might want to think about trying something new. The only reason I say that is because there’s an app that pretty much does everything the iPod app does, but manages to actually make the music you listen to sound even better.

A sudden change greeted subscribers to Sirius XM last week when Channel 15, BBC Radio 1, suddenly disappeared. Without warning the pop music channel evaporated from the schedule, replaced by a loop directing listeners to other channels that played similar music. 

BBC Radio 1 isnt off the air, there's an easy (and free) workaround to listen to Scott Mills, Greg James and Fearne Cotton in your car.

Much has been said and written about Apple’s upcoming iCloud service, and yet I still get questions from people on how it will actually work. At the risk of being a little redundant, I’ll go through the basics of how iCloud actually works, in case any of you out there had some questions.

I was watching High Fidelity this afternoon and looking at all the LPs, cassettes, and CDs made me realize something—the music collection as showcase is gone. Remember making sure your albums, then tapes, then CDs were in order and had some kind of arrangement (I called mine “entropy”) so when a date came over she could peruse your music collection? Remember music collections as the proxy for style and taste? Yeah, fine I’d hide my Madonna tapes and a few other poor buying decisions (I don’t understand why Wilson Phillips didn’t take off…), but the idea was that your music was you. But no more…

Free music is always a good thing, especially when it’s live and it comes in droves. The iTunes Festival London 2011 will be featuring performances from 62 bands and musicians over the course of the 31 nights of July. All of it is free to stream and watch throughout the month.

We've done some coverage of Rocksmith on the Tech Blog before, but E3 2011 was our first time to get up close and personal with the title. So, how is it?

It was pretty much just a formality since it was announced back in November, but Sirius Canada and XM Canada have completed their merger and will now operate as one entity, SiriusXM Canada. The move is basically a carbon copy of what took place in the U.S. back in 2008. Not all details on changes to the consumer experience have been released, but there are a few things we know so far.



The latest earbuds I equip myself while running outdoors and even pounding weights at the gym, are Sennheiser's Adidas CX 680 Sports earbud-style headphones. Check my video to see the unboxing and 'test run' of this product.

This doesn’t come as a big surprise, considering how long it’s been in the Apple rumour mill, but iCloud is apparently ready to spring to life next week at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Just last week, I treated myself to a brand new MacBook Pro 13”, and went through the process of migrating everything from my old MacBook Pro to the new one. After that was done, I went about redeeming an iTunes gift card, only to find that I had maxed out my limit of five authorized devices Apple allows. I was muscled out of my own account, but thankfully there was a way to get out of it.

Today, BC travelers taking their cars to the Island were treated an unannounced performance by The Left, a rocking five man band from Langley, BC. 

Listening to music on your iPad is usually a visually-sparse affair. Load up your player, navigate to your library, and select the muisc. Play, and do other things. Not any more...

As a hobbyist musician, I often pour longingly over the equipment and instruments that I just cannot justify purchasing. Music can be an expensive hobby, and it's not just that '68 Les Paul that takes a bite out of your wallet. If you are at all interested in recording or sharing your music, or even cleaning up old cassette recordings and putting them into your CD library, mixing boards and sound processing equipment can rack up the bill pretty quickly too. But with the advent of more powerful computers, most of these functions can be had right on your desktop... for a price. Recording and processing software can range from one hundred to one THOUSAND dollars, and more. What's a poor boy to do?

Then along comes one of the best hidden tools in the audiophile's toolkit... Audacity, an Open Source audio and recording software. This is a robust, mature platform which can handle most any sound or music task for you, with surprisingly professional results! Lend me your ear, and I'll cover some of the rich feature set that this project brings to the table.