Fight Of The Idiot Computer And Me

I'n trying to reboot my laptop. It's not going well. Again.

Tried Medic Drive, from System Mechanic. Nothing. Keeps quoting reboot disc. The only disc I can find that came with it is MS Works 8. I think I can safely assume that is not quite what I'm after.

Just one word.

AAAAAAAHGGGGGGGGHHHHHGGHHHHHHHHH....

This fight had been going on about 3-4 months and I'm getting ready to chuck it over a cliff, see if that helps.

I always hated Windows Vista, but this now takes it to a whole new level. And even with Norton running in the background, it still crashed and burned. So not too impressed with them either. Wishing now I'd done IT in school instead of bloody nursing. Computers are much more useful than people and are much harder to put back together when they break.

Plus the NHS is free and Computer Repair Man is so very not.

Foiled By Magix (Part 2)

Just as I thought I was getting the hang of Music Maker, it's gone and thrown another curve-ball. Or, more accurately, gone and thrown my MIDI driver right out if the window.

One minute we were quite "happily" (and I use that word very loosely) working away together in making music (as the software's name implies), and the next nothing works. Checking the input settings on the system, I find out it has absolutely no recollection of ever using the M-Audio Ozone Driver, and has absolutely no clue that it even exists. Despite the fact the rest of the computer knows its there. Clearly, it's already had a nervous breakdown... And I am about to follow suit.

Having already completed a sketch of the intro and first verse, I was less than elated to find out I now could not use it anymore because I couldn't work out why it was having such problems recognising the driver was still there. But I work in IT, so I did the obvious first - I shut the program and relaunched it... Nothing. I shouted at it... Nothing. I turned the (music) keyboard on and off... Nothing. I tried rebooting the driver... Nothing. I yelled at it again... Absolutely buggering nowt. As a last resort I lost my temper and shut it down - and hopefully by the time it gets rebooted again tomorrow, the hissy fit and sulking will be over and I will have a working program again.

... Of course, it could always be the driver's fault and nothing to do with the program whatsoever. It always hated Reason and never worked for it at all. I've not had a single machine or music program it's behaved itself with yet - not even when brand-spanking new out of the box. So I could be blaming Magix for nothing.

Hmm.. Just a thought.

Foiled By Magix

Come back Reason 4 - all is forgiven!

I've had the Magix Music Maker MX on for less than 2 hours and already want to chuck it out the window. Simple my arse - it won't do a thing. It seems hideously complicated, I can't get it to sodding play or record anything MIDI, and the only noises is making seems to have a 4-hour time delay. It seems completely useless!

I thought Reason was complicated, but it didn't take me a whole day to load it, find it, re-find my MIDI driver, and spend ages trying to work out how it works, only to no avail.

I had to get the Big Guns in, in the end. Izi had to work it out - finally, she managed to get it working. I'm just glad I was clever enough to get a partner who does sound engineering as a hobby. Otherwise it'd probably be making its way back to the shop.

I think want GarageBand back...

Collaboration Conspiracy To Drive Me Bonkers

I have definitely forgotten how difficult, complicated and irritating it can be to start work on a new music project, especially experimenting with new things to create a different sound. It's even more irritating when you're working with someone else who clearly doesn't understand what you want them to do. And that person seems to have the IQ of a rabbit - and it's a rabbit that has probably been dropped on its head quite a few times. It clearly brings forth the point that if one wants something done properly, one should do it themselves. 

Of course, that would be easier if I actually knew how to do what I wanted to do myself - hence the reason the other person is doing it instead. It's a shame they just can't follow simple instructions, and apparently can't understand plain English.  Propellerhead's Reason has always been one package that has driven me around the bend, and Reason 4 is even more of a bafflement to me than the previous ones. I can't wait until Reason 6 is finally in my possession - apparently it's set up in a way that even I can use, and it has more doo-hickies and whatsits that the other one (the one with said dropped-rabbit IQ) can use to make music sound better. It also collaborates with something called ReCycle ... Something that apparently is very useful in making nice samples for music integration. I do not even begin to understand what that's all about, but I am led to believe only good things will come of it. I will take their word on it. Honest. 

I have now at least been given a music program I can use myself - Music Maker MX - and a nice little USB mic (hope it works well) so I can actually sing on the bloody things - finally! (Thanks, Dad - much appreciated!). It will also allow me to - hopefully - put down vocals on my previous songs, having somehow managing to lose the original  (and only) copy of the vocal-inclusive tracks I had for the pieces. Having only the music instrumental tracks on another CD export of them left, it will at least let me recreate the original demos of the songs I had. And the best thing is that it has integrated online uploading options in the software - a very useful tool in this day and age. 

I  know the real reason I received this was so I could put vocals down on my Dad's songs (as opposed to mine), but at least it means he bought it for me and I didn't have to go to the bother of doing so myself. Backhanded compliment in there, I'm sure, but at least I end  up getting what I want.

Prince Philip quotes: Relive 90 classic gaffes to mark his 90th birthday

Prince Philip quotes: Relive 90 classic gaffes to mark his 90th birthday

Historical Writing

I've found something I've dusted off from a while ago. It's the first full manuscript that I wrote that I still own (I have lost too many with the few computers that have crashed/ been stolen that I've forgotten to back up). The original was old enough to have rather dated language and references and is still currently being updated - it's only been a few years and it even references video tapes! How fast technology moves these days.

I've been through a few of my previous manuscripts, written within less than 10 years, and yet in that short amount of time it surprises me how terribly outdated most of the references are. Just a few decades ago you could have written stuff with technological references and they still would have been more than relevant after sitting around for 20 years. Now, if you ignore it more than 12 months, it's completely out of date. Even if you reference DVDs now, you know in a couple of years they'll probably non-existent and everyone will have 3D blu-ray players that also do the washing up, and DVDs will be relegated to the Science Museum and the Antiques Roadshow. Even the iBook laptop I wrote them on is now so old it struggles to run a basic old-version browser and I actually cannot update it because the processor is too old to take the new OS that is compatible with the latest version of the browser. That machine was brand-new only 8 short years ago, and has a fraction of the capability of its updated replacement in the shops (and it's at least the 3rd upgrade to it in that time).

It's one thing to read books that are "classic" now (say, Jane Austen/Shakespeare etc) and appreciate that was "modern" at the time, and old-fashioned now - they were, of course written several hundred years ago. It's another thing to read a book from 1991 and wonder at the historical, ancient, old fashioned and antiquated references to Walkmans (Walkmen?), video tapes, DOS computers, SuperNintendo and actually going to the shops if you want to buy something. It's slightly disconcerting when you realise you lived in that time-once-gone, and you're not 95 years old. In fact, you're barely 30 and the things that were state-of-the-art when you were 15 are now in the science museum and already classed as "historical". It sits somewhere between mind-boggling and terrifying.

Looking through something written at the turn of the Millennium, it seems even more clear at how lightening-fast the world moves now. You would think that things referenced in something written in 2005 would be "up to date"... Except even then iTunes was a theory, 1GB was an impressive amount of RAM, a Hard Drive of 100GB was amazing, and if you wanted to watch a film you went and bought on in Woolies or you rented one at Blockbuster. And if you were a gamer you still only had a PS2, and if you wanted to play with your friends they actually had to come round with spare pads. It's only 6 years ago, yet it's a different life. It makes me rather weary of changing the references with updated ones, and the fact that in a couple of years they'll be outdated and I'll have to change them all over again, as well as using these references in anything new that I write.

Of course, there's always the other option - sell it as retro/historical fiction. It'll be totally authentic because it's at least written in the era it was based in. A bit like Jane Austen, only without the nice houses, dowries and pretty frocks. Instead it'll be based around CDs, skinny jeans, dial-up internet, original white iPod with clicking wheel, and computers that still run on that antiquated nightmare,Windows Vista.


~   ~   ~
MyPlace Page at Novelmaker.com

Sleeping Angel

I'm testing out lyrics: These are old(ish) lyrics to an old(ish) song of mine that I think was originally scrambled together around late 2003. Since then they have been slightly re-written and also featured in my (current) favourite manuscript, "Rumour In The Truth".

I am hoping to - finally - write the music for it so I can actually create a song from it once and for all. Hopefully the new software I will soon acquire will at the very least be able to put down a rough-sketch demo of it, so my sound-engineer partner can create a "proper" piece for it. After waiting nearly a decade, I might actually be able to hear what it's supposed to sound like through my ears, and not just in my head.



~ Sleeping Angel ~

You just lie there, sleeping angel
Before you wake and walk right out my door
You just stand there, sitting angels
Let my life just pin me on the floor

I just leave you, single-minded
There ain’t nothing you can do to change my mind
And you’ll beg me, try to break me
But I’m not listening to a word you find

I don’t know you sitting there, looking right back at me
Nothing there but do or die

So cold, so dead, so right now baby
I won’t surrender to your smile
Can’t believe in what you said
Can’t believe you hate me
Nothing left but do or die

You just sit there, and I love you
Then you turn your back and break my heart
Devastate me, smiling angel
Beyond me, oh so near and yet so far

You’re just sitting there looking right back at me
Nothing left but do or die

So cold, so dead, so right now baby
I won’t surrender to your smile
Can’t believe in what you said
Can’t believe you hate me
Nothing left but do or die

My lie is yours
Sleeping angel behind closed doors
My broken heart can’t say goodbye
There nothing left here but do or die

So cold, so dead, so right now baby
I won’t surrender to your smile
Can’t believe in what you said
Can’t believe you hate me
Nothing left but do or die

So cold, so dead, so right now baby
I won’t surrender to your smile
Can’t believe in what you said
Can’t believe you hate me
Nothing left but do or die


~ DelphineMusic ~
2011

Bless!

Pussy-Cat trying to help Mummy with her writing... But I think he got bored.

BlackBerry Raspberry: A Rant/ Sigh of Despair

Remember when BlackBerrys seemed like a good idea? So do I... Now mine's just driving me mad. Everlasting twirling loading clocks, freezing apps and screens, constant crashing and reboots on zero-notice (and with absolutely no reason) - it can hardly mod anything. And don't get me started on the Internet browser - I might actually start to cry.

Now in a world of iPhones (which can do anything but the washing - and the app for that's not probably not far off, either) and Androids, I cannot imagine what RIM are even thinking of when they created an OS that couldn't run on their established phones' processors, and also didn't bother creating a capable, Flash-friendly browser. Especially the Flash thing - the one market iPhone doesn't even compete in (thanks to their Quick Time hard-on), and RIM point-blank ignore it? Talk about being between missed-opportunity and shooting-oneself-in-the-foot.

They have (had?) a winning product, but clearly they're unraveling. The new generation line of OS7 devices have been delayed, their server infamously crashed for days (Equinix?? It said Slough...), their new tablet rather crashed and burned, and so far their product hadn't quite matched with the "smart" phones of the new world of such things. Mine was (and I really emphasise "was" in abundance) the best mid-line device on offer - the middle-ground between the basic Curve 8520 and the Bold range with all bells and whistles.

The Curve 3G looked great - and it very much was. But as soon as OS6 got its clutches into it, my little soldier descended into chaos and hasn't worked properly since. In fact, the only thing it can be relied on to do is crash and reboot on a spectacularly regular basis. It's a great little Filofax - my whole life is on it and I've become shockingly adept at life since obtaining it. Bills actually get paid on time and I don't miss deadlines or appointments. However, as a fully-functioning smartphone it is disastrously lacking, and I am often so terribly grateful I have the 4th Gen iPod Touch (which is essentially an iPhone without calling abilities), as not even YouTube will successfully work on it in the most cases.

At the end of the day (as it were), I love my BB, and it's changed my life - I've never been so organised or on top of everything that usually threatens to overwhelm me because I've completely forgotten about it all. But I really wish they'd just buck up, fix clear glitches and finally make a proper web browser - so I can actually steam the bloody tennis on BBC Sport every summer whilst I'm on the bus.

I know Murray never wins, but I'd hate to be stuck on the bus and miss it on the day that he finally does just because I still had a Flash-free BB browser that was still allergic to working properly.

The Insomia-Born

So annoying. Finally get to feeling tired after virtually running ragged around Skyrim - but as soon as get head on pillow and buried under duvet, immediately end up feeling like have drunk entire vat of super-duper hardcore coffee laced with pro-plus pills. Eyes ping open, head starts buzzing, and black room is suddenly very irritating - not sleep-inducing whatsoever. Clearly I'm allergic to sleeping at night.

Partner puts head on pillow, goes out like a light. Pussy-Cat plonks himself down, spread-eagles like a flattened rug and immediately ends up in fairyland. Me? I get about as much sleep in a week as most people get in one night. If I'm lucky. And I'm not a particularly lucky person.

Apparently have been as such since foetus. Used to keep parents awake by kicking all night, then carried on in much the same fashion after being dragged out (and that was about 6 weeks after supposed "first" offered due-date - still late for everything, too). Only didn't do much kicking as scream till nearly blue, once born. Would still love to do that sometimes, but suspect it might be rather frowned upon.

Maybe I should try playing "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" again - it was apparently the only thing they had that ever used to work back then (and I'll assume parents weren't allowed to try chloroform), so it may work now via some deep-seated Pavlovian trick. Used to have whole tape of it back-to-back - suppose the equivalent now would be to get it on iTunes and just put unlimited repeat on it. Much easier to manage!

Some perverse part of me wants to see if it's actually still available... You never know. One day I'm bound to run out of every other option!

I wish I came with an off-switch, though. This is irritating, boring and simply exhausting. And there's only so much Skyrim you can play before you run the risk of believing you do actually live there. Especially if the exhaustion starts turning into sleep-deprived hallucinations and fragmented reality. Then you'll probably end up thinking you really have got dragons in the house when, actually, that's only just your cat. And he's not roaring, he's just snoring.

... Beware, beware - The Insomnia comes ...

DelphineMusic

DelphineMusic

Sleepless In Suffering...

Currently way past 2am, and stayed up till past 1am just to help Iz finish her Song - "JCP Vibe"... Based on a dance remix of the Rainbow theme time and voice samples. That and also fight with ancient technology (that is our 8 year old Mac) to get it onto her BB to take to work. And that was fun with a pounding migraine and nausea, let me tell you.

Thing is also will be forced to wake up at about 5:30am, so it's not really working out very well. If I'm lucky I'll end up with more than 1 hour of sleep... If that happens to be your insane definition of luck.

I now have a pussy-cat on the pillows next to my head and his paws over shoulders, purring away when not snoring. Have also been through Twitter to find random new Follows - and mainly found out that it's currently seems to be rather broken (especially the iPhone app), and am now running out of things to keep me occupied/ send me to sleep. Will have to resort to Time Team again at this rate - but if it doesn't send me to sleep, at least I'll be entertained.

...You know, whoever invented insomnia needs to be mauled alive by The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog {Monty Python The Holy Grail}... This is ridiculously insane - and worse of all, mind-numbingly boring.

Writing ADD

I tend to suffer from creative, or writing, ADD - as soon as I think I'm actually getting somewhere with something (writing/editing manuscript, writing/editing song etc), I get more ideas for another one and abandon the one being worked on without a backwards glance to focus on the new idea.

This leads to owning lots of unfinished and unrefined, often not-exactly-impressive manuscripts and having no idea what to do with them after the novelty of the new idea has worn off. I definitely blame this for getting not a lot done over a prolonged space of time, and I think there really should be a cure... In fact, even writing this I am starting to think of other things I could also be writing. It's an illness, surely? One maybe helped by nutritious sustenance like caffeine and chocolate, and maybe ice cream...

I've digressed again. I'm now thinking about a Gingerbread Latte in one hand and a tub of Haagen Daz in the other. Bliss.

It's quite possible I might be able to repress the ADD long enough to complete something - unfortunately, that also usually means ending up being borderline obsessive, which is probably just as non-constructive really. It's just as annoying. So currently I'm rather doing nothing much but procrastinating, getting nowhere for yet another reason. But then when I'm finished with that I'm bound to have another great, unrelated idea to get started on until the next one turns up!

Eventually, I might actually finish that edit, write Chapter 2 of another one, and get around to re-arranging that other chapter in a third. You never know!

Insomnia & Pussy-Cats

Exhausted and tired, it's the middle of the night, have massive insomnia - and the cat's come in absolutely sopping wet from outside and yelling like its my fault! ... But then at least that means I can close the window and the nasty weather outside can stay outside. The virtual monsoon has nearly drowned my curtains and windowsill thanks to the furry idiot staying out in it all this time. Not very impressed.

Whilst having nothing better to do while waiting to eventually become exhausted enough to pass out, I've ended up becoming overly excited about the final and long awaited appearance of the BBC iPlayer iPhone app for my iPod Touch. After waiting about a year for it to materialise (as I have had said gadget since last Xmas) I am happy one has finally turned up - despite the fact that it also means that I have to re-set all my "Favourites" again... Would it have killed them to have it sync with your desktop sign-in??

Pussy cat is now lying on my pillows and drying himself up - bless him. He seems to be enjoying himself, but anything is probably better than being outside in gales and monsoon-like rain. Especially if it involves drenching my pillows. {see also pics}

For all my inappropriate excitement about iPlayer, I'm probably going to go and watch Time Team on the 4OD app now. I've always found the show to be so endearing, as well as fascinating and informative. Or I can continue to play with all my apps till I'm bored of them. Whichever comes first, I suppose!

Pussy Cat has now finished attending to his toilette and currently has curled himself up on pillows and is now purring happily. He seems to like the pillows, and there's three in the bed tonight - two happily snoozling, and me left wide awake.

I could only wish to be so easily placated as the other two!

Back To Music

Right off I’ll admit that I am bored. And so I have spent my day re-examining all my back catalogue of songs and putting them onto my new SoundCloud site, which I am rather impressed about - since it’s the first time I’ve done such a thing in years! After ignoring my music for so many years it was rather strange to dust off the old songs and not only listen to them again, but to put them up for (hopefully) other people to listen to as well.

I’ve been partly inspired by the boredom (there really isn’t much to do when no matter how many doors you try to kick down, they still won’t give you a job), but also partly inspired by inspiration of working with my partner and writing and editing one of my novels {“Rumour In The Truth”, if it ever gets published!}, which is also about a rather a disillusioned singer living in the Big Smoke. I got to remembering how much it is part of my identity, and today I went out fishing for my old material - since I actually don’t have anything new anymore, after accidentally losing yet another digital album. And by digital, I mean it stayed in music program format and never really made it to MP3.

The few I did export have now vanished (I have the case, but the CD seems to be long gone) and I therefore no longer seem to have any copies of them. The last time that happened I didn’t keep backup copies and someone got into my flat and pinched my laptop. This time round I have backup copies, but when my Mac died the program went with it and so I cannot resurrect what I made until I (eventually) manage to afford a new one, because they got written on the Mac-only GarageBand and I currently make do with a W7 tower.

I would have done it on Reason, if I actually understood it, and therefore would still have access to it. However, Reason is clearly for Rocket Scientists (or at least the sound engineer equivalent) and I have no idea what most of those twiddly-looking things are for. The fact I managed to write any songs at it at all I frankly put down to pure luck than anything else - although I am very pleased with the way Black Heart and Tangled Web came out (considering this fact)!

I now therefore cannot wait until I a) Get a new Mac, and b) Have Reason 6 installed on it, which is slightly more manageable, and has a voice recorder on it for the first time (and I now also have one of those Rocket Science-type engineer-type people to help me to - my partner actually understands this stuff and studied it - hoorah!). Then I can start writing the new stuff that has been coming into my head recently, which I have had no way of actually creating because I don’t actually know how to go about doing it with the program that we have.

You never know … It might actually be something I really like for a change!