Sep 25, 2007

music on the wire and through the air...

... or vice-versa.

  • FIQL - (new) an online playlist site, upload a playlist and you can listen to the songs and watch the videos online (asx .b4s .m3u .pls .wpl .xml .xspf); (kudos to giavasan)
  • Anywhere.FM - (new) upload music (iTunes only for now) and listen to it when you want to with the available player; (kudos to giavasan)
  • last.FM - famous online radio site, similar to Pandora, it goes for music close to the preferred songs/artists (works with XBMC 2 too;));
  • Pandora (US only) - the music genome project, a fabulous invention but with short legs now that they limited diffusion to US and Canada only (the Squeezebox streams from the user profile);

I'd like to evaluate them for personal purposes, but I am "stuck" on the bootlegs made available by the Smashing Pumpkins on their official website (1988-2007). (kudos to stereogum)

n.-


Sep 9, 2007

the techy challenge of checking how greener the grass is on the other side

I like to give back, to friends, non-friends, people I don't like and mainly people I like a lot. Love is the (only) one I have been failing to do so with.

(music) Artists are the valid targets of a payback too. I am a music downloader, I confess, but it's all in a try-before-you-by philosophy. I know people who (seem to) follow the same mind stream and thus deserve to get the best means to reach the music.

MySpace is excellent but you need to be online.
Triple J actually has some MP3s available, but they're all from aussie (new) bands (nothing wrong about that though).
Stereogum has regularly some good MP3's, considering it's an indie-oriented site, some of the tunes are quite... hum... alternative:p

So a combination of magazines and friends giving band names and/or track titles, myspace for an initial listening, allmusic to get a comprehensive discography/Bio, a decent p2p software and the seek&enjoy can start.


As some of my friends are (moving) into MacOS, my best source of songs, soulseek, does not seem so easy to setup, so today I found one and it worked really well, ssX (mind the subliminal message).

Download, install, setup and download. Bang, there you go!
I made a happy puppy out of my friend Bron. I know she spends money on artists and actually buys the albums of her favorite ones.

It's not that ethical to actually influence somebody into music downloading, but considering that she would get into it anyway, I prefer to supply her with decent and "safe" tools. Fuck emules, edonkeys and other kazaa-like shit, they're all only good to download viruses, not to forget the immense exposure to the public and supposed artist copyright protection organizations.

So we spend a couple of hours on my couch this morning, connecting her nifty MacBook to my home network and exchanging/learning stuff on MacOS.

A mental post-it to Mac obsessed:

  • whoever gets an iJesus (aka iPhone) just because it's new (and promises to change the world), is definitely a religious zealot;
  • never mind the bullocks, updating a new MacOS required 2 reboots;
  • updating iTunes, now bundled with Quicktime, can involve reboots (on Windows) and a 30MB download each and every time; Don't get me wrong, the automatic detection of updates is a must and very welcome. I don't feel a false sense of security anymore, like Apple products are frequently supplied with;

enough for today's rants (while listening to Morphine on Radar)

n.


Sep 3, 2007

Monday recovery

I have a compelling need to tell the world when a moment of brilliant happiness tags my mood. It can be the most simple and ridiculous event where its simple share can be the most overrated testimony to the world.

It usually has no deep meaning at all. What does this mean? Or what can this mean?
Just that I can get satisfaction from very superficial moments. As superficial as it can be, it's still satisfaction.
Does it mean that the world (at least part of it that listens to me) cares about it? Not at all, it's only my satisfaction.
Does it mean I care about what I tell people? In some measure, yes, but then I forget to control myself:D

In the end, it was just about 2 links or better, an online resource, Radar and one song they were playing from The Gossip.

There, I said it and I can shut up again.