I just posted a goodbye message-of-sorts* on my Facebook page and uninstalled it from my phone. Want to know why? The final straw was this article, which describes how an Australian man discovered that even after logging out, Facebook still keeps tabs on you by getting info from cookies every time you visit a page with a little “Like” button. Slapped on top of their rather frightening Open Graph system, described here, I have just had enough.

I’m going to save myself some time and skip the long rant about why being spied on by Facebook is bullshit. Read more about their privacy history here. Maybe read about some of the lobbyists on their staff here.

I’m going to get some dinner.

(* – I say “of-sorts” because Facebook’s ability to network for music and recording purposes is unparalleled. As much as I want them out of my personal life, being able to spread the word about a new release or book a tour or have a conversation about recording is quite valuable. I will login as needed for that.)

“Quietly, Undramatically” was the second Woe album. Reviews were strong, I was happy… but it sounded like crap. It really did. The CD still does. It’s muddy, it’s noisey, it’s not glued together very well… For those who are into black metal, none of these things are deal-breakers; for those of who are into recording, they kind of are. I liked it and still don’t mind it. The drums are clear and punchy; the whole thing is very natural sounding and has quite a bit of personality. Still, I felt that the production did distract from the material, so I was glad for the opportunity to remix/remaster it when Candlelight Records USA launched their bandcamp initiative.

[wp_bandcamp_player type=”album” id=”3726523833″ size=”venti” bg_color=”#FFFFFF” link_color=”#4285BB”]

It’s $7.99 for the download and available in 24-bit/48 kHz lossless formats.

I did a fucking ton to this. Nebula is all over it. AlexB’s MLC mic input on each track, one of the slow Akai R2R programs on the guitars, Otari R2R programs on the overheads, Otari R2R on the master, MLeQ and CLeQ on practically every track, Snap Compressor for tone all over the place, Fate Comp for tone on the guitars — it made a massive difference. I used Cytomic’s The Glue and the Elysia mpressor as my go-to compressors.

I’m fucking stoked. This is available online at http://candlelightrecordsusa.bandcamp.com/album/quietly-undramatically-remix and it is awesome.

Hello!

Not that this blog has any regular readers but if it did, they would notice that I haven’t posted anything for a while. There is a reason for that: shit is crazy! Here goes.

I moved to New York City. I am living in Flushing, Queens. There were plenty of reasons but at the end of the day, the deciding factors were that I wanted a big change and I received a job offer that was simply too good to pass up. Sadly, this meant giving up the warehouse space where I had a studio being built, but, frankly, I kind of feel like the guy doing the construction was dragging his feet and it was quickly turning into a quagmire, so it was time for a change. Bigger city, bigger pond, bigger challenges. Awesome.

What’s not awesome is that now, three weeks later, I am still without a recording space. I have an option to do some work in a nice place in Hoboken but it’s a bit far — really far — so I’m a bit hesitant to signup and be so far away from my gear and workspace. It’s a very cool spot and the guys who run it are very professional, but it wouldn’t be MY space, so I’m not sure. There are a few other options I’m pursuing and I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

The new job is working for another IT company doing stuff that is similar to what I was doing back in Jersey. The big difference here is that it’s probably 75% Mac, so I have learned a ton about that world. It is definitely out of my comfort zone. Going from SERVER DUDE (in caps) to “guy who needs help troubleshooting Outlook 2011 crashing” is kind of frustrating but I like to think I’m moving along nicely. I have learned quite a bit about that shit but I really do hope I get back to Hyper-V, Exchange, server troubleshooting, and… ya know, the stuff I really like, the stuff I’m good at.

So, finally… I bought a fucking Distressor EL8X. Holy shit.

I bought this.

This has been on my to-buy list for longer than I can remember. I came upon it tonight by accident in Guitar Center. It was used — they don’t stock it normally — and I was there to get a Duet 2 so I could do demos and mix at home while looking for a new recording space. I was about to checkout when I jokingly asked if they had one since they never do and, as luck would have it, they did. It was priced ridiculously low, as their used stuff kind of tends to be, so I went for it. Totally irresponsible since I am still without the means to record but I see it as a worthy, temporary sacrifice for permanent gain. I have a few more sessions down in Philly — I’m keeping my apartment for a few more weeks to tie up some loose ends — so I’ll get to play with it and I cannot wait.

The end.

This is one of those things that I use regularly enough that I can find it quickly but not so regularly that I have it memorized… yet. To save me and hopefully you some time, here are the Powershell commands needed to change your Exchange 2010 URLs if you don’t have a SAN cert.

set-clientaccessserver -identity YOURSERVER -autodiscoverserviceinternaluri “the FQDN that’s on your SSL + additional url crap shown above”

set-webservicesvirtualdirectory -identity SAMEASABOVE -internalnlbbypassurl “fqdn + additional url crap as specified in the first readout”

Match the syntax specified by the first get-… commands. For instance, when it lists identity as “SERVER\EWS (Default Web Site)” you need to make sure that you specify the identity as such.

You can fix the rest by going into the console, Server Configuration, Client Access, and use the tabs on the lower portion of the screen. I may be forgetting something, in which case I will edit this.

I’m getting as tired of writing about this as you are not getting of tired of not reading it because nobody looks at this site unless they accidentally browse in through Google, but I had to do it once more before I forgot.

Same server from yesterday. I remembered that when I installed it and it worked, the Symantec Installation Manager prompted me early on to install an update for the program. This time and the first time, it did not do this. I also remembered it downloading CAB files for the products I was installing. Just now, I tried to force this behavior by doing the following:

-Completely uninstalled.

-Copyed all of the MSI files out of the Altiris file created by the self-extracting 64-bit setup. That left me with symantec_sim_7_1.exe and ssmrs.pl. When I ran the executable, it installed and then immediately prompted me to update to 7.1.5. The upgrade downloaded and installed without issue. I then ran the application and when I chose to install the Symantec Management Solution, it could not find the MSI (since I moved it to another earlier) so it began downloading the most recent version. It is downloading as I type this but this was what happened when I was able to make it work, though I don’t remember exactly what process I took to do it that time. This should do the trick, though; I don’t expect many problems now.

If this didn’t work, I was prepared to install that update manually after remembering that it downloaded itself to the legendary server that actually worked with this software. It is happily living on my server right now and I will gladly share the link with anyone in need. Shoot an email over to subvertallmedia AT gmail DOT com. This will hopefully be the last time I have to bitch about this software.