NYE 2010 Friday Funny

Image Source: http://blogs.reuters.com

It's New Year's Eve and we know a few people are going to be letting their hair down. So this Friday we are looking at all the funny things that happen when people get drunk.

Let's start off responsibly with some suggestions for warning labels that should be placed on bottles of alcohol, and definitely needed on NYE.

CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL WARNINGS

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a w@nker.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to smash your face in.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at 4 in the morning.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your clothes.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with other members of the opposite sex without spitting.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose name, and/or species you can't remember).

Warning: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead to traffic signs and cones appearing in your home.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you possess mystical Kung-Fu powers.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that people are laughing with you.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause an influx in the time-space continuum, whereby small (and sometimes large) gaps of time may seem to literally disappear.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may actually cause pregnancy.

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

The important thing to keep in mind when consuming alcohol is Moderation:


Image Source: http://cdn.faniq.com

The next important factor to realise is that with alcohol impaired senses, accidents can easily happen:


Image Source: http://www.funpub.net

Here is a very educational YouTube video all about things that happen when our senses are severely impaired.



Drunk Test Fail

A police officer pulls over this guy who's been weaving in and out of the lanes. He goes up to the guy's window and says, "Sir, I need you to blow into this breathalyzer tube.

"The man says, "Sorry, officer, I can't do that. I am an asthmatic. If I do that, I'll have a really bad asthma attack."

"Okay, fine. I need you to come down to the station to give a blood sample."
"I can't do that either. I am a hemophiliac. If I do that, I'll bleed to death."

"Well, then, we need a urine sample."
"I'm sorry, officer, I can't do that either. I am also a diabetic. If I do that, I'll get really low blood sugar."

"All right, then I need you to come out here and walk this white line."
"I can't do that, officer."

"Why not?"
"Because I'm too drunk."

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

There is an old wives tale that a cold bath or shower is the best way to sober up. This picture totally disproves that theory once and for all!


Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com

Here is a nice little YouTube song all about drinking beer



Here are some graphic images all about some certain signs that you might be drinking too much.


Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com

And proof that whatever boys can do, girls can do better!


Image Source: http://www.mydrunkbuddy.com

TOP 10 SIGNS YOU MAY BE DRINKING TOO MUCH

1. You lose arguments with inanimate objects.

2. You have to hold onto the lawn to keep from falling off the earth.

3. The back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat.

4. You sincerely believe alcohol to be the elusive 5th food group.

5. 24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a pack - coincidence?

6. You can focus better with one eye closed.

7. The parking lot seems to have moved while you were in the bar.

8. Hey, 5 beers has just as many calories as a burger, forget dinner!

9. You are beginning to find cricket to be exciting.

10. That stupid pink elephant followed me home again.

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

Here is a charming little country hillbilly tune as the last of this week's videos.



As we tick down to the New year, we want to wish all of our readers a safe and happy NYE. We look forward to a great year in ICT heaven in 2011.


Image Source: http://photos1.meetupstatic.com

So Cheers Big Ears and Happy New Years Eve!


Image Source: http://images.clubzone.com

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Ultimate Gaming Computer

Perhaps this is not the "ultimate" gaming computer, but it's as close as we could get on our limited budget here at Passy World. We are extremely happy with the performance and we are certain it will provide many hours of enjoyment in the years to come.

Our goal was to build a high performance Gaming PC that would last at least 2 or 3 years, with "Santa" supplying the parts. Here are the specs of the PC we have built.

Passy World Gaming PC Specifications:

• Motherboard – Asus Sabertooth X58 LGA1366
• CPU - Intel Core i7 950
• CPU Cooler – Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus
• RAM - Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600
• PSU - Antec Earth Watts 750W
• Storage - Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 7200RPM
• Optical Drives – 2X Asus Lite Scribe
• Graphics Card – Gigabyte Radeon HD5870
• Case – Antec 902
• Monitor - Asus VH242H 24”
• Keyboard - Alienware TactX Keyboard
• Mouse - Razer Deathadder
• Speakers - Creative Inspire T6160
• O/S - Windows 7 64bit Home

My son actually did all the research and pricing for the PC, and I am very impressed with what he came up with as the final solution.

We purchased nearly all of our components from Computer Parts Land "CPL" here in Melbourne Australia, and their service, advice, and component availability is absolutely awesome. Check out their website at:
http://www.cpl.net.au/

The Creative speakers were obtained from MSY Computers, http://www.msy.com.au/ who are also a great supplier of PC components, and located not far from CPL in suburban Melbourne.

We are particularly delighted with the Antec 902 Case which was great value at around $100. We had wanted to use a Coolermaster HAFX but it was twice the price, and we could not stretch the budget that far.

Even though the Antec 902 is only a mid tower case, it has plenty of room, (including room for big GPU's like the 5870). It is also very well constructed, with high quality parts, fans, and drive bays.

In particular, the 902 has this massive big fan on top of the case for awesomely powerful cooling.



For Memory we were going to use "G Skill Ripjaws 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 1600" but since it was not available we switched to Kingston, which has worked out fine.



The CPU Cooler was the trickiest part of the build, as we had not done one of these before, and the fold out printed instructions were not any good for complete beginners.

However, You Tube to the rescue, and we found this perfect video about how to install this awesome after market cooler.



Another great set of videos we watched before building our PC was this great set by "PCWizKid". These videos are excellent, and show most of the main steps needed to build your own PC.



There are three parts in the series, and this is Part Two.



Here is the third and final part of the series. We highly recommend you watch these if you are ever thinking about building your own PC.



And one additional video, all about "Cable Management" inside your PC case.




One small problem we had during the build was getting Windows 7 to recognise that we had 6 Gig of memory, and not 4 Gig. However, this was easily solved by switching off the PC, swapping the RAM sticks around with each other "musical chairs" style, and then rebooting the machine.

A fantastic thing we must mention about ASUS Motherboards is their use of a tiny PINs circuit board to make front-of-case to motherboard connection a breeze. It was hard to get a good photo of this, but here is our best attempt.



Basically, we just plug the case leads (which Antec had labelled brilliantly), into the appropriate miniboard plug, and then plug the minboard, into the Motherboard pin set... too easy!!

The Driver Discs that came with our Hardware were all very simple to use. They worked a treat, making the installation final steps very quick and easy.

For connecting to Wireless Internet we used a Netgear WG111V2 USB wireless adapter. We downloaded the Windows 7 drivers using our laptop, and saved them onto a USB stick. They installed okay, but as per Internet forums it is important not to install the Netgear management system, and to instead select the option to use Windows for handling the wireless network connection.

We lashed out spending a few dollars on a Razer Gaming Mouse, and we are very happy with this unit, especially its glow in the dark illumination.



The Alienware Keyboard was worth every cent of the $130 we spent ordering it online from Malaysia. It also came with only four days remaining until Christmas, which we thought was totally awesome service by Dell.

The glow in the dark fully lit Alienware keyboard is absolutely awesome.



A full set of different color combinations available for the keyboard is shown as part of the following Wondershare Slideshow.

This slideshow has photos from the build of our Ultimate Gaming PC which was done right here at Passy World.

(Note that it is quite a big slideshow and may take a while to load in).

Press the play button to start the Slideshow.



(If you are interested in buying Wondershare for making your own slideshows, then then click this link: http://www.wondershare.com/ and then under Products and Digital Photo Tools locate "Flash Gallery Factory Deluxe". (We have been using this particular product for quite a while here at Passy World and highly recommend it).

Finally we need to thank our good friend Laurie C, who helped us out with the final setting up and performance testing of our new PC.

Performance testing shows that our PC has nearly perfect scores in all areas except for drive access speed, (simply because we are not using a Solid State Drive.)



Some of the best gaming fun the boys have had so far, is playing with the foam packaging that came with the Antec Case.... In fact it appears they've just invented the world's first human dual core processor..lol...



Anyway, we're off to get into some serious COD action on the new PC.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Friday Funny Xmas 2010

Image Source: http://farm6.static.flickr.com

Here at Passy World we'd just like to wish a big Merry Christmas to all those cool cats who have enjoyed using our website in 2010.


Image Source: http://christmas.xeweb.com

And what would Christmas be without a special episode of our favorite Runescape buddies: Bob IRL and Meow.



And for your further enjoyment in the festive season, here is a special Runescape Christmas carol just for all our Runescape fans.



Here in Australia of course, we are expecting the usual hot weather for the Christmas season. No snowed in airports for us guys!


Image Source: http://media.rd.com

Actually we have it on pretty good authority that Santa will be taking a sunny post Christmas break right here in Australia.


Image Source: http://images.sodahead.com

And in our country, there will be no need for Santa to be sledding through ice with Reindeer either:


Image Source: http://www.guzer.com

That's not to say we don't love Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer, we just don't get to see him an awful lot.

We did however do some Googling to find out what Rudolph has been up to, and received this fairly disturbing news from YouTube.



We also found a very informative video all about how Rudolph did in fact end up with such a red nose.



Now we know some of you have left getting your the Christmas Lists to Santa till the last minute. But thanks to digital technology, the red suited man and his helpers have everything under control.


Image Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com

Now imagine Christmas originally happening in today's digital age. Here is an awesome video from YouTube that shows exactly what a modern Christmas would be like.



So to finish off, we know you'd all love to here just one more Christmas Carol.


Image Source: http://www.essentialtalent.com.au

So here is a joyous little Christmas song we found on YouTube.



As for Big Passy, he will be doing the traditional stuffing of his face with roasted turkey and oven baked vegetables. However, the truth is he would much rather enjoy a Japanese Bento Box with ample Wasabi as his preferred bill of fare.



So Merry Christmas everyone, and we might see you a couple of times before the New year.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Boys Get Ready For The Animation Games

Bikes games are considered as boys games. It can be played individually or with multiple partners. Thus you can enjoy these games with your friends also. When youngsters play bike games then they feel they are riding bike. Boys like this game as they love the speed and difficulties which appear on the way of reaching the target. This builds lot of excitement and craze among them. When we play racing games then we always have an intention to reach first which makes the game more thrilling and exciting.



Creators created these games to attract which everyone wishes to play it. Creators used excellent graphics as well as 3D and 2D animation in bikes games. They have used 3D effect in games in order to protect the eyes of the player. In fact they give superb background music in game. In the game, modification of bikes is really cool. Bike games give the option to choose attractive bikes from the selective options. In games locations are very attractive. They actually bring lots of excitement and originality in game.

Almost every guy is crazy about bikes. That is why bikes games attract them so much. Bike riding is a real passion of guys and they just love it. On internet you will get all kind of bike games. You just have to go through simple downloading process. Then what are you waiting for just access internet at home and download this fantastic game. and there are few bike games which can be played online too.

Scratch Programming 2

Click the green Flag to start the above Scratch Animation. Let it run through to completion.

This animation uses two picture characters, (or "Sprites"). They are the Duck and the Hippo.

We got the background image off the internet, saved it to our hard drive, and used Photoshop to get its size to be the standard required 480x360 pixels. We then clicked on the Background icon in Scratch, and imported it into our project.

The duck speaks just after the Hippo starts to take off and fly.
How we organise this in Scratch, is for the Duck to send a "Broadcast Message" which we can then get the Hippo to receive. (If you know Flash, then it is a bit like event listener programming in Flash Actionscript.)

It is through the broadcast message that we can sync up the duck and the hippo.

Here is the Scratch script for the Duck sprite:



When the hippo flys off the screen, the ends of his legs were staying stuck on the screen, and so we had to use the "hide" command to make him dissapear for a few seconds, and then we reset his position to be next to the duck, and then make him visible again.

Here is the Scratch script for the Hippo sprite:




Keeping Score

This next Scratch project is straight from the MIT "Keep Score" Scratch Card:



Note that we had to press "Record" on the Play Sound block, then use Import, but we could not find the "chomp" sound, so we used Effects > Pop sound instead.

We also added a blue "If on Edge Bounce" block because the Shark kept going off screen. In addition, we right clicked on each sprite, chose "Resize this Sprite", and made both fish smaller. We also named the Sprites as "smallfish" and "shark".

Here is the final script for the Shark:



We added some extra code so that the small fish would momentarily dissappear when hit by the shark, as well as some random number coding to make the small fish respawn at a different new location each time.

Here is the final script for the small fish:



To play the finished Scratch animation, click the top right hand corner green flag. To stop the game click the top right hand corner red dot stop sign.

Shark Versus Fish Game

Finally here is a far more sophisticated version of the Shark versus Fish game. This was made here at Passy World using some ideas from Shark Games that were found on the MIT website.

If you join up with the MIT site at http://scratch.mit.edu/ then you can create an account, search for Scratch Projects, and download the programming source scripts etc.

First of all the game has costume changes on the shark, so that it is chomping with its mouth the whole time it moves:



We then have scripting on the fish and Shark sprites so that after the shark eats the first fish, the fish starts cloning itself. The fish can then earn points if it can clone for a while without being eaten.

Each time it does get eaten, the clones erase, and the cloning recommences. The Game has a timer on it to have a total game time of 30 seconds.

Here is the scripting for the Shark:



Here is the scripting for the Fish:



And here is the finished game for you to enjoy playing. Click the green flag to start the game, and you then use the mouse to move the shark around chasing the fish. You have 30 seconds to win more points than the fish wins by cloning itself.

Note that there is a glitch when we play the game online through the HTML outside the Scratch Environment. What happens is that we don't get our final "say" messages from the Shark at the end of the game.

Sadly, we have not been able to find anyway to fix this end of game problem.
The same problem happens on the original Shark games that are on the MIT site.

So that completes another fun lesson on Scratch.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Scratch Programming 1

Scratch projects are made up of objects called sprites. You can change how a sprite looks by giving it a different costume. You can make a sprite look like a person or a train or a butterfly or anything else. You can use any image as a costume: you can draw an image in the Paint Editor, import an image from your hard disk, or drag in an image from a website.

You can give instructions to a sprite, telling it to move or play music or react to other sprites. To tell a sprite what to do, you snap together graphic blocks into stacks, called scripts. When you click on a script, Scratch runs the blocks from the top of the script to the bottom.

Here is an excellent introductory video all about programming in Scratch.



Scratch Cards

"Scratch Cards" provide a quick free way of beginning to learn Scratch code. They are small PDF documents that can be folded and glued into cards. They cover how to: Change color, Move to a beat, Key moves, Say something, Glide, Follow the mouse, Dance twist, Interactive whirl, Animate it, Moving animation, Surprise button, Keep Score. A zip file of the set of cards can be downloaded.

Click the following link to go to Scratch Cards:
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Scratch_Cards.
Here you can download the cards individually, or else get the zip file of all the cards.

Also downloaded is an excellent 23 page Scratch reference Guide PDF as part of the zip file.

To download and install the Scratch programming tools, go to this web page http://scratch.mit.edu/ .

The download will supply the Scratch Programming Interface:



(Click the above Image to see it full size. Click the Internet browser's back button to return.)

Let's take a look at the free Scratch cards.

Here is a typical beginner's scratch card:



Here is a short YouTube video on how to do the exact same thing, but this time to a Fish rather than a Butterfly.



We followed the color change instructions, and then added a few extra blocks to create a Butterfly that will move across the screen.

Also we edited the Background to be black by "edit" and then drawing a big black rectangle over it.



Here is the resulting Scratch Project.
Click the Green Flag to start, and then keep pressing the space bar.

Here is another basic Scratch Tutorial that creates a "Dancing" clip.

We do this by animating a sprite picture, and then adding sound. Here is a video on the steps to follow:




Here are the Code Blocks we made for the "Dancing Queen Project":



Here is the completed Scratch project. Make sure your speakers are on, and click the Green Flag to start, and the Red dot to stop.

So download those Scratch cards from
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Scratch_Cards
and get into learning Scratch.

And if you want some more "watch and do" videos, then check out this page: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Video_Tutorials .

And finally, thanks to Darrel Branson who put me onto these excellent resources.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Northpoint's iBand

A group of guys at a community church in America made a band called 'North Point's iBand' and did a Christmas concert of three songs on some iPad's and a few old iPhones.

You can download their songs for free at www.northpointmusic.org/christmas.

The band consisted of ten men on stage performing “Carol of the Bells,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Feliz Navidad,” only they don’t have instruments; they have iPhones.

“The band was a one-time thing. It was a fun experiment,” explains the band’s pianist Reid Greven.

Comprising five iPads, five iPhones and the Georgia-based North Point Community Church’s normal assembly of professional musicians; the iBand was born after members of the group stumbled upon an iPhone performance on YouTube.

“We all own iPhones, and being musicians we all have music apps on them and we went from there,” explains Greven.

When the group performed Dec. 5 in front of the church’s 12,000-person congregation, they had no idea what sort of reaction they would get.

“We woke up that Sunday morning hoping for maybe some smiles and maybe some mild applause,” says Graven. “We just hoped they would get what we were doing and not hate it.”

Interview Source: http://www.thestar.com

Here is a video of their performance. Some of the sounds are fairly average synthesized samples, but the drums, bells, and some of the other parts are really impressive.

North Point's iBand from North Point Web on Vimeo.

Looks like we have a few more iPad apps to check out here at Passy World over the Christmas break. A Nerd's work is never done.

If money is tight this Christmas, and Santa doesn't bring you an iPad, then you could always do some "tic tac music".




And while we are taking a look at amazing musical innovations, here is a sneak peek at the next generation of technology: Invisible Drums!




Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Friday Funny Made of Lego

Image Source: http://attachments.techguy.org

Maybe not everyone in the above picture enjoys Passy's World of ICT Friday Funnies.

So how do we assemble a Friday Funny that will make them smile?

Let's try assembling this week's Friday Funny out of lego ?
It should be pretty obvious how to do this, as per the following video.



Obviously you are hungry for more wonderful lego humour, but just be careful of what you consume.


Image Source: http://images.mocpages.com

Perhaps you are hungry for some Pizza. A lot of people are, as shown in this marvelous little documentary.



And because you loved that little adventure so much, here is an equally exciting sequel.



We don't have a relevant picture to fit in just here, so you'll have to take your own happy snappy.


Image Source: http://www.crazyjunkyard.com

Time now for some random Lego Super Heroes.


Image Source: http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com

Here is a sneak preview from next season's new Batman thriller.



Also hitting the cinemas next season will be the stunning remake of Jaws!



It seems there is no end to how clever people are able to get all artistic with their lego masterpieces.


Image Source: http://www.inquisitr.com

And here is a very clever game of Lego Mini Golf. Take note of the important tips about outwitting your opponent.



Saving the best for last, here is the over four million views Lego Nintendo Wii video. It is definitely one of our all time favourites here at Passy World.



And so it's hats off this week to all those creative people around the world making great stuff out of colored bricks!


Image Source: http://www.gizmodiva.com

Time to go snap together another colourful and creative weekend.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Embedding Scratch on a Website

To start the above game click the Green Flag icon in the top right corner.

Then use the mouse to make the Fox chase and catch the other animals. The yellow birds are worth one point, and the green animal is worth five points.

Note that the Fox slows down, (because he is getting tired), as the game progresses.

Click the Red Circle in the top right hand corner to stop the game.

The above Chasey game is not yet finished, but it is our first creation using the fabulous programming tool "Scratch" which is free from MIT University in the USA.

Go to http://scratch.mit.edu to download Scratch and get started.

Here at Passy World we will be playing around with Scratch for the next couple of weeks, and we will put up some future posts about our experiences.

So this post is a bit of "the chicken before the egg", and if you are already into Scratch, and have some games you would like to put onto a Website or Blog, then the PDF document below explains exactly how to do this.

If you would like to have your own full size copy of this PDF, then simply click the save disk icon button on the PDF viewer, and you should be able to save it to your own hard disk.

Alternatively, you can view or save the full size PDF by clicking the link below:

Click here to open or save the “How to Embed Scratch” PDF

Got go now and scratch up something to eat for dinner.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Diigo Web Pages Bookmarking

Diigo is a set of internet site bookmarking tools. It is great for keeping track of your favorites in the cloud, so that they can be accessed from any computer or mobile device.

It also has great additional features for sharing bookmarks, organising bookmarks into lists, and creating groups of people to share with in Diigo.
Diigo can also highlight text on a stored site, and add sticky notes to sotred web pages.

The feature we like best about Diigo is making a slide show in Diigo of a specific set of bookmarked internet sites. More on all of these features a bit later on.

Here is a great introductory video on what Diigo does



Here is a video that shows how Diigo lives in the "Cloud" and includes useful info about the iPad and Android apps for Diigo.



This video does not have narration, but is like a filmed PowerPoint.
We recommend this as a video to watch if you do not have sound available on your computer at the moment.




Using Diigo without the Toolbar

Here is a video that shows the main features of Diigo. Importantly, it will show you how to add Bookmarks to Diigo, if you are logged on at a location where you cannot install the Diigo Toolbar.




Diigo Groups

Groups are a great way of setting up some people who can collaboratively share web pages that they find on the Internet.

Here is a basic video on how to join Diigo and share with a group/



Here is a video about how to set up a Group on Diigo. It shows a good example of how to set up a group for a class you might be teaching.



Here is a video about how to invite people by email to join a Diigo Group that you have created. These people don't have to be members of Diigo yet, as the email will guide them on how to create a Diigo account prior to joining the group.



Here is the second part of the previous video about getting people to join your Diigo Group. It explains how to download the Diigo toolbar and get started using Diigo. It then shows how you can add bookmarks out of your own "My Library" into the shared group.




Diigo Slide Shows

Here is a video about Diigo "WebSlides" for making slideshows.



Here is a slideshow we made all about Integers for Mathematics that is embeded here in our Blog.

The only problem with Diigo slideshows is that none of the links to YouTube videos work, because the video cannot load from within the Diigo slideshow.



Here is a direct link to the above Diigo slideshow. (We could email this link to people, to give them our slide show).

http://slides.diigo.com/list/bigpassy/mathematics-of-integers

Here is a link to our Diigo "List" that we created and then generated the slideshow from: http://tinyurl.com/integers1ppa

It is important that users of the list click the small green links for each web page, rather than the blue Diigo links which sends them to Diigo's history for the site.

For details on how we created the "list" and "webslides" slideshow, see the PDF document link later in this blog post.

We have only recently joined Diigo here at Passy World. Below is a PDF document that goes through what we did to get set up. It may supply you with some interesting tips and traps about using Diigo.

Our main objective in getting set up was to create a List of websites related to Integers in Mathematics, and then to turn this list into a Diigo slide show.

(Note that this is a 2.5MB PDF document and may take a while to load in).

Click here to open or save the “How to Use Diigo” PDF

Here is a video about how Diigo caN be used in Year 7 English for collaborating responses about a newspaper article.




Diigo and Delicious

"Delicious" is another free application that can bookmark web sites. Here at Passy World we haven't used "Delicious" for bookmarking yet, but the really cool thing is that apparently all your Diigo bookmarks are automatically added to "Delicious".

Here is a video about how to use "Delicious".



So that's the full story on Diigo. We can see that it will be quite a useful free tool for us to use here at Passy World, and hopefully will be useful to you guys as well.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

iRig for Guitar

Here at Passy World we have just bought the fabulous Amplitude iRig for our guitar. Ever since we got it, we have been playing guitar so much that our fingers are killing us! It is absolutely awesome.

The "iRig" as pictured above is basically an adaptor that an electric guitar or bass plugs into, and then this connects to the earphone socket of an ipad, ipod touch, or iphone. We then plug earphones or headphones into the irgig adaptor's other end, and presto we have a full set of guitar amps and effects pedals.

The sounds are great, the volume is adequate, (especially if using some good headphones), and the latency is perfect with no real lag time at all.

The free app that comes with the iRig adapter gives you a digital delay, a distortion pedal, a noise gate pedal, and a basic Marshall style amplifier. There are then two ways of micing up the amp.

We soon found we wanted a full set of effects pedals and amps and cabinets, and so for around $20 we brought the full Amplitude irig set from the Itunes store. You could also just buy separate pedals for around $4 each, but we definitely recommend buying the full $20 set of pedals and amplifiers.


Image Source: http://www.ikmultimedia.com

Here is a You Tube video that demonstrates just how good the iRig is.



Of course the great thing is that as well as all the effects pedals you could ever want, (11 stomp pedals in total), you also get 5 amps, 5 cabinets and 2 microphones.

When running the iRig however, we can only use 4 pedals with one amplifier and one microphone at a time. Eg. We cannot seem to connect all 11 pedals to each other.

Here is one of the five amps that comes with the $20 full package:


Image Source: http://www.techfame.com

Here is a typical configuration of four pedals with an amplifier


Image Source: http://www.ikmultimedia.com

If you want to read a great review of the iRig by Robert from Dolphin Street guitar, then click the link below:

http://www.dolphinstreet.com/blog/irig-iphone.php

Here is a video of Robert putting the iRig through its paces.



The iRig is made by IK Multimedia, and here is a link to their site:
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irig

Here is their promotional video for the iRig.



Here is a great clip that shows the iRig being used on an iPad



The IRig software is available as Apps on Itunes. The actual Irig adaptor needs to be purchased at your local music shop. It will cost about $60 in Australia, and less in the USA. Passy World purchased ours from Cranbourne Music who are a great store here in Melbourne Australia.

So if you have an electric guitar then definitely spend around $80 on an iRig setup. This will give you in your pants pocket the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of Amps, Cabinets, and Pedals that you can use with just a guitar and and iphone. This is truly awesome technology!

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi