2011 — 7 August: Sunday
What fresh adventures await me, I wonder?1 I was just listening to Bix Beiderbecke's "In a mist", played by Marco Fumo (whom I've never heard of). This is one of the piano pieces Dad used to play (though I've only just learned what the title is). It's not that I was incurious. Indeed I have (in a 4-disc set) that same track, though played rather more energetically than either Dad or Mr Fumo managed. I've now moved away from Radio 3 (which can be a little turgid) and on to Bill Nelson's 1988 album "Optimism" with his Orchestra Arcana, which I haven't played for many years.
It's 08:59 and the sun looks as if it might be coming out to play. Time for breakfast.
Pah! Adventure #1 consists of working out how that Beiderbecke set slipped through my data base net. I've ripped it to MP3 without managing to acknowledge its existence or presence in my online list of CDs though the individual tracks are in my MP3 listings. Grrr. It really is time I got (better) organised :-)
Moving audio
I shall also be moving my NAD CD player up to the "reading room" and re-plumbing things slightly today — in the next few minutes, in fact. I cannot distinguish between the quality of its playback and that of the Oppo Blu-ray player — not too surprising as they have basically identical 24-bit DAC stages. So there's no point in having both players in the downstairs system. The NAD player has both an optical digital input and provision for USB-connected music files. This gives it a useful flexibility up there that I already have with the living room audio system. Now if only there's an automated way of making sure I update my data bases.
Of course, now I can also use the Tablet PC to play MP3 files, though if I want digital audio I would have to use its HDMI output — and, can you believe, I actually don't have any spare HDMI audio inputs on any kit? Shocking.
On the face of it...
... this is a ridiculous little spat, but some of the comments are worth reading. Including the aside that the latest edition of the DSM has finally merged Autism and Aspergers, doubtless leading to a further increase in BigPharma profits. (Link.)
Aaaargh!
Come on, David! You should know better than to try to use Wifi at the same time as your microwave oven, surely?! If you're hungry put the damn' Tablet down... I don't care if you have just successfully paid 99p for your first non-free App and wish to try it. You still have to eat.
Sweet sounds
Not only have I rejigged things upstairs in the reading room, I have even updated the notes. So can I have another cuppa now, please, Mrs Landingham? I promise to make it in the way Cerys described on her BBC 6Music show this morning so it tastes more like a real brew. It's 15:25 and there have been a couple of quite heavy showers in between all the nice blasts of sunshine and blue skies.
Now, if only...
... I knew how I'd managed to get three instances of the same Gmail app running on one of my desktops (they just leapt there, honest, it wasn't me, guv!)...
... maybe I'd a) know how to avoid it happening again, and/or b) be able to find some way of removing or killing off two of them. I've been exploring the App management interface (having first scoured the user manual, of course) but without noticeable success so far. I could use a 'Delete' key round about now.
Let's hear it for a...
... consistent user interface, shall we? If you keep touching an icon on the desktop it becomes stuck to your finger so you can move it somewhere else. One such "somewhere else" being the previously invisible trash can that magically appears up in the top right hand corner of your screen. Drag and drop. Bingo(ne)!
Meanwhile, if you happen to be inside the "Gallery" app (for example, browsing all your DVD cover artwork scans as earlier copied across, quite speedily) and you find one that can now be deleted (because you've given it away to Aunty Ethel, or thrown it out in disgust, or simply lost it in the same black hole that absorbs pens and socks) if you keep touching the image's icon, another bin appears, in a subtly different location, but you can't just move your victim to the bin. Oh, no. That would be far too much like the previous (undocumented) behaviour. Instead, you have to confirm your deletion request by touching the bin while (thank goodness) the icon of your victim stays selected.
Public kudos to Len for discovering the first of these: "This seems the sort of interface you have to watch carefully otherwise it sneaks away and hides", he's just told me (in an email safely received on the Tablet while I was typing this paragraph). At least I managed to find the second bin all by myself.