Learning Something New - Amazingly Frustrating Fun

Learning something new can be both frustrating and satisfying at
the same time.

Over the weekend I was able to sneak in several painful, frustrating, hair-pulling, beard-graying hours trying to understand my new audio board. Now please keep in mind it is not the Behringer Xenyx X1832USB's fault. I personally have taken to task learning from scratch how to incorporate a more professional piece of equipment into my studio with almost nil of previous knowledge. So I understood from the very beginning I would hit some pitfalls getting said board incorporated with my multiple, PCs, recorder, iPad2, and new condenser and dynamic microphones. After some rather long sessions I still have much to learn.

So what did I get to work? 

• New condenser microphone feeding to main - check
• New dynamic microphone feeding to main - check
• ZOOM X4N - Recording from either microphone and a direct line back in to listen to recordings as well. -check
• iPad2 - Line into board for playing from Garage Band or other audio apps.- check
•           - *Note - Have not tested for recording into iPad2 - yet.
• Studio PC - Direct line in and back
•                  - USB Webcam - Check
•                  - Skype Session - Check
•                  - Hangout - Check
•                  - AVS4YOU -  recorder - works but buzzing noise (60Mhz issue with monitor) - help!

What is driving crazy and not working!

Laptop - Direct line in and back
            - Line back into the board is working fine - check
            - USB Webcam - Cannot get to work without using webcam speaker instead of board mic.
                  - This renders any video programs useless until figured out.
            - AVS4YOU - Cannot get input to work correctly to record

I have played with the Dell application that recognizes the input into the microphone jack and I have played with the sound recorder settings as well making sure the default line in is microphone/headphones. I can get it to input through the board mikes but there is a buzzing noise being caused by my secondary monitor being plugged in - HELP! The bigger issue is I can't figure out how to get the webcam to have input from the board mikes like on the Studio PC. I am using the same settings but not getting the same results. I suspect this studio microphone application from Dell is the culprit but I don't know how to disable it and just rely on Windows 7 to control everything. That is my main pain at the moment.

If anybody has suggestions about how I can resolve this please feel free to email me at headhardhat@gmail.com. I would greatly appreciate it.

If not I am going to figure this out one way or another. Ah the wonders of technology when learning something new.

-Andy

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Be sure to keep up with everything HeadHardHat at his website:
HeadHardHat Productions
http://www.headhardhat.com 

What to know what Andy HeadHardHat Smith is up to?
Check out his personal blog for the inside scoop:
http://andyheadhardhatsmith.blogspot.com

Out Of My Comfort Zone

Well it was most definitely time to either sit back and coast or put on my big boy pants and get serious about my media career. So to be able to do what I want in regards to podcasting, video casting and better quality video work I needed some serious equipment upgrading.

For starters I just unboxed and am currently configuring this:

This is my new Behringer Xenyx X1832 audio board and I have never touched anything like this equipment before. Needless to say I am out of my comfort zone when it comes to technology like this and yet I am as giddy as a school boy with the fun and frustrations I will be going through learning it.

So yeah, long story short I will be hooking in two pc's, an iPad using Garage Band, several condenser and dynamic microphones, some external speakers, headphones, Xoom recorder and possibly my smart phone. I will be able to record two simultaneous Skype sessions and the video shows themselves (video on pc's and audio here).  See easy. 

I have so much planned over the next few months and into next year and I am so geeked to be seeing things going into fruition.

Stay tuned and when I get everything up and running I will take you around the GeoSnippits Studios.

-Andy

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Be sure to keep up with everything HeadHardHat at his website:
HeadHardHat Productions
http://www.headhardhat.com 

What to know what Andy HeadHardHat Smith is up to?
Check out his personal blog for the inside scoop:
http://andyheadhardhatsmith.blogspot.com

Be A Blogger - Get Your Word Out

There are always seems to be two sides to a subject.

There are always two kinds of people. The ones who agree with you and the ones who don't. Pick a subject, any subject and you always will have two sides to it. So when I bring up the point that one of the easiest and most expressive ways to get YOU out into the world of the the Internet is to blog you immediately get the two sides of topic. First there are the eye-rolling naysayers who swear that blogging is dead and you are just wasting your time. Can't we all just express ourselves in 140 characters or less? Better yet isn't it better to just Facebook your ideals and interests? Blogging is so last-couple-of -years-ago, isn't it?

It is my hope to help persuade you back into the light and side with me about the benefits of blogging. Here's why.

Yes it is true that you can express yourself in the social media world by doing tweets, statuses and other media blurbs. Though in those cases you are extremely limited to the amount of content you can provide to others and if you notice most of them point to other sites that have more information - like blogs for example.
Blogs or Blogging allows the author to discuss specific points of interest with much greater depth and detail. It also allows you to have viewers who are interested in your particular subject to know that the posts created are made for them and they know what to expect. Everyone else can simply ignore it and move on. You have then a focused audience and can write to their and your needs.

Getting it off your chest, you've heard that expression before and believe it or not blogging has been one of my most pleasurable ways to do just that. Discuss subjects that are of interest to me in a way that I feel comfortable explaining them. I am not a technical writer in any way and I know that my posts are not grammatically correct. In fact my wife IS a technical writer and I have brought her to tears with my writings. The funny thing is when I have put out posts that have been "corrected" I immediately get comments back of the difference, this is not a technical manual and to cut it out. I listen to my readers and writes how I writes. The point is you don't have to worry about how you write your blog, rather that you make sure you write a blog. Tell people how you feel about a particular subject. Then use Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the tons of other social media outlets where they can go to get more. If you write it, they will come.

I can't tell you how much of an outlet blogging can be. I personally cannot express myself in too many media ways. For example, I can't draw a circle to save my life but I can tell you about all the good things in my circle and the stuff on the outside as well. You can too. Sure you may not have thousands of readers right off the bat but that is not important. What is will be you venting your viewpoints and information into blog posts. When you get enough of them out there people will come and read them. For me personally it is a great stress relief.

My first blog I ever put a good effort into was about geocaching (go figure). It is called "Geocache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?" and it was a way to talk about my geocaching adventures from day to day. Now over the years it has become an award winning encyclopedia of insights that is viewed all around the world. Who'da thunk a career that I have in Over The Top Television, Internet Video, Podcasting and so much more would have originated from a simple blog telling what I think about a game, sport and obsession like geocaching. It happened to me, go out and see what it can do for you.

See you out on the trails,

Andy HeadHardHat Smith

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Be sure to keep up with everything HeadHardHat at his website:
HeadHardHat Productions
http://www.headhardhat.com 

What to know what Andy HeadHardHat Smith is up to?
Check out his personal blog for the inside scoop:
http://andyheadhardhatsmith.blogspot.com

So Where Has HeadHardHat Been?

Ever Have One Of THOSE Years?

Hey fellow readers, viewers and geocaching enthusiasts. Well, judging by the slew of requests to my lack of postings, tweets, statuses and episodes of Geocaching World and Geocaching Podcast people are wondering what is going on with the Ole HeadHardHat.

I wish it was because I won that Internet lottery I keep getting emails about and have been taking the past few weeks off sitting on some Caribbean beach somewhere. That would be awesome but unfortunately untrue. The fact is I have had a rather brutal year this year. Even worse than last year believe it or not where I had to endure 9 months of unemployment.  Shiver, let's not even open that can of worms. No this year alone I found out a close family member was pregnant way too early in her young life. In a matter of three months I almost bought my home, found out after dragging forever that I then could not purchase my home. Was going to rent said home for a year until I could then purchase the home, only to find to the owner lost the home and I had to move out in two weeks. Believe it or not that was not as much fun as it sounded. Next my father passed away earlier in the year. Completely unexpected and out of state to boot. I really miss you Dad. Lessee, then the rest of this year I dealt with the pregnancy, the birth and the adoption that followed. Oh and don't forget issues and drama with my children that turned up several healthy notches. Phew.

Now that all of that is behind me my divorce is in mid October. I swore that i never was going to get divorsed. That i would be the one to beat the odds, funny how life reminds you of how little we control.

With all of this for the bulk of this year I had to keep the cool and clam front. Never being able to waiver because of so many others were hanging on and wanting me to help them through it all. For most of the year I was able to do it. Keeping myself strong by not putting too much thought into the reality that was all around. Knowing that if I cracked only chaos and more drama would be the result.
I needed a break - big time. So I took a few weeks off and let all the frustrations of the year flow off. Well as much as possible anyway. There are always more things to take care of  but that is what happens when you are a single parent. It was just a good thing for me to kick back for a couple of weeks and recharge. I do feel more focused and even though not all of the pain is gone I at least feel I can keep going again. Now I am ready to take on my hobbies again and looking forward to it. So if I am still a little lacks in the amount of social interaction with everyone you will at least know why. Don't worry. I will be going strong before you know it.

Thanks for being there!

Andy Headhardhat Smith

Time To Get Personal - A Post About HeadHardHat

Andy HeadHardHat Smith

Me, me, me, let's talk about, well - me. Even now as I type this I am thinking to myself. How do I explain the reason of why I made a personal blog even though I have my own internet televisions show, co-host of a very popular geocaching podcast, create videos for a world wide geocaching tutorial series, post for an a award winning geocaching blog plus a whole ton of other things... Why do a personal blog as well?

The answer is rather simple for me. There is so much more that happens in my life that I feel will be interesting to others. Not that I will slow down on the geocaching information. Geocaching is ingrained into my life and I plan on getting even more into with it by doing a brand new GeoSnippits Reboot Videos and a new Podcast as well. Yet I love technology and will also starting a whole new bunch of techno based media as well. Throw in my knowledge of blogging, Internet presence, Social Media interaction and many other topics I think I can draw in a multitude of interesting content and then share it with you.

So here it is and I hope you enjoy it. Think of it as being in Beta until I get everything in place and as always your insights and input is always welcome. Let me know what is on your mind.

-HeadHardHat