We’ve reached a point in technical evolution where the mobile device is a handheld computer first and a telephone second. And as far as technology goes, nothing else has reached the same level of global saturation, with well over 50 percent of the world’s population now wired with a mobile phone.

The guy from IBM who told Apple’s Steves back in the day that no one would ever want a computer in their homes must really feel like a visionless asshole at this point. And if he doesn’t, he sure fucking should. Not only do people have multiple computers in their homes, they carry computers in their pockets.

Mobile phone have not only replaced land lines in many homes and helped techno-hipsters find each other while they’re out on the town, but they’ve been used to break news, fuel revolutions and keep an eye on public processes. The evolution of the mobile handheld is one of the most impressive advents of technology of all time, though it seems largely taken for granted by the generation who uses it most, probably because the technology has come of age along side the kids who adopt it the quickest. Even my generation, the oldest ages of X, has adapted pretty quickly to this marvel of modern science; we think nothing of taking out our iPhones, Blackberrys, Palms, etc. and tracking down our friends via GPS, making a restaurant, hotel or flight reservation, checking real time traffic and weather, or downloading some music.

Or, in this case, throwing a quick post up to a blog. There are mobile apps and SMS/MMS options for Tumbler, Blogger, in this case WordPress, and more, and because I’ve been dying to try it out ever since I installed the WP app on my BB Storm, I figured I’d wax philosophic on the impressive nature of mobile capabilities. But then again, you’re probably aware of all this anyway, so I’ll shut up about it.

Oh, and these photos? The Art Blakey record is what I was listening to when I wrote this, and I just thought the chrome 9 was some gangster ass shit to post for no reason in particular, except that I wanted to test the image posting capabilities of the WP Blackberry app from the phone’s camera and SD card gallery, respectively…

Because my laptop is pretty much always with me and is in my bag when I’m not using it, a main concern when considering an external hard drive — right up there with reliability and capacity — was portability and ruggedness. It’s going to have to survive in one of the small pockets in my shoulder bag, a snug but mobile environment. Furthermore, I’m always concerned with footprint that my laptop takes up in any work space. I don’t want a whole bunch of techno-accessories all over the place, especially on a desk in a home studio space that already overcrowded with gear; or on my desk at work with another computer and a ton of magazines, project documents and other office crap; or on an airplane, on the couch etc. So an ideal solution would also include something that keeps the drive out of the way.

I recently spent some time on vacation and one of the people I travelled with (my girlfriend’s oldest brother) had a Seagate Go drive affixed to the back of his old PowerMac laptop. It was a perfect solution. I totally bit the idea, hit the Office Depot and got to work. Here’s how it went down:

1. Chose your drive. There are handful of small-profile hard drives on the market, but I chose the Seagate 500GB FreeAgent GO, largely because of previous experience with the brand, and based on user reviews from sites like Amazon.com and Cnet.com. And I specifically chose the Mac version of the drive, though I could have gone with the PC one and reformatted to work with my MacBook. But the Mac-formatted version includes power management (sleep and shut down) that works in sync with the laptop’s power options, and comes ready to do the Mac Time Machine backup thing, and since I won’t be sharing this drive with my desktop computers at work or at home, it seemed like it was worth the extra $30.
2. Gather all the materials — laptop, hard drive, velcro (not pictured: scissors, to cut the velcro squares, which come in strips of four, into individual pieces):

   

3. Affix one side of the velcro squares to the back of the hard drive. I put the velcro hooks on the drive, because the inside of the sleeve I carry my laptop is all soft and fuzzy and would stick to the hooks:

   

4. To insure proper alignment, stick the fuzzy velcro squares — backing still attached — to the hooky velcro squares that are already affixed to the drive:

   

5. Get your placement right on the back of the laptop monitor (making sure the cable can reach the drive when it’s attached) remove the backing from the fuzzy squares (still stuck to the hook velcro on the back of the drive), and adhere it to the top of the laptop. NOTE: I discovered that my MacBook’s wireless antenna is on the left side of the monitor, and the active drive interfered with (pretty much totally cut off) the wireless signal, so I moved the drive to the right side of the monitor, and my wireless connection was restored to full:

   

6. You can see that the velcro provides a bit of lift to the drive to allow air flow between the back of the monitor and drive itself. With the Freeagent GO, it’s the silver top, not the bottom, that gets warm during use, so bottom ventilation doesn’t seem to be much of an issue:

   

7. Done. Open up the monitor, fire up the computer, and enjoy a shitload of extra hard drive space without taking up any more space on your desk:

   

I used to have a pretty beefy record collection. It certainly wasn’t the kind of impressive mass of vinyl that some DJ friends of mine have — the kind that requires specific insurance or an additional room in my house — but it was a couple thousand pieces, a decent collection by non-DJ, everyday-music-fan standards.

A few years ago, I sold off most of it. I had a fair amount of doubles, and a lot of stuff that I had also managed to collect on CD or digitally, plus plenty of shit that I thought was cool when I bought it, or that was purchased for some long-forgotten specific reason. I finally hit a phase of my life where less was more and I was purging a lot, so I poured through all the records and set aside a couple hundred pieces that I swore I would take to my grave, and put the rest up for sale. I let some DJ friends have first pick of the for-sale batch, and dumped the rest on Amoeba. I walked away with a tidy little stack of cash, a huge weight lifted (figuratively and literally), and a slimmed down, quality controlled collection — a few crates of nothing but greats.

Sadly, my record collection has continued to collect dust due to several reasons: accommodations (no room for records in the living room where the nice record player and stereo system are), life situations (fatherhood, and a girlfriend and baby daughter who aren’t necessarily always as interested as I might be in sitting around and listening to records), and scheduling issues (I’m fucking busy). Then, a couple months ago, someone I follow on Twitter posted a link to Woot.com, where the deal of the day was an Ion iPTUSB, a.k.a. the “portable vinyl-archiving turntable,” for a mere $50 (MSRP is $120, you can find ‘em online for $80 to $100). ‘Shit, at that price,’ I thought, ‘I can’t afford NOT to get it!’ So I pulled the trigger.

Ion’s iPTUSB has a pretty basic feature set: The top face contains a switch for 33, 45 and 78 record speeds, a +/- 10% Pitch knob, Low / High Tone knob, and a knob marked Audio that controls the volume; there’s a single 2″ speaker for monitoring, as well as RCA audio outs, and 1/8″ and 1/4″ headphone jacks, plus the USB port with an accompanying Gain knob for fine control of the audio being sent out over the USB connection. There’s also a handy little Line In 1/8″ jack that allows or the piggybacking of another audio source — cassette, AM/FM radio, etc. — for digital conversion of additional media types. The unit’s top case attaches via two hooks on the back and a slide lock on the front; it’s not bullet proof, but it’s fine for basic turntable protection…as long as you don’t have to use the iPTUSB as a step-stool, or beat a potential crook off of your record collection with it.

The entire surface of the player measures just over 11″ x 11″, so with the lid on, it fits on a shelf designed to hold records. With the lid off, a playing record actually hangs off the side — due to the room taken up on the top face by the tone arm, the speaker and the audio controls — but is supported by soft felt covered bumpers that keep everything level and steady. The turntable’s main power source is an included DC plug, but it also runs on six D batteries, so if you’re one of those serious diggin’-in-the-crates guys, you can take the iPTUSB with you and try-before-you-buy at the record store.

Basic setup on the iPTUSB is bonehead easy: Plug in the turntable’s DC power supply, connect it to your computer (Mac or PC; in my case, it’s hooked up to the desktop PC in my modest home studio) via the included USB cable, and install one or both software options that come with the turntable: EZ Vinyl or Audacity. I already had Audacity on my PC, so I left it at that. Follow the setup and troubleshooting instructions — there’s an easy one-step fix to some common wonkiness with the audio codec / driver — and you’re off.

The only problem I had initially was that, while Audacity was picking up the audio input from the iPTUSB just fine, and the built-in speaker and/or headphone jack on the turntable allowed me to hear what I was recording, I was unable to monitor the true fidelity of mix from the PC. When I’m sampling or, in many cases straight-up ripping audio, I like to hear what I’m getting at the destination point. I couldn’t make that happen, but I found that the latency between the iPTUSB and Audacity is negligible, so I was willing to settle for a monitoring solution that at least gave me full sound AND the freedom of mobility as I converted records to digital…or at the very least, just a way to simply listen to records in the lab.

I hit up my local pro audio shop and picked up an RCA-to-quarter-inch cable, which I used to connect the RCA audio-outs on the iPTUSB to one of the quarter-inch stereo-in sets on my mixing board, a Phonic Helix 18 Firewire, which opened up a few nice options:

1. as I mentioned, the USB connection from the turntable to the computer does not allow me to monitor the mix at the destination point (i.e. the sound as it is being recorded on the PC), and the tiny built-in speaker is really flat- and small-sounding, so this setup allows me to hear the full spectrum of what I’m ripping without being tethered to the immediate area by headphones;
2. it also allows me to use the iPTUSB as a source for vinyl sampling, because the Helix 18 board also happens to be my PC’s default soundcard, so when I’m working in Ableton Live or Cubase (which, for whatever reason, will not recognize the iPTUSB’s USB connection as a valid Line In), I just set the DAW’s audio input to the stereo in channels from the mixing board and, voila, I’m jackin’ for beats;
3. and finally, because the studio monitors — a pair of Mackie MR-5s — are connected to the main audio outs on the Helix board, it allows me to just listen to records in the lab, even if the computer is off, because, though the mixing board is the computer’s default audio source, it can also run completely independently from the PC.

Ultimately, the iPTUSB is way more versatile than I expected it to be, and I can’t complain about the sound quality. What was initially a rash purchase intended only for the conversion of vinyl to a more portable and convenient digital format, has become a catalyst for renewed interest in my trusty dusty record collection…not to mention a wealth of new sampling opportunity.

Here are a few favorite gems I’ve rediscovered recently and ripped to digital so you can hear some examples of the iPTUSB’s output…

Bud Powell, “Idaho,” Bud! (Blue Note, 1957)

This record is among my most prized musical possessions. An original pressing bought brand new by my mom in 1957, it’s a bit scratchy, but still in great shape. Powell is on piano, with Curtis Fuller on trombone, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. This is easily my favorite release from one of my favorite jazz pianists, and though this record was a rarity for a long time, it was reissued on CD by Blue Note in 2002.

Golden, “Titeshock,” Super Original Movement (Slowdime, 1999)

I bought this record (and a few others) from the band at a show The Blue Room Theater in Chico, CA in 1999, and forgot how much I love it. Originally formed at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1993, Golden was a supergroup before any of the band members went on to big indie cred fame. Members included recording engineer and guitarist Phil Manley (Trans AM, The Fucking Champs) and drummer Jon Theodore (Royal Trux, The Mars Volta), as well as Ian Eagleson and Alex Minoff who are now half of the band Extra Golden.

The Beatnuts, “40 Oz.” 12″ (n/a, 1995)

This track is off the B-side of a white label 12″ for the song “Fluid,” a sorta hard-to-find record that wasn’t officially released on any label. This poppin’ little ditty rides on a sample from “Ekim” by the Michal Urbaniak Group — made famous by A Tribe Called Quest on “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)” — backed by a big boombastic kick drum, and the whole thing is absolutely murdered by JuJu & Psycho Les on the mic. The “Fluid” 12″ ranks among my top favorite rap music 12″s.

*All audio files ripped straight from the iPTUSB into Audacity and exported to 192k mp3 files with no additional effects applied.

I downloaded and installed iTunes 8 for my PC and my MacBook, and it’s fine — it’s still got the same clean interface, still organizes and plays my music, and still syncs with my iPod, so it’s everything I really need it to be.

Most of the new and modified features are of little interest to me, but the Genius Sidebar option is a little freaky. In addition to making “smart” playlists of similar music, it sends users’ information to the iTunes store so it can more specifically target marketing efforts based on an individual’s listening habits. I’m not down with sharing my usage data with big companies. I know, plenty of big companies have plenty of information on me already, and more to the point, I have a Last FM account, which is public and essentially generates the same kind of data, so I shouldn’t really complain. But I’ve come to terms with how easy it is to access people’s personal information in the internet era; and my Last FM shit isn’t tied to a global marketing machine (yet — it is, after all, owned by Yahoo) and I control what info gets published to Last FM’s machine.

Ultimately, the payoff for trading my personal info for musical suggestions isn’t worth it. I’m always interested in the kinds of technology and services that offer music (or books or clothing) based on existing usage or previous purchasing data, but I’m rarely impressed by their results. Suggestions made by these kinds of interfaces are almost always totally not of interest to me (the science behind it just isn’t intuitive enough to handle the job; I’d rather use Pandora, anyway). And frankly I’m also starting to get really sick of being marketed to ALL THE TIME.

Which brings me to my only other real iTunes 8 gripe: those little iTunes Store direct-link arrow buttons next to the data in each of the fields of an iTunes playlist. Used to be a little option in the General Preferences panel to turn those off, and now the store has to be disabled entirely in the Parental Control Preferences panel for those links to go away (which, incidentally, also disables the Genius Sidebar). That sucks. Every single aspect of listening to music does not have to be about buying more music.

I’m happy to have the store enabled, and I use it sometimes, but those damn arrows have to go. I’m simply not interested in being reminded every time I look at iTunes that I can instantly buy more music from that artist, album or genre. Not to mention the skewed logic in having those links next to existing music, specifically in the Name and Album columns — I already own those songs and albums, why would I buy ‘em again?

Luckily, this issue has been raised in the iTunes forums. Not that I expect Apple to do anything about it — seriously though, how much trouble would it be to reintroduce that option to the General Preferences panel? — but you’ll see in that thread that there are work-arounds to get rid of the arrows in both Mac and PC formats, though they involve some code-monkeying. Which also kinda sucks, but it gets the job done.