Gary Dell'Abate

My wife and I sent our oldest son off to college this fall. On the ride up, she and I laughed as we told him that when we first went to campus back in 1979, there was no Internet, no cellphones, no e-mail, no fax machines, and Federal Express was an overnight service strictly for businesses and rich people.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I was writing this very column about Hurricane Irene for our November 2011 issue. And now we’ve just lived through Hurricane Sandy, which came with huge warnings and delivered much devastation. Me, I was without power, landline phones, Internet, and cable for 6 days.

I've been working in radio for close to 30 years now, and I have access to all kinds of recording equipment, including some great microphones. Most of the gear I can get my hands on is pretty high-end stuff that uses XLR connectors and would require elaborate equipment that I just don't have at home. So I was really interested when the MXL Studio 1 USB microphone ($130) landed on my desk. It's a portable condenser microphone that connects to your computer via USB. MXL boasts that it's plug-and-play, and that's not a joke: No installation discs. No drivers. No preamps, mixers, or extra gear. Nice.