Rick Reifenstein

I love my new day job. I really do. However as with any job where you are replacing someone who has moved on, there are a lot of old projects that come back to haunt you. One of those for me has been the revival of an XML file used to generate an RSS feed for final exercises at the University. The feed is used to notify patrons what locations are open for remote viewing of graduation. First let me say that most of my experience with mark up languages has been centered on what XAML code I needed to know to write Microsoft Surface applications. So writing XML code to create an RSS feed was new to me. Plus there are several other pressing projects to deal with at the same time as this one. The previous owner of the script that generated the XML file was a PHP coder. So that's what we had to go by. My IT manager and myself are not PHP language people so I was lost. The owner of the PHP code did come back and give us permission , but when my team rewrote and saved; the file was rewritt...

Gremlins have camped out at my house. This happens to me every once in a while. They lie in wait until my household budget has reach a point in the year where things are tight. Then they attack. Systems fail all over the house. This time they attacked some key systems in our house. My music studio computer was the first to go down. Now my surround sound system has a dead left channel. So for our family movie night last night I brought up an old stereo system with a psuedo surround dsp chip in it and re-wired my entertainment system. The system is one of those that has surround speakers and uses a dsp chip create false rear imaging. Usually this is done with phase shifting and a bit of echo. I was pressed for time so I just connected the front main speakers. Turned the dsp on and used the "Rock" preset for the eq. Surprisingly I had a better theatrical audio experience with the fake 3D surround then I did with the real surround system. The 3D imaging was fantastic! Not only di...

Yes even a Director if Technology can have his home computer die! I'm almost embarrassed to say that the last computer I bought for myself was a first generation iMac. It was a 600mhz G3 in a wonderful smoky color case. I recorded several self produced recording projects on that machine. I used it for recording up until 2005. Now don't misunderstand me, I've since used faster computers, but they were all hand me downs in a sense. Someone would upgrade and ask if I wanted their old computer. Most of the time their computer was faster than the one I was currently using, so I'd say “yes”. The most recent machine was a Dell XPS 600 that I inherited from my friend and Ships on Fire collaborator L.E. Spry. He upgraded and asked if I wanted the Dell. It has been the main machine for the last 3 years. All the music I wrote for various soundtrack projects in the last couple of years was done on that machine. So know I start the process of moving over to another machine. Curr...

The following post was written a week ago. However with my schedule things got pushed back. I apologize for "old" news.   This mornings coffee reading, was about the leaks that came out surrounding Windows 8. We’re not sure if what we are looking at are really going to be in the operating system, but they are fun to dream and banter whether or not the changes will be good for the system or bad. Long Zheng over the weekend posted screenshots released by Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110403/windows-8-explorer-teases-file-syncing-and-web-sharing/ note that the circles are placeholders for the eventual icons that will live in the ribbon and other menus. There of course is talk of having “sync” capabilities with Mesh or SkyDrive storage that is tied to your Live account; these are raising some questions of anti-trust again. Some other ideas that have been floating around is that Windows 8 will borrow more from the Win7 phone model; Making ...

I hate when the weather report says a chance of thunderstorms, causing me to take an umbrella and a raincoat, only to sit all day and watch nothing but blue sky occur. UGH! While we were trying to systematically figure out some network drive and server hardware failure at work today; I thought it would be a good time to revisit "Processing"  If you are unfamiliar with Processing, it's like a sketch book for programmers. It leans a little more to the "programming as art" side of the programming world. Here's the official description: " Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions....initially developed as a developer sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context.' I had caught a lecture and demonstration by Ben Fry one of the founders of Processing, and was impressed with what it can do with large data sets. the out put can...

I’ve been hobbling around on a sore ankle for the last 10 days for no reason. I say no reason cause I don’t know how it got injured. I did walk around a technology showcase in Richmond the day before , but it was fine. It’s feeling a bit better today. I think the weekend in Pittsburgh visiting family and doing nothing really helped. I submitted Lux Atrum for consideration for a job through Music Dealers last week. They were looking for a Rocktronica type piece. I felt Lux Atrum was what they were looking for. Not sure when I'll hear about whether it was selected. Posted on the site a new track called "Moonlit Bits". It was inspired by the soundtrack Daft Punk did for "Tron". The drums were done using Reactor. I want to do more work in Reactor this year. I have always liked the depth of the sounds coming from Reactor. I plan on using it a lot in the latest project in the studio right now; music for mediation. My therapist friend from California is working on he...

I apologize for the long delay between posts. I will hope to not fall behind as much in the future. As the title of this post indicates I have accepted a new position at the University of Virginia. I will start as the new Director of Technology and Audio/Visual Services in the Office of the Dean of Students on Feb 14. While I'll be continuing to draw on my passion for new interactive technology and bringing those technologies to light, I will also be heavily relying on my experience as a Production Manager, and media producer. There are several live event spaces that the Office of the Dean of Students has, and new venues being created. I refer to these spaces as venues because in my mind that's what they are. While these venues may not always have some entertainment associated with the activities taking place in the venues; there is still an element of showmanship that takes place by the presenters, speakers and sometimes performance oriented student activities. Like a theatric...