Lately, I've been looking into music composition apps on the Android. I've found a few that I like. Electrum is a straight-forward drum machine. I like that it is very similar to typical drum machine programming, so if you are familiar with that, then it will be easy to pick up. It comes with some built-in drum sounds, lets you download some, or add your own. Reactable (see screenshot to the left) is a fairly experimental composition tool High learning curve. You connect samplers, loops, sequencers, delay effects, etc, to make music. I can see making decent electronic music with this, but I'm still learning. I'm also experimenting with NodeBeat (fun and easy to use but creatively limited) and SPC (looks like a loop sequencer mostly but I haven't spent much time with this one). I'll probably write more on these later after I've had a chance to use them some more. Maybe even post some MP3s.

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I finally found a fix. I’ve been getting the “Low on space – phone storage space is getting low” message on my HTC Incredible often. I get this message even when I have hundreds of MB free. I’ve tried ignoring the message (no other problems really come up). I’ve tried deleting applications– that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. I think I’ve figured out what it is. The fix isn’t permanent, but it does clear the message.

Please read and understand the whole thing if you plan to do what I’ve done below. It’s involves deleting data– you may lose important information.

What I do is this:

• From home screen hit <Menu>
• <Settings>
• <Applications>
• <Manage applications>
• <All> tab
• Select the problem application
• This might involve a little trial and error. In the several times I’ve done this, the applications have been ones that pull from the internet. For me, the apps have been: Internet, Google+, Facebook, and Facebook for HTC Sense (don’t know the difference between the last two but they show up as different apps in the list)
• BEFORE you delete anything, make sure you have a backup or don’t care about losing this data! For example, if you delete Internet data, you lose all your bookmarks, settings, etc. This might be a problem for you! You will have to sign in to the application at the very least. Maybe some set up stuff too. Clearing data for Facebook and Google+ was minor– just had to sign in again and do some minor set up stuff.
• Anyway, after you have yuor backup and know how to restore your information (or like me don’t care if you lose it), I press Clear data. There is a warning: All of this application’s data will be deleted permanently. This includes all files, settings, accounts, databases and so on.
• That’s it!

The root cause of this has to be a bug in Android, or in HTC’s implementation of Android. I had this problem in 2.2 and now in 2.3.

So, I’d like to hear your experiences. Have you tried this? Or something else? What phone do you have?

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Using Eclipse (Helios) and following the “Hello World SWT” tutorial, I would get “No projects found to import” when trying to import SWT into my new project. Turns out the current SWT archive (3.6) is incomplete. I was able to import SWT 2.5.2 into my project. Download it here.

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It seems Google is reporting every web site as “This site may harm your computer”, including it’s own sites. Clicking on the No word yet on when this will be fixed, but I imagine it won’t take them too long.

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Kim has a Kodak camera that makes movies in MOV format, with no option to save as AVI. We need AVI format video to use in Windows Movie Maker, because it WMM doesn’t like MOV (which is the default format of Apple’s Quicktime). So, after struggling with various converters that didn’t really work, I found (or re-discovered… I had used it before) MP4cam2AVI. It is free, as in Free Open Source, download from Sourceforge.

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• All songs DRM free
• “… three price points—69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29—with many more songs priced at 69 cents than $1.29″

Linky

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I created this Perl Cheatsheet for myself a while ago, and recently found it again. I cleaned it up and posted it here in hopes that it might be useful to someone. It consists of brief code examples of common usage (for me), broken up into different sections. It’s in PDF format. [Updated May 24th, 2008]

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I thought Kim‘s iPod was history. When she would turn it on, the disk would try to spin up, whir whir, but after 4 attempts, it displayed the sad iPod icon and then shut down. Bummer. It was long out of warrantee. None of Apple’s website troubleshooting steps worked. Based on the disk failure, I knew the disk was dead, but we could buy a new one online somewhere. BUT. BUT. Kim said c’mon, open it up and see what you can do? I thought, What can I do? Nothing, the disk is dead, I can’t give CPR to a dead disk, forget about it. Then she told me about some kid, a son of a friend of a friend, who would fix any iPod for $20. I scoffed. However what do I have to lose, it’s already not working, I can’t make it any worse.

(Read the article)

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I use my iPod all the time, and I am really pleased with Apple’s User Interface for the iPod, it’s simple and easy to use. However, “simple” and “easy to use” doesn’t satisfy the geek in me, so I have to tweak. Apple doesn’t give you too many options to tweak the iPod UI. You can change the items displayed on the main menu, you can display the time in the top line of the screen, but that’s about it. This geek wants more. So, why not entirely replace Apple’s firmware with something else, like Linux or Rockbox?

• What can I say about Linux on your iPod? Not much, because I don’t delve too deeply. But I do like the ability to run lots of mini-applications, including games, on my iPod. I never did get iDoom going though. Pure geekiness, but not for me as I missed the usability of Apple’s UI. Download iPodLinux here. Don’t worry, you can switch back and forth between iPodLinux and Apple, just restart the iPod.
• Rockbox is a little more usable but doesn’t have nearly as many apps as iPodLinux. What I like most about Rockbox is the ability to customize audio playback screen with your own format and graphics through WPS (b&w, color). Download from the Rockbox site or this alternate installer for Windows, Rockbox Installer X. Just like with iPodLinux, you can switch between Rockbox and Apple just by restarting the iPod.

Running these was fun, but day to day, I use the Apple firmware. Do I loose my geek cred? I dunno. There are so many little things that the Apple firmware does so effectively, it’s hard to give up, even if I can’t customize it as much as I’d like. Although maybe I’ll wanna Make something….

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I’ve been using Ubuntu 6.06 for a little over a month now, and I have to say, “Wow!” I love it.

What is it? According to Ubuntu: Ubuntu offers you a complete Linux-based operating system, including all the major applications you need to play and work. With a strong focus on a desktop that Just Works, Ubuntu is a great choice for home or the office. The base system and all included software is free, and support is available from the community or by professional support providers.

By free, they mean free forever. It comes with OpenOffice and Firefox preinstalled. It was so easy to install. Easier then any version of Microsoft Windows. You can try it without even installing it, just boot from the CD and it runs a “live” version of Ubuntu.

Download the CD image here, or request a free CD here.

Installing additional (free) software is very easy, Ubuntu comes with “Add/Remove Applications” where you can just put a checkbox next to the programs you want (divided up into categories like “Games,” “Graphics, “Educational,” etc), and they are downloaded and installed automatically. Nice.

The whole Ubuntu user “experience” is smooth and logical.

Once you have it installed, check out this page for additional software Essentials.

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