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Friday, November 29, 2002
Spending much of the long weekend converting old LPs to CD. Given the amount of time it takes, it would probably be much cheaper to buy them. On the other hand, my time is pretty cheap. (0) comments Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Steve Gillmore writes glowingly about Microsoft's new OneNote program and the Tablet PC. "[One]Note lets you drop notes at any location on the page; drag and drop Web page data; reorganize and auto-categorize thoughts, lists, and documents; and then search all this data chronologically, by category, by contextual flags, and across both typed and inked notes." (0) comments
LP to CD - For a while I've wanted to try to convert some of my vinyl LPs to digital format. Yesterday I finally tried to figure out how to do it. I hooked up the record player and amp next to the computer so that I could connect a cable from the amp TAPE OUT to the RECord connection of the sound card. I had to buy a cable from Radio Shack that combines the L and R channel wires into a single plug for the sound card. There are many programs available for recording LPs. I chose Wave Repair, “A shareware editor specifically designed for the restoration of WAV files that were recorded from vinyl records.” Initially I was using an old Realistic STA-82 amplifier by Radio Shack and was never able to record any sound from the Phono mode, although the Radio mode recorded fine. I switched to a more recent Onkyo TX-26 amp and can now record OK. Wave Repair has an automated Click repair function that works OK, although there is still quite a bit of noise in the recording. I then saved the WAV file and wrote it to disc using the Ahead Nero software that came with the TDK CDR drive, and now have a CD recording of a treasured LP, 80/81 by Pat Metheny et al. A good site for learning about the process is Transferring LPs to CDR: Some Advice. In order to properly clean up a vinyl recording would take many hours of work, so I'll have to live with the imperfect results. Actually, hearing the clicks and pops and hum in the recording brings back memories of the old days of sitting around listening to records on the turnstile. (0) comments Friday, November 22, 2002
Posting graphics to the web takes too long. For instance, while writing in Blogger, when ready to insert an image, it would be nice to point to an image on disk. An application would then create a thumbnail image, generate the html code with the proper width and height attributes, and transfer the images to the proper image folder on a server. (0) comments
Reading Dan Bricklin's TabletPC review. I stopped by a local PC store today to try to check one out, but there were no demo machines available. The store didn't slackers like me trashing their pricey new toys; only serious customers wanted. (0) comments
Alas, the Gesture drawing class ended on Thursday. It was a great class, almost like meditating for 3 hours. It's hard to think of anything else when concentrating on doing a drawing.
(0) comments Tuesday, November 19, 2002
The New Supertanker Plague, an article in the June 2002 Wired Magazine, is about the sad shape of most oil tankers. I immediately thought about it after hearing about the tanker spill off the coast of Spain. “Blame it on super-rust, a virulent form of corrosion that has destroyed hundreds of ships and could sink the oil industry”. (0) comments
The Segway is for sale on Amazon.com. I've got my doubts about how compatible these motorized devices are with bikes and people on sidewalks. They are allowed on the sidewalk in most states thanks to an aggressive campaign by the Segway manufacturer to change the laws in many states. In Virginia they are called electric personal assistive mobility devices. (0) comments Monday, November 18, 2002
Dell Computer just announced their entry into the PDA field, the Dell Axim X5 Handheld. I'm still waiting for the Antelope or OQO computers. If I'm going to spend a couple of hundred dollars on another computer, I want it to be more than just a PDA. (0) comments
Attended the Virginia Bicycling Federation annual retreat outside the tiny burg of Louisa, Virginia. It was a good time to sit inside and discuss needed legislative changes that affect cyclists, as it rained the entire weekend. The proposed changes are posted on the VBF site. (0) comments
Zeldman pointed out ReadingEd, a CSS-based site, which in turn linked to stonefishspine, another very attractive weblog. Speaking of Zeldman, his latest A List Apart contains a very good article on CSS layout entitled (0) comments
Steven Johnson writes about the new Microsoft product, OneNote. It's a software application that manages notes, including handwritten text. I still keep a written journal. It's portable, and I can draw and write very quickly. Having an application like OneNote would be a great way to deal with journal-like info, especially on a device like the OQO ultrapersonal computer. (0) comments Friday, November 15, 2002
Let's hope that shutting down public information web sites doesn't become a trend. I guess I should get over the 2000 presidential election and quit thinking “Thanks Ralph Nader” whenever the Bush administration pisses me off. (0) comments
I wonder if anyone has done a cost-benefit analysis of leaf blowers. I would guess that raking by hand takes about the same amount of time minus the noise, pollution, energy wasted, etc. Plus one gets the added benefit of physical exercise. (0) comments Sunday, November 10, 2002
Michael Dirda recently took a break from his job reviewing and writing on books in the Post Book World so that he could finish a novel. That was the first time in many years he could read what he wanted. Here's his list of books “read Purely for Pleasure”. (0) comments
Enjoying megnut's dispatches from Paris. She's living there for a month with Jason Kottke. To read more about Paris, read Jonathan Yardley's review of Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne. “It is not a conventional history but ‘a series of linked biographical essays, depicting seven ages (capriciously selected at the whim of the author) in the long, exciting life of a sexy and beautiful, but also turbulent, troublesome and sometimes excessively violent woman.’” (0) comments
Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post was not very impressed with the new Tablet PCs in his review in today's edition. Sounds like the touch screen capabilities are not well integrated into the OS, nor is the handwriting recognition very accurate. Anything below about 98% takes lots of time to correct, especially with a pen. I think there are many artistic possibilities with the new systems, given that one needs not hassle with configuring a drawing tablet and one can draw directly on the screen. There's a huge difference between the awkwardness of drawing on a tablet and drawing directly onscreen. (0) comments Saturday, November 09, 2002
On Slashdot today (I use the stripped down version fo Slashdot without the graphics): "Launched today (in beta), the Waypath Project is an attempt to network the weblog community, connecting weblogs that share common themes, ideas, and topics." One can type in the url of a weblog and find others that are similar. I typed in mine and discovered an entry by rosebaby. Guess I'll check it out for a while. (0) comments Friday, November 08, 2002
Started reading Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. It's one of those many books that I've always wanted to read but put keep putting off in favor of more popular books like Black Hawk Down. The writing so far is pretty timeless and am enjoying the book. (0) comments Thursday, November 07, 2002
Read the NY Times article on Microsoft's roll out the Tablet PC today. While I'm hoping these succeed, they are currently overpriced at $2,200 and up. They also seem a little big, but I'll need to check one out to get a real feel for their size. (0) comments Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Steve Gillmor of Infoworld discusses how much news he is able to discover from weblogs. He mentions Mitch Kapor's log about the development of a new, open source personal information manager. Wouldn't it be nice to have a robust replacement for Outlook? I discovered the article from the printed version of Infoworld, that yes, is still being delivered. I'm sure this week's copy is my very, very, last copy. (0) comments
Despite the depressing news that republicans now control the Congress, there was at least one positive outcome of the recent election. Votors in Northern Virginia defeated the proposed transportation sales tax increase. It would have mostly funded new road capacity. Building new road capacity would in effect send the message to all those single-passenger SUV commuters that it's OK to foul our air, we'll keep building more roads. Instead, we're going to have to come up with some creative solutions, such as telecommuting, car pooling, bike commuting, and using public transit. And maybe now people will think twice before moving so far away from their jobs. (0) comments
I still think that Transmeta is a great stock value at around a dollar a share. According to this article in Forbes, how well the new Tablet PC's fare could decide whether Transmeta survives. Using the Google News search engine, I've discovered how many times a news article gets recycled. I've been searching for articles on the OQO ultrapersonal computer, and an article on the niche market of tiny computers has appeared in about 5 or 6 different sources. (0) comments Monday, November 04, 2002
(0) comments Sunday, November 03, 2002
The Post has a good article on the use of Linux in a province in Spain. The government was tired of paying the monopoly fees charged by Microsoft, as well as the proliferation of viruses under Windows. (0) comments |
