The ideal form-factors for computing and mobile devices come down to the environment they’re used in. If you’re sitting at the same desk in an office most days, a desktop is the way to go. If you sit at multiple desks or coffee-shop tables, a notebook is the thing. If you don’t sit, but either walk around or lay on the couch, you need a tablet.

There’s a gap in the available platforms between notebooks and smart phones, where a notebook is cumbersome, and most mobile devices are too small. Netbooks are edging into this gap, but a multi-touch tablet would be a better fit.

The applications you’re likely correlate to the environment. If you’re a graphic designer, you probably need to work at a desk with a full-blown application. If you’re sketching some ideas, you might relax somewhere with a tablet.

I view the iPhone OS/UI as a happy accident. Given the small screen real estate, the iPhone OS has to have a simplified and sharply-focussed UI. This clean UI makes the Touch a pleasure to use. Not only does it offer direct manipulation though multi-touch, but it’s sheer simplicity makes it very transparent.

Compare the experience of the iPhone’s YouTube application to the experience of YouTube in a web browser. On the web, YouTube is cluttered with all manner of suggestions and up-sell. On the iPhone, it’s wonderfully simple. The differences between Mail on OSX vs. Mail on the iPhone are similar.

The iPod Touch is most of the way there. It just needs to be bigger, making it more useful for reading and viewing media. More real-estate would also allow some real work product. The iPhone/Touch are really about consuming content. A bigger device would open the possibility of its use in creative and productive output.

I’ve laid-out the two product design issues that make the “bigger iPhone” the right approach for Apple: finding the usage gap between the iPhone and the notebook, and the general superiority of the iPhone OS for that usage.

Beyond those product issues, the failure of Windows tablets to crawl out of their niche (doctors’ offices) shows that putting a personal computer OS in a tablet package isn’t going to sell in any significant proportion to notebooks.

One of the biggest challenges I face in my work is its lack of structure. I work from my home office on most days, connected to my work and co-workers via e-mail, IRC, bug tracking systems and other web applications. I have the infinite distractions of the Internet facing me from my three computer screens. Given the pragmatics of a two-career household and parenting, my work day is split into two or three pieces spanning all waking hours.

I wish that I could write about how I’ve beat this problem, and tell amazing stories about how productive I am. Instead, I’ll tell you about what hasn’t worked, and what seems promising.

To Do Lists

Making lists of things to accomplish, first thing in the morning seemed like a promising idea. I tried setting some goals for the day, striking a balance between the important and the immediate. But in practice, I find these lists too depressing to look at. Most items are there because I’ve been putting them off, and reminding me of them at the start of the day seemed to motivate finding distractions so that I didn’t have to think about them. The only success here was that it did help me get really important things done, such as daily exercise goals (top priority in any day), and some burning issues where I’d missed deadlines, or had them bearing down one me. But for the most part, To Do lists were slightly better than nothing.

Daily Schedule

After a day consisting mostly of meetings, I realised that I had been very productive. It’s sad, in a way, that a day of meetings seemed more productive than my average day. Perhaps that illustrates just how bad my problem is. But, it got me thinking: maybe I should attack the lack of structure directly by imposing a somewhat artificial structure on the day. So, I tried firing up my Google calendar, and scheduling events for myself to plan my day. I set aside a specific hour to two hours of the day for a specific task or project. I would schedule most of my day, and leave some time for breaks.

This has worked pretty well, for the most part. Even though it amounts to scheduling meetings with myself all day, I get more done with this structure than approaching each day ad-hoc, subject to any distraction that might occur. I’d like to set up a bit more of a pattern for what happens each day. For example, doing tasks in the morning that require more creative effort, and saving the “turn the crank” tasks for the afternoon. It would probably make sense to expose the daily plan to my co-workers to give them an idea of my plans as well.

I’ve got a long way to go. It’s 11:10 PM, and even without my calender I can tell it’s time for bed

I’ve been getting started with music again. The main issue I’m facing is the creative process. So here’s what I’m working on:

monogrey

I started monogrey with the idea of doing something slow. I threw on a drum loop, then did the guitar 1st guitar part. Towards the end, I added a open riff that’s been stuck in my head. When I did the second quitar, I had the idea of running a some dense root-fifth-octave stuff for the ending.

All in all, it seems like I over-did the slow bit – at 70 BPM, it’s kind of crawls. So. I thought I’d try it again, only faster:

monogrey2

This time, I ran it at 110 BPM, with my acoustic/electric as the rhythm part, and changed the open riffy thing a bit,
then added a distorted electric kind of wandering around. I think this ends up sounding a bit too soft. Maybe I should try it again at 90 BPM or so, and shoot for the darker first version.

Overall, I’m trying to keep it simple and leave room for other things, primarily vocals. That said, I’ve never had much luck adding melody and vocals after-the-fact. We’ll have to see what I can manage with this.

Next, I thought I might try starting with some sort of melody or lead-line. The result is this one:

drive-with-horns

The cheesy synth-horns are were I started. I pecked out the lead-line in my head, then picked up the guitar and searched for some changes that worked with it. The result is pretty un-challenging, though I did have fun doing the bass part. It’s pretty easy to sync up with the kick in a 4-measure drum loop. I’m not sure where “drive with horns” goes from here. I suspect it’s probably a dead end.

After all that, the open question is: can I write songs like this – layering parts, or, is do I have to buckle down and write lyrics against my guitar all at once? Past experience is that I can’t retro-fit lyrics and melody to fully-formed backing tracks. The results is usually monotone rambling.

As for the tools, this is the first time I’ve tried writing with any sort of DAW set-up, having done tape-based multi-tracking in the past. I Have to say that it’s pretty nice being about to hack stuff up so easily.

I’ve spent a little more time with POD Farm, and I’m pleased with it. I got it via a free upgrade with my Line 6 Tone Port UX2. Most of my experience with guitar sound is from my Digitek 2101, which has a tube tube preamp followed by a digital signal processor. I would either record direct from the line outputs with it’s speaker simulator on, or run a solid-state power amp and mic the speaker.

With POD Farm includes amp, speaker cabinet, and room simulation (early reflections). In short, this gives you control over distortion (non-linear amplification) on both sides of the effects processing, allowing sounds that just aren’t possible with the 2101.

On the other hand, POD farm can’t match the flexibility and control of the 2101’s signal processing, which allows you to create completely novel effects. POD Farm’s effects are simulations of “classic” and popular discrete effects stomp boxes. What would be really cool is the ability to create your own models from scratch.

A minor annoyance with POD Farm is the blatant up-sell: it installs numerous patch (called “tones”) definitions that refer to device models you don’t own. This means that 70-80% of the factory presets you get can’t be played on a stock install of POD Farm. Fortunately, customized presets can be stored in directories on the file system, so as soon as I pick the factory presets I like, I can move them in my own directory and ditch the upsell/broken ones.

My Tone Port UX2 came in last night. I’m pretty impressed with it. The amp/cabinet modelling stuff is really cool; I’d never tried it before. It’s not going to replace my GSP 2101, but it’s great at its intended use: getting guitar tracks on to a computer.

I ran it with Garage Band – it pretty much clobbers my poor little Mini, the UI is pretty sluggish, but all the real-time stuff (getting the audio recorded without latency issues) works flawlessly.

Here’s a little sound test I did with a GarageBand drum loop and a couple of tracks of guitar:

quick test for Tone Port/Gear Box/Garage Band

Now for the hard part: I have to start writing.

Maybe it’s because times are feeling apocalyptic, or maybe it’s because I just found my old cd and ripped it, but I’ve been listening to an old project, Apes.

Apes came out of a standing get together of friends back on the early nineties in my home studio. We wrote and recorded music one or two times a week. At one point were thinking in terms of a bigger project. Tom suggested we do something around a movie. I suggested Planet of the Apes.

This was 1994, long before references in The Simpsons, and long before the remake. Over the next year, Tom and I used some of the more compelling ideas and imagery from the movie to write an albums’ worth of songs.

We started with the finale, Lamp. Thirteen years later it seems the strongest and most relevant.

700 Years
Crash
This World
Round Up
Wrong Species
Brain Surgery
Orangutan’s Orders
Trouble
Climb Down
The Trial
Beach Fight
Dr. Zaius’s Confession
Lamp

(Just AAC for now).

Tom Dube’: bass, vocals
Keith Lundberg: drums
Me: guitar, vocals