News… 
Sunday, 4 January 2009
A Late Stocking Stuffer?
Even though 2008 has passed, I’m still processing it through a nearly around-the-clock reappraisal of all the new releases I purchased. That’s right, I’m in the first stage of preparing the 2008 compilation. With any luck, I’ll be sending it out soon along with the 2007 compilation that a number of duties conspired to keep confined to the Javacrossknit, cough, production facility last year. Rest assured, that despite the passage of time, the 2007 comp and its younger sibling will still contain surprises.
I still have four discs to audition before making my final choices. Expect there to be tracks representing at least 24 albums on the latest comp. Expect, as well, to see a list of the recordings that didn’t make the final list on these pages soon. Once I’ve selected the remaining discs, there remain two time-consuming stages: sequencing and production. I’ll post a notice when I start mailing packages to the lucky people on the list. Stay tuned…
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Tuesday, 28 October 2008
The Launch of MTV Music Means There Will Be Higher-Quality Videos Available Online
Tired of having a video jones, doing an online search and having to settle for some poorly encoded item uploaded to YouTube—something recorded, say, with a camera trained on a television set? Well, you’re in luck.
Earlier today, MTV unveiled a new site—MTV Music—that reminds me of what the network was during its early years: one devoted to playing music videos around the clock. Given the paucity of available material when the network launched in 1981, a viewer could expect a hodgepodge of material that—while it largely excluded the work of black musicians—defied easy genre categorizations, including the Top 40 characterization mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on the network. Among the items I remember seeing back then on a typical day were Squeeze’s “Tempted”; David Bowie’s “Fashion”; Adam and the Ants’ “Stand and Deliver”; the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime and Modern English’s “Someone’s Calling” as well as material by Kate Bush, Ph.D., .38 Special, Phil Collins, Michael Johnson and Andrew Gold, who’d be a historical footnote were it not for his song “Thank You for Being a Friend” having been used as the theme song for NBC’s The Golden Girls later in the decade.
It’s still early days for the site. Work by the less popular artists in the list above is not yet available, but their videos were among those most heavily promoted then. Fear not, though. This news item, the one that prompted this post, indicates that MTV currently has 16,000 videos uploaded with more to come each day.
So, in the coming days, weeks or months (depending on how much you procrastinate online), join me in finding new (and old) items posted there. It should be fun. In the meantime, feast your eyes and ears on the very first video the network broadcast on 1 August 1981: The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”. (Note that the group featured Trevor Horn among its members. I’ve written about his career beyond the Buggles here.)
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Monday, 15 September 2008
Site Updates for Standards and Discoverability
Since last month’s site redesign, I’ve been making additional programming changes here, ones that hopefully make the pages load more quickly. That means, nonetheless, that those people who still use Internet Explorer—and the visitor stats for this site, collected via StatCounter, indicate that there are a lot of you—might have some issues viewing the pages. Those problems (tiny fonts, odd indentations) are a function of Microsoft’s insistence on doing things its own way rather than adopting the standards observed by most other modern browser designers. So I recommend using Safari (Mac users) and Firefox (everyone regardless of platform).
I’ve also added one other convenience, something that other designers might categorize under “discoverability.” I’m often surprised that some Internet users have no idea what RSS feeds are or how convenient they can make being informed of site updates. Since a number of browsers can now determine whether a page has a feed automatically, I’ve recoded every one tracked in one of this site’s feeds. That means, in most cases, that the box in your browser that shows the current page’s URL will also display some variant of the feed icon: . Thus, even if you don’t use a reader, you can still use your browser to subscribe to feeds and keep current with what’s happening here. More changes are on the horizon, so stay tuned…
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Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Site Redesigned and Commenting Restored...
After months of idle promises, I’ve finally (almost) completed all of the updates I wanted to make to this site. The most obvious one is, of course, the new layout: it’s wider and has a less oppressive color scheme and more white space. Together those changes might make the site a bit more readable. I know I love looking it at it much more in this form.
The even bigger change is one you won’t see until you check out one—or any—of the posts on the Musings page. At long last, I’ve restored the ability for people to add comments. There are a few requirements, though. For security purposes, the first time you try to post a comment, you’ll have to register (with a valid e-mail address). Once you do, you’ll receive an e-mail with a link that, once clicked, will activate your account. Then, you can login to post your comment. Every time thereafter, you’ll simply have to login using the e-mail address and password you provided.
Just in case you’re wondering, your password will be encrypted in such a form that even I won’t be able to read it—so be sure to pick something you can remember. Soon, though, I’ll add some pages that will allow you to reset or change your password in the event that you forget it or want to enter a new one.
Please do let me know what you think of changes. You can do so by sending me a note via the Contact link in the sidebar. Enjoy…
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Monday, 23 June 2008
Summer Musings, Comments and More on the Horizon
It’s summer now in the northern hemisphere, and that means among other things that, alongside the major film studios, recording labels large and small have been releasing some of their most highly anticipated new recordings. I’ve gotten my hands on a few of them so far, and they are predictably a mixed bunch. That is, while some have already been added to the list of items I’ll consider for the 2008 Best-Of compilation, others need a few more listens before I can give them individual thumbs-ups, -downs or -horizontals.
In the coming days and weeks, I’ll be posting capsule reviews over on the Musings page. Among the items up for consideration include Portishead’s Third, My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges, Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah: Volume 1 (4th World War), The Roots’ Rising Down and maybe, just maybe, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida….
While I’m working on those posts, some of which are already in draft form, I’ll finally be finishing the programming that will allow viewers of this site to leave comments. There might also be a redesign in the near future, prompted by Cortney’s asking me what the purpose of this site is. While that’s a deceptively simple question, answering it does have implications for the layout and design. Besides, changing the look and feel of the site has two things going for it: (1) Folks who stumble on these pages might linger longer and (2) I’ll get to try out some of the fancy programming stuff I’ve been learning. Stay tuned.
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