Friday, September 3, 2010

It's that time of year.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I found out very late yesterday that my schedule is changing for the first day of school Tuesday (via a late day e-mail, no less.)  Heck of a way to spend your last day of vacation.

Anyway, there are a few things to do yet:

Check on the SmartMusic Order.  I'm going to need a purchase order number.  We have 233 band students that we purchase through a volume discount ( https://www.smartmusic.com/Store/Volume.aspx . )   I'm guessing we will need about 175 subscriptions when you edit out the siblings and the kids with no internet access.  Kids with siblings can share access at home.  We have SmartMusic equipped practice rooms for the others.

If you haven't seen SmartMusic for a while, take a minute and download it at http://www.smartmusic.com .  It has been made a lot easier to use with the new user interface.

I think there may be an offer for a Finale upgrade for school in my e-mail box.  It is the way to get custom made accompaniments into SmartMusic.  I wonder if this is a version to skip if Finale 2010 works with SM 2011. Will need to check to see if that combination works.  Otherwise, I had better do the upgrade.

Butch and Billie over at AABACA Music usually have a good price on Finale and it is nice to keep the business local if you can.  I guess online at MakeMusic is local for me too!

I have a new SmartBoard in my music rooms.  Really looking forward to getting that in play.  I have been making do with the Wiimote hack.  Johnny Lee was thinking of you when he created the software that does this trick.  Look here: http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ 

This hack would be good for me still, but what if you have a sub?  Are you going to give them permission or access to go in and fiddle with you preferences to set the Wiimote up?  Also, our district does sub training on the IWBs.  Not that I am ever sick...

Time to get to work.  Happy Labor Day.  May your supervisor be considerate and think more than a day ahead.

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