Psychology of Computer Programming

15 Thursday Feb 2007

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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.

Psychology Of Programming

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Music Download Sources

13 Tuesday Feb 2007

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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.

  2. 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:
  3. eMusic
  4. Mp3.com
  5. Napster – now it has been legalised.
  6. XPoNential Music on demand – associated with the American WXPN radio station who record live sessions, some of which are available here.
  7. 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.
  8. MySpace’s music – artists both signed and unsigned promote themselves through the site including free track downloads.
  9. Live Spaces – Microsoft Equivelant to MySpace
  10. Wolfgang’s Vault – a nice library of live performances.
  11. An Aquarium Drunkard – blog which reviews and makes downloads available.
  12. 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.
  13. GarageBand – unsigned and independent artists.
  14. LegalTorrents – As bit torrent becomes more common as a means to download, I’d imagine this site and others like it will pop up.
  15. Epitonic
  16. SXSW – The South By South West event website provides a huge preview download of artists performing at the festival.
  17. Blogs, some blogs provide free tracks to downloads, such as Arjan Writes
  18. Large Hearted Boy – my favourite blog, with a daily roundup of press articles and downloads
  19. Idolator – a prolific blog.
  20. An Aquarium Drunkard
  21. Stereogum
  22. Glorious Noise
  23. Furthur Net – dedicated to sharing live bootlegs using a dedicated peer to peer client.
  24. DimeADozen – a torrent based site for sharing bootleg recordings. Great site.
  25. Trader’s Den – An alternative to DimeADozen.
  26. dmusic – providing music licensed by artists using the Creative Common license .
  27. Filter Magazine – an online US magazine with downloads available.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.

 

 

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Radiohead’s next album – date announced

12 Monday Feb 2007

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It would seem that the next Radiohead album has had a date set – with a degree of confidence that Amazon have provided a page for pre-ordering Radiohead’s album for 2007!

 

 

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EMI Pushes MP3-Based Plan, More Details Surface — Digital Music News

09 Friday Feb 2007

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This is an exciting step forward, if as Digital Music News reports (Link to EMI Pushes MP3-Based Plan, More Details Surface — Digital Music News ) the first of the big four maybe prepared to to risk a DRM free world.  If EMI doesn’t report any down trend in revenue I suspect the others will have to follow suit.

I, for one would make use of any service that sells a serious catalogue in a DRM free manner.

England in the Snow

08 Thursday Feb 2007

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England in the Snow

With the snow overnight the less travelled roads can reveal pretty views, albeit with treacherous surfaces. More pictures at our Flickr site.

 

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Live Downloads as MP3

07 Wednesday Feb 2007

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 Live Downloads I was looking at the EFF site about DRM in music and followed their link to Live gigs you can buy in DRM free downloads (Link to nugs.net presents LIVEDOWNLOADS | Catalog of MP3 FLAC Downloads). Although a lot of the artists of predominatly of the Alt and Indie seens that is a good representation with stuff from:

  • Gomez
  • Iron & Wine
  • Barenaked Ladies
  • The Editors

To name but a few.

NME.COM – News – Prince’s half-time show under scrutiny

07 Wednesday Feb 2007

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Things are getting a little crazy when it comes to the super bowl performances, the FCC are now looking at shadows cast by Prince (article –

Link to NME.COM – News – Prince’s half-time show under scrutiny).

 

Firstly, I’d be more concerned about the lyrics sung by an artists like Prince long before an visual element.  My real point is that legislation for the FCC and OFCOM in the UK is that they act to protect innocent minds, and would an innocent mind be looking for crude and rude images in shadows being cast?  I don’t think so as you would have to have some understanding of crude images to make the association, which means you can’t have an innocent mind.

I does make me laugh that statistics say that by the age of 18 you’ll have seen thousands of images of killing and death – yet an image that are associated with procreation and sexuality cause such a fury.

Steve Jobs happy to drop DRM – Apple – Thoughts on Music

07 Wednesday Feb 2007

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 In a new article by Steve Jobs (Link to Apple – Thoughts on Music) he indicates he would happily say goodbye to DRM, but explains why he believes FairPlay shouldn’t be made licenable.  It is a well written article, but deliberately misses several points.

 

On the subject of lock in to a particular store, he points out on average each iPod has only 22 songs from iTunes – or 3%, and given that proportion it is hardly lock in.  Well, it is unless you’re willing to throw away £17.38 and spend the same to purchase those songs again from a different store. Not to mention that this is averaged over the owning population.  How many first generation iPods are in circulation now; how many people like me who refuse to get suckered by DRM wont load any iTunes material?  When you consider these points, then those who have purchased from iTunes probably do have a lot more to lose.

 

Further more with lock in, the problem also manifests itself in the situation of not all record companies have licensed to iTunes, particularly the smaller indie players and they may only work through a Microsoft DRM’d store, so can’t simply download you favourite obscure artist’s tracks to you iPod, or vice versa.

 

I don’t believe that Steve Jobs’ position is altruistic, but a case of it means he no longer has to carry the encoding burden, the DRM maintenance cost – which from his article is implied has the potential to be rather significant. Not to mention DRM free downloads means he has the potential to capture more download business.

 

Steve suggests the effort being spent on EU interoperability cases that have been going on in France, Belgium and other countries would better spent pressing the record companies. Yes, I’d agree with that; but as the boss of one of the biggest online stores, you’ve not been the most vocal proponent of removing DRM. Not to mention that as the biggest online vendor of music at the moment you probably have as much or more influence than many governments to persuade the ‘big four’ to try a new approach.

 

 

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Microsoft Photo Info

05 Monday Feb 2007

Posted by in Photography, Technology

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 been trying to find a tool that allows me to see EXIF information from photos easily (preferably as a tool tip) as Windows Explorer isn’t capable of doing it out of the box.  After a bit of hunting around I found that Microsoft have got a freebie solution themselves (Link to Download details: Microsoft Photo Info).

 

Along with this tool there is a partner app to work with RAW files (for those pro & semi pro-users).

 

The interesting thing is, that despite being on the MS download email every month, I don’t recall being told about the availability of this utility, and I only came across it by chance – thanks to another site’s reference to it.

Calendar of CD release

02 Friday Feb 2007

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I’ve been on the look out for a good calendar of upcoming CD releases, although there a few around one of the best I’ve seen is here :Link to Upcoming CD Releases.

 

Yes you can see some information from the likes of Amazon and CD-WoW but they’re only confirmed dates once they’ve been given the information that allows orders etc to be placed.

 

What would be really really good though would be the ability to register an interest in releases such that you get an email reminder just before the CD hits the shelves. 

 

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