Another song: Dolor Sit Amet

Here's another song I made using Audacity and a couple of instruments. It's a passionate love song / waltz, called Dolor Sit Amet.

Song I made using Audacity

Here's a song I made using Audacity and a bunch of instruments: Experiment 1.

Useful widgets for Google Desktop sidebar

I turned the Google Desktop sidebar back on, because there are a few widgets that I thought would make my life easier. They definitely help.

At the top, there's the time and date, day, and a mini calendar.

Below that is a large yellow notepad - this is the most useful widget. I often need a place to jot down information, and to refer to it. This notepad widget is always visible, and doesn't cover up any other windows.

Just below that is a little purple calculator widget called easyCalc. You can type in arithmetic expressions. It's not the greatest - the numbers are tiny, and it behaves a bit wonky sometimes - but it does the job.

Nice bookmarks you can print out

If you ever need to print out some bookmarks, these three by Jan Brett are quite nice.

jEdit macro: Toggling between proportional and monospaced fonts

Here's a jEdit macro to toggle between a nice proportional font and a not-bad monospaced font:

if (jEdit.getProperty("view.font") == "Franklin Gothic Medium") {
    jEdit.setIntegerProperty("view.fontsize", 19);
    jEdit.setProperty("view.font", "DejaVu Sans Mono");
    jEdit.propertiesChanged();
} else {
    jEdit.setIntegerProperty("view.fontsize", 22);
    jEdit.setProperty("view.font", "Franklin Gothic Medium");
    jEdit.propertiesChanged();
}

I like jEdit's choice of macro language (Java). And you can assign a keyboard shortcut to any macro (I'm using F9).

5beeps.wav - Useful replacement sound for calendar apps

Don't you hate how Outlook's Reminder window is buried under your other windows, causing you to miss appointments?

Solution: Change the Reminder sound to this more noticeable set of 5 beeps: 5beeps.wav. Change it in Tools > Options > Advanced Options > Reminder Options > Reminder Sound.

It's an unobtrusive yet noticeable alert sound. Useful for other applications as well.

(Based on the public-domain beepdoub.wav sound.)