axfordBlog

old friends...

Had a fun day yesterday... we cleared almost all the the tools from the lounge... scraped, scrubbed and mopped the floor (where the sofa is due to sit) and unwrapped the sofa/pooltable!! A momentous occasion... and we followed it up with a nice film yesterday evening (with a jerry rigged tv/dvd player).

The other good thing to happen yesterday was I happended across an old friends website (steelskies) by a rather circuitous route... found a link to an app he's written on a forum of the centerstageproject and sent him an email to catch up. This makes more sense when you know I lost all his contact details over a year ago while changing computers/phones and couldn't remember his website address.

iTunes announcer

Been working on a little app for iTunes that uses the Microsoft Text-to-speech engine to announce the song title and artist when the currently playing track changes. This came about as we have lots of songs on the server that we don't forget the names of and it gets tiring always having to check the screen to see what's playing.

The app currently runs as a little toolbar and allows you to select either the SAPI version 4 or 5 interface, and also select which voice to use if using the version 5 interface. At the moment I've installed some additional free voices, but they only work through the version 4 interface. I've been reviewing some other voice engines that plugin to the SAPI framework, but they require money.... and I'm not that bothered to pay for them.

When it's a little more polished, I'll post the executable and source code...

Chimney breast patched with undercoat plaster
Posted by Picasa

This is a mockup of what we want to do with the master bedroom - we created this a fair while ago, but we're getting close to starting work upstairs and I figured it was worth posting it. Note, the bench over the bed with the TV on is intended to be mounted on runners and be able to slide backwards and forwards. That way, the screen can be connected to a computer (hidden away) and be used close up for web browsing, etc. and slid back for TV.
Posted by Picasa

New reviews blog

I've just created a new blog focused on reviews of stuff we own.... you can find it here or click on the link under Other Axford Sites

AxfordDIY

To seperate the detailed building work from the personal stuff, I've created a new blog called AxfordDIY where i'll be posting learnings/tutorials related to the renovation of our house.