25 Jan 2006
The wonderful thing about IE/Win is you always know where you stand. Its foibles are comprehensibly documented, and fixes for many issues are available to those who seek them. Firefox 1.0.x Mac, however, is anything but thoroughly documented. My latest gripe? Floats, of all things. You’d think we’d have them sorted and worked out properly by now, but apparently not. Opera, IE, Safari and Firefox Win (and Firefox Mac/1.5.x) all behave perfectly, but Firefox Mac decides it’s not interested. Unless, of course, I modify the properties using the DOM and then set back to whatever it had been… in which case it displays as expected. Clearly, it’s a render bug rather than an outright misinterpretation of the specs, but annoying nonetheless. Not in the least because there is very little information about it available. Grr.
24 Jan 2006
It’s new, so far as I’m aware, and I can’t even build a decent test case for it. In one instance alone, if there’s a blank line between two elements (i.e. just for readability, doesn’t need to be like that), then certain versions of IE — and only when their traffic is being proxied through certain transparent/non-transparent servers — will display a blanking/”unknown” character.
At first it was thought this was just because of a dud character in a file, but then we tried using PHP to echo \n\r, \n, and \r in the place of a manually entered return: all of which resulted in the bug persisting. The only fix I’ve got is to use an HTML comment between lines
</element><!--
--><another element='element'>
Like that. Anything else, and we get a blanking character in there. Bizarre!
It doesn’t occur anywhere else on the site in question, and I’m not going to waste hours trying to build another un-branded test case which may or may not work! The problem affects IE only (though we didn’t do version testing), and only when traffic is going through (some) proxy servers. And only that one character.
It’s not an encoding problem per-se, though is obviously related to that in some sense. This is still internal-only, and it’s not being dished up with proper content-types defined in HTTP headers (because I’m still liable to change my mind as to how that should be done, and I’m not calling it until the site is about to launch/what is/isn’t required in terms of content-type–affected things is abundantly clear!), but seeing as it only has an impact when using through a proxy it’s pretty obvious it’s not JUST here. Shrug. I reluctantly deleted the linebreak and the box went away.
24 Jan 2006
I know, I know, it’s the third time I’ve used this image. But months apart, so it’s improbable anyone other than me will remember!
Anyway, I just thought of a caption for the image too good to just let go.
“iWhiteBook: Apple’s answer to the Tablet PC”
Kinda like the Americans inventing a spacepen and the Russians just using a pencil, hey? ;-)
22 Jan 2006
I’ve been meaning to get some decent speakers setup here in this office area ever since we moved in, but never got around to it until yesterday. Because of the space, and where people are sitting (all over the place, no-one facing the any direction in particular), it was pretty clear a conventional “stereo” setup wouldn’t cut it. Roof speakers would have been an option in any other space, but not here — the roof doesn’t actually cover the entire space, with a cut-out from the floor above looking over it (kinda difficult to explain if you haven’t seen it!)
So surround in stereo mode was clearly required. It also would be, in all probability, the cheapest way of achieving this setup. I could have bought four speakers and an amp with two speaker bus outputs (my JVC receiver does that, but it’s staying in my room because the extra juice is needed for my chunky 70′s-ish-vintage speakers), but it’d likely be more expensive, and larger than an integrated surround system (because such things generally have satellite speakers).
The space also eliminates the need for an overly powerful system: it’s an open space in the centre of the house. At any rate, I personally prefer clarity over astoundingly noisy noise, so personal preference plays a part in this, too.
Enter the Yamaha TSS-15W. It’s not the world’s most powerful system, but nearly perfect for the application. Back in the early days of Atomic (Issue 2, Page 38. Not that I checked or anything.), the TSS-15′s predecessor (actually, the TSS-1, the product line’s first) was reviewed.
That review fairly neatly surmises why this product appeals to me:
It used to be that all you wanted from a set of speakers was some good quality loud noise and a general “Scare the neighbours” bass level. Not anymore.
Indeed. The TSS-15 gives consistent clarity to as loud as it goes: the only way to make it distort or clip is by feeding it an already-clipped signal. As it stands, it goes plenty loud for this space, which is roughly 5×7×2.5 meters (though the height measurement gets a little weird, because of the roof), so I’m not too worried about clarity at max volumes.
The product has changed little since it was first reviewed in early 2001 (Atomic just turned 5. I think my maths is correct…), featuring five 6 watt satellites with wall-mounts, and a single 18 watt subwoofer: exactly the same as the original spec. Cosmetically, they’re a little prettier than the original, in a light sliver/white that matches the walls in here far better than the TSS-1′s all-black façade possibly would.
So I’m happy. The only significant change to the product is an increase in the number of inputs.
On this count, the TSS-15 is pretty impressive, sporting analogue RCA inputs, two TOSLINK optical digital inputs (the original had only one), and a single coaxial digital input. Clearly, it’s a product for budget home theatre… but it also serves quite well in its role as a piece of not-quite-so-cheap PC audio gear.
Of course, over five years, one would expect more to change. Price especially. The original TSS-1 was retailing for $AU499 when Atomic reviewed it, and yesterday we paid $270 for what is, essentially, the same device.
I’d hazard the cost of Dolby and DTS (they’re separate, competing entities: The TSS-15 supports Dolby Digital, Pro Logic, and Pro Logic II, as well as DTS and AAC) licensing has probably dropped lots, which is likely to be a part of it, but also the marketplace is a lot more price-competitive than it once was.
In all, it sounds great, costs little, and is nearly perfect for use in this environment. Nearly? Yes, well. If, instead of a digital receiver, Yamaha had included a powered 12 channel stereo mixer, I’d be happy with it beyond words. Failing that, it’s a great little device well suited to providing crisp, clear audio in a small office or home theatre environment.
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Yamaha TSS-15W Specifications
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Amplifier Unit
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Output per channel
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Front/centre/surround
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6W × 5 (1kHz, 4Ω, 10% THD)
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Subwoofer
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18W (100Hz, 4Ω, 10% THD)
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Input Sensitivity
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200mV
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H.P. Output Level/Output Impedance
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450 mV/30 Ω (1 kHz, 200 mV)
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Frequency Response
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40 Hz — 20kHz
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Dimensions (W × H × D)
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102 mm × 260 mm × 196 mm
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Power consumption
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40W
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Satelllite speakers
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Type
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Full range speaker system acoustic suspension
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Driver
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5 cm (2″) cone type
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Impedance
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4 Ω
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Dimensions
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70 mm × 91 mm × 110 mm (including stand)
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Weight
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0.4 KG
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Subwoofer
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Type
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Active Servo Processing Subwoofer System
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Driver
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13 cm (5″) cone woofer
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Impedance
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4 Ω
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Dimensions
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220 mm × 239 mm × 220 mm
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Weight
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3.4 KG
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22 Jan 2006
As part of the Sydney Festival programme (endorsed by those magnanimous intellectual powers of Smart car fame), Gershwin’s World was presented last night at Symphony in the Domain.
The music might have been great, but I’d forgotten how terrible outdoor sound can be. I’m sure it was worse than previous years… high notes would carry effortlessly across the Domain, low-pitched feedback (yes, it happened several times) similarly rumbled without difficulty, but the midrange would generously be described as muddy. Sigh. Of course, we were sitting off to the edge, so it was probably too far from the sound tower for anyone to care, but still. And the vision mixing team must’ve similarly been falling asleep at the wheel, methinks. The camerawork was generally adept, with one or two exceptions easily attributed to control. In one instance, a shot from side of stage followed Caroline O’Connor off, then remained live, giving an exceptional view of the back of the head of the person speaking. Quality with a capital K. I can just imagine the poor camera guy: “Uhh, is my tally light stuck on?” Nope, the vision mixer op just dropped dead at the desk mid-show. Repeatedly. (They must’ve performed CPR and he came back to life a few times throughout the show). The thing is, it’s not like there was mixed live switching and playback, or even titles to worry about. It was only live vision throughout the show, with the sole exception of intermission/pre-show/post-show playback. Sigh.
Technical grumblings aside, the music was… nice. Oh dear. The sound was honestly poor enough I can’t make further judgement! I enjoyed it because I enjoy Gershwin’s music, not particularly on account of that performance or space. In all, a particularly missable experience: staying home and listening to a CD may have been the better option.
What, still reading? Well, okay. One last word about pyro. The finale was great. The vision guy had died again, so that was plenty boring (he resuscitated about halfway through the pyro display, probably because of the noise, but it didn’t matter by that stage seeing as everyone was looking up), but the fireworks… well. I think the pyro team must’ve fallen asleep, too, because it started at a not-altogether-fluent spot, and continued long after the end of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (an excuse for pyro no doubt, seemingly bearing no relation to the rest of the programme. Shrug!). I laughed aloud when the performance finished, because for thirty seconds constantly there was row after row of fireworks launching from the top of a building (no photos, sorry) as though the pyro team had just realised “Oh, crap, the show just finished and we’ve got half an hour of pyro still to fire! Quick, press everything at once!”. The result was an incredibly bright fireworks display that held little artistic value and felt hurried… probably because it was (well, I think it was, anyway. Insert standard opinion-based-blog disclaimer here.)