Mainstream artists starting to grasp the net for promotion?
26 Monday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
Monthly Archives: February 2007
More Album News
22 Thursday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
Polly Paulusma whose debut album Scissors in My Pocket garnered rave reviews has announced a new album called Fingers & Thumbs to be released in May.
If you like your slightly folksy female singer song writers in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Kathryn Williams. Her record company have an glowing (obviously) bio of her here which will give you more of a sense of her musical styling.
Polly according to her website will doing a live acoustic performance as part of Channel 4 radio’s music show The Tube.
Note – Polly’s website is annoyingly not RSS enabled – so if you want to keep abreast of her activities you’ll have to sign up to the news letter!
del.icio.us tags: Polly Paulusma, Scissors In My Pocket, Fingers & Thumbs, Music, album, release date, tube, channel 4, Kathryn Williams, Joni Mitchell
No Rock And Roll Fun: CD Wow heading back to court
22 Thursday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
Surprisingly the news that the BPI are taking another pop at CD-Wow hasn’t really reached the mainstream news – article here – Link to No Rock And Roll Fun: CD Wow heading back to court on the case.
You would think that the BPI would be better of trying to level the pricing playing field. Although that would probably hurt their members profits as UK is on of largest music buying nations based on purchases per person.
Software Test Automation
22 Thursday Feb 2007
Posted in mindmap, Technology
Having looked at the book Software Test Automation to see if I can get some ideas on how to improve our continuous test cycles at work, I created a mind map of notes as I went which can be found here.
For an experienced Architect / Development Manager a lot of the books content was simply an expression of what I already knew – through experience and reading over the years. For me at least the interesting part of the book is the approaches to calculating ROI on test automation which put some underpinnings to what I had felt intuitively. The bit I’d not really connected up in my own mind was the use of measurements (metrics) on the test automation to continue determining where to best expend effort. The last area of more interest was the case studies of several significantly sized organisations.
My only criticism of the book, although it is never stated, there seems to be an underlying bias towards heavier project processes rather than the rising agile styles, which if anything need more of the automated (read continuous) testing techniques.
Overall, I’d say the book is pretty readable – an achievement for a subject that isn’t particularly exciting even for a techie. For the less experienced person I’d recommend it as a read.
Rush of new album announcements
21 Wednesday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
I’ve had a number of emails announcing new albums over the last twenty four hours.
The first about Rush announcing a new studio album, to be called “Snakes and Arrows” to be released on May 1st.
Then Billy Joel, with his the first set of new recordings in 13 years called “All My Life”. Then Tori Amos announcing a new album on 1st May called “American Doll Posse” with a world tour to follow.
Tags: Rush Billy Joel Tori amos Albums Music
thru traffic lights
20 Tuesday Feb 2007
Posted in Photography
Having leafed through a photography magazine the other week I saw some interesting night photography. Now that I’ve gone digital, I thought it was about time I experiemented a bit more in this area – I used to be hesitant about such things given you can easily write off an entire roll of quality film and processing and get nothing.
Anyway I’ve added a couple of photos showing my first attempts’ results.
Finally, get someone else to drive when doing this sort of thing, so you can concentrate on taking the pictures.
Tags: Photography Night Lights
SXSW Showcasing Torrent – 1st one available
20 Tuesday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
SXSW put together a great set of torrents in the build up to SXSW with tracks showcasing artists that appear every year. You can find the torrent here : Link to south by southwest festivals + conferences. A word of warning the torrent is BIG.
Canadian Content Holders Spin Softer Anti-Piracy Plan — Digital Music News
16 Friday Feb 2007
Posted in General
It looks like the Canadian record industry have recognised that the current RIAA strategy isn’t doing them any favours according to this article :
Link to Canadian Content Holders Spin Softer Anti-Piracy Plan — Digital Music News
Tags: Record Industry Canada RIAA
Psychology of Computer Programming
15 Thursday Feb 2007
Posted in Books, mindmap, Technology
Tags
As a development manager, I’ve been looking at the updated edition of Gerald M. Weinberg’s classic book Psychology of Computer Programming. Despite having been in the IT industry for the better part of twenty years, this book has still managed to provoke some thought. Particularly with regards to how informal processes can affect organisations.
In addition to the social aspects of software development, the book addresses team dynamics. What makes good programming – for example code readability vs clever solutions. All of which is very important for anyone managing or leading developers, as this will help move a project in the right direction and draw the best out of your team.
The other aspect of the book that has been of interest is the work in trying to understand what to look for in a developer as I have now been long involved in the interviewing and recruitment process.
I have tried to capture some of the points from this book in mind map which can be found in here.
Tags: Programming software psychology book mindmap recruitment
Music Download Sources
13 Tuesday Feb 2007
Posted in Music
Q Magazine this month (March 2007) published a list of a 100 websites where you can download music for free from. I’ve had a quick flick through the article – although some of the sites are artists giving away some additional tracks, others are actually streaming sites – which I thought was a cope out, so I thought I’d try compile my own list. Obviously there will be some overlaps, but hopefully I’ve got a few sites that Q haven’t. I can’t always guarantee that the sites provide the mp3s legally – but I can say that they don’t promote the wholesale sharing of copyrighted albums.
- iTunes – yes they have a free weekly song to help promote artists. There are other similar sites with free downloads or introduction freebies these include:
- eMusic
- Mp3.com
- Napster – now it has been legalised.
- XPoNential Music on demand – associated with the American WXPN radio station who record live sessions, some of which are available here.
- Archive.org – source of live bootlegs – archive insist on explicit approval from the artists for bootlegging of live performances – huge choice of bands. Archive.org also cover books and other downloadable content as well. More information on how allows tapping can be found at “bands that allow taping” here.
- MySpace’s music – artists both signed and unsigned promote themselves through the site including free track downloads.
- Live Spaces – Microsoft Equivelant to MySpace
- Wolfgang’s Vault – a nice library of live performances.
- An Aquarium Drunkard – blog which reviews and makes downloads available.
- Day Trotter – This site with blog etc. have managed to get artists to call in to their little studio to record songs for them which are made available though their site.
- GarageBand – unsigned and independent artists.
- LegalTorrents – As bit torrent becomes more common as a means to download, I’d imagine this site and others like it will pop up.
- Epitonic
- SXSW – The South By South West event website provides a huge preview download of artists performing at the festival.
- Blogs, some blogs provide free tracks to downloads, such as Arjan Writes
- Large Hearted Boy – my favourite blog, with a daily roundup of press articles and downloads
- Idolator – a prolific blog.
- An Aquarium Drunkard
- Stereogum
- Glorious Noise
- Furthur Net – dedicated to sharing live bootlegs using a dedicated peer to peer client.
- DimeADozen – a torrent based site for sharing bootleg recordings. Great site.
- Trader’s Den – An alternative to DimeADozen.
- dmusic – providing music licensed by artists using the Creative Common license .
- Filter Magazine – an online US magazine with downloads available.
- Big O Magazine – an online magazine from Singapore (written in English) although it covers a lot of politics it is also an interesting source of bootlegs and reviews.
- WOXY – the partner site to LaLa.com (US CD swapping service) provides live performances.
Okay – so it isn’t 100 strong – but not a bad start. I’ll update the list when I find other good sites worth of adding.
Tags: MP3 Download Sites Music Downloading Torrent
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