Canllaith.org

Sometimes I wonder - if I spent the time I usually spend browsing http://www.43folders.com/ and http://www.lifehack.org/ getting work done, would I have less need for productivity tips? ;)

Oh yes, and if anyone would like the rss feed of the tech-only posts that doesn’t include music, cats, or photography, the feed they should be using is

http://canllaith.org/?feed=rss2&cat=2

planetkde and linuxchix.org.nz already have the right feeds =)

I read a pretty neat article today from http://www.43folders.com/2004/11/18/hack-your-way-out-of-writers-block about how to get past writer’s block. A lot of the comments to the article are really excellent as well.

One of the tips in particular that really resonated with me was:

“Write crap - Accept that your first draft will suck, and just go with it. Finish something.”

That’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time, and for me at least it really is the key to being a productive writer. It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of wanting what I have to say to be absolutely perfectly formed in my head before I commit it to paper. I end up staring into space endlessly polishing sentences and lining up paragraphs, marching in lines all in my head, before I’ve even touched pen to paper.

It’s a productivity killer because the longer I polish something that doesn’t exist yet, the longer it’s going to take me to actually get started. When I started actually meeting deadlines at least most of the time was when I learned to do what I called ‘Just write’. I would go away from my computer and away from the internet with a pen and some paper and just go and get any old thing down. I could check my facts later, research content I wasn’t sure of when I got back to my laptop. The most important thing was to separate writing from researching, and just write some crap down.

I found it was a lot easier to get into a zone where I just wrote and it flowed if I used pen and paper and got away from the computer. In the interests of not having a million notebooks around the house and never being sure which one has which article in it I’m after, I’m trying very hard to digitise this process. To save me from myself I’m in the process of doing up an apple e-mate. No network connectivity, long battery life, sunlight readable screen and an absolutely fabulous keyboard. I’m hoping it will help me learn how to spark that creative process sitting at a keyboard, while still providing me with the distraction free environment that paper does.

These are by far the two most effective tools in my arsenal against writer’s block. Just write some crap, and turn off the darn internet.

Now ironically, I should stop procrastinating from working through the writer’s block on my latest assignment and go and just write some crap.

I finally decided to mod my macbook, and ordered a bit of pre-made cellophane from icolors.ca to replace the white apple logo on the back of the screen with a retro style apple logo.

(Yeah, I’m a filthy mac user at times.)

It was surprisingly easy to get into the mac - there’s two screws deep in the hinge that are awkward to get at, and then the back just pops off with the help of a credit card or similar thin tool. The clips holding the back of the screen on very easily disengage without any fear of breaking them. Well, not much anyway.

Once the back is off, it’s just a matter of carefully removing the white plastic that’s already covering the logo, cutting the cellophane to size and then fitting it to a recess the white plastic is covering. The white plastic can be carefully pressed back down again afterwards, with enough residual adhesive left to keep it there. At least, I hope so.

I love the end result, it was definitely worth spending 20 minutes fighting with the hinge screws. Now I’m keen to find ways to mod my non-apple laptop.

I haven’t been a geek for long.

I discovered computers pretty late in life, spending most of my teenage years studying music. I came to a realisation in my late teens that it would require a lot more hard work than I was willing to put in to lift myself above mediocre, and with a teenager’s arrogance I decided if it didn’t come easily I wasn’t going to waste my time on it.

It’s been a long time since I really played more than once every few months, although I still sing incessantly. After selling my digital piano close to two years ago when I was strapped for cash, I haven’t had regular access to an instrument and stopped playing anything entirely. Recently I’d been thinking about taking up music again. In a small apartment I don’t really have room for a decent digital piano - I have a borrowed keyboard that I use occasionally but it’s difficult to find room to set it up and annoying to have to put it away again every time I use it.

My second strongest instrument was flute, and much to my neighbour’s dismay I ordered one from trademe and it arrived two days ago. It was extraordinarily cheap and I’ve been really impressed with it. It’s a very light metal and I suspect it wouldn’t stand up to the knocks my old Yamaha solid silver flute did, but I’m more careful with my toys these days. I love the bright red enamel finish and for 1/5th the price of even a student flute from a store, how can I go wrong? Sadly the same seller doesn’t have any piccolos, but there are some similarly cheap from other sellers I might try.

I remember more than I thought I would, given I haven’t played flute in close to 10 years. I keep having to consult a fingering chart, and for the life of me I can’t remember how to get strong low notes, but I’m having a lot of fun. I keep forgetting I’m not playing a clarinet or a recorder but I’ll get there eventually. Strangely I remember having trouble with very high notes when I played regularly - now they don’t seem to be an issue.

While looking around for sheet music for Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (one movement in particular has a beautifully haunting flute part I’d like to learn) I discovered virtualsheetmusic.com. They have annoying DRM stopping you from copying and pasting any part of the PDF, but printing is allowed and their year’s membership with unlimited downloads is very reasonably priced. Not only did they have the complete concertos I was after, but a lot of other music of varying skill levels I’m keen to try.

10 years ago I don’t remember anything all that exciting on the internet for musicians - wow has that changed!