I've been lacking a practical way to do any audio recording for a while. I have an iRiver audio player that can record, but it's a chore to use. A while back I read about the Zoom H2. This looked like a great device for recording via its multiple microphones. Then I saw the H4 that can also have instruments plugged into it. It also includes four track recording with built-in effects. That looked like the gadget for me. After my usual dithering over buying a new gadget I ordered mine last week.

I've had a bit of a play so far and it's looking good. I've recorded some acoustic guitar using the microphones. That shows up my lousy playing. Also recorded the kids doing their stuff. I've been wanting to do that for a while. I've also had a brief play with the multi-tracking. The preset effect settings tend to be a bit extreme. I need to work out what I need, but have never gained much experience of that sort of thing.

One thing I was not totally sure about was how well it would work with Linux. The answer is, pretty good. You get to select whether it should be a USB storage device, to let you read the SD card, or as a USB audio interface. Both work, but the former is a slow way to download data. For audio I was able to select it as an input in Skype, Audacity and Jokosher. This means I have been able to do speech on Skype for the first time in ages. I have issues with the recording apps. I somehow have Audacity set up so that it will not play back and Jokosher is very unstable. I ought to look at getting Jack and Ardour working, but that seems more complex than it should be.

Now I have this gadget I have more incentive to work on my playing and actually work out some pieces to record. I also want to do some recording of my drumming, including our group sessions. When I have something I'm happy with I will upload it somewhere, probably to my Multiply site as that allows for limitless uploads.

For help with using this device I am using several on-line forums:

• 2060.org is dedicated to Zoom devices.
• Studio-Central is a general recording forum. Lots of knowledgeable people there
• LinuxMusicians. Fairly new and I only found it this week. Not a lot of activity, but it's one of the few sites covering music on Linux. Linux crops up on some of the others, but not much.

I've updated my music page to reflect the current state of my collection. Nothing very flashy, but I'm sure I should be able to do something interesting with it all.

I generally like to play with new versions of software, but had not got around to looking at the latest version of KDE. Version 3 has been slowly evolving for a while, but this is quite different. It adds some new features such as 'widgets' that you can rotate, but I'm not sure why you would. I installed it and was given the choice when logging in as to which version I wanted to use. KDE4 seemed to ignore my settings for what applications run at startup. I also had to configure the new Kopete. The K menu is different. You have to click through different levels to get to most applications. It certainly looks like it could offer some nice visual tricks, but I'm not sure how they would benefit me. I generally run things like my browser in full screen mode and so rarely see the desktop. or any widgets that may lurk there. V4.1 is due fairly soon. Maybe that will make it more usable and I can try it again then.

One feature I like to use on KDE/Linux and on Windows is to have applications that minimise to the tool tray. This is especially useful for things like email and instant messaging clients as I will generally only look at them when something happens, like receiving a message. I may sometimes open an IM window just to see who is on-line. Then it is very useful if I can click the same icon in the tray again to make the window close. None of the Windows seem to do that, but the Linux ones generally do. Unfortunately they are a little inconsistent in their behaviour.

If I click the tray icon when the window is either closed or hidden then I expect it to come to the front. Kmail closes if the window is open and hidden, but other KDE apps behave as above e.g. Amarok and Konversation. I think that consistency is very important and hope that the KDE teams are looking at this sort of thing.

The other new thing I've been playing with is Firefox version 3. This was included in Ubuntu 8.04, even though it is still a beta. The main obvious new feature is that the address bar is more intelligent. I often used the history to start typing a URL to go to a page I often visit, but now you can type any part of the page title to get it back. If you click to show recent history it does not show as many pages as it used to. I miss that as I would often use that list to look check back at recent pages I had visited. Unfortunately this version is less stable than version 2. It frequently crashes when I am entering text on pages. This happens most often on Twitter. I'm still having fun with Twitter. It is more intimate than blogging and I have had a few exchanges with strangers that would not have happened otherwise. So if you are not already Twittering, why not?

Nothing much to report, but here are some cool sites I have found lately:

• Page2RSS - I run most of my web browsing via Google Reader, so it can be a pain to keep up with sites that do not have feeds. This service will monitor those sites and give me a feed of the updates
• AideRSS - Provides filtered versions of RSS feeds based on various factors. Could be useful for some of the high traffic ones, but filtered too much on some I tried
• Ftrain - A literate blog. The author wrote a series of 6 word reviews for the SXSW tracks I downloaded recently
• Twitterholics - Lots of cool Twitter stuff. I'm still enjoying micro-blogging. I've had a few exchanges with strangers that would not have happened otherwise
• Spamusement - A series of cartoons inspired by spam mail subjects. Made me laugh

You can follow my bookmarks over on Del.icio.us. I'm interesting in following others who share my interests.