other stuff

[ewt]

-Phone the Jewish Aids Trust and see what they want and whether I can be bothered doing some work for them as a one-off. Plus: money without a huge commitment (probably). Minus: they're in Totteridge & Whetstone, and it's non-music work of a nature that I do not particularly enjoy. Neutral: maintaining good contacts (do I want to maintain contacts for a type of work I don't enjoy?). Finding out is maybe 15 minutes of research. The commute's a bugger though.

-Phone that Freecycle guy about the MD recorder; I'm meant to be recording myself when I practise horn, but I don't have the kit currently. MD recorder would be good because a) it's free b) it fits in my horn case c) I already have some MDs.

-Get organised to start theory classes for piano students after Pesach. Figure out where, how, how to sell it to the parents, which curriculum to use (why do none of them have enough exercises?), size limit on group (may be moot), how often (every 2 weeks gives me and the students more flexibility but they forget more in between), and so on. Write own curriculum if necessary. This is maybe 10 hours of work.

-Think about whether a laptop or better PDA (with limited intarweb) might be better for the getting-work-done-anywhere thing, which is more important than I might have previously imagined. Laptops have shit battery life, they're heavy and more likely to get stolen than I like, but they can be very, very useful. PDAs won't generally do music notation software, and the lack of keyboard is a serious drawback. If I'm going to actually use this stuff is it worth drawing £500 from the Canajan RESP to fund it? Pencil and paper is all well and good but seriously slower for some of the stuff I do. Fixing Bricklet is a fun project rather than something that will seriously meet any of my computing needs as far as getting academic work done is concerned. Hmm.

Comments

[ksta.livejournal.com]

can't you jsut plug a mic in to your compy? or do you need to play somewhere else?

there are loads of books on ABRSM theory that you can give them. I went through copious practise books before I did my grade 5, and still didn't understand a word of it. Passed though.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Ideally I'd like to be able to record myself in practise rooms at Trinity. Currently I dont' have a laptop that can cope with this; I guess Bricklet might if I could find some mp3 software that runs on win95, but with only 256MB free on the hard drive she'll get full very fast.

My thoughts on the matter...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to hear of any realistically portable device tat offers usable spreadsheets, word-processing, and graphics-intensive web browsing.

I'd reject any device with less than 1024x768 graphics out of hand as unusable. I would also reject anything made by Sony because everything they do is a proprietary implementation that only works reliably with other Sony hardware.

My Samsung lapdog has the capability (and is still the slimmest laptop with a buit-in DVD drive) and seemed light enough in the shop; on the move it's a serious risk of back strain. But no DVD drive - or an excessively bulky plugin - means I can't instal real software, play games or watch videos.

Right now I'm waiting for laptops with integral GPRS and SIM card slots to arrive in the shops.

Re: My thoughts on the matter...

[yady.livejournal.com]

If money isn't an issue: Toshiba Libretto. The thing seems to be to install your stuff at home, then use on the go.

I like my MDA Vario, which mostly disqualifies because it has nowhere near the graphics specs you want. And the keyboard isn't really good for serious typing. GRPS internet (and wireless) in something that *can* do wordprocessing and spreadsheets, albeit not inthe most comfortable way, and fits in my jeans pocket, is quite nice. It running Windows CE is both an advantage (Word and Excel files transfer easily to a 'real' computer) and a disadvantage (mostly for reasons of principles).

The laptop I bought a few weeks ago is also very pleasant - but probably larger than yours? 12" screen, DVD reader/writer, 2 kg, obscure brand (Averatec - they also seem to do a 10" one with similar or better specs, that one is in the price range of the Libretto though). It fits in my small green backpack that doesn't even hold a folder for A4 paper. And I can connect the Vario to it and use it as an USB modem over the same (unlimited) GPRS connection, though I am so spoilt with good network everywhere that I haven't tried this yet.

Re: My thoughts on the matter...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

The libretti are actually extremely tempting... I use CD and DVD so rarely that I probably wouldn't mind not carrying them around with me unless I knew I'd want them.

Money, alas, is always an issue. Or it will be until I've finished uni and for a few years after that.

Re: My thoughts on the matter...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'm not so worried about the graphics-intensive stuff. I mean, if I have to, I can get by with a shell account for everything except a) silly pictures on t'intarweb and b) music notation stuff (and if I learn LilyPad and scheme and tex and stuff I could even do a fair amount of that in vim...); it's useful to have a large-ish screen for the music notation stuff but not essential. Something the size of many of the portable DVD players out there might be quite good (except they don't have decent keyboards on, or good computer guts inside - and a good-sized keyboard is importnat, because I'm basing many of my calculations on being able to type reasonably fast. I've been clocked at 120wpm before now although my accuracy is a bit shit these days; thumb keyboards really won't cut it.).

I wouldn't use Sony for anything that I want to talk to anything else. I had a Sony Ericsson phone, it was okay-ish, but for a computer I want to be able to stick software on it. I don't know whether I'd put Ubuntu on it or just leave it as Windoze; it depends on whether I decided it is more important to have music notation software that talks to the stuff at Trinity,or more important to find something Linux-y that I actually like. Doing the latter would be better, long-term, and cheaper, but it is a matter of shaving many yaks.

Given that I usually carry around a backpack, the backstrain issue isn't as large as it might be. You do your back no favours by carrying that bag on one side all the time. The difficulty with anything that won't fit in my handbag is what to do when I've got my horn, of course; if I start putting the horn and other bumph in the 90-litre hiking backpack again then this stops being such a problem (but the 90-litre hiking backpack is not suitable for rush hour traffic to busking pitches on the Tube). The best solution to this is to take up harmonica.

I think Vodafone do some sort of USB dongle for GPRS. Still not quite what you want, but quite compact.

Of course, I will always be able to buy more Shiny for the same amount of money six months from now. I guess it's just that I've realised just how much time I spend on trains and away from home, and it would be good to be able to get some actual work done during that time. For that matter, even if I could download LJ stuff, read it on the train, formulate replies to post once I'm able to get online again, and write an entry or two - none of which requires graphics at all - it would free up time at a 'real' computer for doing academic work (contrary to popular belief there is a limit to how long I will spend on LJ in a day), make my journey less boring, stop my books getting dog-eared from being stuffed in my handbag, and make me less likely to fall asleep on the train. I rarely play computer games and have never gone out of my way to install one. I hardly ever watch videos, although I sometimes think it would be nice to be able to do so. It's possible these things will be issues in the future, but right now they are not priorities at all. Other than music notation software, what I really want is a good terminal.

What on earth am I doing awake? *wanders off to bed*

[wuluf.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of getting the palm lifedrive as a compromise between a laptop or a PDA. It has 4GB of internal memory plus wi fi. Being palm there probulary is music notation software out there for it. The downside is that it cost over £300 last time I looked.