Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Halswell Cross
I am involved in a project called The Halswell Cross in Christchurch. This is an art installation in Halswell Quarry Park, a park created by the city council in a former quarry. The stark cliff backdrop is quite dramatic and a perfect setting for this sort of thing. The cross will be erected over Easter, from Good Friday morning to Monday afternoon. There is a recorded commentary on headphone, and visitors can nail prayers to the cross. Entrance is free, and you are most welcome to pop over.
Tame your folders
The default settings for folders in Windows are very frustrating. They often don't display the way you want, and Windows forgets all about the ones you have left open on your desktop (and want to stay there) when it reboots. It's time to crack the whip and make them behave. PC World blogger Rick Broida shows you how.
Beef up Quick Launch
A lot of people use the desktop to create shortcuts to programs they use a lot, to drop files on, and even create folders on. The major problem with this approach is that with normal use you soon get a very cluttered desktop.
A solution is to power up the Quick Launch feature of the Task Bar at the bottom of your screen. If the Quick Launch toolbar is not there, turn it on by right clicking in a clear space on the Taskbar and choosing Quick Launch from the menu. This should make the Quick Launch toolbar visible to the right of the Start button.
When you instal software, it frequently adds a shortcut icon to Quick Launch. If not, simply drag the program's icon down to the Task Bar, between one of the icons already showing. (This puts a copy of the shortcut onto the bar, so you can delete the other from the desktop.)
To the right of the program icons, you will see a double chevron >> and then a vertical row of dots. You can drag this row to shorten or lengthen the queue of items visible on the Task Bar.
Clicking on the chevron will expand the Quick Launch bar, and single clicking on an icon will launch that program. If you click and drag an icon, you can rearrange its position, which is useful to group like progams.
But if, like me, you have far too many items for comfort, you can create folders for different categories, and then when you select a folder, it will pop out a sub-menu. To do this, right click just after the furthest right item in Quick Launch, and select the "Open Folder" entry in the menu. (Try to click just before the >> symbol.)
Now, just create folders in the usual way, and drop icons into them. Note that the folders appear in the Quick Launch menu in order you created them. But don't worry, you can reorder the folders (sub menu entries) in the Quick Launch menu.
Wtih this approach, you can shorten the number of items showing on your Task Bar (I usually just have my most-used programs showing, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and Word).
A solution is to power up the Quick Launch feature of the Task Bar at the bottom of your screen. If the Quick Launch toolbar is not there, turn it on by right clicking in a clear space on the Taskbar and choosing Quick Launch from the menu. This should make the Quick Launch toolbar visible to the right of the Start button.
When you instal software, it frequently adds a shortcut icon to Quick Launch. If not, simply drag the program's icon down to the Task Bar, between one of the icons already showing. (This puts a copy of the shortcut onto the bar, so you can delete the other from the desktop.)
To the right of the program icons, you will see a double chevron >> and then a vertical row of dots. You can drag this row to shorten or lengthen the queue of items visible on the Task Bar.
Clicking on the chevron will expand the Quick Launch bar, and single clicking on an icon will launch that program. If you click and drag an icon, you can rearrange its position, which is useful to group like progams.
But if, like me, you have far too many items for comfort, you can create folders for different categories, and then when you select a folder, it will pop out a sub-menu. To do this, right click just after the furthest right item in Quick Launch, and select the "Open Folder" entry in the menu. (Try to click just before the >> symbol.)
Now, just create folders in the usual way, and drop icons into them. Note that the folders appear in the Quick Launch menu in order you created them. But don't worry, you can reorder the folders (sub menu entries) in the Quick Launch menu.
Wtih this approach, you can shorten the number of items showing on your Task Bar (I usually just have my most-used programs showing, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and Word).
Converting MIDI
Because one of my hobbies is composing music, I use MIDI files a lot. What's MIDI, you ask?
MIDI is one of those things that is fairly easy to use, but very hard to describe. Putting it as simply as I can, it is a system that lets computers and other electronic devices pass musical information to each other. The MIDI file is not actually music itself, although if you double-click on it you will hear music in your music player. What it does is control "event messages" such as the pitch of musical notes to play, and parameters such as volume and tempo. It draws on your computer's sound card for the different instument sounds, so the quality you get will depend on the quality of the sound card. Among the benefits are that a MIDI file can be created or opened by a wide variety of programs, and can then be manipulated in a myriad number of ways; the files are incredible small (often, less than 5kb). The downside is that they can only be listened to on a device that has a soundcard or similar, so not on your CD player, for instance. However, they can be converted to a music format such as mp3 or wav so they can play on a CD player (with the downside of course that the files are very much larger, and nowhere as malleable).
Just about every song you can think of is available for free somewhere on the internet in MIDI format. Suppose I need to provide some backing tracks for a singer. I download a MIDI file, open it in my music program Noteworthy Composer, strip out the melody line and voila, an accompaniment.
But I then need to put it on a CD for others to listen to. My problem has been finding a cheap conversion program - you don't want to know how I was doing it before! However, I was delighted yesterday to stumble across a music player, Media Jukebox, which not only plays just about every music format you can throw at it, but also will convert MIDI to mp3 or wave. Now we're cooking!
Actually, I will tell you how I did it before, because you can use the same method to record just about anything audio on your computer. First, download and open Audacity. Click the record button, and start playing whatever you want to record (it might be an old-fashioned LP that you want to transfer to a CD). At the finish, click the Stop button, then trim any unwanted bits at the top and tail, and export in your preferred format.
MIDI is one of those things that is fairly easy to use, but very hard to describe. Putting it as simply as I can, it is a system that lets computers and other electronic devices pass musical information to each other. The MIDI file is not actually music itself, although if you double-click on it you will hear music in your music player. What it does is control "event messages" such as the pitch of musical notes to play, and parameters such as volume and tempo. It draws on your computer's sound card for the different instument sounds, so the quality you get will depend on the quality of the sound card. Among the benefits are that a MIDI file can be created or opened by a wide variety of programs, and can then be manipulated in a myriad number of ways; the files are incredible small (often, less than 5kb). The downside is that they can only be listened to on a device that has a soundcard or similar, so not on your CD player, for instance. However, they can be converted to a music format such as mp3 or wav so they can play on a CD player (with the downside of course that the files are very much larger, and nowhere as malleable).
Just about every song you can think of is available for free somewhere on the internet in MIDI format. Suppose I need to provide some backing tracks for a singer. I download a MIDI file, open it in my music program Noteworthy Composer, strip out the melody line and voila, an accompaniment.
But I then need to put it on a CD for others to listen to. My problem has been finding a cheap conversion program - you don't want to know how I was doing it before! However, I was delighted yesterday to stumble across a music player, Media Jukebox, which not only plays just about every music format you can throw at it, but also will convert MIDI to mp3 or wave. Now we're cooking!
Actually, I will tell you how I did it before, because you can use the same method to record just about anything audio on your computer. First, download and open Audacity. Click the record button, and start playing whatever you want to record (it might be an old-fashioned LP that you want to transfer to a CD). At the finish, click the Stop button, then trim any unwanted bits at the top and tail, and export in your preferred format.
Changing emails
I am in the process of changing jobs, which brings with it the laborious task of changing email subscriptions to the myriad newsletters and other communications which pass across my desk. I am astounded at how difficult this is. The great majority of newsletters (often from very large organisations) have no option for me to make a simple change of address. Usually, they have only an unsubscribe option, which means I then have to go through the process of finding out where to subscribe again. Please folks, if your organisation is guilty of this, start considering how the average person actually works, rather than the way you would like them to work.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Twitter twouble
Just about everyone's getting into Twitter, it appears. But it still seems to me like far too much useless information, and this explanatory video simply confirms it. How many "friends" can you keep up with?
Which is why the following video really appeals to me. Time to go and get a real life.
Which is why the following video really appeals to me. Time to go and get a real life.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Single-click or double-click?
Without naming my wonderful wife, I know people who are often confused about when to double-click. Particularly, they double-click stuff that only has to be single-clicked (like web links). But in today's web-powered world, is double-clicking an anachronism, a vestige of old-school computing? Why don't we ditch it altogether? After all, desktop folders and program icons are really the only items that need two clicks. As it happens, Windows offers a single-click solution. This tip turns both XP and Vista into a single-click OS:
1. using any open folder, go to the "Folder Options" menu item at the top.
2. In the General tab, find the 'Click items as follows' section, then enable 'Single-click to open an item (point to select)'.
3. Decide which of the two "underline" options you want. The first keeps all clickable items underlined at all times, much like links in your Web browser. The second keeps the underline hidden until you mouse over an item. (I prefer the latter.)
4. Click OK and you're done.
This method also makes file selection a little trickier, especially if you're accustomed to the practice of Ctrl-clicking multiple files. Now, instead of clicking each file in turn, you just hold down the Ctrl key and mouse over each file you want to select, pausing for about a second on each one until it becomes highlighted.
1. using any open folder, go to the "Folder Options" menu item at the top.
2. In the General tab, find the 'Click items as follows' section, then enable 'Single-click to open an item (point to select)'.
3. Decide which of the two "underline" options you want. The first keeps all clickable items underlined at all times, much like links in your Web browser. The second keeps the underline hidden until you mouse over an item. (I prefer the latter.)
4. Click OK and you're done.
This method also makes file selection a little trickier, especially if you're accustomed to the practice of Ctrl-clicking multiple files. Now, instead of clicking each file in turn, you just hold down the Ctrl key and mouse over each file you want to select, pausing for about a second on each one until it becomes highlighted.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Linux installation Pt II
The installation of Linux (see post below) has been a resounding success, and incredibly easy - I have never installed any operating system (Windows or Mac) with such ease. All the dire predictions by others - for instance, that only geeks could install Linux - simply were not true.
Before I started, I backed up all the files on the computer that I wanted to keep (they fitted on a floppy, as I had pretty much given up using the machine).
I restarted the computer, to check that it could boot from the CD player. (If you need to do this, press the F2 key as the computer is starting, and it should show that option as the default. If not, you just use the arrow keys to move that option to the top.)
I inserted the Freespire disk in the CD drive, and restarted the computer.
From then on, Freespire did the lot. It detected all my hardware, installed the operating system and new drivers for the sound card, video card and USB ports, and chugged away happily while I did a Sudoku puzzle. It asked me a couple of questions, like which language did I want, and which world time zone? There was absolutely nothing in the basic installation I did not understand - it was all plain English and totally user-friendly.
The process took about 25 minutes, and at the end not only did I have an attractive desktop, sufficiently similar to Windows that I could easily find my way around, but the extension speakers and the USB ports all worked (which they had ceased to do under Windows 98), and the desktop resolution was far superior.
A good range of essential software was automatically installed, such as OpenOffice.org (the Linux equivalent of Microsoft Office), Firefox browser and Thunderbird email program. And there are thousands of other free programs available for anything else required.
The only thing I have left to do is network to my main computer. And that only awaits me working out where to plug the network cable on said main computer.
Linux, I love you!
Before I started, I backed up all the files on the computer that I wanted to keep (they fitted on a floppy, as I had pretty much given up using the machine).
I restarted the computer, to check that it could boot from the CD player. (If you need to do this, press the F2 key as the computer is starting, and it should show that option as the default. If not, you just use the arrow keys to move that option to the top.)
I inserted the Freespire disk in the CD drive, and restarted the computer.
From then on, Freespire did the lot. It detected all my hardware, installed the operating system and new drivers for the sound card, video card and USB ports, and chugged away happily while I did a Sudoku puzzle. It asked me a couple of questions, like which language did I want, and which world time zone? There was absolutely nothing in the basic installation I did not understand - it was all plain English and totally user-friendly.
The process took about 25 minutes, and at the end not only did I have an attractive desktop, sufficiently similar to Windows that I could easily find my way around, but the extension speakers and the USB ports all worked (which they had ceased to do under Windows 98), and the desktop resolution was far superior.
A good range of essential software was automatically installed, such as OpenOffice.org (the Linux equivalent of Microsoft Office), Firefox browser and Thunderbird email program. And there are thousands of other free programs available for anything else required.
The only thing I have left to do is network to my main computer. And that only awaits me working out where to plug the network cable on said main computer.
Linux, I love you!
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