"Hi, I'm a Mac." "And I'm a Penguin."

[elfs]

So, I have this nifty little portable tape recorder with a USB connector concealed in its base that does the right thing and mimics an ordinary USB storage device when plugged into a computer.

I was complaining to Omaha that it was an annoying amount of work to unload the thing to the laptop for review. I had to plug it in, mount it, search the different "folders" for the files I wanted, and then move the files to my desktop for analysis. Omaha immediately got on her Mac horse and said, "That's just too much work! When I want to do that I just plug it in, click on the folders to open them, and move them over with the mouse. You just like playing with the console because it's geeky, and you like to lord your geeky superiority over people."

I then said that I had written a little driver script (really, it's eight lines of shell script) that would do everything automatically: when I plugged in the recorder: it automatically mounted, found, renamed-by-date, and transferred the files to my hard drive, depositing them in a new dated folder under "Recordings," and ejecting the mount.

And then her comment was, "Oh, so now you're lazy."

Set and Horus, you can't win with a Mac bigot. No matter what you do: whether super geeky command line, or fully automated, it's not the obviously optimal amount of work as deemed by St. Jobs that you must do to satisfy your computing needs!

Comments

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I -think- you could write an Automator script to do that on the Mac. ;-)

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it. It's a good little program for things that work inside OS X. Things that don't have to be done The Mac Way I just stick in cron, but for some things it's just easier to pop open Automator and throw together a few things.

I'm not a bigot, I just use the right tool for the right job, or the tools to hand if need be :)

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, you're lazy. That's one of the three chief virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Really, she's right on all counts:

1) You like being geeky. If you didn't you'd just get a Mac or a WinXP box.

2) You like letting people know you're geeky. If you didn't you wouldn't mention it to others.

3) You're lazy. Duh! That's why we ALL use computers - to make the work easier, or to get more done with the same amount of effort.




You really remind me of a classic MG owner (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/wheels/472_1966mg.jpg). You alternate between expoung upon loving the thing, tweaking it, and complain about it. Often in the same paragraph...

[solarbird]

You really remind me of a classic MG owner.
Bwah ha ha ha ha!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

*Pout!* I have been brought low!

[mouser.livejournal.com]

...but I don't hear a denial in that....

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Nope, none at all. The freedom to tinker is also the pleasure of tinkering.

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

Yes, and to prove that her Mac is superior, you could probably run that shell script on her Mac with only a little tweeking.

[kengr]

What's the recorder (I've got a blind friend who could use something like that)

[mouser.livejournal.com]

My Sansa MP3 player records, and has a docking cradle (USB).

I imagine most MP3 players have voce recording capability.

[kengr]

How many can you do it *easily* with if you can't read the screen?

That's the problem.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Um... Point.

I used to have a pocket recorder that worked with SD cards. Discrete buttons for stop/play/record and you could have it beep when you hit one.

I'd check under "dictation recorders"

[lovingboth]

The current ones don't run RockBox (alternative firmware for several mp3 platers), but the early ones do and that has a 'read out what menu item you're on' option.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/9e59/

Saves to WAV so you can use your prefered player.

Haven't tried this one, so I don't know if it would suit your needs.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Olypmus WS-100. Nice, small, really nice physical design to the USB port, but the buttons are a bit soft. Might not be the best for a blind person as it has a rather cryptic display panel.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Are you *trying* to start a holy war?

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that it took you so long to automate it. Every time I even think about writing down a checklist, it turns into a shell script.

PC/Mac

[(Anonymous)]

You're a PC whore.
And a command-line Unix geek.