romance

First sighted yesterday. Click the icon to experience.

record label logo

March was supposed to be the month to finish the edit of 'The Triangle' - which was the NaNoWriMo novel from last November. I'm only about two thirds of the way through that, but I suppose its because we started the Christina Nott project at the same time.

We already have several tracks worth of songs and when we get to thirteen, I suppose I could post them as a Thursday Thirteen (a few weeks yet!). However, we've decided to set up a record label in any case and are doing this via last.fm. That way we can also showcase the songs - and ideally other folks' re-mixes - somewhere.

Like the novel, this is all really just a bit of fun. We will use the same name for the record label as the media company being used for the production at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. Christina's site has already described the Bongo Club, which is where that show will be featured. We have already got the website working but I won't publish a link yet, as we still have some cleanup to complete before its ready for prime-time and a suitable launch party.

ipod it back together and it works

Well its after mid-day here so I suppose I'd better admit to the last post being related to it being 1st April. This post is an update on the dead iPod. I decided that as it didn't work at all, there was nothing to lose by opening it up. Not as easy as it sounds, because it is built without any obvious screw holes or similar. Enter the guitar plectrum. Ideal to slide down the side of the case and then to follow with a not so slender screwdriver to ping the plastic clips holding the metal back to the white plastic front.

• Separate the pieces rather gently because there's bound to be fragile connections between the two halves.
• Press all the obvious looking connectors to ensure good electrical links.
• Do the special iPod reset (top button and middle button held down for four seconds).
• Yes a menu and no disk clicking sounds.
• Whilst still in pieces, plug into computer and fire up iTunes.
• Yippee. Recognised!
• Now I might as well reload all the tunes so that its up to date. Phew.

I've made the photo enlargeable for this so if anyone else is stuck with a dead iPod they can see some of the detail of the clips and the fragile ribbon connectors between the front and the back.
Tag: iPod, repair iPod, open iPod

powerful ideas

April marks the start of the grass mowing season, and I'm fed up with those powercords that have to drape over one's shoulder and back to a nearby socket. So these Wireless Extension Cords are a brilliant idea - just plug the base station into a standard wall outlet, and plug whatever you need into the satellite unit. The unit uses microwaves in the 7.2GHz range (well away from wireless networks and bluetooth frequencies).

Now, all you need to do is adjust the antennae on the two units so they are aimed at each other, but the amazing thing is they are 'wide angle' so theres no need to be particulalry accurate. Turn everything on and you have the power! The distance the WEC units can broadcast differs from situation to situation (due to interference of such things as walls, power lines, and nearby microwave ovens), but I'm told they can beam power over 300 feet! There is a small warning about sustained use and not putting sensitive electrical equipment, food, liquids, flammable substances, magnets, or living things in between the base and satellite units for long periods, buy hey - who wants to trip over power cords! My thanks to thinkgeek for this.

On a similar topic, around innovation, I recently acquired one of the screened sphorbs that thinkgeek have been advertising. Its fantastic and although at first I thought it might have been a foolish purchase, now I can't imagine how I'd go back to not using it. There's a great demo of it across on thinkgeek. I suspect you'll end up wanting one.

And finally, I introduced some customisation to this blog a couple of weeks ago with the selectable folders and so on, but not as sophisticated as The Register which has taken web customisation to an art form. Check it out!

ipod it somewhere safe but it still fell

An unfortunate accident has killed an iPod and forced me to move a lot of music tracks to another one. The old one was firewire and fast, the new one is USB and tempramental on a PC. Although connected to a fast "USB2" socket it keeps giving error messages and is a lot slower to load the songs. So I've just given up on the PC and moved all of the songs to the iMac, plugged in the iPod and everything is now working fine. I think the old iPod had been dropped on the floor. Not advised.

just because we can

Thursday Thirteen (V17)

1. I can hardly believe that this is Version 17 of Thursday Thirteen.
2. Fun and games over the last few days since we loaded a copy of a track to mix onto rashbre central. Applause to Simon at GuitarGAS for really going for it and preparing a megamix. I shall feature it here when it is ready.
3. The new look blog still seems to be working and the clicky folders are good because the blog remembers how it was last configured, via the cookies.
4. Delightful this evening to drive home in the light (well almost) although the rain was rather intense on the last part. Almost April, so I should expect it.
5. This weekend will be guitar time. I am determined to spend some serious time practicing a few tunes.
6. I am still waiting for the opening party for the bubble and squeek web site. I hear it is any time now!
7. I'm back as an adorable rodent on TTLB. Demoted, huh.
8. A work from home day tomorrow, less commuting, but my first meeting is still at 07:00, with Australia.
9. Had a fun lunch yesterday with seven of us together in a nice round table setting swapping stories.
10. Started re-reading a favourite William Gibson novel.
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. Theres a raspberry brulee with my name on it waiting this evening.
13. A large hole has just appeared in the sofa.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Leanne, Chickadee, Judy, Raehan, Janne, Andrea, cq, amanda, venus, elle, mar, tnchick, kimmy
(leave a comment, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!



Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

apprentice?

I remember one evening at about 2 am seeing the first episode of series one of the UK version of The Apprentice. I have to say I was hooked and when the second episode followed it, I just stayed watching. And then I found the more civilised time that it was screened and watched the series.

I've been doing the same with the current series and in tonight's episode they were selling cars and ejected Jo Cameron who has been in the 'fireable' group four times. And tonight I even watched the debrief afterwards on BBC3. Here is the "you're fired" moment.

Then at the end of the programe I saw the latest of the BBC3 blob animations. The little BBC3 blobs descended in an elevator on the right of the screen. Then the left hand wall of their inset moved right and they were all toppled and swept from the edge of the picture. I know I'm not the only person who spots new BBC3 'blob animation'. This is a good one! And click on the blob to be transported to a fantastic collection of blob games, screensavers and clips.

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sky why?

Sky broadband's brochure shows someone watching movies on an Apple PowerBook with the logo photoshopped out. In reality, you can't use the service with a Mac; it has to be Windows xp. I installed the software and downloaded a random movie (which took about 90 minutes on my 2Mb broadband link). So now I have 28 days to watch Starsky and Hutch on a PC. Or I could just dial it up on the television. Immediately.

I'm sure this will become a great on demand library in due course, but at the moment it feels rather like a test.

virtual desktop blues

Woke up this mornin'
It was Sunday in my head.
Woke up this mornin'
It was Monday in my bed.
Realized that ringin'
wasn't in my head.
That was my alarm clock
Gotta work instead

Got the time change blues? try this. Seriously.
And thanks, diamond geezer, for the link.

hello mum

Happy Mother's Day!

musical interlude

I've been helping with some music recording across on Christina's site and we decided it would be quite fun to create a 'mix it yourself' version of one of the songs. Its the tune called 'wind' and to be truthful we havn't really finished it in any case.

However, we decided to put all of the individual tracks that make up the mix into a zip file as a set of mp3s. These can then be dropped into a program like Sonar, Logic, GarageBand, Protools, Cakewalk and so forth and then remixed.

Someone adventurous may even feel like either re-singing the (rather simple) vocal line or alternatively using the vocals and maybe the rhythm line to add a new instrument, such as a guitar. Its a very short track at around two minutes, but I'm sure there will be someone interested to have a play.

Here's the folder : Its around 20Mb and unzips into mp3s. Most music software can convert these back into WAV files or AIFs to use in the mixing software. If you decide to have a go a) please comment and b) send us the outcome!

The pieces are:
rhythm - the backing track
left clap - some conventional drums
right clap - some very wild drums
christina - the vocals
buzzybee - a bassline from a novation synth
007thenamesbond - a short james bond guitar lick
trippypad - some strings and blips
foodblender - a food blender

We have made them all exactly the same length (2:03), so they can be laid next to one another in the mixing software and when played will already sound okay.

And this is what it sounds like in the current mix by Christina Nott with some rashbre help.