“Knicks vs. Heat, April 15: LeBron James says he doesn’t want to play the “villain” role anymore, but he won’t be able to avoid it on this night. James will be making his third trip to the Garden since spurning the Knicks [and others] to form a big three with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. This matchup is Game No. 60 of the season, so it could have serious playoff implications.”

via Rapid Reaction: Knicks’ 2011-12 schedule – Knicks Blog – ESPN New York.

This will be a good one to revisit in April …

One of my students at ITP just asked about file sync between one’s local file system to a remote file system using Eclipse and SFTP, so I put together a quick how-to, which might be of interest. The actual text/steps may vary, depending upon your version of Eclipse, but all the basics are there.

The one caveat of this process is that I’ve only been successful in setup and sync with an existing remote directory, and then importing it locally, not the other way around, e.g. exporting local to remote (though I have not tried very hard in this area — for whatever reason, the target has always existed whenever I’ve set up sync). So a remote target folder of some kind must already exist before you sync it to a local one, if you’re using these instructions.

To equate a local directory with a pre-existing remote one:

1. Help > Software Updates
2. Choose Available Software Tab
3. Click Add Site…, and then put http://eclipse.jcraft.com/ for the URL field.
4. Choose SFTP Plug-in, and then click Install …, and then restart after the install
5. Using Project Explorer view, make a new local project
6. Create a folder within that project that will map to a remote folder
7. Right click on the local folder in Project Explorer and choose Import
8. In the Select dialog, choose Other > SFTP
9. Choose the local folder as the one to receive the import
10. Create a new SFTP site and give your host and login info
11. If successfully connected to remote site, you should get the remote directory tree
12. Choose the remote folder to import
13. The remote files should now be in the local folder

Now to keep sync between these two:

1. Go to Window > Show View > Other… > Team > Synchronize
2. Click the first upper right icon in the Synchronize tab
3. Choose SFTP from the Synchronize dialog
4. The previously mapped folder should appear with all files selected
5. Click Finish
6. Eclipse will ask you if you want to use Team Synch perspective. Personally I don’t use this. I just keep the Synchronize view as part of my workbench

To test:

1. Make a change in a file within the local folder
2. It should then appear in the Synchronize view in Outgoing mode
3. Using the buttons at the top of the Synchronize tab, or the right-click menus on any of the items that have changed, you can upload or check the diff between the local and remote counterpart

So there you have it. For projects that involve multiple people, I would recommend using a version control system like Subversion, but for quick one-person, one code-base jobs, this works nicely …

Anyway, my new technique is to take the call with the express purpose of pitching to them whatever new feature or promotion we’ve created on the ActiveMusician site. And we actually have something pretty good going on right now. You can win a Fender Strat, amp, case, and cord simply by filling out a quick entry form. It’ll probably come down to only a few thousand entries, and the prize is worth about $1000 US, so in terms of the ratio of prize money to odds, it’s better than Powerball or any of those other sweepstakes-y types of deals.

Anyway, after the initial pitch from the telemarketer, I start in and it goes something like this:

• Me: Hey, do you or anyone you know play the guitar or want to start playing?
• Telemarketer: (small pause) Um …. no.
• Me: Well, do you or anyone you know want to win a free guitar and amp?
• Telemarketer: (longer pause) No …
• Me: Ok, well what about winning the guitar and amp, selling it, and then pocketing the money for anything you like. Does that sound good?
• Telemarketer: (even longer pause) Umm … No.

Now, I don’t know exactly where this person works, but I do know any workplace that either:

• inspires such ambivalence to winning free stuff
• or conversely, employs those that do not, nor do they know anyone who likes to win free stuff

well … then that is a place I do not want to work.

The flip side, of course, is that this type of reverse marketing (marketing to telemarketers) may now be so commonplace that it was the quickest way for him to get me off the phone.

Come to think of it, I guess he could have also just hung up, but that would be rude — maybe even for a telemarketer.

ActiveMusician.com is winding down their Classic Vibe Strat Giveaway this Friday. How does one enter? Glad you asked.

Simply give a like to ActiveMusician’s Facebook page and you’re entered. Right now, this is at ~1500 likes, so that’s your chances. Not bad for a guitar with a street value of $350.

Guitar will ship from our warehouse in NJ same or next biz day — depending on how long it takes to hear back from the winner (my guess is that it won’t take long).

Admit it. We like riffs, heavy and hard. We like solos, fast and long. Playing the chorus twice before going into the bridge and then back into the first verse …. ummm, not so much.

There is a total psychology tied to the things we covet in other guitarists, such that it dominates our practice rituals, and prevents us from the most important aspect of playing as part of a group: grooving over the form.

Contrary to popular belief, there is nobility in playing guitar in a band, but in this context, the first priority is the song itself — not virtuosity, not riffs, not soloing. That’s what self-published vids on Youtube are for.

I could go on, and actually I already have.

>>> Play Songs, Not Riffs

HDNet is a wonderful thing. I’ll say it again. HDNet is a wonderful thing.

It sits in our cable lineup, precariously perched between the free local channels and the heavyweight sports channels (e.g. the 5 versions of ESPN that I adore).

Anyway, every Sunday, HDNet shows concerts, and by concerts, I mean all day until Sunday has officially ended in every timezone and 24 hours of live concert footage have come and gone.

A few weeks ago, they showed James Taylor in a fairly recent concert in Pittsfield, MA, not far from where he spent some time in his youth. While my wife and I were wathcing, I couldn’t help noticing that some of his fingerings on the guitar were a bit non.-standard.

It required a bit of elaboration and so here is me in elaboration mode:

>>> James Taylor Has Magic Fingers

Most of the drummers and percussionists I know really, really dig Latin Percussion’s stuff. I mean, in that realm, who have you got? Maybe Remo and LP. Is there anyone else?

Anyway, the New York Times had this great article about the founder of LP, a guy by the name of Martin Cohen, who was an engineering student, photographer and a die-hard jazz fan. Turns out that back in the 1960s, when things went south with Cuba, where most fine percussion instruments were made, there was an immediate shortage of quality bongos to be had.

So, in steps Martin, who was just trying to provide some decent instruments for the musicians who played the music he loved. And the instruments he created became quite good, and also served as the bridge for friendship with the many musicians who began to play them.

So what’s an amateur photographer to do? Well, why not take a lifetime’s worth of classic photographs of many of the player who have define jazz’s history for the past half century.

More on this:

>>> The Photography of Martin Cohen

Let’s get this straight about me and Bob Moog (rhymes with Vogue). We didn’t know each other all that well (if at all). He was a tech icon, and I was just a guy who’d started an Internet co. with a few sites. We met briefly at a NAMM show before he passed in 2005.

But he was a hero and he was real — his inventions and innovations so large, and his contribution to music so vast, that he now has his own festival, the Moogfest, annually in Asheville, NC (Asheville, BTW, continually rated as one of the best places to live in the US).

Anyway, it got me thinking and here’s how it went down:

>>> Setting the Moog for Musicians Everywhere

Hmm … now that I look at the title, this sounds like more like a marketing tagline than actual solid advice for musicians.

Anyway, after having played in more than a few bands in a previous life (before all the tech stuff), there are a few simple truths about how a band, especially a young band, develop bad habits. The problem is that the members are all so intertwined and close to both the music and the process of practicing that no one has any objectivity left.

So, during a train ride home from teaching at NYU, I jotted down a quick list of some of the things that have helped my bands in the past, and then posted it on the ActiveMusician blog. It’s a little curt and brute-force, but the sentiment it there.

Enjoy.

>>> 10 Ways to Make Your Band Better … Fast

The laptop, and now more specifically, touch tablets like the iPad allow designers and developers to really stretch out in the interfaces they can create for musicians.

I mean, does this start the mind wondering about the possibilities or what?

The First iPad Street Musician? from Ilya Plavunov

For more info on the app and my thoughts on where this is headed:

>>> iPad Street Musicians and the Seline HD App