Video: iPad Concert Pianist (This will blow your mind)

9to5Mac writer, Jonny Evans, recently blogged about a concert pianist named Lang Lang. You can check out his words here. But I’m just going to cut to the good stuff here:

My mind is blown.

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!-Mason

How will public libraries stay relevant?

It’s a yucky day in Brooklyn today, so I thought I’d venture outside of my apartment to do some work. Conveniently, the Brooklyn Public Library is only a couple blocks away so I hoofed it over here and arrived a few moments ago. There are some dark clouds in the sky so I think I made it just in time. Regularly I’m not a big fan of rain storms; but I’ll totally take one today. My allergies have been going bonkers lately. Anything that could help control the pollen that’s in the air would be good in my book! Let it rain, I say. I have a cup of coffee and public WiFi. I’m set.

This is my first time visiting the Brooklyn library and I have to say it’s a pretty super cool place. I’m sitting across from a section of Russian books and, staring down the isles, I can see Chinese, Italian, and other world language areas. How cool is that? I really love how diverse Brooklyn is. This area is a cultural melting pot. I feel like I’m learning more each day just from interacting with the people here and I can’t wait to see how that affects the music that the guys and I continue to create. I often feel like, while the lyrics I write are primarily research-based, they are frequently colored by my experiences. It’s always fun to look back on the early material that found its way on to appeal and think about what was going on in my life at that time. I hope that you might feel the same way.

I’m feeling particularly contemplative today so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share something I’m thinking about with you. I’d love to get your thoughts on this.

How do you think public libraries will function in the future?

Or better yet, how do you feel that they will stay relevant?

It strikes me that the printed page will go the way of the CD in the coming years so I wonder what will become of our library system. Sure, the cost of digital reading devices like Amazon‘s Kindle – which, by the way, you can use to subscribe to this blog – Barnes and Noble‘s Nook, and Apple‘s iPad is restrictive at this time; but, over the next few years, the cost to manufacture will go down and the barrier to entry will be removed. It’s hard to imagine our books and newspapers being replaced by computer screens. However, I would have said the same thing about cassette tapes growing up

How do you feel about the digitalization of print media? Do you see it replacing traditional newspapers, books, and magazines?

If/when this happens, I’d like to see libraries turn in to community centers. It would be great to see people coming to places like this to learn from and connect with each other. What would you like to see?

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

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• Going Out of Print (technologyreview.com)
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The Real Life Keyboard Cat

Recently I blogged about the iPad‘s release and a notation application that looks pretty slick. Apparently humans aren’t the only mammals who are being attracted to Apple‘s new pretty shiny thing. As Tamar Weinberg from my favorite Mac/tech blog, Macgasm [see my guest post there about e-mail signatures], points out, cats seem to be drawn towards its mysterious glow as well.

Was that great or what? By the way, did anyone else notice the cat’s name is Iggy? ^_^

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!
-Mason

Happy iPad Day!

A couple of months ago I blogged about how I wanted an iPad for my birthday. Unfortunately, my special day came a little earlier than Apple‘s, so I wasn’t able to convince my friends and family to combine their monetary powers on my behalf. Shame, I know However, if your birthday is coming up, or you just feel like dropping a couple of hundred bucks on a shiny, pretty thing; (deep breath) today is your lucky day because the iPad hath cometh.

Are you thinking about buying an iPad? Did you wait in a line for yours this morning? Are you pacing your house while waiting for your pre order to arrive? Why would you or did you choose to buy one? Honestly, I think I just want one because Steve Jobs says I should get it. But, if you’re a fellow musician, Agile Partners may have just given you a more legitimate excuse in the form of their app, TabToolKit. Andrew Hayward from Mac Life recently posted a great piece on what they’re doing. If you are a musician and technology enthusiast, this is a must read. I’ve posted a couple screen shots of the application’s interface below for your viewing pleasure. If you find them to be as intriguing as I do, I think you’re going to really enjoy Andrew’s post.

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

One Huge Milestone for Music

Yesterday Apple announced they would be starting a contest dubbed ‘One huge milestone for music’ to award a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the person who downloads the 10 billionth song on iTunes. If you’re thinking about purchasing some music through Apple’s service in the not too distant future, it could be your lucky day! Judging by the odometer Apple has posted on its iPod + iTunes page, they’re going to get there pretty quickly.

Thanks to Seth Weintraub from 9to5mac for the head-up about this!

P.S. If you’d like to enter but aren’t quite sure what song you’d like to buy, please allow me to make a suggestion: our album, Lensing.
Trust me; I am totally not biased.

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

What I’d Like for My Birthday

Today Apple finally unveiled their oft-rumored tablet and, as I’m sure many of you have seen already, it’s a big iPhone… which is exactly why I want one. The iPad (as it’s called) boasts an incredibly sensitive multi-touch-enabled screen and I could see an iPad-specific version of an app like Noise.io‘s Pro Synth allowing us to add some seriously cool new elements to our live show.

The guitarist in this picture is now officially the coolest kid in school.

My birthday is February 25th.

Just throwing that out there

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

I Hate iWeb

So for the last two days straight – and I mean straight – I’ve been working on re-designing a’tris HQ. The guys and I have been wanting to overhaul the site for some time now but have just been utterly swamped trying to pay our bills and record our next album. The Lensing template always seemed a little under cooked to me. It continues to do its job well but I feel that it could be far more streamlined and polished.

Unfortunately I’ve recently come to learn that I am not the person to affect those changes.

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to blame iWeb. It is not Apple’s fault that I have absolutely no basic knowledge of HMTL. I should have picked up that skill set a long time ago. Alas, I did not. However it was, for that reason, that I – with much glee – upgraded to Apple’s latest iLife suite of applications. I love Garageband and I now use it to help me plot each and every a’tris song, station ID, and an occasional singing telegram or two. iPhoto is AMAZING and it allows me to easily edit and sort my favorite photographs and I did all of a’tris’ video blogs with iMovie. The promise of the new iWeb’s ability to upload directly to an FTP server was a golden orb to me.

Sadly though it turned out to be a gold-painted tungsten one. Sure it’s great if you use Apple’s templates. Just click on the “Comic Book” option and you’re good to go! But, if you’re like me, and you want to build your own custom website when you see this app turn and run for your life. After finally managing to publish a copy of the new HQ to my desktop I was extremely disappointed to find that what had looked absolutely beautiful in the builder was completely screwed up in every single one of my browsers. Graphics were jumping all over the place. Text colors where wacky. Everything was off. I’ve tried and tried to fix it but nothing has seemed to work. Usually I’m up for a puzzle; if you have a killer cross-word bring it on! But today… I’m just burned out.

On a positive note, our friends DJ Meatwad and Paulie from Headcase Radio and Dibivegas respectively have been showing us a lot of love lately and we really appreciate their support.

Meatwad directed us to this cool banner (cut and paste HTML I can handle) when you get a chance give it a click to check out what he’s doing!

Also make sure to to send Paulie a comment to request an a’tris tune or two Here’s how:

Go to podcastalley.com and enter DIGIVEGAS into the search field. Once his show pops up, click on DETAILS and then click on COMMENT.

Last but not least I’ve included some pictures of the website (as it properly appeared in iWeb) below. At the very least, we can all revel in the site that could have been together. If anyone would like to assist with this project please drop me a line; I’d be very, very happy to hand it over. If you are like me and don’t know how to help – or don’t have the time – that’s perfectly cool too. Leave me some feedback and let me know what you think! I’m really hoping to make the new site simple, intuitive, and rich with frequently updated content. For example, in the upper right hand corner you’ll notice a speech bubble which I successfully synched with the Twitter account we just created! On the homepage you’ll see my blogs updated in real time and, on the photo page, you’ll be able to view my snap shots almost as I take them from the road via an RSS feed. I really hope to get this up and running in the not too distant future and look forward to your thoughts!

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!

-Mason

Please note that some websites prevent embedded content from being displayed. If you are unable to view the following pictures please visit blog.myspace.com/atris. Thanks!

From a'tris HQ

From a'tris HQ

From a'tris HQ