Zakala's Weblog

The Love Commandos new site

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:46:00 +0000

I've recently finished putting together the Love Commandos new look website. Designed as a new blog style site for the West Midlands rock band it will hopefully attract more people to the band - especially once we get out and start gigging again after completing the album "Siren".

Three things I learned to day...

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:46:00 +0000

1. Joomla 1.5 is NOT compatible with PHP 5.3 so don't use XAMPP v1.72 for windows as a development tool (use v1.71 - it has PHP 5.2.9)

2. Audio CDs (I mean the complete package, CD box & booklet) were heavier 20 years ago than they are now.

3. Online job application forms are very annoying and require far more time to complete than downloaded word documents.

Les Paul dies at 94

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Sad, sad news - the passing of a man who was already a legend in his own lifetime. Les Paul dies in White Plains, NY at the age of 94. Not only did this musical genius develop one of the first solid body guitars "the log" in 1941, his designs later marketed by Gibson, he was also a pioneer of what we now call music technology. This is the man invented multitrack recording and ushered in an entirely new way of capturing bands' performances that would revolutionise the rock'n'roll era and influence all future recording.

We mourn a great guitarist and phenomenal musical inventor.

More from Associated Press - Guitar legend-inventor Les Paul dies at age 94

Does Pirate Bay verdict spell trouble for Google?

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:19:00 +0000

Let's be honest, this was hardly a surprising outcome was it? But the ultimate ramifications could be far wider.

The media industry really would rather the internet would go away, since it's a distribution channel that they find hard to control (but they're willing to spend the cash to get there) and it tends to destroy their revenue boosting conceit of "regionalization"

My real concern is that once the media giants get a stranglehold on illegal distribution of their own content the next logical step will be to shut out any independent producers. There's no real proof that piracy alone is responsible for their huge loss of revenue, yet once they've done all they can to stamp out piracy they'll have to find another excuse for their failing business model.

The technological push is already there - SACD, Blueray & HDMI all require huge budgets to create masters that will play in commercial players. So if they can just kill off DVD, CD & mp3 they'll really be happy.

Paranoia? Perhaps. But one day I could be busking on the corner of a street somewhere awaiting the arrival of "the man" to serve me with a "cease and desist being creative notice" for infringing the rights of the media giants to make money.

Legal downloads swamped by piracy - BBC News

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:24:00 +0000

10 years ago the recording industry was losing money because of people duplicating CDs and 20 years ago it was because of us all taping vinyl. The bottom line is that the music industry has been in decline since the 70's as more avenues open for everyone's disposable income.

The IFPI can whine all it likes, people will only buy the goods that they can afford to spend on and music is still a relatively expensive disposable income choice - most blockbuster films can be bought when released on DVD for only a pound or two more than a chart album and they seem to get discounted sooner too. The situation also complicated by newspapers and magazines "giving away" "free" albums. That says sends out the message that music is valueless - if it's free on the Daily News why shouldn't it be free on the internet?

Even us artists are starting to realise that we can be better off going it alone than trading our output to the media giants so that they can make a vast profit and pass us scraps. The days of multimillion pound deals ensuring vast profits is gone (look at Robbie Williams recent failures) so why bother? If you can record your songs at home for the price of a computer and the software that often comes free with it then ANY money you make selling them on iTunes or your own website is more profit than you might realise from any record deal.

Apple to announce resolution to iTunes charges? - Silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:09:00 +0000

Apple is expected to announce steps to resolve European Commission
charges that its iTunes stores broke EU rules by setting prices country
by country in Europe.

http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39169599,00.htm

Talking Photo Software

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:53:00 +0000

This is so cool. Thanks to the coders at PQDVD you can now make any photo talk or sing. Better than that if you blog about it before Xmas they'll give you a copy of the software free! Click on the applet below to get to their site.

Why the future may not be Steam-powered

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:48:00 +0000

Well OK you've probably guessed I'm not talking about coal-fired robots, though Boilerplate is fun :)

No I'm talking about that dratted games software overlord that combines all the worst bits of DRM, download manager and favorites browser for your games. Playing a game used to be as easy as inserting the CD and double clicking an icon. Not any more. Now I have to launch steam - that in itself seems to take more resources than Bioshock - then double click a link in the window.

But today I've done something punishable by the gods of gaming because instead of launching the game Steam is going to verify all my game data. Why??? And why does it take sooooo long? Have they not heard of one way hashes?

I don't play many games, I simply don't have the time. I like stupid, pointless first person shooter madness, because it's quick and a little challenging and I don't have to think about it too much. I love my Wii and I love my PS2, but frankly if the future of gaming on the PC is Steam I just don't have the time.

I won another router!

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:12:00 +0000

For the second year running I won a router at the annual Cisco Academy Forum Day. Yippee! This year it's a 3640 with a voice card so if I figure out how it works and can get the other bits I need I can show my students VoIP.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

And the winner is...

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:28:00 +0000

I guess it has to be egg as I used the new card information in a delayed amazon order yesterday and the CD turned up this morning. So congratulations to egg for being the first company to come through in an emergency.

In joint second place are LoydsTSB debit and credit cards. Both arrived this morning ready to go.

The losers? Two MBNA cards (I've had just had one of the pins) and, disappointingly, my Halifax Amazon card (no card, no pin).

Since the MBNA cards were taken out for balance transfers I think they're finally going to go - MBNA seem to move payment dates randomly (I wouldn't want to accuse them of doing it deliberately to cash in on late fees, but that's how it felt at the time) and obviously aren't in a hurry to get cards out to me. Sorry Dogs Trust, I'll make it up at Xmas, in the meantime get another card provider!

As for my Amazon Card... well the Amazon vouchers are a nice bonus, but that payment date is slowly slipping backwards towards my payday. If it gets to be the wrong side of it, it's off to where the cut-up cards go.

Where's my wallet?

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:52:00 +0000

You know that sinking feeling? The one you get when you realise you've selected the wrong file just after you hit delete? Or when you choose shutdown instead of restart on a remote server? Or when you realise that you can't find your wallet and the last time you know you had it was several days before?

Yep. Gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Probably not stolen, though perhaps dropped on the way home. Best guess however? Put in the dustbin by my 15 month old son. The day before the bins were collected.

Still it gives me the opportunity to see which of the banks/credit card companies respond in the most timely fashion to my crisis. I currently have no money and no way to get any money. All my cards were cancelled on Tuesday afternoon after the loss was noticed and the house ransacked.

In the lead so far are egg.com (whose card arrived this morning, but can't actually be used as they have not enabled a balance on it yet) followed (a way behind) by MBNA (they of the magical shifting payment dates and excessive late fees) who have sent a pin.

Nothing at all from my bank yet (LLoyds) who were the first to be phoned.

If egg enable my card by tomorrow am I guess they win the race and my eternal gratitude (I can then put petrol in the car and buy some food). Luckily it's not that bad - my better half has some cash and all her cards, but that means taking her everywhere to buy things for me. Not that I mind being a kept man, but it's somewhat inconvenient.

I'm also seriously considering cancelling all those cards that don't arrive in the top three. And yes that includes my current account! Get your skates on people.

Media gurus see user content as top threat - silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:22:00 +0000

"User-generated content is one of the media and entertainment industry's
biggest threats according to a survey - a signal that some established
businesses are struggling to cope with some of the web 2.0 trends."

Well at least they've realised that DRM isn't the panacea they hoped it would be. I suspect that they will still make money, however. How? By controlling media advertising. Actually the more forward thinking execs are probably laughing all the way to the bank. After all, with Web2.0 they don't have to finance artists or pay for the costly manufacturing and distribution. They don't even have to step out of the office and go to a gig. They can just surf myspace and youtube and all the other self promotion sites, find the most downloaded material and sign the act up. Then just move the content to iTunes, apply the bare minimum of marketing budgets and hoover up the profit.

Anyone who hoped that Web2.0 would make the mainstream more accessible to individual artists is probably going to be largely disappointed. The artists that do make it to the mainstream will probably find they have shorter shelf lives and make less money, though the higher artist turnover will perhaps spread a little more evenly what little cash does make its way
out of the music industry (and we all know by now how industry treats
the actual workers) into the artists' pockets. What Web2.0 does do is allow the rest of us to create and share ideas and ultimately it's ideas that can change the world. The fifteen minutes of fame Warhol promised could help things along, but in the future that might be all anyone gets.

New colours, new look, new content.

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:54:00 +0000

Zakala's has had another facelift and is now fully using Joomla! The initial redirector still needs to be updated, but the site itself is now firmly Web2.0.

Nice.

Zakala's Pics

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Finally sorted out the whole zOOm Media Gallery plugin for Joomla! and I'm getting my head around how to apply different styles and content to the system.

So we now have pictures (mostly of the lovely Love Commandos) and news feeds and lots of other goodies :)

Now I just have the job of migrating all the old content across to Joomla!

Zakala's nearly ready to launch

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:36:00 +0000

The new Joomla! site for Zakala's is nearly ready for launch. I'm still not sure about the colour scheme though - what do you think?

Better lessons would improve behaviour, says Ofsted

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:18:00 +0000

'Unruly behaviour in some of the worst secondary schools in England could be improved if teachers gave more varied and interesting lessons, according to the standards watchdog.

'In secondary schools where bad behaviour was an isolated issue, the cause was often pupils' frustration with the poor quality of teaching they received, said an Ofsted report published today... The National Union of Teachers immediately hit back, saying: "It is difficult to understand how Ofsted has come to this conclusion when it does not measure the quality of teaching during inspections. This smacks of a return to the bad old days of assertions by the then chief inspector which he could not substantiate."'

Hmm... teachers, teaching or curriculum? More worrying, surely is that the people who measure whether our schools are up to snuff don't actually measure the quality of teaching.

Perhaps it's time the whole post primary education system was sorted out by educators, not by politicians, and that the teaching unions finally accept that not every teacher is a perfect paragon of teaching. Oh and here's the scary one for all of you - we should start asking the students to evaluate the teaching they are provided with.

Teachers want ban on cyber-bully pupils

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:51:00 +0000

'Teachers are demanding action to stop pupils humiliating them through offensive video clips and abuse posted online. Their unions say service providers should do more to police websites amid growing concern over "cyber bullying"....'

Well yes I'm not surprised though again it's not really the technology that's at fault, but the behaviour of the pupils. Whilst internet use at school might be carefully filtered and sanitised if this leads to a lack of engagement with pupils around these topics how can we complain when they go home and use the technology in this behaviour?

There needs to be far more engagement with the pupils and that means that teachers need to understand how pupils use technology - and it's totally different to the way adults work. For children and teens technology is all about communication (eg IM and Chat) and social networking (Bebo, Myspace, Piczo) two areas most often filtered in school. If teachers don't understand how pupils interact with technology, then how can they hope to provide good advice, role models and teach what not to do and why not.

'YouTube has examples from several countries of teachers being held up to ridicule. A male teacher was shown with his trousers down. In a recent case in north-east England, a pupil posted a picture of a woman teacher transposed on to pornographic material.'

One has to ask how the former was filmed and why the latter wasn't blocked by filters, but obviously anyone can create publish anything on the internet. We need to ensure that such incidents are tackled with pre-emptive education and proactive action, such as asking pupils to sign clearly worded acceptable use policies. Filtering it wont make it go away - it just hides it under the carpet.

'Stop treating iPod users like criminals' - silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:33:00 +0000

'Dr Ian Kearns, deputy director of the IPPR, said: "It is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of the government."'

Hurray! At last someone actually willing to stand up to the BPI bully-boys. Let's just hope that the government listen to the recommendations from this thinktank and actually have the bottle to enact a law that protects the rights of the consumer over the rights of the multi-national entertainment conglomerates who think it's ok to install stealth software on your PC should you dare to listen to a CD on it.

We know what the big five want - they want the same ridiculous rights of ownership of their "product" as the software companies currently enjoy. They don't want you to own music, they want you only to own a license to listen to it. That way they can make you pay as many times as they like if you want to keep listening to it. I'm waiting for the first online store to try charging for a "music upgrade"; "but it's been remastered so that's another fiver you owe us."

Unfortunately it's the only way that they can see to retain their monopoly on music distribution - if they stitch up online distribution now by tying us all into proprietry DRM and music leasing they will eventually close off the internet to all the independant artists, through technology and consumer inertia.

None of the BPI recommendations are pro-artist, unless you sell so many units the record companies need you more than you need them. I think musicians are starting to realise that.

The record companies don't even have to pay huge advances anymore - they just pick up bands that have got a following themselves through hard work, the internet or a reality TV show. The Strokes even recorded their own first album - they paid for it.

CD's still cost less than 70p each to produce for quantaties over 1000 (that includes cases and artwork) yet we are lead to believe that £9.97 is "supermarket cheap". Yes, it costs to distribute them but a cd weighs as much as what? A banana? Bananas come from the tropics. On a boat or even by plane. They have a supply chain; producers, marketers, distributors, and sellers. They don't cost £10 each.

UK leads fight against online child abuse - silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:08:00 +0000

It's good to see the good work of CEOP and all the affiliated bodies getting some praise for all their efforts in combatting online child abuse.

Now if the US government could just figure out that a child's life is worth more than profit they might do something about the "57.8 per cent of commercial websites offering images of child abuse" which are hosted in the US.

Perhaps they are taking the same line as they have on internet gambling - it's illegal unless taxes on the profits are flowing into the US treasury. Bastards.

Think U Know: What Porn? - silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:01:00 +0000

Leader: What porn? - Public Sector - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

This link is to a Silicon.com article about the upholding of an advertising complaint about some ads for thinkuknow.co.uk. The bright side it's another bit of publicity for thinkuknow.co.uk which ultimately is the important thing.

ITN News at Ten ran an article on "the hideous dangers of letting your child go anywhere near a computer" (oh OK it was "internet safety" but let's be honest they wanted to use my title) and although they spoke to someone from CEOP they didn't mention thinkuknow.co.uk. Truely stupid.

Love Commandos go down a storm

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 22:38:00 +0000

Well I never - we've never had girls dancing in their bras at one of our gigs before. We were performing in a battle of the bands competition at Club Juice in Walsall on Saturday. We came second to Necrotize, who were very worthy winners. The other band competing were Pretty Dead Things.

All in all one of the best LCs gigs in a while.

Zakala's updated

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:26:00 +0000

Zakala's is currently being upgraded to a Joomla content management system. This will hopefully allow us to provide more content.

Warner Music accused in downloads fee-fixing "conspiracy" - silicon.com

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Tue, 09 May 2006 10:41:00 +0000

"Warner Music Group reported on Friday soaring digital music sales, even as the company continues to lose money and faces numerous lawsuits related to alleged price fixing of music downloads."

So more and more people are BUYING music online. Well that throws the RIAAs continual whinging about music download piracy into sharp relief.

It's not going to stop the loss in profit though, it just means that everyone is waking up to the fact that instead of paying £10 for the one track you want and 9 filler tracks on CD you can pay 99p and just get the track you want.

Still, though the record companies won't admit it, the real cause of falling music sales is the larger number of "must have" items eating into everyone's disposable income. That means that everyone making music for sale is going to have to up their game and accept that people aren't going to accept CD filled with dross when they can buy the cream for a tenth of the price. Or perhaps less if there were any real competition in the download market...

Jagged

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:07:00 +0000

I also got the new Gary Numan album today. Let me put what I'm about to write in context by stating from the start that I have, like most fans, been waiting for this CD for nearly two years.

In the event I'm not sure it was quite what I was expecting. It feels very much like an extension to Pure rather than something entirely fresh. (suppose that some of the problem of the length of time it has taken to reach the distribution channels).

Also I feel that perhaps it shares, for me, the same problem as the last REM album. Not in terms of the music, obviously, but that album felt as though Stipe Buck and Mills had gone into the studio to make "a new REM album". This feels the same somehow, as if in trying too hard to make something like Pure, Jagged has ended up sounding almost like a parody.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - there are some interesting textures and sounds, but somehow it's all a little too similar, especially the drum sounds instrumentation and patterns, and there's nothing that lifts the album. I kept waiting for something to happen in every song - not a good sign. I'd like to see more high energy tracks and whilst Gary may not be moving into Nu Metal anytime soon (though I could actually see something working with slipknot!) I think that electronica a has, thanks to the likes of Goldfrapp's Will Gregory, moved on in the last 5 years.

So overall a slightly disappointing release from an artist that I admire greatly. Whilst the fans will buy it I'm not sure it will capture too many new listeners. Jagged seems, to me, to occupy the same film noir cinemascape territory as Felt Mountain, but in the time it's taken to release this album Goldfrapp have managed to redefine both Disco and Glam. Perhaps now is to time for Gary to return to his roots and catch the wave of neo-punk. Let's just hope he has a record company capable of releasing the next album before 2010!

Cisco

noreply@blogger.com (Zakala) — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:19:00 +0000

Finally got around to taking my CCNA exam today. I was a little nervous, given that my students wouldn't be too impressed if I failed it! Luckily (or rather, I suppose, thanks to all the hard study) I passed with a score of 987.

So now I'm a CCNA and CCAI. Now just the MA to worry about.