Naquada

We’ll do it all

Everything

On our own

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lay with me and just forget the world?

I’m a complete music pack rat.. I have well over 2000 albums I’ve brought over the years and just love every kind of music out there..

I found Destroy Rock ‘n’ Roll by Mylo a refreshing debut album, sophisticated electro stabs, classy breaks and fat-bottomed bass lines mixed into a rich, varied and well-balanced sound. Its very much a joining of Prince - Guilty of Love, Daft Punk - Ottos Journey and even Scissor Sisters - Musclecar Reform Reprise, I have to say that the title-track Destroy Rock & Roll, has to be my favorite, alots of beats stabs and licks layed under vocal spoken sound bites..

The more I listen to this the more and more I love it.. its just an absolutely great album.. Go get it… well recommended.. you’ll love it..

I brought myself a pair of Sony MDR-NC11 noise cancelling headphones on the way through the airport this morning. I saw them in Florida and thought about it but didn’t get time to pick up a pair. I am very interested to know how well they work on the train and plane, and by other earbuds were broken so I don’t feel quite so guilty about buying them..

Tiesto is probably one of my favorite DJ’s alongside Sasha, and BT.

Tiesto played the opening ceremony at the 2004 Athens Olympic games, and today he released The Parade of the Althlete. Very funky, very heavy, very Tiesto! I’d recommend you buy it. Turn it up loud and enjoy..

I’m always interested in different ways of doing things, and my eyes (or ears..) have been caught by a few things over the last few weeks. One of those was Podcasting which according to the lastest entry in wikipedia say that;

Podcasting is the creation and aggregation of discrete, downloadable media files. Typically, audio files are created on a computer and then uploaded to a Web server on the Internet. An RSS 2.0 feed with enclosure tags is then amended each time a new media file is published, with a URL linking to each enclosure.

The term podcasting is meant to rhyme with broadcasting and is a derivative of the iPod platform. While not directly associated with Apple’s iPod device or iTunes music service, the company did contribute both the desire and the technology for this capability.

Sounds cool huh? Well just like traditional RSS feeds, where you can have your latest news, views and stuff that matters in once place, PodCasting allows the same, but for audio.

Its really a bit like a speaking RSS feed, in fact it is.. Imagine instead of sitting on the train reading your daily news in your RSS reader, you can have it downloaded to your iPod or other lesser MP3 player and listen to it as you’re flying about.

There are quite a few applications and feeds out there already, PodCaster.net lists quite a few applications, both mac and windows based, allowing you to aggregate these feeds straight into iTunes etc, as well a pretty complete list of podcasts.

So will PodCasting change our lives? Well Doc Searl said it quite well on his blog; PODcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well.

It’ll be an iteresting medium to watch, especially when you think of the demographic that has iPods.. I’m wondering if I should suggest to the company to expand their blog network to incorporate PodCasts..

So how many times have you heard a great tune on an advert or commercial on the TV and wondered what it is ?

Well those days of trying to hum the tune to the guy in HMV are going to be made much easier with Commercial Breaks and Beats. Type in the name of the advert, or product, or company and you’ll get a list matches along with the band, song and album its on. Of course you then get the option to click through to Amazon and order it! Unfortuantly the Virgin Atlantic ‘Beauty Sleep’ music isnt listed, and I’m sure its not The Osmonds with Crazy Horses. Guess I’ll have to Shazam it next time its on.

Worried about your Ipod getting eyed up and stolen? Wishing for the music systems of yesteryear?

The answer seems to be Retropod.

The wacky looking case is actually a large 80s Sports Walkman replica which houses your iPod. It’s even possible to hook up a pair of headphones directly to the Walkman. It costs $20 for the DIY version or $100 for an all inclusive including the apparently ‘rare’ WM-F45

The BBC are finally dramatising Douglas Adams

a little while ago i brought the latest dido album.. Now I have almost 3,000 cd’s and we put all of them onto our MP3 jukebox; basically a custom built PC with dual 180gig drives and itunes, hooked up to the TV..

I use this to sync with my 20gig Ipod and 10gig Ipod.. a perfect solution..

however. BMG music have taken it on themselves to choose how, when, and where I can listen to CD’s that a I legally buy..

if you brought the Dido album (amongst others) before christmas you’d have found it had the CD-AUDIO logo on it… its important to keep this in mind.. the CD-ADUIO logo means the CD is a 100% redbook audio CD, licenced from phillips.

Putting the CD into my PC installed some nasty audio player (without actually asking me!), the first problem is that the CD will ONLY play on a PC through this audio application. the second problem is that this audio application ‘pings’ BMG, now what it tells BMG I’m not sure… I’m still waiting for BMG to tell me what information is collected and sent back to BMG from my machine.

the main thing I was annoyed about was what although I own the CD, BMG choose what I can listen to it on. They didnt seem to understand my main ‘HI-FI’ was a PC…

Putting it into a Apple Mac crashed the Mac completely.. nice move guys…

The bottom line here is that although I own the CD, I cannot listen to it on anything except a ‘real’ hifi, and I cannot move the CD onto my Ipod to listen to..

BMG use a system called CACTUS 2.0 by MIDBAR. I spoke to a few people at BMG and explained that Really I wouldn’t be pirating the CD given that I buy ALL my cd’s, and that I felt ‘cheated’ that they seem to think they can choose where and when I can listen to the CD..

BMG explained that I could download the CD digitally from their website after paying for it (meaning I’ve now paid twice to listen to it!!) but only in WMA (windows media format).. hey the world doesnt revolve around Microsoft guys… i dont use WMA on my Ipod!!

The new version of the Cactus protection does allow you to make digital copies of the CD.. however the quality is crippled at less than 160k (a less than perfect copy) again not really a perfect solution..

I am still waiting for my call from MIDBAR that I was promised by BMG to explain the situation. My promise to them to return ALL my BMG cd’s and albums and charge them an admin fee for doing so is looking more and more interesting…

BMG have now also removed all the CD-AUDIO logos, since they are not licenced to since the CD’s are not 100% redbook CD’s. I advised Phillips about this and they asked BMG to remove the Logos from their CD’s

I’d advise you to be aware that ALL BMG and its partners use the CACTUS protection, basically any cd’s with the following logo on them;

I picked up a copy of the Outkast Cd today.. saw the BMG ‘nasty protection’ logo and put it back on the shelf.. Sorry BMG but you’ve lost me as a customer.. give me one reason why I should spend money on your CD’s..

Of course, every protection system and encryption system is breakable (believe me I’ve broken lots in my career..) so you can get round this protection by reading this

I’ve been asked by BMG to beta test CACTUS 3.0.. probably something I wont do.. I have no interest in helping BMG work out their own problems…