(no subject)

[ewt]

Okay, PDA problem will be solved soon, at least for the time being; I've purchased a second-hand HP Jornada from the 560 series, and a CF wireless LAN card. This will probably be... rudimentary, at best, as far as internet is concerned, but better than nothing. And the need for a non-paper diary is getting quite urgent (before you tell me paper is fine, try having as many recurrent but sometimes-changing appointments as I do, and having to write them all in at the beginning of every week - an electronic diary is many orders of magnitude easier for me, also much lighter to carry around). It does need a new coin cell backup battery but I won't be sure what sort until it arrives. But those are easy enough to come by. For now, I wait for the post.

Of course what I actually want is a Palm LifeDrive thingum or equivalent shiny, and a targus stowaway keyboard thingum, and also a shiny shiny laptop, but one cannot always have what one wants. One can merely add such things to one's wishlist (which is still rather out of date, but I have other stuff to do than update it just now), and console oneself with the knowledge that in six month's time, one will always be able to buy more shiny for the same money as now.

I suppose for that matter if the Jornada works out well I could get a keyboard for it. No way I can get Sibelius on there though, and I'm starting to think this is Actually Important. You see, I've been doing some composition recently. Of my own volition, without threat of deadlines, and stuff. And once again, I can carry around a lot more music on a laptop than I ever could on paper. Maybe I'll get one of those mac things when I'm not skint.

Tried to iron my hakama; they really are buggers to iron. In the end I settled for hanging it up and using the steam function of the iron to get the worst of the creases out. I'll have to figure out how the hell to fold it up again, though. Oops.

Best do the washing up and start getting ready to go.

Comments

[claire-smith.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Jornada's been charging all day, so you'll be able to use it for a while before you have to rush out and buy a battery for it. I can't look to tell you what size it needs, as I've taped it into a box now!

I wish I had a single desktop machine which did everything (rather than a PC for the t-shirt printing and a mac for everything else), and a PDA to synch with it. I never take the mac laptop anywhere with me, despite buying a lovely bag to put it in, which is a bit silly really. :/

I do love using a mac though. :)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'm actually quite happy with the PC I'm borrowing from mstevens as a desktop machine, but he may want it back, and I need to have something. And my old desktop is ancient. If I'm going to buy a computer I'd rather buy a laptop than a desktop, because I do spend quite a lot of time away from home, and for that matter just being able to use the computer in different areas of the house is a good thing.

I should really have another play around with music notation software on Ubuntu to see if there is anything out there that does what I want. I know that I very much like the output of the typesetting program called lilypond, bvut that is typesetting-oriented rather than composition-oriented and doesn't have most of the features that good notation packages do. Basically, if I can't find a good music notation package that runs well under Ubuntu (and is still translateable to formats the rest of the world can use - .pdf will be fine), then I'll probably get a Mac simply because it beats using Windoze.

It might sound silly, this business of having music notation software on a laptop, but given that most of my composition in the last few weeks has been done away from home (much of it in the ER last Friday night, but some of it on trains), it starts to seem more sensible.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Not ER. A&E waiting room. Wrong country, sorry.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I am occasionally tempted to want my PC back at the moment, you're mostly being saved by the fact I know the reasons I want it back are just distractions from higher priority things :)

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

If you're up for it, maybe we should see if your old machine behaves better/faster with a fresh kleen install of windows or ubuntu or whatever?

[jaime88.livejournal.com]

Ack, you've got to fold your hakama properly. That's the way to maintain the proper creases - otherwise it's a huge hassle, as you've learned, to iron it crease by crease. They are really beautiful, and this is the pragmatic reason for all the ceremony around folding it correctly when you take it off.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I can do the folding the main part of it just fine, it's only the straps that are troublesome. I can still fold them up such that they aren't messy and won't be all horrid to try to tie later, though.

My understanding is they still need to be ironed at least sometimes. This one arrived rather wrinkly so I thought I'd best iron it. It's not the best fabric for staying uncreased, either.

[jaime88.livejournal.com]

I have two, of heavy cotton. And yes it is considered good form to wash them now and again, and then comes the ironing. The straps have a sort of weave that they go in, as I recall, which keeps them tidy. It's been decades since I did Aikido. It was in Miami, Florida, which tends to hot and humid. I told my sensei once that all I had to do was look at him, and I started sweating. :-)

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Do you have any recommendations about CF wireless cards? Because my Zaurus should be able to take one, and I do occasionally think "Damn, I wish I could annoy my friends by email from this hotspot ..."