The White Stuff

[jadesfire]

Well, that was a bit too much like hard work. It took me an hour and a half to do the 2.5 miles from home to work this morning. Every bus seemed to be full, so I waited half an hour there (yes, I do have some feeling in my toes again now, thanks for asking), then it took half an hour down the main road, which didn't seem to have been gritted since Monday. Thanks to the continual snowfall/slush/freezing cycle, it was covered in an inch or so of ice, so there was much slipping and wheelspin pretty much everywhere. Even the bus took a dive to the left every time it stopped, freaking the driver out a little, not to mention the rest of us.

Knitters, I'm not sure about making it to Blackwell's at lunchtime. Due to my klutziness/carefulness, it's taking me forever to walk places, and as one of the few members of staff here, I don't really feel I can extend my lunchbreak. Also, lind is off ill and B is still fighting the train network. Maybe next week, once it's melted.

Speaking of which, I don't mind the snow so much, it's the thaw that's starting to worry me. Last February when all the snow melted, the river rose to within an inch of the bottom of our window. And there wasn't as much snow then as there is now.

*gulp*

This is not going to help my attempts to wean myself off Rightmove, is it?

---

Moving onto happier thoughts, did I mention that I have an iPod Touch? Once or twice, maybe? I'm sorta kinda in love with it right now, but I have two questions for more experienced users:

#1. What free/cheap apps should I get? I already have Stanza and Echofon and a Sudoku game. Any other must haves?

#2. Is there any way to get the damn thing to remember what I was listening to before I turned it off? Several of my audiobooks are just albums (ie MP3 not M4b) so it won't remember which track I was listening to, and the 'recently played' is no help at all. My Creative used to remember and start up where I left off. Is there any way to make the Touch do that, or am I just going to have to improve my memory skills?

---

Since I can't live without a desk diary, I went out and got myself a half-price Moleskin one yesterday. It is black and leather and absolutely gorgeous. You didn't need to know that, but it's making me happy and I felt the need to share.

Anything to take my mind off the amount of snow still falling outside...

Comments

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

I was all set to finally make it to the office this morning till I looked out of the window and saw the two inches of fresh snow sitting on my car. I am thus working from home yet again. At least it's saving me a fortune in petrol as I'm not driving the 75 mile a day roundtrip, though I suspect that will all be spent on gas and electicity as we try to keep the house warm.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes, lots of shops are keeping their doors closed to keep the heat in. Must be very bad for business though.

It stopped snowing for a while, but has just started up again, and they've suspended more or less ALL bus services in Oxfordshire. Heaven knows how the folks who got here are going to get home again...

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? Keeping the doors closed is unusual and bad for business? Are the doors of all the shops generally standing open all the time? *is confused*

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Yup, pretty much. Not *all* of them, but those without glass doors, definitely. But everyone's closed at the moment, and they all *look* closed, if you see what I mean. Certainly there were quite a few shops that I walked past yesterday thinking they were shut, and didn't realise they were open until I walked back the other way and saw people inside. It varies, but yes, the shops that can keep their doors shut.

Maybe it's a climate thing? We don't usually get these extremes of hot and cold, so A/C and heating aren't usually such big issues.

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

I swear, it's the littlest things that fascinate me...

I think 99% of our stores have glass doors and windows, and they generally hang those reversible "Open/Closed" signs on the doors too. But they hardly ever have the doors open. Could have something to do with it usually being above 90* (32* C) where I'm from.

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, even those with glass doors that usually have one propped open have them closed, though quite a few seem to have put signs up saying "We are Open!" in large letters. :) If I'm honest I believe this is a practice that should definitely be encouraged since it's not only better for the environment, it keeps the shop warmer (and thus staff happier), and lowers their energy bills which would hopefully be passed on to the shoppers in the long run.

Nate

[in-the-bottle.livejournal.com]

*pets her own Moleskin pocket diary*

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I have a bright pink filofax that I also adore, so a desk diary is a good way to get my Moleskin fix. They're just so damn gorgeous!

[white_hart]

My iTouch seems to remember what I was listening to unless I've synced it with iTunes in between.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

...hmmmm.... Does it start up again automatically? I'm fairly sure that I'm just doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what!

[white_hart]

I have to go into Music to press Play to start it up again, but it comes up with the same screen I left it on when I stopped it the last time.

If you feel up to slithering to Blackwells at lunchtime I can show you what I do and you can see if it's any different to what you're doing?

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Hee, that would be great, thanks. Even if it's just you and me (although I think Dyddgu said that Antarra's around?) it'll be nice to get out of the building. And with my boss not here, who's going to notice a few extra minutes? ;)

[white_hart]

I think Antarra made it to work, and N is back in Oxford though I don't know if she's made it to town. Hopefully see you there, anyway!

[miss-zedem.livejournal.com]

*stamps foot* I want snow! We had a bit yesterday, quite a lot, in fact, but it didn't settle cos it was just wet rather than big fluffy flakes. The dog was unimpressed with it, and did resemble a snowdog when he came back in from his walks, but this morning, bright sunshine and just a little residual slush on the pavements. Hmph.

Oh, did you get an iPod Touch? I hadn't noticed... ;P (Jen named hers 'Myself', because she is comedy genius, clearly...) I have no clue about the music nor the apps, sorry :S

Moleskine diaries are lovely, although the last time I bought one I found the paper really thin. Also, I can't quite bring myself to buy one now I no longer get a discount on them (we used to sell them in the 'well). But they are pretty...

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

You're more than welcome to some of our snow! I love the stuff, and it's easier to walk on than yesterday's ice rink, but I'm dreading what's going to happen at the weekend when the rain comes. This is not going to be pretty.

*giggle* Mine doesn't have a name, but it does have some fun games on it. And it's nice to be able to have ALL my music/books on it, and software that actually works. It's a bit of a novelty really.

Completely by accident, I bought a Moleskin month planner/notebook. It wasn't what I meant to buy, but it's worked out really well. I can now shift to using my nice notebook for personal things and use the planner as my 'work book'. The notebook paper is pretty good, not too thin at all - maybe it's a diary thing. They're just such a joy to use, and it's nice to have something that makes me smile at work :)

[greyias.livejournal.com]

#1. What free/cheap apps should I get? I already have Stanza and Echofon and a Sudoku game. Any other must haves?

Now, these are all dependent on if they're available on the Touch/the UK. I have an iPhone, but the free ones I get the most use of are:

Words With Friends Free. It's a Scrabble game you play with your friends on its network. Lots and lots of fun.

I used to use Solebon Free (before I decided to upgrade), which is an app containing several Solitaire games.

Shazaam, if it's available for the Touch (and UK... not sure if there's a difference in the stores). Tag songs you hear, find what they are later when you have WiFi.

Twitterific, free Twitter app.

I think Spotify is available in the UK, so I'd opt for that over Pandora

The LJ app. You can write up LJ posts (kind of a pain on the virtual keyboard), and post them later.

Google's app.


Re: #2

In iTunes, right-click on the file, and click "get info". On the "Options" tab, under "Media Kind", select "Audiobook". It should now appear in your audiobooks section, as well as have the resume feature. I've done this for some podfics that were only provided in MP3, and it works like a charm.

ETA: My C&P skills need work.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I think I already got Words with Friends - I shall have to seek you out :)

I'm using Echofon for Twitter, which is what I use with Firefox, so it's familiar. Since I don't have a paid Spotify account, I hadn't planned on getting it - still worth it?

The LJ and Google ones are definitely worth having, thanks.

I found that half the problem was that I turn my player off, rather than just locking the keys/letting it power itself down. That seems to wipe the history. Do you think the conversion thing will work even if the books are multiple tracks? Some of them are 50 or so short MP3 tracks. I'm gussing I'd have to do something whizzy to merge them for the resume to work, but am going for 'don't turn it off' in the meantime ;)

Thank you! Much appreciated :)

[greyias.livejournal.com]

WordsWithFriends - same bat username

Ooh, I didn't realize you were turning it off. Does that mean the Touch is easier to turn off than the iPhone? I have to hold down the top button and use a slider to turn it off. I usually just press the button on top once, quickly, to put it into sleep mode. It keeps playing music or whatever it was doing like before. One trick I've been doing to pause it without having to go through the menu is remove the earphones. Then press the top to put it to "sleep". It doesn't use up much battery in sleep mode if it's not playing music.

I would use the conversion thing only for things that are either really long that you want it to remember where to resume in, regardless of whether you've turned it off or listened to another song. The conversion thing shoooould work regardless of how many tracks, but I've never tried it on something like the Big Finish dramas that rip everything to a separate track. You might also want to experiment with the "part of a compilation" tick box and the "part of a gapless" album if those aren't checked as well, that way iTunes knows it's "together". (You can right-click and "get info" on batches of files, so you can do batch edits if you need to.) Let me know how it works out! I'm curious to know if it can work without having to manually compile it into a new file together.

Ahh, Echofon is in the app store? I really need to pay more attention. As for Spotify... if you can only connect to a paid account, and never having used Spotify before, then I'd say no. Check out Pandora. Not the same functionality from what I understand, but you can still choose your music and listen to it (when you have WiFi access)

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I have to do the same thing to turn off the Touch, but I'm getting all confused now. Because pressing the button on the top once locks the keys. How do I make it sleep? *iz baffled*

It's Big Finish dramas that I'm listening to, so I'll try some of those out as well. Not having used iTunes before, it's still all a bit mysterious to me, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and prod it properly yet. I'll try those things first, thanks.

I've got Spotify on every other computer (even at work \o/), and it'll work the same way as Pandora, I assume - I'll get it when I have wifi but not when I don't. Also, my understanding is that it doesn't run in the background like normal music? Music isn't really my priority, - I'm more about ways to entertain my brain when I'm on the bus ;) I've got the same username on Wordswithfriends too, so will check it out next time I have a connection.

Gotta love the 21st century :D

[greyias.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry to confuse you. Lock the keys is the same thing I'm calling sleep.

If I think of other apps, I'll let you know. (Kindle and the Sherlock Holmes game based on the new movie available in the UK? I'm having rather fun with those too.)

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

But...if I lock the keys, it keeps playing *flail*

oh, hang on. If I pause it then lock the keys, it'll be fine, right? That makes more sense.

Stanza does the job of Kindle, but I think I may have to have the Sherlock Holmes game. Haven't seen the film yet, but I want to sooooo much!

[greyias.livejournal.com]

You simply must see the film! It was exactly my kind of romp, so I think you'd probably enjoy it. (And from picking up and starting on the Holmes canon, it actually seems rather true to the character, which surprised me!)

On the Touch, are you listening with earphones, or through the speaker? If you're listening through earphones, simply unplugging them should pause it. My little sister has found some way to forward/back/pause without unlocking the thing, but darned if I can figure out how she's doing it. It has to do with some swipe motion after pressing the home button I think. This requires research, methinks.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

We're hoping to see it in February at this cinema (), which we've been wanting to visit for ages.

I'm listening on headphones so will try the unplugging thing. The rest sounds a little advanced for me for now.

ooh! And I meant to say that in other Geek News, J resurrected my laptop. Good riddance Linpus Lite, hello Ubuntu NBR \o/ What with that and the Touch, it's pretty much geeky heaven over here at the moment ;)

[greyias.livejournal.com]

Laptop resurrection! \o/ Oooh, is Ubuntu shiny? The nightmarish SUSE version of Linux made me wary of giving it a shot, but if it's user-friendly...

If I figure out the other method, I'll let you know whether it's easy. Headphone unplugging is my lazy way of doing it.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

[incidentally, link fail! this is the cinema (http://www.therexberkhamsted.com/)]

The Netbook version of Ubuntu is incredibly shiny and almost ridiculously easy to use. To the extent that when you want a new programme, you search for it in the package manager then just click 'install'. It does everything for you that you want - I've got VLC and Wine (for Spotify) which were my two 'must haves', and a very pretty wallpaper behind my icons, which I couldn't have in Linpus. If you want user-friendly Linux, I couldn't recommend it more.

[greyias.livejournal.com]

FWIW, a week later I finally figured out my sister's "trick"!

You press the "home" button twice, and it brings a little version of the music bar up at the top of the screen, and you can play/pause, go forward, backward, and mess with the volume. It's a double tap, sort of like a double-click.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Hokay, I'll try that. I'm not having much luck with the compilation thing though - all the tracks in my compilation albums show up separately *sigh* I'm kind of disappointed because if Winamp could manage it, I'd hoped iTunes could, without me having to go hunting for the answer.

*shakes fist* Curse you, Apple, getting my hopes up like that.

Thanks, though. I'll let you know how I get on!

[greyias.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry about that. The compilations will still show up as separate tracks, at least, I haven't been able to get them to do anything else for the products we make, which are all compilations. I'll keep nosing around to see if I can find a better solution.

And yes, ahh, I love how Apple products are supposed to be so user-friendly, but they're so ridiculously counter-intuitive at times.

Icon is for iTunes.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I've never actually paid for an app. I also don't have wifi at home so I am less likely to get apps that rely on that (I do go to the library and coffee shops to use their wifi on occassion though).

Apps I use and love (although I don't know if any are only available in the US vs the UK):

Stanza, twitterific, scramble and scramble 2 (a word game, I like word games although spelling might be weird for you), sol free (solitaire games), unblock me free (a moving blocks game), word warp, appgmail, beecells light (it's a very simple one, but I love it, I play it while out walking and listening to music and distracts me enough to walk more), appbox lite (has a neat unit converter and other things), LineUp free (another simple but engaging game) and some trivia ones

I have the LJ app, but rarely use it, it's only good for posting, not reading.

I also have a ton of game apps on for my kids, some of which I also use occasionally, but not many.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Oh that's brilliant, thank you! Just the kind of things I'm looking for - I quite often play my phone's version of Tetris, so anything that saves me from the terrible graphics is just the job. And since I'll mostly be playing on the bus, wi-fi free is important too.

I'll probably get the LJ app so that I can compose those posts that I think of them forget about!

I got a fairly rubbish driving game for J, but we deleted it pretty quickly. Word and puzzle games are much more the thing :)

Thank you!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about free apps is if you don't like them they were still free and easy to delete. If you like tetris and brick-like games then try falling gems, mental blocks and fuzzle lite.

Have you checked out all the lists of free apps?

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I've looked at various ones, but it's so hard to tell when there are so many! The sudoku one I've got is okay, but it's easier to do those kinds of puzzles with pencils and paper, I think. Mostly, I want things to keep me sane on the bus!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I have the suduoku, but rarely do it for the same reason. I read a few reviews of apps that look interesting and see how people rated them. Just remember it can't hurt to try the free ones and if you don't like them, they can always be deleted! :)

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

*nod* We got some of the white stuff down here too. There was about half an inch of fresh snow on the roads (plus the old stuff that hadn't melted) and it kept snowing all the way to work.

I got there, but it was an interesting (and occasionally terrifying) trip.

I hope your place stays safe when the snow finally melts.