Three “free” ways to digitize audio

We talked earlier about high quality handheld audio recorders. Some people simply need to digitize audio. Another time we will consider less expensive audio recorders, but this time you can look in your own house or office for potential digitizers you may have not considered before.

Even though many people have these tools available, they were not free when purchased, hence the quotation marks in the title.

1. Your computer
Begin with what’s closest—if your computer is of recent vintage (most Macs and some PCs have had this feature for years) it may come with either a built in or plug in microphone. If it’s not immediately obvious how to use it to record, check for instructions on the web.

2. Digital Cameras
Many recent digital still cameras, even little snapshot cameras, have the capacity to either take movies with audio or record audio notes. These may be low quality, only good for very retro-sounding podcasts, but for simply recording notes they work fine.

3. Video cameras
Most new video cameras, as well as many older ones, connect to computers. Video cameras are more bulky than still cameras, but for the real M-M-Max Headroom style, point this one at your face and record away.

Classic tech–the wood plane

It’s old, it’s not electronic, it’s not even mechanical, but if you need to prepare tree-grown boards, even for something as simple as a bookcase, a well made and well sharpened plane is a joy to use.

There is nothing like the bite of the plane into wood, the wood smell, and the curl of the shavings.

The key to using a wood plane successfully is to make sure the blade is very sharp. It’s also important to not set the blade any deeper than necessary. Better to take off multiple small shavings than to struggle and gouge with a cut that’s too deep.

Great computer graphics magazine

If you do anything related to computer graphics and design, one of the best print magazines is the monthly Computer Arts Magazine published in England.

The focus is British, but includes lots of rest of the world design. It’s great to see what people are doing in Brazil and Hong Kong and Russia and Singapore.

The range of tutorial projects is wide. Recent ones include designing a letterhead for your company, drawing in anime style, designing a logo, branding online, and creating an animated book.

The art and design they feature is unusually current. Perhaps British illustrators are on the leading edge right now. At any rate, trends you see first this magazine often appear within the year on album covers, other magazines, TV commercials, and print advertisements.

Perhaps the best parts of the magazine are the tutorials, simple, clear, richly visual descriptions of how to do a variety of design-related tasks, using a variety of software.

In addition, each issue comes with a CD containing goodies like free Illustrator brushes, fonts, tutorials, or stock photos.

And hey, you get to do on the fly currency calculations, and occasionally puzzle over British slang. The magazine is somewhat expensive— $15 or so an issue in the US. On the other hand, for great design and excellent tutorials, you get as much instruction and inspiration in two or three issues as you would in a how-to book, except these are lots prettier, and much more current.

Best of all, the publishers are generous— a trip to the website, http://www.computerarts.co.uk/ gives you the opportunity to look at an amazing variety of articles and tutorials from previous issues. Try some of them out, and if you find them useful, subscribe.

Easily customize your WordPress blog

There is a very easy way to customize the look of your WordPress blog.

Generally, the standard WordPress blog works fine for most people. It’s a clean, simple design, and after all, your text content is so compelling that looks don’t matter!

But if you decide you want to change your look, here’s the easy way to do it.

1. It’s best to work in Firefox—for some unknown reason, certain aspects of WordPress do not always work in Safari.

2. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and click on “Presentation”

3. When the page comes up, scroll through it until you find a look, a “Theme” you like.

4. Click on the Theme to see what your new blog page would look like.

5. If it’s not quite what you want, hit the backspace button and keep looking. When you find just the right one, click “Activate,” and you will have new Theme!

And you can change it again whenever you want.

Computer input and output devices: MUSICPOLE

No sooner did we build computers than we realized we had to find ways to get our stuff into them. Keyboards, stacks of cards, paper tapes, actually attaching wires to circuits and then moving them around–we’ve come a long way.

Then, of course, we have to get the good stuff back out. Monitors, printers, speakers, even computerized fabricating devices, there are more choices arriving each day.

Musicians seem to be especially adept at inventing unique instruments, and these days that often means ones that can also be connected to a computer. Here’s a recent novel MIDI device: the MusicPole.

http://www.themusicpole.com/

Apparently you strap contact strips to your thumbs, then to hit the notes you slide your thumbs over live areas, the “keys,” arrayed on a tube in a unique way to improve usability.

It costs about $400, and is lightweight, festive looking, and versatile, since it can serve as keyboard, percussion, or other synth instrument.  It is being sold by the muscian-inventor.

The cool thing about having more and more such alternate devices is that there will be something to suit every kind of dexterity, or lack of it.

Writing software— Tex-Edit Plus, richly basic

Sure, you can get Microsoft Word, the ultimate text program, which can drive you to the store, buy breakfast, cook it for you, eat it for you, then drop you off back home.

And when you are writing a book or other elaborate project, there’s nothing like it.

But for everyday notes and pounding out fictions and essays, the handy little shareware Tex-Edit Plus fits the bill perfectly.

It is lightweight, very fast, and awesomely stable. Back when Apple’s built-in SimpleText/TextEdit was too simple and cranky, Tex-Edit came along to carry the load, and those who started using it then have never stopped.

It’s fine for the most basic use: pop it open, type, save. Then do some basic formatting, change fonts, save as RTF or ASCII or Word, and leave it running quietly in the background, ever ready.

If you feel adventurous, do some exploring, because it has lots of capabilities— record sound, choose from a variety of Applescripts, write html code, and clean up or sort text.

It is also the most polite of sharewares— does not nag, expire, or turn purple (unless you want it to.) This surely has cost developer Tom Bender some revenues over the years, but has also made him legendary. Tex-Edit Plus is like a good pencil— it does exactly what you want, yet supports finesse. And, bonus, it never needs sharpening.

http://www.tex-edit.com $15.00

Choose a website name

Here are three tips for choosing a website name.

The bad news–many domain names have already been used.
The good news–many domain names have already been used!

That means you have to get creative–and have fun.

1. Jam unlikely but vivid words together. Festivesnaketooth. Creepingmainframe.

2. Unless there’s a good reason to be serious, think up a clever or funny name related to your product or service or interest. Poodlewidget. CSStumdum.

3. Ah Poesy! Make use of poetry basics: rhyme, alliteration, rhythm. Wronglongsong. Wombathazmat.