Noivad on Dice!
“Computers and all technology associated with it are the means, not the end — even if you sell the technology. At the end of the day you want people to be able to accomplish what they set out to do with your tools as easily as possible.” — Noivad (axiom oft quoted on blog many times & in many ways.)
NoiVad lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an avid technologist. What started long ago as a hobby and a way to pay for college, grew into a career in IT. He has a BA from SFSU in Broadcasting and Electronic Communication Arts which includes training in audio & video production: logistics, planning (producing), directing (mutli-sync/timing), team building (project co-ordination), physical & digital AV editing, visual and audio communication theory, design, recording, mixing, acoustics, wave theories, and the science of acoustical & optical phenomena etc. He also received an FCC Amateur Radio Operator license in 1996.
During the second half of attending SFSU, he took jobs working as a desktop publishing monkey, which led to product evaluation with ROI, systems administration and integration (Mac<>PC), networking, relational database design and pretty much anything related to computers. He has learned and mastered everything from laser scanner programs (the type of lasers one might see at a rave in the 90s or a Frankie Goes to HollyWood video), to vi, to Illustration programs (yet you will never hear him claim to be an artist). He has kicked the tires of many types of hardware and software.
[In fact, the first thing he does with new hardware or software after checking prefs and menus, is try to crash them. He is usually successful within 15–30 minutes. (“OS X 10.8 ruined my streak.”)]
Sharing Technical info on this blog is just a way of helping myself by helping everyone understand tech and techniques just a little bit better or to see a different perspective from a communications person who has a different agenda than most of the current outlets. My idea is that a rising tide, aside from the lift, also allows people to see and set a watermark. If your tech support is below this: dump them, or train them better. Hire people that can do the job and learn to hone it. I find the attitude towards colleagues and culture between them determine’s their effectiveness.
The ultimate goal? To educate and inform. If one technology has an edge in one area it will get a nod. But this info will be presented in a matrix of considering context: “this is perfect for you if you value this or already own this.” So, by shaping opinions, and considering multiple type of users (my “one size does not fit all” axiom I coined in the 90s) and how one tech compares to others in bottom line analysis. Really it is about precision, and realizing there are various measure of precision — different facets/opinions with different values.
As an example of my striving for precision: you might notice this is one of the only blogs or sites on the internet that uses proper typography — yup, I carry that over from my early typesetting days. Seeing a inch mark where a quote should be in professional news or literary makes me wince. So, as you can imagine, I wince many times a day. (I even send SMS texts with proper typography—unless a friend [1 friend] does not have extended ASCII of UTF-8 savvy phone!)
He has spent over half his life continually learning new skills on his own initiative and staying current with tech trends. In addition to technology, he strives to be an excellent communicator and successful planner and decision maker.
Apparently, he said something right to someone in charge and they decided to invite him to join them as a tech blogger. Because he believes in sharing what he has learned with his experiences, he decided it would be a mutually beneficial relationship. So, he joined Dice News as a tech blogger. So, he will be forking his entries with those more tech oriented ones going to Dice News and non-tech musing here. Also, related content not essential to Dice posts will be available here. Unfortunately, most articles have more to do with doing a job than finding a job. So, it has been a very long time since I submitted an article to Dice.
When not applying his skills he spends time with loved ones and friends when he is not making what he jokingly calls “bad techno” or occasionally DJing at Industrial/Electro clubs and parties for fun (@CogDisNoi of Twitter). He also fights entropy on a daily basis.
(Oh: And he hates it when he spots a typo in news articles or blog posts {see Gaiman’s Law}, especially his when they sneak past his proofreading: thus why everyone needs an editor. If you spot one, drop him a line.)
About this Blog
Why do I write? At first it was just something therapeutic: I had a lot of pent up opinions about the way things were being done online and in audio production that I think are being done wrong. What was worse was these ideas were being perpetuated as good things: pump the bass/cram as many things on the page as possible or the opposite: simplify the interface at the expense of advanced users. I also noticed a lot of people writing with biases that were not challenged using basic critical thinking, and running slam piece unchecked, when all they base their arguments on was their singlular needs or conjecture about how something simply announced wouldn’t work instead of actually trying a product and having first hand experience — for instance: when the iPhone’s virtual keyboard was announced it was derided before the iPhone was even released. People slammed the idea without experience. It turned out virtual keyboards worked far better than people could have dreamed and iOS’s virtual keyboard was copied and has become a de facto standard. I found few people write the things that could actually be helpful to computer users and audio enthusiasts with few biases, and those biases were never recognized and acknowledged. My biases are clearly laid out: I am a demanding user. I demand that applications favor easily accessible advanced features, that sound be reproduced as close to flat as possible (allowing for some coloring, but not at the expense of fidelity), and that film and TV have logical plot lines and consistent characterizations. I like my entertainment with depth and interesting/unique design. I realize no one, is perfect, but trying to improve is the best course for myself and others.
Basically, I want things to be better all around, and this is my platform to espouse those ideals.