Enough With The “Virtue Signaling” Already

Posted on June 12, 2020 by mfna

The latest trend to sweep the online world is the craze known as “virtue signaling.” No one by now has likely been untouched by this madness. It seems to be more infectious than COVID-19. And because it is transmitted online, no one is immune unless they “self-quarantine” by pulling the plug.

According to Urban Dictionary, virtue signaling is defined as “To take a conspicuous but essentially useless action ostensibly to support a good cause but actually to show off how much more moral you are than everybody else.” Exactly.

Recent events have spiked the generation of these expressions of moral outrage. It seems that every CEO, company president, spokesperson or media relations representative now feels it necessary to publicly proclaim their position of dancing with angels.

Two examples, both occurring on the same day, underscore the point. The first is the Twitter post by Reverb, an online marketplace for musical gear, akin to an eBay for musicians. Reverb has been very visible on their web site with their holier-than-thou attitude. When Michael Fuller, founder and president of Fulltone guitar and bass effects (pedals) posted online his reaction to news of rioting and looting, Reverb reacted by issuing a public statement proclaiming they were “suspending” sales of Fulltone products on their site, and would be donating proceeds from current sales to some nebulous “racial justice organization.” Huh?

This is virtue signaling as its “finest.” Note the wording. Reverb doesn’t say “canceling,” “terminating” or using otherwise strong language to distance themself from Fulltone. Rather, the use of the word “suspend” suggests they will resume their original practice at a later date. They also don’t specify to which organization they will be donating their selling fees? Fuzzy, much? Sheesh.

Second, is the email sent out by Sarah Friar, CEO of Nextdoor.com. Nextdoor is a social media site meant to focus on neighborhoods nearby one’s home. It offers announcements, for sale items, services, advice and community news. Ms. Friar had to join the virtue signaling crowd by sending her blog post to all registered subscribers. Her message begins, “Let me say it unequivocally: Racism has no place on Nextdoor.” Uh, does racism have a place anywhere?

I don’t believe that at my age, I’m overly naive. Over the years, however, I’ve also learned that “feelings aren’t facts.” My career working with data, combined with life experiences, tend to make me look unemotionally at facts, trying not to let emotional baggage influence investigation. A correlative saying goes, “You can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts.” There is a tendency these days for “scientific investigators” to disregard facts that don’t support a prior conclusion. That isn’t science, it’s ideology.

It’s one thing for a company to promote its “clean” technology, recyclable products, “fair trade” practices, and so on. But virtue signaling just seems to me a form of chest-beating and false braggadocio.

Dee-lightful

Posted on May 27, 2020 by mfna

It’s kind of funny to say that one has a friend he has never met in person, but a friend nevertheless.

My first foray into the world of the Internet was the original “Music For A New Age” (MFNA) — this site (in its original form). The worldwide-web was new and promised to change the way technology was viewed and used. It fulfilled that promise. As someone in the field of technology, I was fascinated and wanted to learn how this new technology worked. It was easy! So, I hand-coded the site (HTML is just text with embedded “tags” that describe how the finish page should be rendered by the viewer: the browser).

At first, it was all about storing links I used frequently. Today, we use “bookmarks” to accomplish this, but I liked pulling up a page with clickable links that would take me anywhere I wanted to go. I had recently become a fan of what was then (and to some extent, still) called “new age” music. I found artist sites, publishers, streaming audio, and a wide variety of related content. I put them all into my site’s pages. I even started writing reviews.

My intention was not for it to become a review site, but since the ‘Net was still young, my site actually found itself on the new “Google” first page. As a result, it attracted the attention of a number of musicians, artists and like-minded fans. Before long, I began to get requests to review albums. As a result, I began to receive review copies, pre-release copies, and commercial copies of CDs. Some were even signed by the artist. Grammy award-winners such as Paul Winter and pioneers of the genre such as Constance Denby sent me their music.

While I was thrilled to be sought out by recognized artists, what really struck me was the quality of the music being produced by “unknowns.” To this day, I think I have a better understanding of the complex and mysterious workings of the recording industry. There are truly outstanding musicians out there who for reasons still hidden, do not get a shake from the big name producers.

Dino (“Dee”) Pacifici is one of those unheralded artists. A multi-instrumentalist, Dee has been self-producing his own CDs since the 1990s. He would send me copies of each release, sometimes even test pressings, never asking for anything in return. His music was tremendous, so I wrote reviews never knowing if anyone was reading them.

Despite his awesome talent, Dee was not a full-time professional musician. So, some time around 2004, he stopped producing albums. By this time, he and I had become “Internet friends.” I would send him Christmas cards, and we became Facebook friends.

Recently, I was listening to the weekly broadcast of Night Tides, a program airing live over the radio and Internet on Sunday nights, and the announcer mentioned new music from Dino Pacifici. I did the proverbial double-take, and fired off a message to him. He replied and said he’d returned to composing and had released some new music, called A Collection of Shadows.

True to his nature, he offered a Yum code (I had to learn this was how one downloads music from Bandcamp, which is one way music is marketed these days). I have thus downloaded his pieces (they may be heard on the site without requiring a code) an am once again enjoying some terrific music from a terrific talent, and a terrific human being.

Re-skinning the Site

Posted on May 6, 2020 by mfna

I’m reminded of a saying I use frequently when discussing IT (the common abbreviation for Information Technology — a label that has evolved over time): “If it ain’t broke, break it! Then fix it!”

Although I frequently use it while finger-pointing, I confess that I’m guilty of the same thing from time to time. This is such a time.

For years — since I turned this site into a WordPress blog site, in fact — I have used the same WordPress theme. I didn’t customize it other than use my own header image, and it’s worked pretty well for me (given that I don’t promote the site, and so only get the occasional drive-by reader). Now that people are housebound due to the Coronavirus lockdown, new projects start taking shape. I’ve acted on a few.

One example is that I completely cleaned up and reorganized my guitar and photo “studio.” Putting guitar hangers on the wall has stalled, since I’m researching the best solution. I also bought and assembled a bookcase that I’ve put into my living room, giving me some much needed storage space for guitar and computer gadgets.

Back to the topic at hand: Looking at the site, it began to seem to me to be in need of a visual overhaul. There are so many great WordPress themes to choose from, I started exploring. This is a more emotionally wrenching experience than I would have thought, because not every theme works well with my idea of layout, content, posting style and so on. WordPress has a “live preview” capability, but even that doesn’t always render a final verdict. Activating and publishing a new theme has been my solution. So far.

I’m not convinced that the current them is the final product, yet. But this form of experimentation is good for whiling away some time. And right now, that in itself, is a good thing.

Guitar Pro 7.5

Posted on April 28, 2020 by mfna

As I wrote in my last post, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning Duke Ellington’s hit song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Not only do I find this song timely, in the age of COVID-19, but I like the tune itself. I’m finding it has launched me into another phase of my learning to play/playing guitar.

When I took lessons last year, I realized that there were fundamentals of playing that I had either neglected or ignored. Now, trying to master this latest piece, I’m finding that my past playing has been sloppy. By that, I mean that when playing chords, I looked at the entire width of the guitar neck — all six strings. Oh sure, I knew that some chords required me to mute a string or two, but my right hand didn’t care even though my left hand was forming the shape. My teacher and this song have made me realize that sometimes only two, three or four strings are played to generate the desired sound.

Yup, my jazz guitar, a 1957 Gibson ES-225

Now, I’m online looking for additional songs I of this type I can add to my practice routine. “This type” tends to lean toward jazz standards, and one I’ve looked at is another Duke Ellington piece, his signature song, “Take The A Train.” More complex than the first, but it’s a catchy and recognizable (to me, at least) song, so while I may defer trying to learn it, I’ve at least bookmarked it.

One of the sites I’ve used for finding chord arrangements (and more now than before, tablature), is Ultimate Guitar. I’ve collected a variety of mostly pop and rock arrangements from there, generated and submitted by users. The site also offers downloadable Guitar Pro files. What is Guitar Pro, I wondered?

It turns out a French software company, Arobas Music, is the author of Guitar Pro. The latest release as of this writing is version 7.5. Several online reviews (one is here, which offers a 10% affiliate discount as well) are claiming this latest version is head and shoulders the best software available to write, listen to, and learn stringed instruments. The company offers a 30 day free trial, so I downloaded it (Mac and Windows versions are available), and I’m exploring it now. My tendency is to pull out my wallet and immediately plunk down the dollars ($69.95 US), but I’m at least going to wait until I’ve tried it for a week or so before doing so. But already it seems likely I’ll be adding this to my software library!

There’s an added enticement to buying this software now: FREE access to mySongBook until May 31. A quick site scan shows there are some awesome guitar tabs there, and they all have Guitar Pro downloads! This may be the greatest side-effect of the Coronavirus lockdown!

Easter Greetings

Posted on April 12, 2020 by mfna

He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

In my church, this is how we greet each other on Easter Sunday. Today is the most unusual Easter, since everyone is self-quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Easter services will be held still however, thanks to the advances in technology. Online is better than nothing, but it still doesn’t replace the experience of face-to-face gathering. Which brings me to the purpose of this post.

Having given my Easter greeting, I find I am still sitting at home, sheltering in place, and today is just like the day before it, and the day before that. I actually put “Saturday” on my to-do list to remind me what day of the week it was yesterday! Thus, it was a bit of synchronicity that I received an email. And acted on it.

Back story: Almost nine years to the day, I subscribed to a web site, JazzGuitar.be, a site for and by jazz guitarists. I have downloaded lessons and songs, and I receive periodic emails, but I’ve rarely followed through on any of the information I’ve received. That all changed a couple of days ago.

I received an email with a lesson on Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” a song I have a passing familiarity with. I looked at the music sheet and tabs, and thought, I think I could actually play that!

Arranged by Dirk Laukens, of jazzguitar.be

When I was first learning guitar (self-taught), tab — or tablature — did not exist. Or, at least it wasn’t formalized, so I had to either learn from chord charts or by reading scores (sheet music). But I saw this piece and said to myself, “I can read — and play — this tab!”

Which is what I’ve been doing. Between yard work and routine chores, I have found that having a guitar on my sofa makes it easy to pick it up whenever the mood strikes. And the mood has struck often these days! In two days, I have gotten to the point where I can play the main portion of the song all the way through, without mistakes!

Jazz guitar. Just before I broke my elbow at my daughter’s fourth birthday party, I was studying and practicing jazz guitar using Mickey Baker’s “Complete Course In Jazz Guitar” (volumes I and II).

Mickey Baker’s Complete Course in Jazz Guitar

But the injury caused me to stop playing, and for a long period of time, never touched a guitar. When I finally picked it up again, I felt like I had to go back to my “roots” and start playing the songs I’d taught myself at the beginning.

The circle has been completed. I’m now back to where I was when I was “guitar interrupted.” In fact, I’m further along now, thanks to lessons I took, and the availability of online resources that didn’t exist back in my early days.

So, now not only can join in Easter services with my church online, I can also learn and participate in playing guitar with people online I’ve never met, and can only share my experiences in a virtual space. “Social distancing” may not be the most fun in the world, but thanks to technology, it doesn’t have to mean isolation!

I’m Losing Confidence In Apple

Posted on December 5, 2019 by mfna

It pains me to write this. Really.

I bought my first Mac in 1984. It was one of the original 128K, 9-inch black-and-white screen computers that had the names of all the designers and programmers etched inside the cover.

Boxy mouse, chunky keyboard, power button on the back, it was then, a marvel of technology. Today, it’s a bit anachronistic, and what was Apple Computer is now Apple Inc. and the Macintosh is now simply a “Mac.”

Before I got my first Mac, I had already been familiar with Apple computers (lowercase “C”). I had a //e and a //c. The //c was a very sleek computer then, and I think would still be considered so today. But the Mac, with its graphics and advanced technology was for me, the game changer!

Over the years I’ve owned more Macs than I can possibly list. “Fat” Macs, Performas, Duos, PowerMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, MacBooks and so on. Currently, I have FIVE Macbooks running at home, serving a variety of purposes.

To add to the list, I have three iPads and two iPhones. I have multiple iPods of every generation, a set of AirPods (and another, newer set on the way) and TWO Apple TVs!

But somewhere along the line, and only recently to my consciousness, I’ve become unhappy with Apple. It’s difficult even now to pinpoint the source of unhappiness.

Let’s start with Siri, Apple’s voice-enabled “assistant.” This is technology that is supposed to respond to voice queries, providing quick searches, calculate math formulae, find locations and offer directions.

Siri may work for others, but I’d say my measure of success using Siri is around 10%. In fact, I get so frustrated with Siri responding to my entries with absolutely nothing related to them, that I have disabled it (her?) on my iPads.

Now comes Touch ID. Two years ago, I bought a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. One of the features with the Touch Bar is Touch ID: register your fingerprint and instead of using a password, let the computer recognize you by your fingerprint.

More and more, this feature doesn’t work. When new, it was a fabulous experience: sitting in an airport boarding area, just press my finger on the Touch Bar pad, and presto! Except now, the screen just shudders, and after repeated attempts, tells me I need to input my password. But that’s what Touch ID is meant to bypass! I have reset (deleted and added) my fingerprints, to no avail. What gives?

Similarly, I had a problem with my keyboard. This turned out to be a known problem that Apple would repair at no cost to the consumer. Dutifully, I took it to an Apple Store, and the Genius there said Apple would have to repair it. I left it, and when I received it back, the entire hard disk had been erased. WHAT??!? How in the world does repairing or replacing a keyboard require wiping a hard disk?

No company is perfect, not even Apple. Maybe it’s me, but I think maybe Apple has let some cracks develop in its product design, development and testing processes. That disheartens me, but I still consider Apple’s products superior to the competing products out there. For now.

MacDown Markdown

Posted on October 30, 2019 by mfna

As the fabled Yogi Berra was reported to have said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again!”

Some twenty-five years ago, I started a web site (this one, but in raw HTML) to learn the emerging technologies that would power the Worldwide Web. Now, it seems I’m returning to those roots, on behalf of my employer.

The short story is that my employer, after dragging feet and pushing back, have realized that there is a need to provide online training for the products we create. To date, our training is on a published schedule, and either occurs in a physical training facility, or online. This does not work well in a world economy, where time zones differ, languages vary, and schedules don’t always align. A year and a half ago, I presented a basic proposal on moving to a self-paced modular training curriculum that would allow trainees to proceed at their own pace, on their own time.

Sometimes things just come together.

A week ago, during a routine call with the folks at MicroTek, the company we use for facilities-based training, I learned that one of their offerings was “self-paced training.” This is the exact phrase used by one of our VPs who struggles to provide training to his customers on the other side of the planet. As a result, we set up a call and saw a presentation, and all the pieces began to click. The solution presented not only addressed a number of shortcomings we have in our training, but also was a money-saver! Who couldn’t like that?

Key to this training is Markdown. Simply put, Markdown is a text-to-HTML tool. HTML itself isn’t so difficult, but it has evolved, and now includes Cascading Style Sheets, inline-code, server-side-includes, and more. Getting all the pieces of an HTML project in place is now as complex as writing other software code. Markdown allows a web designer to write plain English text, adding some basic syntax rules, and the HTML is generated as output.

What even better, is that there are a number of Markdown editors available that show you the output as you type! I’ve tried a number of (miserable) Windows products, but there’s a marvelous open source Mac project called MacDown.

MacDown logo

In less than half a day, I “converted” three PowerPoint slides into HTML documents, and created a few fresh ones from scratch. It’s that easy to do!

MicroTek’s implementation adds some features (“extensions”) that make for things like pages, alerts, interactive questions, knowledge boxes, and more. Coupled with user tracking, this gives full visibility into how trainees interact with the program, whether they answer questions correctly, and so on.

I’ve now run some numbers and when I’ve mentioned this to others (including the EVP), there’s a lot of interest. I’m going to formalize another proposal, including costs, time to implement, resource usage, and more. I admit, I’m pretty charged up about this!

And I’m back learning (or re-learning) web technologies!

HomeGEEK Update

Posted on September 19, 2019 by mfna

I have now completed (or mostly completed) the update and modifications to two new/refurbished Macintoshes. During the process I made several key decisions.

The first is that I’m going to make the 11″ MacBook Air my primary travel computer. Yes, I like it that much! I made it a Mac-Linux dual-boot and added the nifty rEFInd boot manager to make the startup choice a piece of cake. The diminutive laptop is capable of running macOS Catalina (10.15) when it ships, so I’m current with the technology. I chose MX Linux as the other OS because it’s a clean, well-crafted Linux, based on Debian, and it has a terrific support ecosphere, too. On top of that, I purchased a perfect laptop carry case for it from eBags, an Everki Advance iPad/Tablet/Ultrabook 11.6″ Laptop Bag!

The older MacBook has also been converted to a dual Mac-MX Linux machine, with a disk partition available for yet another OS, should I choose to add one. I was first going to keep it running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.8) because of the add-ons included by the vendor, Operator Headgap Systems, but then I realized I could use it to replace a similarly-aged MacBook Pro whose CD drive and trackpad have gone the way of the Dodo. So, I laboriously labored to upgrade it — through necessary stages — to High Sierra (macOS 10.13). This required purchasing Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable copy of the Snow Leopard volume — just in case. I bumped up the RAM to 8GB (it will support 16GB — maybe later…) and added rEFInd, and with some tweaking and preference setting, I should be good to go.

Now it was time to look at my home networking. I’m not unhappy with my setup, but I feel I’m not getting the value for my money. I have a number of devices on my network, including security cameras, a smart thermostat, smart TVs, and computers. To make it all work, I’ve added Powerline Adapters (PLA) and a wi-fi extender. But wi-fi is limited to 300Mbps, and I’m paying for gigabit Internet, so I figured going cabled was the answer.

Network DIagram

I purchased two additional PLAs (Zyxel PLA5456, to be precise) and added them. They use the electric cabling of the house instead of Ethernet.

Supposedly, one can get megabit speeds in the right circumstances. Sadly, that’s not been my experience so far. The best I’ve seen has been just slightly faster than my wi-fi, and the worst is… well, the worst. I still have some tweaking to do.

It’s been a fun (for me!) exercise. My next project: Adjust the truss rod on my Taylor acoustic guitar. I’m more nervous about tweaking a guitar’s settings than I am a computer!

Dual Boots

Posted on August 30, 2019 by mfna

If you thought this post was going to be about hiking or outdoor sports, prepare to be disappointed!

I have recently renewed interest in some of the older computers I have lying around. Over the years I have accumulated computers that, for one reason or another, have reached the end of their usable life. Or so they say. Specifically, I have an Asus eeePC 900A – a “netbook” as they were popularly known then – and a 2004 Apple iBook G4, commonly referred to as an “iceBook” because of its white polycarbonate case. Both computers are diminutive by today’s standard: the Asus has an 8.9-inch screen and tiny keyboard, and the Mac has a 12-inch screen. The Asus is powered by an Intel Atom processor, and the Mac by a PowerPC (hence the G4 appellation).

More than anything, the processor is what is the limiting factor. The Atom is slow by today’s standards, and the PowerPC chip has been abandoned. A few years ago, I updated both of them by installing new operating systems – A fresh, lightweight Linux on the eeePC, and I turned the iBook into a dual-boot computer by partitioning the hard drive and installing Ubuntu Linux on the second partition.

But the Asus suffers from battery exhaustion, and replacement batteries are nearly impossible to find. The Mac is really a dead end, as neither Apple nor the Linux community offer modern OSes for the PowerPC chip. If all I wanted to do is play, I’d be set. But, I’m a geek…

Looking to the refurbished computer market, I found a small company named Operator Headgap that specialized in refurbishing and selling old Apple computers and peripherals. After conversing via email with the owner, I finally decided to purchase a late 2009 MacBook 13″ “unibody” (white polycarbonate) laptop. For under $300, it seemed it would make a great “project” computer for turning into a dual-boot Mac-Linux machine like my old iBook.

At the same time, I found a refurbished 11.6″ Macbook Air, circa 2014. My “working” MacBook Air is a 13-inch model from 2012, and it’s been nothing short of fabulous. I’m typing this on it!

I’m waiting for delivery on the MacBook, but I have received the MacBook Air, and have already made it a dual-boot computer. I updated it to macOS 10.14.6 (Mojave), partitioned its hard drive into roughly a 60-40% split, installed the rEFInd boot manager, and installed the popular MX Linux 18.3. Everything works well, and now it’s time to “personalize” it.

When the other Mac arrives, I’ll do something similar. I kind of like having the ability to travel around with a sub-compact notebook computer that, with two OSes, can seemingly handle anything I can throw at it.

A final note: I’d like to give a nod of appreciation to the sites EveryMac and LowEndMac. Both of these provide in-depth data on the entire line of Apple computers since the very first Mac, introduced in 1984! They are indispensable sites for researching older Macs. I’d also like to mention Other World Computing (OWC), a division of MacSales, for providing not only upgrade parts, but quality instructions for the do-it-yourself hobbyist.

What Is It That Attracts SPAMMERS?

Posted on August 21, 2019 by mfna

Everyone receives unwanted email, commonly referred to as SPAM. This site is no exception. However, I find it interesting that one spammer, originating (supposedly) from IP address 176.108.5.170 seems to get through my site’s plug-in, only to arrive at my administrative panel, where I promptly tag and bag the miscreant, who never gets published.

So, why is a single post of mine used as this person’s target, and why does my filtering software – my gatekeeper, so to speak – not capture him/her/it like it does 99.9% of the rest of the spam? I’ll probably never know. But I do find it curious…

An update, as I knew I would: this particular spammer isn’t too bright, and as a result, IP address 176.108.5.170 is now blacklisted. I won’t even have to trash these messages, as the site will do it for me. Ain’t technology wonderful? 😀

Running FROM Office

everyone is entitled to my opinion

Category Archives: Technology