OVER 2 YOU, 148 (23/09/03)

ONLINE GUITAR TUTORS

Somewhat late in life (I’m in my late fifties) I’ve decided to learn to play the guitar. So far I’ve found the various books and teach-yourself CDs very slow going and I’m reluctant to pay for private lessons. Can anyone recommend any websites or on-line guitar tutors?

Alex Chapman, via email

A professional classical guitarist told me about a website run by an American, Jamey Andreas: http://www.guitarprinciples.com. Mr. Andreas has written several books, including one called 'Principles For Correct Guitar Practice.' A month or so ago, I purchased this book along with a friend and we both found it incredibly useful.  It teaches new players good habits and old players how to lose their bad ones, as well as how to sit, how to hold your hand and countless other useful tricks of the trade.  I highly recommend this book to anyone trying to learn, or anyone who has learnt (trust me, you haven’t…). Although this book contains no music it can be used alongside other books to great success. 

Riou Lidderdale

Alex Chapman should have a look at www.guitarnoise.com. It has lessons for absolute beginners up to expert, including MP3s to hear what you're playing should sound like!
And best of all, its free!
Rik Anderson

I learned to play in my teens and now forty years later, having revived my interest, I was in a similar situation. I found myself having the same reaction as you with the books and CD's etc. but then I discovered that instead of using conventional music notation there has been developed for the guitar "Tab Notation". Instead of five lines the notes are represented on six corresponding to the strings on the guitar. This in itself is a big help but now for the best bit. There are 1000's of songs and guitar pieces available for download in Tab Notation and using a piece of software called "Guitar Pro" these can be loaded in and played using your PC. As the music is presented on the screen, the notes are "played" and you can slow the speed or even play a note at a time, repeat sections etc and all the fingering is displayed in real time as you listen. I've found it absolutely great. You can down load the Guitar Pro software to try it out for free www.guitar-pro.com. Good luck!

Peter Copeland 

The Guitarport made by Line 6 (http://www.guitarport.com/) connects to your computer and electric guitar and provides on-line lessons for guitarists of all standards.  I have played guitar for 30 years and this is easily the most impressive accessory I have seen. 

Richard Motley

I've been playing for about 25 years and am almost completely self-taught and a competent if not spectacularly good guitarist. However you learn, motivation is key and the best way to achieve this is by being able quickly to play songs you know and love. The biggest block to this used to be access to sheet music, which has always been expensive. There are numerous websites, which provide the chords and "tabs" (tablatures - a guitarists’ musical notation) to thousands of well-known songs. I regularly use  www.guitartabs.cc/home.php, which allows you to access chords for songs listed by artist or title. As these are provided by users of the site they can be a little hit and miss, and sometimes inaccurate, but most are fine. Alex should be able to use his existing reference material to find the fingering of most chords used on the site. After that it's just a question of many hours of practice, but if you're playing songs you like it's fun anyway.
Steve James

FLAT SHAREWARE

I am about to become Company Secretary of a company newly formed to acquire the freehold of the block of flats where I live. There will be approximately 40 shareholders. Can anyone recommend an inexpensive software package to help take care of the administrative duties involved?

Ken Dimdore, via email

I’ve found an American spreadsheet program that lets you monitor the finances of a number of flats or apartments. There’s more information and a link to a download at: http://www.renttracker.com/

Mark Telling, via email

SmartRent from http://www.apexsmartrent.com/ might be worth investigating but at around £250 a pop it’s quite an investment, so check out the FAQ on the website first to make sure it’s for you!

Jenny Fellows

FRENCH CONNECTIONS

I visit France regularly, and send and collect my emails on my laptop using my UK based mobile phone. Can anyone recommend a cheaper method, I do not want to use an Internet cafe, and I am not on any one place long enough to obtain a French landline connection.
Richard Atwell, via email

If you use an Internet provider with international access (I use AOL) you can dial into their nearest number (often a local call rate) from any landline. You can then call from wherever you are staying/working although you do have to beware of hotels with digital phone systems.

Mike Aldren

Check if your UK mobile network supports GPRS roaming.  This gives a connection speed up to about 52k (i.e. similar to a fixed line modem). GPRS is an ‘always-on’ service and you only pay for the amount of data received and transmitted. VodaFone has a very good service, which I have used in Australia and Europe. Most modern handsets are now GPRS enabled although I use a Sierra Aircard 750 GPRS PC card (http://www.sierrawireless.com/) in the laptop. Other GPRS cards are made by Option  (http://www.option.com/) also sold as the Vodafone Connect card, and Sony Ericsson offer the GC 75. These three are tri-band phones for worldwide use. Nokia has the dual band D211, which is available from Orange and some other networks. 

Glenn W via Email  

Try http://www.tempestcom.com. They provide up to 30,000 telephone numbers in over 150 countries worldwide so that you can log on to a local ISP and still use your existing e-mail address and account details. Opening an account is free and you only pay for the time on line, plus the local call charge, both charged to your credit card at the end of the month. A very nice feature is that they also provide the local ISP’s SMTP server address; essential if you wish to be able to send mail with Outlook. I travel extensively, sometimes in remote regions, and they have got me out of trouble on many occasions.  

Keith Miller

Your correspondent may wish to do what many British yacht owners do when visiting France, and buy a French Pay as You Go SIM card. It works out significantly cheaper than using a UK based phone.
Simon Edwards

I too, have been exploring this option and http://www.net2roam.com/ looks promising. 

Bob MacLean via email

I suggest that he buys a SIM card for a French mobile phone network, and swap them over when he uses his modem.  A pre-pay rather than contract one would probably be best, unless he uses it enough to justify a low rate contract.  He would then have to swap them straight back so that he can still receive calls on his UK number. Additionally, he may need to have his phone unlocked to accept other cards, a service which is discouraged and not provided by the networks, (because they sell phones as a loss-leader for the calls).  Most independent traders and market stalls will offer this.
Tom Vajzovic

CAN YOU HELP?

As a clergyman, I wonder if anyone can recommend some software that would help me to plan my parish visits? It would be good to put in different frequencies of visits, follow-up reminders and so on. I have names and addresses in Access and Outlook but haven't yet worked out if these could be used.
Revd. Jeremy Vaughan, Basingstoke, Hants.

A colleague working on a WWF funded conservation project in coastal Kenya has 45,000 plant records on an old Borland Reflex 2 database on his rather ancient laptop. He has tried to copy program and data onto a modern computer; the program loads, but the display comes out as gibberish. Can it be that there is a font missing? How would he go about getting it, and operating it? He has tried Borland but they no longer support this software. Any solutions would be much appreciated!
Henk Beentje, via email

I have created a program on Excel to calculate holiday package prices, where the result depends on a combination of dates and times of travel.  There are two embedded calendars to select dates and two list boxes for times. The dates (dd/mm/yy) are added to the times (hh/mm) to give date/time combinations (dd/mm/yy/hh/mm), which determine the cost of travel by "lookup" to tables on a separate worksheet. The program works and gives the correct results but the embedded calendars change size and form when I scroll down the page and when I switch to Full Screen view. Can anyone help?

A. Wren, via email