Archive for the 'Off Topic' Category

Sensory Overload

Published
by
Chris McKeever
on October 25, 2007
in Articles, Conferences, Internet and Off Topic
. 6 Comments

realtor.GIF Q:Whats the best remedy for your impending sensory overload and the need to share all the knowledge and ideas you are going to come up with while walking through the over 700 exhibitors on the REALTOR Expo TradeShow Floor?

A:Sit back, relax and BLOG about it!

And once again, CRT is your knight in cat-5 cable by hosting the super-swank, ultra-hip, plush and refreshment stocked bloggers lounge at the NAR Expo in Vegas. Yes, last year we were tucked away, a bit tricky to find, but that added to the intrigue and mystique!

So this year, to kick things off right, and let everyone in on the best kept secret during convention, CRT and the REALTOR.org team are hosting a Blogging/Expo kick off event in the Blogger’s Lounge (The Venetian Fourth - Room 4605).

If you are a blogger, join us Monday November 12th at 5:30PM. Meet the REALTOR.org Team, CRT and more importantly, learn the location of the lounge so you can plan your retreat from sensory overload during the rest of the week.

We look forward to meeting you -

CRT, Where are you?

Published
by
Chris McKeever
on June 8, 2007
in Articles, General and Off Topic
. 3 Comments

shout.jpg We have been quiet, but not bored! The last couple weeks have been a roller coaster of excitement. We went from an internal IT strategic planning retreat (two days of food induced brainstorming) to a moving our facilities from NAR-6th floor to NAR-4th floor. Its been crazy!

With that, we needed to clean up one of CRT’s dirty little secrets, the CRT server room was a closet - seriously, the servers have all been stashed in a closet for the past 5+ years. Well, we have grown up. This week we finished rolling out 4 IBM Rackmount servers into the NAR Server Room - environmentally controlled, remote IP viewable - all the bells and whistles that an IT kid would love.

Keith handled the code server (code.crt.realtors.org) and the mail server (mail.crt.realtors.org). I handled the web server (www.crt.realtors.org) and our internal file server. Its always fun cleaning and rearranging the servers! All the servers got baselined with a nice fresh install of Centos5, and then we went from there. Maia is protecting our mail, WordPress is keeping us vocal, and Samba is storing our files.

The cost for Dunkin Donuts to help push us through this: $20
The cost for all the software to run the entire CRT IT shop: FREE
The cost of knowing this: Priceless

I promise to get back blogging better next week, as well as keeping up with the deep links!

P.S. - this was my test I didnt fudge up the blog! ;)

Loose Thread

Published
by
Chris McKeever
on April 10, 2007
in Internet and Off Topic
. 4 Comments

thread.jpg

I like email! If you know me, have emailed me, or found my email plastered on light posts, you would know this. I’m that guy that replies via email to your voicemail. It just seems more efficient and provides me with a automatic TODO list (which is simply my Inbox and Starred Messages). I’m not sure what the proper netiquette is for email closure, but I am a big fan of letting the other party know that you have gotten their email, and you will handle it accordingly, even if that just means a quick ‘Thank You’.

Continue reading ‘Loose Thread’

CRT on Rails

Published
by
Mark Lesswing
on January 10, 2006
in Off Topic and Reviews
. 0 Comments

You have probably been reading about Ruby on Rails, a very interesting strategy to web development. The following is related only in name to Ruby. I just arrived in NYC for the Inman Conference and though I would share my trip up from Washington, DC. I have been a “railfan� for many years and operate a HO scale layout in my basement. Before you ask, yes, all swiches are controlled from a Linux computer.

I started the journey to New York from my favorite rail station, Washington’s Union Station. The architecture is so impressive, I decided to arrive a bit early just to take it all in. I peered down the Metroliner section and noticed that they still run the “round� style cars I remember from the 80’s. But, I was going on the Acela so I kept walking.

I then stopped by the magazine stand and found four different Linux magazines, cool. I won’t be bored.

Continue reading ‘CRT on Rails’

RAISH

Published
by
Keith Garner
on December 22, 2005
in Off Topic
. 1 Comment

A few weeks ago I attended the RETS committee meeting in Las Vegas. The meetings were in the Westin Casuarina hotel. While staying there, I discovered that Las Vegas is truly on the cutting edge of technology. Since I found no other way to describe it, I called it RAISH.

Yes, RAISH. Similar to the RAID systems we all know from our machine rooms, RAISH stands for a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Shower Heads. Both shower heads worked and there was a good pressure on both.

Since its only two shower heads, its either RAISH 0 or RAISH 1, I just can’t deceide which.

(Thanks to David Riggs for the photo. He snagged it with his digital camera. My cell phone camera was/is on the fritz.)

Generational differences

Published
by
Todd Costigan
on December 7, 2005
in Articles, General and Off Topic
. 2 Comments

Because it was so cold (0°) in Chicago today I did not ride my bike to work but instead took the subway. I grab the free Redeye newspaper that is published by the Chicago Tribune. The paper is a quick read and great for my 15 minute ride.

Today edition featured an article on differences in generations and how the generational styles vary while on the job. The generations and approximate ages were:
- Baby boomer - born 1946 -1964
- Gen X - born 1965 to 1977
- Gen Y - born 1978 to 1989
- Millennial - born 1990 +

These groups have more then different taste in TV, music and clothes. The way they interact with one another, communicate and work styles play a role in how you the REALTOR can best connect with them. One size does not fit all. A colorful marketing brochure may fit one groups’ need while another may want to gather opinions on a possible new neighborhood from others already living there by visiting a blog. And each is likely looking in a different sector of the market.

Many baby boomers have reached their peak earning years. They are now thinking of the house of their dreams, an empty next or a second/vacation/retirement home. Gen X is in the midst of family years - so many are moving up to accommodate their growing families while many Gen Y’ers are purchasing their first home or condo.

So, not only are their housing needs different, their approach to purchasing real estate is also different. More later on methods to different generational groups.

Understand the CRT better

Published
by
Keith Garner
on December 2, 2005
in Off Topic
. 1 Comment

In an effort to help you better understand the CRT, I point you to the Wikipedia article on Metasyntactic Variables.

I point this out based on a conversation I had with Todd this morning where he asked me “What is this foo you keep using when you talk.” I often use many of the metasyntactic variables listed in the examples section without even thinking about it. I suspect other computer people do as well.

After my explanation (helped by wikipedia) Todd said he would use the word widgets instead of foo. This is a wonderful illistration of the difference in his business-oriented background vs my tech-oriented background.

If nothing else, the wikipedia entry is a very interesting read that I think can help you understand us better.

2005 World Champs

Published
by
Todd Costigan
on October 28, 2005
in Off Topic
. 0 Comments

CRT is Chicago based. In the past couple of weeks, we too got caught up in the excitement of the 2005 White Sox. They were fun and it was entertaining to watch Ozzie ball. We congratulate them and their die hard fans including Aubrey and my Dad.

The 2005 White Sox also taught some simple lessons:
- be a team player
- contribute what you can
- enjoy what you are doing
- keep on swinging.

Sounds like …

Published
by
Mark Lesswing
on September 28, 2005
in Off Topic, Reviews and Tools
. 0 Comments

Years in the making, Ardour 0.99 is finally released.

Audio work is something I got into when I began recording my my son (hey, he just got his first gig, Saturday night) and daughter in a effort to explore music education alternatives. The theory is that once the basics are in hand, students can learn faster by listening to themselves play. They become “self critical” without becoming angry at the instructor. They know a session “sucks” because they can hear it themselves. As a “toy” my six year old sings along with (karaoke style) Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. It is hilarious to listen to him yell “Teacher! Leave them kids alone!”

Here is my own review of Ardour:

Ardour is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). You can get latency down to around 30 ms, even with software-based plug-in effects. The most popular (and fastest) Windows-based DAW (ProTools) can get latency down to around 90 ms for around $300. The trick to achieving this in Linux is using low-latency kernel processing (supported directly by 2.6). I have noticed that this configuration handles interrupts as kernel threads. If I run “top”, I see that the wait state for processing is always slightly above 1.0. When I first saw this, I thought something was wrong, but it is supposed to
be this way. With low latency processing, you can give priority to interrupt particular interrupt threads, like your sound card.

This is more than an sound editor (like Audacity), Ardour is a multi-track recorder with effects like an digital mixer. Effect plug-ins must support the LADSPA “standard” which gives you a couple of hundred from about 10 sources. Effects include the usual suspects (reverb, chorus, etc.). VST plug-ins from the Windows world (ProTools) can be supported with Wine.

Ardour supports sessions, auditioning and mixing with a multiple bus architecture just like digital mixers. I run a 24 bit sound card with four inputs and four outputs with no problem. I have four condenser microphones for input and use only two of the outputs (configured as right and left) for my control room monitor. In the future (when I can spend some more money), I will add headphone service to outputs three and four.

A full studio can be configured by using Rosegarden (MIDI Sequencer and SoftSynth), Hydrogen (drum kit) or Jamin (mastering tool). These tools can be used as input or output processes live via the Jack transport tools. Jack is like a giant, virtual “patch bay” (makes me think of Aubrey’s “switchboard” only “real time” and smaller).

As a stand alone, Ardour can export to .wav including TOC or CUE files for CD production. It cannot read ProTools format directly (proprietary file format), but can import .wav files exported by the tool.

Ardour has been ported to OS X too.

There will be no 1.0. The development was so delayed, they will go right to 2.0 which is a GTK 2 version. This should “spiff up” sliders and other controls a bit. The current version has a pleasing presentation though and the default theme is classic black. This makes the meters (lots of green, yellow and red) really standout.