OVER 2 YOU, 063 (15/01/02)

ALL IN THE MIND

I sometimes hear in my head music that I have never heard, but I can't read and write music so my melodies go lost.  Is there any software that puts into written music, a tune I whistle or hum?

Franco Cavallini, via email                          

I'll start off with some good news. Yes there is software, which, as you hum into a microphone, converts it into music notation, which you can then get the computer to play back the tune. This is surprisingly accurate, as I have found myself. It is called Melodyne and is marketed by a company called Celemony.

Now the bad news. As this is fairly new groundbreaking software, the price tag is just a few pence under £700. It is also just available on the Apple Macintosh, although if you are really serious about music then the Mac is the only way to go (if you don't have one already).

The main purpose of the software however, is to change the musical parameters of voices or instruments without altering character of the recording. Examples can be found at www.celemony.com

Rob McCordick,

MORE RELIGIOUS CLIPART

I have been looking very hard (but perhaps not hard enough) for serious religious clipart. I'm looking for the standard that would give, for example, two hands holding a chalice, or two hands offering up a Sacred Host, plus of course any pictures of the inside of churches. Yahoo, Jeeves etc. only show me email addresses, which turn out to be standard 'comic' characters.  I'm not looking for freebies.

Gordon Hackwell, via email

A useful (American) collection of some 13000 images, on two CDs, well classified and with a printed listing is 'ClickArt Chrstian Graphics deluxe', which I obtained from Sunrise Software www.sunrise-software.com/sunsoft. It includes several versions of the items he specifically mentions.  Sunrise has other smaller collections, which may include what he wants. Alternatively he might try entering  "Christian+Clip+Art"  in any search engine. Many sites have a limited selection for free download.

Ray Burgin,

May I suggest my own site:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/police.daniel/

Riboul/SaintPierreAsse.htm. The picture it contains can be freely used.

Daniel Police,

The following site gives links to a large number of sites of religious clipart:http://www.silk.net/RelEd/clipart.htm. Quite a few of the sites do contain comic/cartoon type clipart but the rest do have some very interesting and serious work.
Alan Richards,

Some years ago I obtained some 'Christian Clip Art' from Rev David Brewer, telephone Cardiff 758484. There was a wide range of subjects available at the time and might well have included what Gordon Hackwell is seeking.

Cliff Robins,

ANALOGUE COMPUTERS

I would like to know if anyone has any information of knows where I could obtain plans for building an ‘analogue’ computer. I understand these were developed in the 1950s, long before the digital computers we use today. If possible or practical I would like to build one for a school science project.

D. Jackson, via email

I don’t have much specific material of my own, but, having built analogue simulations of non-linear dynamic mechanical systems in the 70’s where I used to work, I can suggest some likely sources of information. One book that I remember being particularly helpful was “The Design and use of Electronic Analogue Computers” by C P Gilbert, I believe that there is a reference copy in the British Library (http://blpc.bl.uk/) I suspect that most comparable material is now only available in the more specialised reference libraries. In America there are several Web sites run by analog (American spelling) computing museums, I don’t know how useful their stuff is. The Heathkit people did an analogue computer kit some years ago, details can be found at: http://www.heathkit-museum.com/

computers/ec-1.html

David Wale,

SLOW PITCH?

Is anyone aware of software that will enable an Audio CD to be played at slower than original speeds whilst retaining the correct musical pitch? 
Brian Yabsley via E-mail

Try www.diamondcut.com and download the "DC-Art 32" 30-day trial. DCart32 is a powerful all singing and dancing, audio editing, restoration and CD mastering application that runs on the Windows operating system. It removes hiss, pops, tics, crackle, buzzes, surface noise and just about any other kind of defect from your recordings including speed of play. With DCart you can record your old records through your sound card, clean them with filters, then prepare them for writing to CD with CD mastering features. All filters have real-time preview so you can hear the effects of your changes instantly. I have had great success with this program transferring vinyl and cassette recordings to CD

Alf Haggers,

RECORD COLLECTION

I would like to catalogue my Record/LP/CD collection. Can anyone recommend a good (preferably inexpensive) piece of specific database software to do this?

Simon Carter, via email

I can thoroughly recommend ClassicCat; it is especially good for keeping track of large collections of classical recordings. It has a number of clever features, including cross-referencing by label, composer, performer and artist, instrument etc., you can make your own custom database fields, enter notes your own ratings and biographical information. There’s a near fully functional shareware version (the import-export function is disabled) at:

http://www.tdware.com/index.html

William Mason, via email

SPANISH CONNECTION

I am moving to Spain where I will not have a fixed telephone line and will have to rely on my cell phone for emails and surfing.  Has anyone in the same situation got any tips and are satellite phones viable or any faster than the 9200 bps connection speed on a mobile?
Colin Bailey, via email

I confess that I know very little about Spanish Internet services but I can tell you a few things about satellite phones, the main ones being that it can be horrifically expensive and not very convenient. Several systems are available at the moment, notably Inmarsat, Iridium and Globalstar. Inmarsat uses ‘fixed’ geostationary satellites, which requires the use of a fixed antenna, though these days they’re not too large, about the size of a laptop computer, but it must be carefully positioned so that it has a clear line-of-sight’ to the satellite. Inmarsat can handle high-speed data but equipment and call charges are very expensive. Iridium, (re-launched with backing from the US Government after the operating company collapsed in 2000), and Globalstar rely on fleets of low earth orbit (LOE) satellites, which communicate with portable handsets, only a little larger than current GSM cellphones. However they don’t work indoors and data rates are comparatively slow – not much faster than GSM -- on the plus side, after paying for the equipment (between £300 to £800) Iridium call charges are fairly modest at around $1.50 a minute…

Jeremy Senior, Chelmsford, Essex.

CAN YOU HELP?

A few years ago I remember reading an article in The Telegraph about a young boy who made a windmill from a discarded bicycle dynamo. It produced enough power to run his radio and provide some light for his garden shed. Can anyone provide plans or tell me how this was done?

D. Modaher, Southall, London

I am compiling a database of names with dates of birth and death etc. in Excel. I am using Excel for compiling my family tree, it being much more suited to the task than any commercial software I've found. Unfortunately, Excel will not allow dates to be shown pre-1900 in the database, so I am unable to calculate longevity automatically. Is there any way to sidestep this to allow pre-1900 dates? If not (and I suspect that will be the case) can anyone suggest another way?
Dave Reid, via email

I am deaf in one ear, but like to use an MP3 player while working out at the Gym.  Can anyone suggest some software or a way to record tracks onto my MP3 player in mono - or with the "Balance" control adjusted in favour of my good ear? I currently use RealPlayer as my "Jukebox" running on a Dell laptop.

Simon Holloway, via email

We have a great deal of information and games, which we still wish to access, on floppy discs from a BBC B computer, which has long since passed away!  Does anyone know if it is possible to connect a Cumana twin drive unit (a and b) to a Siemens Nixdorf PC with a 486 processor, 32 Mb RAM running Windows 3.1?

Ailsa M. Collie, via email