Category: Tech

One Note on Logic Pro Remote for iPhone

Normally when I work on a MIDI instrument track in GarageBand I use the Logic Pro Remote app on my iPad to access the piano keyboard/drum pads/fretboard.  Tonight I had an idea for RPMay Song #5 but my iPad is in the other room and I was too lazy to go get it.

What did I do?

I installed the app on my iPhone.  The last time I tried to do this I couldn’t find it in the App Store.  I thought that, as a new user, I would share the answer to the one question I had to look up.

When you open the app and you’re looking at the mixing board channel and you want to switch to the piano or the fretboard or whatever you need to turn the phone on its side.

Portrait mode = mixer
Landscape mode = pretty much everything else.

You’re welcome.

Conference Call Upgrade

I’ve shaken up my work day routine quite a bit over the last week.  I had been working off of two computers, my company desktop and my personal laptop.  The laptop was only used for conference calls because it has a webcam and my desktop doesn’t.

Until now.

242/365

The laptop can now patiently wait for the desktop to return to the office in Waltham so it can start being useful again.  Until then, I’m 100% desktop.

Exciting news, eh?  This little camera has a really wide field of view.  Thankfully Zoom crops the sides off the image.  Later today we’ll find out if Google Meet does the same.

I can see how fascinated you are.  Control yourself, would you?  Sheesh!

Desk Craziness

Forgive me, but I am going to reuse a picture I posted yesterday.

Working from home has caused some desk setup questions that I didn’t want to deal with, but I think I finally have.

Prior to social distance I had two laptops on my desk in our home office.  I used my MacBook Pro along with a second monitor for all but the eight hours I was telecommuting on Thursdays.  While telecommuting, I switched to a second laptop, running Windows 10.  I used the same second monitor.  I have a 3-1 adapter that has a USB 2.0, HDMI, and USB C input into a single USB C plug.  I had my USB dock, my monitor, and my power all running into it.  When I switched from Mac to Windows I’d just pull the adapter out of one machine and plug it into the other.  Done.

Once the lockdown started I brought my work PC home from Waltham and used that instead of the Windows laptop.  I couldn’t use the same monitor cable for both machines, and the desktop doesn’t have a USB C port, so I was pulling plugs in and out twice a day.

On top of that, Jen and I are both working from home, both in the same room, and both having to join meetings at the same time.  To deal with this I moved my Windows laptop to our bedroom and jokingly called it the conference room.  At first I was using a dinner tray table as a desk, then I setup one of Jen’s old desks instead, and then Jen brought a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse out and turned the spot into an actual work station.

Yesterday Jen and I both had meetings scheduled for the better part of the day so I bit the bullet and moved my Waltham desktop into the bedroom and spent the whole day in there.  I was planning to move it back to the office this weekend, but instead I talked it over with Jen and we decided to keep a Windows desk in the bedroom and an Apple desk in the office.

Now I am a two desk crazy person.  Certifiably.

237/365

Untitled

The minute the lock down ends, my Waltham machine goes back to Waltham and I move all my stuff back to the office. This is temporary.

Spreadsheets

When I first went back to college in 1997 one of the first classes I took was a course in using office software.  I don’t know why.  It was called Intro to Computing and I was a Computer Science major.  I barely used any of it again over the course of the last 23 years.

Until today.

I am keeping two Google spreadsheets.  One tracks COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts by date, the other does the same for the United States.  One of the columns tracks the daily change in total cases.  Today’s total minus yesterday’s total.  Another column tracks the death rate.  Just a few minutes ago I figured out how to take a math function from one cell and fill it down to the entire column below it.  I knew how to do that back in 1997 but I didn’t know how to do it in Google Sheets.  I am ignorant no longer (well…).

Oh, and did I mention that I have line graphs on both sheets too?  I’m tracking the curves and hoping it is flatter than it would have been without us all staying at home.  I hope so, but based on my little graphs it sure doesn’t look it.  Those curves are steep.

Worlds Colliding Part 2

This is insanity on a level hereforto never imagined.  Is herforto a word?  No… no it isn’t.

I am back on my MacBook, but now I am using the keyboard from my work PC.  Oh the humanity!  I have the MacBook, my work PC, my work keyboard, and the USB mouse I use on my normal telecommuting laptop and they are all mixed and matched and both computers are using the same monitor and keyboard and mouse all depending on the pressing of one button and the plugging of one cable.

Goodness gracious me, what have I done?

Worlds Colliding

Wow, this feels weird.  I am sitting at home in our home office, typing this post on my work computer… without remote connecting.  My work PC is on my home desk.  I had to get a USB Wifi Network Adapter to make it work, and boy was installing that little sucker a pain in the ol’ rumpus room, let me tell you.

Anyway, now I just need to remember how to setup the work VPN and I should be good to go… I think.

What Was This?

I saw this out the window today at work*.  One car pulled over and seven state troopers on the scene, including one who was blocking the second lane.

This was a little before 1:00 PM. A little more than an hour late I heard two co-workers talking about all the staties and I looked out the window and not only were they still there, but there were two more along with an ambulance.

*I misspelled “more” like four times. I thought it was me. Then I misspelled two more words that had “r” in them. Now I’m wondering (this was another “r” typo) if I am seeing the first sign of the fatal MacBook Pro keyboard issue.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr