Home Studio Tips

This is just a little friendly fore-warning. I urge every member of Home Studio Tips to get their points up. I am going to be announcing something next week that will be based on Home Studio Tips user points. You should also upload a profile picture while your at it.

Someone is going to be very happy! I may or may not be GIVING SOMETHING AWAY.

Stay tuned, big announcement coming next week.

You get 10 points for a blog post, 5 points for a video, 5 points for a news link, 5 points for a comment, 5 points for an image, 5 points for an event, 5 points for a poll, and 10 points when you get someone else to join the site.

Native Instruments presents the first winner of the Guitar Rig Hero contest 2008 Jayme Gutierrez from Spain. This video is awesome, everything is done in real time without any cut aways. Makes me jealous, this kid has got some chops and is very creative. Makes me want to spend more time learning how to use Guitar Rig.

Remember the days when you wanted to cut a demo, you had to find a guy to play drums? Not only did he have to play drums, but he had to be into the same obscure bands and genres of music as the rest of the band. He also had to be available 3 nights a week to rehearse and be available for gigs. Times this by three, one more time for the bass player, another time for the singer, and anyone else who was in the band. Now you also had to make sure that everyone got along, set up nights to practice, a place to practice, transportation, working equipment and the list goes on. Plus does everyone like the songs? Long story short, getting a band together is hard work.

Now days, making music is easy. With the invention of computers, MIDI, drum apps, plugins and virtual instruments you can do everything yourself. I lay the drum tracks down with loops or a drum app like drumkit from hell. I can play the guitar and bass myself. Keys, pianos and synth's are a breeze with MIDI. Now if I could only sing...oh wait, I can thanks to autotune and harmony engine.

No need for a bunch of other dudes and all the hassles, just do everything yourself.

This is another installment in the IT best practices sermons I've been writing lately.

Virus activity is a big thing that I've seen happen to lots of people lately. People don't realize what a virus looks like or how they get it.

How do I get a Virus?

The first way to get a virus is by visiting a website that may be infected. If you visit a website and you get something that pops up and says you are infected, it most likely is a virus. Recently, viruses have been appearing in the form of pop up windows that are meant to look like a message from your antivurs software. The pop up messages might indicate that your computer is infected asking you to click on something. Many people think that the fake message is legitimate and click on it. By clicking on the pop up message the computer is then infected.

If you see a pop up that says "You are infected, click here to scan" or something similar, do not click on it and close the window immediately. The best rule of thumb is: Do not click on anything that you don't trust. Pop up windows and email attachments from sources you don't recognize can be very dangerous.

You should be familiar with what antivirus software you have installed on your computer. If you see a window or pop up message from something other than your antivirus software stating you have a virus, close the message by clicking the X in the upper right corner. Do not click anywhere on the message.

The second way to get a virus is by opening an email attachment. If you get an email from someone with an attachment, especially if it is someone you don't know, you should not open it. Especially, if the attachment is an .exe or .bat file. If you get an attachment that you need to open, save it to your computer and scan it before you open it.

How can I protect my computer?  read more »

Working in IT I constantly come across people who have computer trouble. Most cases require wiping the computer clean and reinstalling Windows, this fixes 99% of the computer problems I deal with. However, most people NEVER have their information backed up. Big mistake!

Everyone has something on their computer that they would hate to lose. Whether it is your resume, household budget, pictures of your kids, recipes, music, movies, phone numbers, or even your entire business, you simply must backup your information. You know that old saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" most people don't realize this until their computer crashes, then it becomes all too clear.

Why should I backup?

The question is not "if" your computer fails, but "when." Let's face it; Windows will fail at some point. Guaranteed! Things like spyware, viruses, registry problems as well countless other random Windows issues that could render your hard drive completely useless. Hard drives do physically fail, but usually it is something with Windows that gets hosed up. Disaster happens; it may be a natural disaster, fire or even something simple like a game your kid loaded. You need to be ready when disaster does happen, expect the worst.

Think about it for a second, say you logged on to your computer this morning and nothing was there? What would you lose? Would you even know what all was on there? How much would it cost to get everything back? How much time would it take? Would you trust the people at Geek Squad to get it back for you without missing anything?

Can't someone recover my information?

Sure, there are places out there that can do data recovery, but this is very EXPENSIVE. If you do a regular backup of your computer, you can keep your important information safe and it will save you time, money and headaches in the future.  read more »