Year: 2003

MAD Winamp Plugin for Improved Audio

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

Josh passed this one along and I was going to e-mail Josh about it but I thought I’d post about it instead (don’t worry, they’re different Joshes).

At any rate, the MAD Plugin purports to offer improved audio decoding over Winamp’s default decoder. It works with Winamp 2.x at the moment, and they add that it doesn’t work with Winamp 3 yet. Their method is described like this:

Internally, MAD represents the decoded audio signal with high precision. Combined with a form of dither, this allows output samples to be calculated with less objectionable quantization noise and more audible dynamic range than most decoders produce today. The result is unusually high-quality output that is a more faithful reconstruction of the signal encoded in MPEG audio than you may have realized possible. […]

Hmm, that sounds a bit like upsampling to me (though I’m not really sure). Still, I don’t use Winamp when I need MP3/Ogg playback — I prefer Quintessential Player instead (its interface doesn’t become super-tiny at 1600x1200).

Need a Front-End Web Coder?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

If you’re looking for an XHTML/HTML & CSS coder, I’ve recently revised my resume. I made the changes over the weekend and uploaded the new version to the various job sites (there’s a changelog at the bottom of this post).

I’m now current in: Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, Flipdog, Dice, ComputerJobs, Techies and Dallas Morning News’ JobCenter. Am I missing any?

I made no major changes to my resume — most of the changes were rewordings or rephrasings:

  • Changed the phone number listed to my cell phone to increase my availability to potential employers.
  • Removed the “e-mail address” label in the header as it was obviously an e-mail address.
  • Professional Profile section - Removed first bullet as it read too much like a press release.
  • Professional Profile section - Reworded second bullet (well, it’s now the first bullet) to include the phrase “adhering to W3C-established web standards”
  • Professional Profile section - Reworded thid bullet to make it read less like a press release.
  • Professional Profile section - Rephrased “parallel and distributed computing” in third bullet to “distributed and grid computing” for buzzword compliance (HHOS).
  • Revised wording to read “usability metrics” instead of “usability-driven mindset”.
  • Renamed “Computer Experience and Proficiency” section to simply “Skills”.
  • Renamed “Professional Experience” section to “Experience”.
  • Reworded second bullet in Hybrid section of Experience to deemphasize my lack of enthusiam re: frames ;).

Mmm, Delicious Evil

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Pillsbury may be evil, but they make some tasty cupcakes. I’m alluding to the cupcakes at Thomas’ party, of course. (I boycott Pillsbury and its parent-company General Mills due to their heavy-handed legal department.)

I don’t hold it against him for buying Pillsbury cupcake mix since he probably wasn’t aware of their past history. Nonetheless, the yellow-cake cupcakes had a fluffy denseness. The texture was almost like a pound cake, but not quite that dense. And, they had a pleasant degree of sweetness though not overwhelmingly so.

Still, I find it amusing that supermarkets tend to feature only three brands among cake mixes (in addition to the store’s house brand). Generally, there’s Betty Crocker and Pillsbury, but those are both the same company (General Mills). The third brand is often Duncan Hines (which is evil-free, as far as I can tell).

Room Available – Looking for Roommate

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

Jason is moving out at the end of this month, so I’ll have a spare room in my apartment. The new lease would be for eight or up to ten months.

I live at 75 and Northwest Hwy in The Village (The Hill, specifically). It’s a 1244 sq ft two-level townhome with two bedrooms, each having its own bathroom and a walk-in closet (there’s also an additional bathroom downstairs).

There’s a washer/dryer right in the apartment, and the kitchen includes a microwave, garbage disposal, and a dishwasher. The floorplan is available online.

Cable-modem is already setup, and there’s a port in each bedroom (via a Linksys gateway). I’ve also setup wireless networking (Wi-Fi/802.11b) in case you have a PDA or laptop that can make use of that.

Rent is $1007 in total, or about $504 each. The utilities, listed separately below, add on about $100/month (of course, you could opt out of paying cable-tv or cable-modem if you didn’t use those).

  • Water & Electricity - about $50/month each
  • Phone - about $10/month each
  • Cable-tv - about $23/month each
  • Cable-modem - about $23/month each

I’m available on ICQ (3812078) and AIM (standardsfanatic). Or, if you would prefer to talk over the phone, my cell number is (469) 569-7421.

Iron Chef vs Iron Chef!

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

In a new tournament on Food Network, the Iron Chefs will battle each other! The King of Iron Chefs Tournament airs Saturdays at 10/9c from April 5 to May 3.

Attention Iron Chef fans! Starting Saturday, April 5, the Iron chefs will be battling one another for the first time ever to find out who really reigns supreme. Using our handy party planner, you can ensure that these important battles receive the stellar celebrations they deserve. Allez cuisine!

Earning some extra props, they also link to an Iron Chef drinking game (which I would have linked to here, but the link is bad at the moment). They have all kinds of party-planning accessories as well, including party invitations and a party poster. If you're an Iron Chef fan, let me know and we can have our own little Iron Chef party :).