Warning sign generator

From time to time I find some web sites that by definition is waste of time.

But even so, I am glad we have them here. We need to waste some time on useless tings.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical: Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (958644)

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical: Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (958644): "Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical"

You should upgrade as soon as possible. This seems to be a major fault in Windows. I guess the Linux folks are having a good time now :)

DAW

For some time now I have been looking into some good, cheap and decent DAW applications. If you are not familiar with the term DAW, it stands for digital audio workstation.

In short, a DAW is a system to record, edit and make digital audio. When I started looking into this my need was only to record several tracks at once and then mix all the tracks together into one song.

To be able to record I first bought me a audio card. Looking around, not wanting to spend to much money I ended up with the Terratec DMX6Fire USB. This card has it all - 6 analog outputs, 1 digital output, 4 analog inputs and 1 digital input.

But then I needed something to record my audio with. I fist went to Steinberg and their Wavelab as they are a well known company. Not being able to download anything from their site I had to move on to something else. I found some very cool recording utilities at NCH software. But still too expensive for me.

In my search I found two vendors that interested me; Mackie with Tracktion and Cakewalk with SONAR. I have been working with SONAR 7, but Cakewalk released version 8 during my testing. I have not been able to download it and try it yet.

Can I buy online?

Dream on...

I have not found anywhere where I can buy this software online. That is, download it and play with it immediately. B&H can ship it to you, but it takes forever. At least a few days of waiting.

Licensing

Here is a big issue. You have to license it to your computer. With all the hassle that comes with it.

MIDI

When I first got started I quickly realized the potential of using MIDI devices. Specifically when recording instruments I can not play nor cannot find anyone to play for me. So I have spent some time looking into what I can do with MIDI.

Both the cheap and expensive version of both products are excellent when mixing recorded audio. But the main, and probably most important difference, lies in what extras you get when you pay the most.

You get lots of MIDI instruments and some sound effects. But with everything, you get a crippled version of third parties instruments and effects. But if you can live with that, you get much for your money.

Here are some cool virtual instruments I have found.

Name	Price	Comment
Garritan Personal Orchestra	$199	Here you have lots of good instruments for your orchestra. Violins, woodvinds, brass, percussions, some pianos and some more.
TruePianos	$180	Lots of good pianos. These pianos really sound good.

Here are the short comparison guide

These prices was found in B&H just before this article was published.

Product	Price (B&H)	Comment
SONAR 8 Studio	$279,95	Entry level version.
SONAR 8 Producer	$469,95	Producer exclusives are found here. Most important is support for surround sound.
Tracktion 3 basic bundle	not listed	This version is probably bundled with some hardware. I can not buy it, and it comes without any instruments or third party effects. But for recording and audio mixing it is not crippled.
Tracktion 3 project bundle	$99	Stripped down bundle of extras; effects and instruments. The core application is not crippled.
Tracktion 3 ultimate bundle	$249	The most extras; effects and instruments.
Kristal Audio engine	free for personal use	I found this DAW. It is cheap, simple and usable. But it lacks many nice features.

Links

Here you can read my reviews of the following software and hardware:

• Tracktion 3
• SONAR 7
• DMX6Fire

Tracktion 3 review

This article is part of a series of articles I have written during my search for a good way to record and mix music. You can read my overview here or look into my articles labeled as multimedia.

Tracktion 3

Mackie is a company that is probably more known for its mixers and other hardware used by professionals over the world.

But they do also make some software - and today I am going to look into a product called Tracktion. At the time of writing Mackie have released version 3 of their software.

Learning curve

Mackie claims that the GUI is designed to be easy to work with and intuitive for newcomers. I disagree. The first time I started Tracktion the only thing that worked for me was the button. Honesty, I try lots of software, but do not often see anything like this. I did not touch Tracktion for another week and started reading the reference guide.

I still not think that Tracktion have a great user interface in terms of ease of use. But I think that when you have spent 10-20 hours with it you will start to be productive. In Tracktion you have everything available from the main page shown below.

Features

Unlike many modern DAW's you do not have the traditional mixer here. Not that I miss it. You can accomplish the same using output filters here, but it does not look like a conventional mixer.

In Tracktion you work with tracks, where mixers (and probably most other DAWs) works with channels. A track in Tracktion is always in stereo (two channels). You do not have output buses either, but you can send the output to another track.

Chaining of filters, effects and instruments is easy to work with(when you have learned it...) So is editing and automation.

MIDI

MIDI support is great. It is easy to record and edit MIDI. And with some of the third party instruments and effects you get with Tracktion you can have endless hours of fun.

Conclusion

I love the price. It is the right price for me. The price compensates for the high learning curve.

SONAR 7 review

This article is part of a series of articles I have written during my search for a good way to record and mix music. You can read my overview here or look into my articles labeled as multimedia.

SONAR 7

Cakewalk have been in the DAW business for many years now. They have a solid product and a well known reputation. While testing SONAR 7 they decided to release version 8 of their product. I could not get my hands on it, so all my testing is done with version 7. What is new i version 8 you can read about here.

My eval had expired so I could not bring any pictures from SONAR. You can find many picutres in the product home page.

Learning curve

SONAR was easy to start using. Without any hassle I could set up my channels correctly and start recording. There are lots of features in SONAR and I have probably only used 10 % of its functionality.

The manual that came with the demo is online and i chm format. Because of that I could not print it out and read on my bed as I usually do with documentation and exiting stuff.

Features

SONAR has its own mixer. With the producer edition you can easily make surround sound (multichannel)- that is an exclusive feature with the producer. And the producer have lots of third party effects and instruments that seems very promising. 

Conclusion

I find this to be a good product. But for my limited use and wallet this is not the right product for me.

DMX 6Fire USB review

From the product homepage:

High end USB 2.0 audio system
With high demands on sound quality the DMX 6Fire USB is the perfect external audio system for musicians, DJs and gamers. This unofficial successor to the DMX 6Fire 24/96 has been completely reworked and has reached new heights: Instead of a PCI expansion card, it is now equipped with a USB 2.0 jack. Instead of 24 bits / 96 kHz, its engines now hum at 24 bits / 192 kHz.

The retail price is €199.

Specifications

This was the first soundcard I found when I realized that I needed something more than the built-in sound card. This card has:

• USB 2.0 audio system
• 1 microphone input with gain control (combo XLR / 6.3 mm jack)
• 48V phantom power
• 20 dB pad switch
• 1 instrument input with gain control (6.3 mm jack)
• 4 analogue inputs (cinch)
• 1 phono input (RCA cinch) with RIAA equalizer and gain control
• 6 analogue outputs (cinch)
• Stereo to 5.1 Surround Expander
• 1 headphone jack (6.3 mm) with separate volume controller
• 1 optical digital input/output (TOS Link)
• 1 coaxial digital input/output (cinch)
• 1 MIDI interface In/Out (5-pin DIN)
• 24 bit / 192 kHz A/D converter with 114 dB (A) SNR* (input 1/2)
• 24 bit / 192 kHz A/D converter with 105 dB (A) SNR* (input 3/4)
• 24 bit / 192 kHz D/A converter with 114 dB (A) SNR* (outputs 1-6)

Sound

This sound card sounds great. I have a little problem with hum when recording on my laptop, but that is not related to the sound card. I have played and recorded sound in churches and at home and the sound card performs quite well.

The software can be configured to give you tree set of stereo outputs or one surround output. You can also use this sound card as a mixer - that is you can send what you receive out again after mixing the inputs together.

Conclusion

This sound card works great if you have the right computer for it. It is easy to use and easy to configure.

SSL compatibility list

There are on the marked now several types of SSL certificates. With he growth of encrypted communication certificates can be expensive and complicated to implement. And as there are some compatibility issues with some of these certificates you need to know when to use one over the other.

 

Kind of SSL certificates

Here is the most important types of SSL certificates. It is also important to choose the right issuer for your certificates. Read here why it is important to choose the right issuer.

Also note that some platforms (mostly mobile) seem to have problems with certificate chaining. Chaining is the process where one issuer issues an intermediate certificate to another issuer who then issues a certificate to you. I have not verified this myself, but read about it on the net.

SSL certificate

This is the most common certificate in use today. You buy one certificate for each host header (the name that is displayed in your browser).

This type of certificate have been on the marked for many years now.

EV SSL certificate

This type of certificate is not covered here in detail, but it is a normal certificate with a green address bar. This certificate is pushed out on the marked now as the new, more secure certificate.

The certificate is by it self not more secure when it comes to encryption, but it is harder to get this type of certificate. EV stands for Extended Validation - and it is the validation of the purchaser of the certificate.

Wildcard SSL

With this certificate you buy one for your organization, that is for each hostname under a given domain name. The certificate "*.helge.net" can be used to encrypt both the sites blog.helge.net and www.helge.net with one certificate.

Not all browsers support wildcard certificates.

SAN certificate

Subject Alternate Names is a kind of certificate that became popular with the introduction of Exhcange Server 2007. With this kind of certificate you add have 5 different (and disjoined) host names in the certificate. One name is the common name and the others are the alternate names.

I could buy a certificate with the following host names included:

• www.helge.net
• www.blogger.com
• blog.helge.net

And (if all sites were running on the same server) then encrypt all sites with one certificate.

Not all browers can read the alternate names. But all browsers can read the common name.

UC SAN certificate

This certificate is an variant of the SAN certificate that has no limitations on the number of alternate names. So I can have as many names as I want in the certificate.

But only one common name.

Not all browers can read the alternate names. But all browsers can read the common name.

Wildcard SAN certificate

In this certificate you can have a wildcard name in the common name and 4 alternate names in the same certificate.

Compatibility list

Cert	IE6	IE7	WM5	WM6	Symbian (Nokia)
Std. cert
EV SSL	No green bar		No green bar
Wildcard
SAN / UC SAN
Wildcard SAN

Sources

• Certificate improvements in Windows Mobile 6
• Subject Alternate names compatibility as seen by Digicert.
• Certificates for Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6 from the Technet.
• Nokia support talk regarding SAN certs

Packet cheat sheets

Here you can find good and easy sheets that shows you how different protocols are built. You can find sheets for IPSec, IPv6, spanning-tree protocol (STP) and some others.

File recovery that works

When ever files are lost (deleted, card error etc), on your file system or your flash memory Google will help you find programs that can help you recover these files for a small amount of money.

Often the end user will end up with spending $ on a program that was not as good as promised. And more important than the money - the files are still lost.

One program that stands out - both beeing free of charge and actually good at locating your files - is Convar PC INSPECTOR. With two flavours available, for general files and memory cards (eg. photos)you are saved.

This tool scans your drive for files even when the FAT is corrupted.