11 Apr
2011
11 Apr
'11
3:19 a.m.
To those who have explore technological options for organizing your
dances, what have you come up with? I'm starting to see more laptops,
PDAs, tablets, and smartphones* at dances so does anyone know how
that's working? What software are you using?
Will
* At an open mic session last weekend a friend decided to call at the
last minute and pulled the dance up on his smartphone. I was
tremendously tempted to pull out my phone and call him when I dropped
out at the bottom of the set. I resisted the urge :-)
11 Apr
11 Apr
1:28 p.m.
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 3:19 AM, Will Kruse <sideways(a)wcrews.net> wrote:
To those who have explore technological options for
organizing your
dances, what have you come up with? I'm starting to see more laptops,
PDAs, tablets, and smartphones* at dances so does anyone know how
that's working? What software are you using?
Many people use Caller's Companion (http://callerscompanion.com), and seem
quite pleased with it. (Filemaker doesn't work on linux, so it's not an
option for me.)
I generally just throw my program into a text file and access it from my
laptop. That said, I keep cards handy as a backup, because I've never had a
3x5 card run out of battery.
-Grant-
--
Grant Goodyear
web: http://www.grantgoodyear.org
e-mail: grant(a)grantgoodyear.org
2:14 p.m.
When I started calling, I was using 3x5 index cards; copied those onto 5x7
index cards; bought a PC & transferred those to index cards on my computer;
bought a laptop & transferred those to index cards on my laptop; starting
hauling that laptop to dances (and a table to set it on); put a few handy
dances in the notes section of my cell phone; got tired of hauling that
laptop & table around; now back to carrying index cards again (but what if
the room fills up with beginners and they can't dance to the program I
brought that night?); so now I've set up a few pages containing tables of
dances [I can get up to 16 contra dances per page using tables] that stay in
my purse wherever I go - tables include: "easy contras" (2-3 pages),
"favorite contras," (limit myself to only 5 pages worth), "circles"
(2
pages), "squares" (several pages), and "other" (3-4 pages). Bulky in
my
purse? Somewhat, but at least I have dances with me at all times in case a
random dance breaks out somewhere, and now I'm prepared for that busload of
beginners to show up 1/2 through a regular dance I might be calling
somewhere. Ahhh technology.
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 3:19 AM, Will Kruse <sideways(a)wcrews.net> wrote:
To those who have explore technological options for
organizing your
dances, what have you come up with? I'm starting to see more laptops,
PDAs, tablets, and smartphones* at dances so does anyone know how
that's working? What software are you using?
Will
* At an open mic session last weekend a friend decided to call at the
last minute and pulled the dance up on his smartphone. I was
tremendously tempted to pull out my phone and call him when I dropped
out at the bottom of the set. I resisted the urge :-)
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
--
*Looking forward,
Linda S. Mrosko
7302 CR 2829
Mabank, Texas 75156
(903) 451-5535 (H)
(903) 288-4401 (cell)
www.towerwebsites.com/dancinglinda
*"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least
once."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
8:43 p.m.
Linda - you make me chuckle! Dorcas
-----Original Message-----
From: callers-bounces(a)sharedweight.net
[mailto:callers-bounces@sharedweight.net] On Behalf Of Linda Mrosko
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 2:14 PM
To: Caller's discussion list
Subject: Re: [Callers] Apps for callers?
When I started calling, I was using 3x5 index cards; copied those onto
5x7
index cards; bought a PC & transferred those to index cards on my
computer;
bought a laptop & transferred those to index cards on my laptop;
starting
hauling that laptop to dances (and a table to set it on); put a few
handy
dances in the notes section of my cell phone; got tired of hauling that
laptop & table around; now back to carrying index cards again (but what
if
the room fills up with beginners and they can't dance to the program I
brought that night?); so now I've set up a few pages containing tables
of
dances [I can get up to 16 contra dances per page using tables] that
stay in
my purse wherever I go - tables include: "easy contras" (2-3 pages),
"favorite contras," (limit myself to only 5 pages worth), "circles"
(2
pages), "squares" (several pages), and "other" (3-4 pages). Bulky in
my
purse? Somewhat, but at least I have dances with me at all times in
case a
random dance breaks out somewhere, and now I'm prepared for that busload
of
beginners to show up 1/2 through a regular dance I might be calling
somewhere. Ahhh technology.
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 3:19 AM, Will Kruse <sideways(a)wcrews.net> wrote:
To those who have explore technological options for
organizing your
dances, what have you come up with? I'm starting to see more laptops,
PDAs, tablets, and smartphones* at dances so does anyone know how
that's working? What software are you using?
Will
* At an open mic session last weekend a friend decided to call at the
last minute and pulled the dance up on his smartphone. I was
tremendously tempted to pull out my phone and call him when I dropped
out at the bottom of the set. I resisted the urge :-)
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
--
*Looking forward,
Linda S. Mrosko
7302 CR 2829
Mabank, Texas 75156
(903) 451-5535 (H)
(903) 288-4401 (cell)
www.towerwebsites.com/dancinglinda
*"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least
once."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
12 Apr
12 Apr
3:50 a.m.
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:19:21 -0700, Will Kruse wrote:
To those who have explore technological options for
organizing your
dances, what have you come up with? I'm starting to see more
laptops, PDAs, tablets, and smartphones at dances so does anyone
know how that's working? What software are you using?
I've written my own Dance Organiser program, which you can download
from http://www.colinhume.com/download.htm and try before you buy.
(It runs on Windows.) I hadn't planned to use it for calling, but my
eyes have deteriorated over the last couple of years and I can't read
the cards without glasses - and I can't watch the dancers WITH
glasses! So the program will now display the instructions for the
current dance full-screen (you can specify the text size), you can
scroll up and down using [PgUp] and [PgDn] if it's a long dance, and
you can move between dances using the left and right arrow keys.
I used it all last weekend, including a session of "Squares and
Contras without a Walkthrough" where I was jumping from one dance to
another while calling, and it works fine. It tells me how many
minutes before the next session starts, or how many minutes before the
current session finishes, which I find really useful. And it will
play recorded music. Also the lap-top is much lighter than my case of
cards, and if I'm calling abroad I would normally take my lap-top with
me anyway.
Colin Hume
4770
days inactive
4771
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Colin Hume -
Dorcas Hand -
Grant Goodyear -
Linda Mrosko -
Will Kruse