Category: Link Post

đź”— Google Meet now works with Chromecast on your TV

Google Meet now works with Chromecast on your TV. – 9to5Google:

Meet on Chromecast works exclusively through the Chrome browser on your desktop or laptop computer. That’s because, when this is running, Google still uses the camera, microphone, and audio from your machine to power the experience. The meeting itself is just cast off to your TV or other display so you can view it on a larger display. Google is continuing to be quite aggressive with updates to Google Meet.

While I am happy with my tech setup in my studio, I know there will be times when I need a change of scenery. I fully plan to teach some lessons from my sunroom and living room. My living room TV has a Chromecast built in and I can totally see myself projecting the class on to the big screen while providing feedback from my laptop on the couch and using the laptop screen as extra real estate for other apps.

đź”— Chris Russell on sheet music scanning apps

Last week Chris Russell reviewed a new score scanning app, ScanScore. I kind of like that he turned this review into a comparison of the different options available, with example photos. Here is a link to the post with a quote:

ScanScore – Technology in Music Education

So, how did it work? Again, I’m not in the scanning mode right now, so I’m creating an artificial comparison (something that really isn’t crucial to me on a need-to-get-it-done-as-quickly-as-possible basis). I decided to take a a version of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata from IMSLP, and to see how the programs did with it.

While one example is not enough to effectively compare this kind of software, it’s still interesting to see where they stack up in the example he provided. I personally find that these scanner apps require more touch up than is worth the effort. In many cases it is still easier to manually recreate the score in a notation app. 

Of the apps Chris mentions in the post, Sheet Music Scanner is my favorite, even though it doesn’t do triplets yet.

đź”— Longplay – New Music App That Prioritizes Listening and Organizing by Album

If you prioritize your music listening by albums instead of individual songs and playlists, Longplay is an app worth checking out. Link and quote below:

Introducing Longplay – Adrian's Corner:

Longplay is a music player for anyone who enjoy listening to entire albums start-to-finish. It digs through your Apple Music or iTunes library – that might have grown over the years or decades and is full of a mix of individual songs, partial albums, complete albums and playlists – to identify just those complete albums and gives you quick access to play them.

It provides a beautiful view of all your album artwork, and let’s you explore your albums (or playlists) by various sort options. A unique one is Negligence which combines how highly you’ve ranked an album and when you last listened it, to let you rediscover forgotten favourites. Brightness sorts the albums by their primary colour for an interesting visual take on your albums collection.

You can hide albums or playlists that you don’t want to show up – useful for meditation or kids albums, or smart playlists that you use for doing house keeping.

For users who want to listen on specific AirPlay devices, such as multi-room audio systems or headphones, there’s a “Play on” feature that’s the quickest way to listen on the right device.

đź”— Google Plans to Eventually replace Duo with Meet

9to5Google reports…

Google plans to eventually replace Duo with Meet:

With classic Hangouts on the way out, Google today has two video calling apps. However, that is one too many for the company, and sources familiar with the matter tell us that Google Duo will eventually be replaced by Meet.

This would be so welcome, if true. I have used Google Meet, Google Hangouts, and Google Duo over the past five months. While their minor strengths and differences eventually became clear to me, there is simply no reason for the company to have three video chat apps, especially when Meet does everything the other two do.

Google Duo is an alternatively elegant way to do a 1:1 call, but I won’t miss it. Two less apps to install on my devices!

đź”— Adobe and WordPress launch Google-backed .new shortcuts – 9to5Google

Cool new document creation shortcuts from WordPress and Adobe, in collaboration with Google. If you are a Google Docs user and didn’t already know about document creation shortcuts, they will save you some time. Click to read the entire article below.

Adobe and WordPress launch Google-backed .new shortcuts – 9to5Google:

Back in 2018, Google introduced web links to quickly open blank Docs, Forms, and Sheets. Over the years, it expanded to most other G Suite services, with Adobe Acrobat and Spark now supporting several .new shortcuts.

Adobe “collaborated” with Google in hopes of providing a “streamlined way to get things done.” It specifically doesn’t want users to be “stuck scouring the web just to get things done.”

I wish I had more of a need for these. I love the idea of typing “new.sheets” into my browser to set up a new spreadsheet, but I am logged into two different Google accounts and the chance that it creates the document in the correct account is 50/50. Kind of defeats the point of the shortcut.