NOTE: I have an update on my progress as of 9/1/2015 here Motivated by my good friend CheerUpLove.com ’s reflective style of blogging, and Ian Forrester ’s many interesting posts, I thought it would be interesting to post something a bit more personal and less technical on this blog. Now that 2015 is upon us, I am going to take some time to publicly outline my goals for the year, so I can hold myself more accountable to them, and so I can look back on them this time next year. ...

I picked up a rather ugly (but very cheap!) customised microKORG, and also the excellent Novation Impulse 61 USB/Midi keyboard controller. The microKORG I like a lot. It was my first synth, and at first I couldn’t make any sense of it. I do agree with the Reddit /r/synthesizers view that it is not the best synth to learn on. Their view is that the best synth to learn on is one with a one-to-one mapping between controls and sound engine parameters. To put another way, the best beginners synth is one which has lots of knobs and buttons on it that you can tweak and hear actual results in the sound. It makes it more difficult if the sound engine is hidden away behind a large menu system with lots of daunting menus, like the microKORG has. ...

I decided to buy the DDJ-SR controller because it was cheaper than even the cheapest pair of Pioneer CDJs. I’m no stranger to using a laptop and controller, before the DDJ-SR I used my trusty Faderfox DJ2 controller, which is a basic no-frills ‘play buttons, 3 EQs, crossfader and volume faders’ unit. I was considering getting the Native Instruments Traktor S4 DJ controller, which is one of the most popular full-size controllers for Traktor. However, after borrowing one from a friend, I compared the build quality of the DDJ-SR versus the S4, and there was no contest! The Pioneer DDJ-SR has the same buttons and jog wheel as the Pioneer CDJ units, which are rock solid and industry standard. For anyone wanting to use CDJs in the club after using the DDJ-SR at home, you will find the feel very familiar. ...

I bought some new synths. Access Virus A This is the original 1998 Access Virus A . It, it was a staple synth for trance and electronic music in general for the early 00s. I am very happy that I managed to get this secondhand for less than a MicroKORG. It cost over £800 when it came out in 1998. Old digital synths seem to be unpopular at the moment, I’ve heard comments along the lines of ‘if it’s digital then I might as well use a plugin in my DAW’. But I think this is ignoring the tactile control surface that you get, and how it gets your head outside the computer and playing an actual physical instrument. The presets are really inspiring, several sounds that you will recognise if you were into electronic music in the 00s. VNV Nation, one of my favourite bands, produced their entire ‘Empires’ album with just the Access Virus A and a couple of samplers. ...

Lately I’ve had the idea of creating a text-based Roguelike in C++. This lead me on to think about the game AI experiments that I worked during my degree in Computer Science and A.I. . Essential to game AI is the notion of pathfinding, or finding a path from ‘A’ to ‘B’, past any obstacles that get in the way. One way to do this is to use the A* algorithm. I decided to implement an A* pathfinding algorithm for possible use in a Roguelike later, and chose the pseudocode from the Wikipedia example to implement. ...

I like to dabble in making and playing music. Here is the equipment and setup that I use. Ableton Live Intro This is the DAW I use. I have been using Ableton Live for several years now, and I know my way around it. I have tried others but they never really felt as comfortable. Live comes in three flavours , ‘Intro’ is the most basic paid-for version. I was surprised how cheap the ‘Intro’ version was, and how little I find myself needing the features of the more expensive versions. I only have one paid-for VST plugin, and that is the KORG Legacy Cell MS-20, which I use on almost all the music I’ve made. ...

I wanted to get a Kindlefire HDX running under Ubuntu 12.04 with adb. First I needed to setup the udev rules: 1. Edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules as root, and add the following line (create this file if it does not exist): SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1949", MODE="0666" 2. Change the permission of this file by executing the following command as root: chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules 3. Reload the rules by executing the following command as root: udevadm control --reload-rules 4. Run these commands to restart adb: ...

Updated: Reorganised, replaced Tiamat headset for KAVE. I use my computer a lot, for work (software development), gaming and music production. I wanted to build a high-end computer setup, as I’ve always lagged behind with upgrades before. So I gradually have been accumulating and swapping bits around to make the setup above. Internals Case Motherboard CPU CPU Cooler RAM Wireless Card Optical Drive PSU Visual Monitor Backlight GPU Audio Headphones Soundcard Headset Speakers Speaker Stands Mixer Desktop Microphone Peripherals ...

A good ergonomic chair is a wise investment if you’re going to spend a lot of time at your computer. One of the better known ergonomic models is the Herman Miller Aeron Task Chair . What Other People Say About the Aeron Jeff Atwood (from Coding Horror) says: In fact, after browsing chairs for the last few years of my career, I’ve come to one conclusion: you can’t expect to get a decent chair for less than $500. If you are spending less than that on seating – unless you are getting the deal of the century on dot-bomb bankruptcy auctions – you’re probably making a mistake. ...

2015 Update: The “Device Hive” project has now been changed to be called ‘Hive CI’ and it is being maintained by a team of developers at the BBC, which I am no longer a part of. It is in the process of being opensourced, see: http://bbc.github.io/hive-ci/ This year has been quite a busy and eventful one for me. Connected Red Button At the start of the year, I was working on the Connected Red Button team within the BBC. Connected Red Button is a major ongoing project in the Television and Mobile Platforms department at BBC North. Its aim is to replace the classic Red Button text service (which itself is the successor to Ceefax) with a new updated all-singing all-dancing interactive portal to internet content, available on Smart TVs and modern set top boxes. Currently Connected Red Button is live and accessible by pressing the Red Button on the new Virgin Media TiVo boxes. You can access the latest version of iPlayer, and the BBC News and BBC Sport smart TV apps from within one easy portal. ...