http://www.footmouse.com

HI Carl,

> It's my guess it can do arbitrary chords. Their gesture
tools also invite musical applications! I was under the
impression they had already released an SDK, or were
about to.

Rightio.

> >http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/10/0220214.shtml

> The /. crowd are usually nitwits.

Well indeed, you take a lot of it with a grain of salt and
didn't mean to suggest I accept the general tone for
that page. But they also come up with things that one
wouldn't perhaps think of, like a brain storming session.

I think probably that if I can't feel
the position of the keys it might rule it out for me.
But who knows. I'd like to try it out too and see
if somehow one can adjust and learn to feel where they
are. That is relevant for musical device too of course.
Thinking it over more I think perhaps one might be able
to learn and adjust after a learning period...

Did you read the bit about how it works
- it actually takes a video of the hand as it approaches
the pad to type the notes and then processes that
video in order to find out what key you pressed.
So if one could get into that processing at a
reasonably low level then one could do just about
anything I suppose. Nice idea :-).

A lot for a keyboard and mouse perhaps,
but not so much for a midi input device :-).

According to the web site they haven't released the
SDK yet. Anyway I wouldn't be ready to buy it yet.

Yes this is for my p.c. which needs a separate keyboard.

Whenever I need to upgrade though
maybe at the end of next year or so, then I may get
a notepad. Prices going down all the time and capabilities
going up and battery life getting longer...
I'm very attracted by the idea that one could
take a notepad anywhere and add a microphone and
double it up as a portable field recording studio.

Robert

>Thinking it over more I think perhaps one might be able
>to learn and adjust after a learning period...

That's what they claim.

>Did you read the bit about how it works
>- it actually takes a video of the hand as it approaches
>the pad to type the notes and then processes that
>video in order to find out what key you pressed.
>So if one could get into that processing at a
>reasonably low level then one could do just about
>anything I suppose. Nice idea :-).

Yep.

>Whenever I need to upgrade though
>maybe at the end of next year or so, then I may get
>a notepad. Prices going down all the time and capabilities
>going up and battery life getting longer...
>I'm very attracted by the idea that one could
>take a notepad anywhere and add a microphone and
>double it up as a portable field recording studio.

Do they call them notepads in the UK? Laptops/notebooks,
that is.

I traded my desktop in on my first laptop in 2000, and
went all-portable, all-legacy-free. I don't even have
an internal optical drive. It's been the greatest
move I've ever made, though not entirely without
drawbacks.

-Carl

Hi Carl,

Sorry, just a matter of a slip of the keyboard. Yes they call them notebooks here too.

Yes makes sense to make everything one can external including the cd or dvd
drive because anything you always carry around adds to the noise and the
weight doesn't it. Yes one drawback is that most of them don't seem
to let you install a soundcard do they, and I certainly want to have
midi in and out for one thing. But perhaps nowadays with USB soundcards
that isn't a problem so much. Maybe if one wanted a particular
high end sound card, e.g. silent and 24-bit or some such...

What do you do about sound cards for you notebook? Does it
have on board midi in or do you use an external sound card
or what?

BTW sorry about pasting a url as the subject line. It was quite interesting
actually. so here it is in the body:

http://www.footmouse.com

A mouse controlled by the foot in addition to the hand mouse.
I can imagine that being useful for music sometimes when you
want to play with both hands and at the same time you want
to twiddle some settings on a music program - you could
just use your feet to do it :-). One foot to do the mouse
movement and one for the mouse clicks so it seems. And
it doesn't cost that much.

Thanks,

Robert

>Yes makes sense to make everything one can external including the cd
>or dvd drive because anything you always carry around adds to the noise
>and the weight doesn't it.

Yes. And another secret is to get a gig or more of RAM and turn off
paging. Then set your hard drive to spin down after 1 min. The result
is a silent PC with 25-33% more battery life and prolonged hard drive
life/reliability (because you're not running it as much, and you're
protecting it from shocks while it's running).

>Yes one drawback is that most of them don't seem
>to let you install a soundcard do they,

Laptops come with onboard soundcards. My thinkpad has a very popular
one, the Crystal Soundfusion which provides the basic SoundBlaster
compatible stuff. Then get something like this for MIDI and good
quality recording...

http://www.tascam.com/product_info.php?pid=253&nav=computer_recording

-Carl