The Dogs

I've been told by Jay that there isn't enough information about Jack & Sabre in the blog.

Well they're both in the dog house at the moment. Jack wound Sabre up to the point where he lashed out yesterday evening and bit Jack on the chin :(

We've patched him up, but Jack is feeling very sorry for himself and will probably have a nasty scar on his chin.

Other than that both are doing reasonable well. Apart from being a pest to Sabre, Jackal (it suits him) is generally settling down and is much healthier than when we first got him around nine months ago. He recovered well from the botched snip operation and is usually bright and bouncy.

Sabre is starting to feel his age a little and consequently getting a little grumpy especially when Jack gets near his food or his ball. He's having some problems with his back legs (nerve degeneration our vet thinks), but he's been a bit perkier recently.

So that's how they are :)

Podcast Links

So you want to podcast? Or do you just want to tune in to the interweb? This link collection should get you started:

An assortment of podcasting sites:

The Dawn and Drew Show!
The Richard Vobes Radio Show
Podcast Alley - The place to find podcasts

How to Podcast

If you want to easily convert a blog to a podcast format you'll need to look at FeedBurner

If you just want to hear what all the fuss is about have a look at blugg caster

Podcasting is the new blog!

Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun, but podcasting is the new craze sweeping the interweb. I've set up a feed from the Anewmusic blog and we have a couple of snippets posted as test files. The next step will be to begin broadcasting :))

From the few highly unscientific tests I've carried out on my laptop here's how I rate the following free podcast clients for PC:

doppler
Well featured, clean interface with good support for text sections of feeds. Not always so hot at pulling feeds though - I've had more errors with this than the others.

nimiq
Nice compact client. Very simple. No support for non-audio enclosures that I've found yet. Works well though.

ipodder
We like ipodder. Not quite as simple as nimiq and lacks some of the features of doppler, but it comes in the most flavours and has worked consistently well.

So which am I recommending? Well for simplicity nimiq, for features doppler, but for all round ease of use it has to be ipodder (by a whisker).

Stupid things that make my life harder #1

I'm late. I'm always late.

I work, I read, I study, I play bass, I mix tracks, I have 2 websites and 3 blogs; I do far too may things and so I'm always late for everything.

I've been told to be at work on time. I try. I really do try.

I was at work on time this morning :)

I forgot:

My phone.

My wallet.

My change.

My clockcard (so I couldn't even prove I was on time!).

I can't buy lunch and I now have to leave work 45 minutes earlier than I would have done because I have to go home to get all those things before going to rehersal (I did, at least, remember my bass).

If I'd taken the time to collect all those things & not leave in a panic I may have been 5 minutes late. We work flextime so I only get paid for when I'm here...

Hey, boss? Do the math.

Gmail for all!

For those of you frothing at the mouth to get a Gmail account but haven't had an "invite" I have discovered the following site:


http://isnoop.net/gmail/

Since Gmail seems to be the world's most open beta program ever people are given blocks of invites and this site allows people to donate spare ones so that
anyone that wants one can sign up.

Actually as a marketing ploy it's not a bad one - talk it up, restrict supply artificially, but put out enough "invites" that anyone who really wants and account and can fathom the mysteries to locate an invite (ok I just typed "gmail account" into google!) can find one and get an account thus spreading more word of mouth and making everyone feel as though they are in some secret club.

Clever.

So lets have a club night.

A crate of beer, you, me and 38 million other members ;-)

We may need a bigger treehouse!

DAMN!

We may need a bigger tree!

My shiny new black 1000cc blog

Touch it.
Stroke it.
You can't!

See how it almost absorbs the light....

But it still steers like a cow.

It is, however, now licesed under Creative Commons.
Some rights reserved.

Illegal downloading 'costs UK £650m'

And if we turn off the internet tomorrow will the record companies make £650m more next year? No. Absolutely not. Are all the illegal downloaders saving the money they would have spent on CDs in offshore accounts? NO.

It is disposable income we are talking about and with consumer debt in the UK increasing year on year I think we can be pretty sure that this amount, and more, is being disposed of. People are just spending it on other things - DVDs, cinema tickets (cinema going is apparently on the rise), PC and console games, Bratz dolls, and everything else consumer Britain is told it "must" have.

CD sales have been falling for years and whilst P2P may be exacerbating the fact perhaps the BPIs members might want to think about changing their 50 year old business model to meet 21st century technology.

Do I download tracks via P2P? Occasionally. Do most of them end up in the recycle bin? Yes. Do I spend more on CDs than I might have done because of hearing those tracks? Probably not, but I am more likely to purchase music from artists who's tracks I've heard. So good news for artists, bad news for the BPI's business model.

Could I use the radio or an in-store listening post to do the same? Not for independent labels and artists that haven't had the vast resources of the big record companies to hype their music into the charts. So, even better for the small guys and worse news for the big 5 (4? 3?).

Now ponder with me, how much of that £650m was spent trying to garner chart success for manufactured acts last year?