David Holmes

Internet Music, Open Content and the Social Web.


Blogger, Content Creator, Digital Curator, Photographer, Researcher, Social Media Facilitator, Sound Engineer.


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Posts

January 07, 08:23 AM
http://www.tubalr.com/
Tubalr makes it easy to create music video channels & playlists for all your favourite artists: http://t.co/dWyqMcOr by @codyjackstewart - David Holmes
January 07, 08:23 AM
http://www.tubalr.com/
Tubalr makes it easy to create music video channels & playlists for all your favourite artists: http://t.co/dWyqMcOr by @codyjackstewart - David Holmes
December 27, 12:51 AM
How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love | Brain Pickings
How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love | Brain Pickings - http://www.brainpickings.org/index...
Offers some interesting perspectives on finding the best career and sustainable work paths. - David Holmes
December 27, 12:51 AM
How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love | Brain Pickings
How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love | Brain Pickings - http://www.brainpickings.org/index...
Offers some interesting perspectives on finding the best career and sustainable work paths. - David Holmes
December 15, 07:24 PM
Startups, This Is How Design Works
December 12, 01:51 AM
Nocturnal - Scenes of the Southern Night, Western Australia and Chile.
Nocturnal - Scenes of the Southern Night, Western Australia and Chile. - http://vimeo.com/45856570
December 03, 06:14 PM
THE TRANSCENDENT CITY
November 30, 11:55 PM
Visualizing Fontane's "Brücke am Tay" with Processing
Visualizing Fontane's "Brücke am Tay" with Processing - http://vimeo.com/9036208
November 30, 11:54 PM
I just liked "Visualizing Fontane's "Brücke am Tay" with Processing" by @DianaOnTheRoad on Vimeo: http://t.co/2o5MPSfh
I just liked "Visualizing Fontane's "Brücke am Tay" with Processing" by @DianaOnTheRoad on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/9036208
November 30, 03:30 PM
Tubalr - A simple tool for enjoying music videos!
Tubalr - A simple tool for enjoying music videos! - http://www.scoop.it/t...
November 30, 03:27 PM
Tubalr makes it easy to create music video channels & playlists for all your favourite artists: http://t.co/dWyqMcOr by @codyjackstewart
Tubalr makes it easy to create music video channels & playlists for all your favourite artists: http://www.tubalr.com/ by @codyjackstewart
November 27, 02:57 PM
omg this is so cool! Im excited for more!
omg this is so cool! Im excited for more! - http://mashedmusings.tumblr.com/post...
November 26, 07:29 PM
CC Trax music directory
November 26, 01:32 PM
this is so exciting! Cant wait for the next batch!
this is so exciting! Cant wait for the next batch! - http://mashedmusings.tumblr.com/post...
November 25, 04:59 AM
this is so awesome! Too excited for the next batch!
this is so awesome! Too excited for the next batch! - http://mashedmusings.tumblr.com/post...
November 21, 10:34 PM
BeFunky - Online Photo Editor and Effects Tool
BeFunky - Online Photo Editor and Effects Tool - http://www.scoop.it/t...
November 17, 11:24 PM
Olympic Voices Project
November 17, 11:24 PM
Olympic Voices Project
November 15, 09:58 AM
Reaching The Tipping Point by David Holmes
Reaching The Tipping Point by David Holmes - http://vimeo.com/53599372
November 04, 07:56 PM
Online Color Challenge - FM 100 Hue Test
Online Color Challenge - FM 100 Hue Test - http://www.scoop.it/t...
November 04, 07:24 PM
Photographer Erik Johansson
September 26, 03:23 PM
A director´s notoebook - Federico Fellini - 1969
A director´s notoebook - Federico Fellini - 1969 - http://vimeo.com/24408684
September 24, 10:59 PM
Swarm.fm - Spotify App
September 21, 01:37 PM
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/04/15/adam-dants-map-of-the-journey-to-the-heart-of-the-east-end/
Adam Dant's maps of the East End are incredible. 'Shoreditch as New York' or 'Shoreditch in the Year 3000' are the best http://t.co/uUhhwH8v - David Holmes
September 21, 06:32 AM
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/04/15/adam-dants-map-of-the-journey-to-the-heart-of-the-east-end/
Adam Dant's maps of the East End are incredible. 'Shoreditch as New York' or 'Shoreditch in the Year 3000' are the best http://t.co/uUhhwH8v - David Holmes
September 11, 11:26 PM
http://pinterest.com/pin/228276274833434075/
September 11, 11:26 PM
http://pinterest.com/pin/228276274833434075/
September 11, 09:17 PM
omg this is so interesting! Im excited for the next batch! http://t.co/xSQUKR1j
omg this is so interesting! Im excited for the next batch! http://pinterest.com/pin...
September 11, 05:26 PM
http://pinterest.com/pin/228276274833431510/
September 11, 01:30 PM
this is so awesome! Cant wait for more! http://t.co/cMYuGeZV
this is so awesome! Cant wait for more! http://pinterest.com/pin...
My FriendFeed Stream

Posts

January 15, 03:06 PM
SOPA & PIPA Information Tools

Information about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the US. Focusing on the current debate, opposing argument, security and technical concerns. Featuring content from prominent commentators, online awareness campaigns and a range of Internet protest tools. Links to both Acts are included.

September 05, 09:36 AM
Ogilvy Hosts Music & Brands Event 'Lab Day LIVE'

International advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy Group UK are staging a one-day event called Lab Day LIVE designed to engage both the advertising and music communities. On the 9th September Ogilvy's offices in London's Canary Wharf will play host to a music industry conference and live music festival.

It promises to be an informative and entertaining occasion focusing on the latest digital media opportunities mutually available to brands and the music business. The morning conference panels and talks will feature key figures from Last.fm. Spotify, PRS and other leading music organizations (List of speakers). During the afternoon live music performances from name and up-coming acts will take place across three stages (see below).

Entitled: Making music matter as much to brands as it does to consumers

The event is part of Ogilvy’s on-going drive to help clients and their brands navigate the rapidly changing landscape of the music industry in the digital age.

In this video clip Lab Day organizer Tara Austin talks about her role in making music a more central part of the creative process at Ogilvy. To see what other members of the team are saying take a look at the Video Wall.

The Rules of Engagement

Ogilvy are looking to the music industry for innovative ideas on how brands can use music to to build engagement with their audience. Earlier in the year, at MIDEM 2011, they made a stirring appeal for music publishers to "‘look beyond the cheque' and contribute more than just a piece of audio to an advertising campaign" emphasising Ogilvy's vision to "create added value: value for our brands and, ultimately, value for the artist whose music our campaigns promote". 

I'll be attending the event and listening closely to what's being said about sonic branding and new ideas for using music to create a 'brand sound'. I'm also looking forward to learning more about the power of sound and music when applied to areas such as 'retail soundscapes' and how we can be informed by hard data.

As a long-time advocate of Open Media licensing tools, when and where appropriate, I'll be hoping to see more open and collaborative business frameworks designed to minimize the friction permeating traditional licensing models. Many Internet audio and video platforms have already successfully integrated Creative Commons licensing making it easy for people to share, remix and reuse media legally, notably SoundCloud and YouTube (list of corporate support).

Creative Commons has always been about promoting creativity and the power of openness to build communities based on shared ideas. Unfortunately the established licensing system, especially with regards to CC licenses in Europe, makes widespread media sharing difficult, thereby blocking the most valuable thing which is attention. Hopefully the wider debate around open and closed systems will eventually lead to innovation that fosters audience attention, participation, and better user experiences in the digital music space.

 

Event Info & Live Stream

Website

 Full details and live streaming of acts from the 3 music stages on the day can be found at http://www.labdaylive.co.uk/

Twitter

You can follow updates using the hashtag #labdaylive plus there's further tweet analysis, tracking and visualization via my channel at The Archivist

 

Acts

Alexis Ffrench

http://www.alexisffrenchmusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/AlexisFfrench

Aloe Blacc

http://aloeblacc.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/aloeblacc

Boy Mandeville

http://twitter.com/#!/boymanband

http://www.youtube.com/user/boymandeville

Charlie Simpson

http://charliesimpsonmusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/charliesimo

Delays

http://www.thedelays.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/delays

Digitonal

http://www.digitonal.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/digitonal

Kidda

http://kiddamusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/iamkidda

Kinura

http://www.kinura.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/kinura

Laki Mera

http://www.facebook.com/lakimeramusic

http://twitter.com/#!/LakiMeraMusic

Newton Faulkner

http://www.newtonfaulkner.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/newtonfaulkner

Pete and The Pirates

http://www.peteandthepirates.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/#!/PetePirates

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

http://www.sophieellisbextor.net/

http://twitter.com/#!/sophieeb

To Kill a King

http://www.tokillaking.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/ToKillAKingUK

Tribes

http://tribesband.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/tribesband

Wolf Gang

http://www.wolf-gang.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/wolfgang

 

Media

Some of the performers appearing on the day

Digitonal

The Beating of Her Heart by digitonal


 

 

 

About Ogilvy

Wikipedia

Ogilvy & Mather are an International advertising, marketing and public relations agency founded in 1948.

YouTube

Visit the Ogilvy Museum on YouTube  to watch some of their classic ads, dating back to the 1950s. For more recent developments there's the Ogilvyvids Channel

Twitter 

Ogilvy Group Comms @OgilvyLondon for news and observations from the comms team at Ogilvy Group UK.

OGILVY @OGILVY their global staff blog aggregator.

Posted via email from David Holmes

December 25, 08:56 PM
'Upular' - Movie Mashup Track by Pogo

'Upular' - a new mashup track from Australian electronic music artist Pogo, composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from the Disney Pixar film 'Up'. More Pogo video tracks via http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron

Following the Sony copyright problems associated with his earlier track 'Bangarang' (see previous post), I notice Pogo has included Disney Pixar credits at the end of the video. Considering the Blogger platform now supports direct integration with Amazon Associates, mashups like this can be a powerful promotional tool for all content creators (see below).

Merry Christmas!

September 12, 11:34 PM
Pogo Starts a Blog

Australian electronic music artist Pogo has started a blog at http://pogotracks.blogspot.com/ currently featuring an FAQ and a list of interviews. His unique sound comes from the sampling, sequencing and reimagining of popular childhood movies. Tracks are constructed using sounds lifted from movie scenes (sometimes entirely), drums, bass and percussion.

Melodies are formed using cut-up dialogues in a non-lexical vocal style; "There are no definitive lyrics to my tracks because I have never intended to form sentences with the samples I use." The music is then synced to video cuts from the original movie to create a new mini-trailer.

Pogo has a growing fan-base on YouTube where fresh uploads and the viral potential of video widgets quickly attract thousands of visitors. Creations such as Expialidocious have now reached far in excess of half a million views. You can browse the growing collection of mashups at http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron

Below is the recent video for his track 'Bangarang' composed of sounds from the classic Spielberg film 'Hook'

Update 13th Sept '09

'Bangarang' removed from YouTube - Pogo Blog visit the link for full explanation.

Today, Sony Pictures Entertainment claimed that 'Bangarang' is an infringement of copyright, and the video has been removed from YouTube. I suppose this had to happen eventually given the kind of world we live in. (September 10th 2009).
Unfortunately this is a common experience for remixers of controlled media, such are the constraints of heavily restricted copyrights. However you can still play and download the full track here (while it lasts!)

Related

A sonic guide to the history of cut-up music: DJ Food - Raiding the 20th Century - Words & Music Expansion

Posted via web from David Holmes

August 13, 12:55 AM
Apologies EP by Mosaik

 

Mosaik is the electronic music project of Stockholm based musician Jakob Svanholm. The Apologies EP features 7 instrumental tracks that combine melodic bass and synth sequences with delicate percussive rhythms. The sonic spaces are subtle and calming, with centered tonal themes, repeating motifs and ambient textures that conjure the emotions and imagination.

Originally released on Kahvi Collective in 2007: http://www.kahvi.org/139.php

MP3 and Flac versions now available under Creative Commons license at: http://mosaik.bandcamp.com

You can listen to some of Jakob's recent works in progress at: http://soundcloud.com/mosaik

See his website for discography and social connections: http://www.mosaik.se/

Posted via web from David Holmes

July 26, 09:12 PM
Tynt Tracer - Track Content Reuse and Generate Traffic

Tracer is a free online tool that tracks where your website content is reused and inserts an attribution link back to the original published source. It also provides analytics to help you understand and measure user engagement. You simply add a line of java script to your blog or website and whenever someone pastes your work to another webpage, Tracer automatically generates a return link including Creative Commons license details if applicable (full instructions are given).

The following paragraph has been copied and pasted, showing the automatic attribution link at the bottom of the quote,

What does Tracer do?

Download Information Sheet

Tracer tracks when users copy content from your web site and automatically adds a link back to the original page when your content is pasted. So, why do you need Tracer?

Tracer is a brand new way to:

  • Generate more visits and page views.
  • Get credit when content is copied from your site.
  • Measure and understand user engagement.
  • Improve your search engine ranking.
Read more:http://tracer.tynt.com/features-and-benefits-of-tracer#ixzz0MPL1rqSN Under Creative Commons License:Attribution No Derivatives

Tracer is easy to implement and offers a convenient way to track user interaction and generate site traffic. Supports Blogger/Blogspot, Ning, Register.com, Typepad, WebsiteWorks.com, WordPress.

Via Creative Commons Weblog

Posted via web from David Holmes

June 17, 03:58 PM
The Wind Whistles - Animals Are People Too




The second full-length album from the Canadian folk duo, released under a Creative Commons-License. Album artwork by Norbert Reissig. Available in MP3, OGG and CD formats from http://aaahh-records.net/the-wind-whistles/
June 17, 03:52 AM
Inspiring Videos for the Classroom


A useful collection of Inspiring Youtube videos to use in the classroom. Recommended by teachers from all over the world, the presentation features lots of engaging ideas to stimulate discussion, learning and self-improvement. Here's the full screen Google Docs page.
March 16, 06:40 PM
Public Domain Donor Sticker

"Why let all of your ideas die with you? Current Copyright law prevents anyone from building upon your creativity for 70 years after your death. Live on in collaboration with others. Make an intellectual property donation. By donating your IP into the public domain you will "promote the progress of science and useful arts" (U.S. Constitution). Ensure that your creativity will live on after you are gone, make a donation today."
June 17, 04:08 AM
Copyright Extension in Sound Recordings Explained
January 17, 06:38 AM
Open Courseware Collections for Musicians and Writers

The MatchACollege.com blog has two useful lists of open learning classes, courses, and lessons for music and writing:

For more Open Education resources and productivity tools see my lens Bright Ideas Brilliant Minds
October 20, 01:54 AM
RiP: A remix manifesto


RiP: A copyright manifesto website
March 19, 08:51 PM
Promiscuous Songs: Free Song Lyrics by Jonathan Lethem

Promiscuous Songs - American writer Jonathan Lethem, best known for his novels, short stories, and essays, freely gives his collection of song lyrics and lyrical fragments to songwriters, musicians, and bands for use in new creations. Selected sound files of completed songs are available for listening via the site with attribution to the writers and performers.

This is part of the The Promiscuous Materials Project where Jonathan also offers stories for filmmakers or dramatists to adapt, priced at a dollar apiece. The works are available non-exclusively, so other people can use the same material, for short films (30 mins) or one-act plays (45 mins) only. For the stories some rights are restricted and the materials may not be republished in text form on websites or books etc.

March 12, 04:33 PM
Big Brother State - Animated Short by David Scharf


Released under a CC NonCommercial Sampling Plus 1.0 license

You can find high quality resolutions and formats at bigbrotherstate.com
April 07, 09:42 PM
Open Water Project

Excerpts from openwaterproject.org

The OpenWater project was a group project for an Instructional Technology
class at Utah State University.

About 75% of the material used in OpenWater is remixed or used from other
sources licensed under public domain or creative commons. The remaining 25% is
original footage that was shot by the OpenWater team.

The soundtrack is supplied by Magnatune artists and the video is licensed under Creative Commons.

December 14, 02:44 AM
Alternative Freedom Documentary and Soundtrack
Alternative Freedom is a documentary about the invisible war on culture, featuring insights and ideas from Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman, Danger Mouse, Bunnie, Jason Shultz, Doseone.

Here's the trailer:



You can buy the ALTERNATIVE FREEDOM DVD/SOUNDTRACK COMBO (2 DISCS) for $12 knowing that $1 of your purchase goes to EFF, a donor-funded nonprofit organization that depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights.



The Alternative Freedom soundtrack features over 52 minutes of full length songs from:

diabetic elf
foureveryoung
high karate
ithacamoon
loch lomond
ritchie young
December 14, 10:16 AM
TagCrowd Visualizations of John Lennon's "Imagine" and Political Media Slant
TagCrowd is a web-application that allows you to enter any text and generate a tag cloud to visualize word frequency. These visualizations can be revelatory due to spontaneous perceptions triggered by displayed patterns in the tag cloud, such as word proximity and weight. Interesting and meaningful connections between keywords emerge including meme-like phrases, concepts and new sentence fragments.

Below we see the contrast in vocabulary between the lyrics of the John Lennon song "Imagine" and politically loaded phrases as used by Democrats and Republicans. See How to speak Republican or Democratic for background information and lists of phrases as compiled in a recent paper by Gentzkow and Shapiro from the 2005 Congressional Record: What Drive's Media Slant?

John Lennon was shot and killed this day December 8, 1980 by Mark Chapman.



John Lennonspeak

created at TagCrowd.com



Democratspeak

created at TagCrowd.com



Republicanspeak

created at TagCrowd.com

Here's a hybrid cloud made from combining the two original political lists to create a Slantscape mashup. In all cases the clouds have been restricted to display a maximum of fifty keywords and the last cloud shows a frequency count for each word.

DemoRepspeak


created at TagCrowd.com

As a tool for working with language the creative possibilities are fascinating. TagCrowd can be applied to a multitude of artistic and interperative situations including blogging, songwriting, sloganeering, poetry, hyper linking etc, and the range of input material is obviously limitless from recipes to religion. More language tools and toys can be found on the REPROMAN sidebar.

TagCrowd created by Daniel Steinbock

The generated code and its rendered image are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Via Sean Kearney's /patternHunter [/ph] - thanks for mentioning Apophenia, the word really grabbed my attention and on further exploration proved to be very fruitful. In particular to this List of Cognitive Biases and my list of social applications at Web Buzz Explorer.

Language Visualization Resources

ThePowerOfWords - A text analysis of political discourse during times of crisis.

US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud - Shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 - 2006 AD.

October 15, 03:29 PM
Timothy Leary - how to operate your brain


Timothy Leary massages his message on reprogramming the brain into your brain in this 29 minute video produced by Chris Graves.

Via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing
November 16, 09:39 PM
Lasse Gjertsen's Hyperactive Video Editing Style
Lasse Gjertsen uses video editing techniques akin to music sampling to create new digital media compositions. In the video below called Amateur he creates a cut-up illusion of himself jamming on drums and piano. In another video he makes an appearance as a human beatbox.

Lasse also creates animations and a good introduction to his creative influences can be found in Jeg går en Tur - A self portrait that you can watch below: In animation, EVERYTHING is possible!

Check out Lasse's music page for some fine electronic tunes.

Via Kottke.org



Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen


Jeg går en Tur - A self portrait by Lasse Gjertsen

November 16, 07:24 PM
Instructional Music Video Mashup
Kel McKeown: Instructional Video

A mashup masterclass and classic example of creative cut-up techniques. Part of the fun is learning how it's done.
November 13, 02:17 PM
Digital Luthiers Develop The Reactable
reactable: improvisation demo

Team designer Marcos Alonso explains:
The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop
tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete
control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table
surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a
classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic
topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible
modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi
Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music
Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.
More information is available via the Reactable Website which also has a good overview of related tangible musical interfaces. See also Wikipedia reacTable


Here's an organic interface that takes a more fluid approach...


Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II

November 12, 12:10 AM
WGBH Lab: Video Sandbox
The WGBH Lab is an online destination and initiative designed to help independent media makers. Selected video clips from the WGBH Media Library are being cleared for copyright and made available for people to cut, loop and mashup via the Lab Sandbox.

All clips are made available in QuickTime’s native .mov format under Creative Commons license Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 .
November 14, 10:41 PM
New Perceptions of Self in the Age of Social Media

These four time-lapse videos show human evolutionary processes and cosmetic transformations over varying periods of time. These type of clips became significantly popular via YouTube and other new media outlets during the latter part of 2006.

I have posted the clips here in order of appearance on YouTube, over the 3 months of August, September and October (dates may be innacurate). Each successive video was compiled over a longer period of time apart from the final clip which was shot relatively quickly and digitally manipulated later.

For the first two videos shown below, the viewing figures quickly reached into the millions each and the level of interest was high across many important forms of media dissemination including blogs, social networks and mass media news outlets.

The clips continue to capture the imaginations of millions and it seems fitting to profile the trend in a single post. There's obviously a powerful fascination with the aging process and the technique of projecting these visions of accumulative degenerative processes over time. The fourth clip, possibly influenced by the success of the earlier videos, shows the power of cosmetic / technological practices to promote an image of desirability, albeit dependent on particular cultural perspectives and identification. Click through to the YouTube sources to get further details and comments.


Me: Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years


Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years


Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project


Dove - Evolution


More about this type of photography at Wikipedia Time-lapse
November 25, 11:23 AM
Bent Circuit Training
Circuit Bending

Students learn the art of Furby reprogramming in a circuit bending workshop with Ben Goldstone. Below, an adept demonstrates the fruits of circuit bending knowledge as applied to a Kawasaki toy guitar.

cicuit bent "Double Neck" kawasaki toy guitar


Kawasaki motorcycle company licensed DSI Toys to use their name on a line of musical products. Unfortunately it's difficult to find online info about these particular electronic toys. If your interested in circuit bending and modifications to electronic sound toys here are some links worth exploring:


Metalriffs.com Guitar Toy Museum - a small picture gallery of electronic guitar toys.
Miniorgan.com - a private collection of rare small music keyboards and vintage musical electronic toys.
WarrantyVoid - the electronic sound toy and keyboard modification site.
Wikipedia Circuit bending - provides info and links to other websites.


If you're looking for online virtual sound toys and interactive music guides see the Museum of Sound Toys.

October 27, 03:12 AM
Recycled Culture: David Ellis and the Art of Double Bass
This work by artist David Ellis combines the body of a double bass with modern day audio hardware and electronics.

SKDubs gold (double bass boombox fiddle)

36 x 50 1/2 x 17"

Medium-modified double bass fiddle, spraypaint, casters, oak, plywood, metal, iPod, two tube pre-amps, B and C mids and tweeters, Electro-voice woofers, JVC tweeters, Crown XLS 602 Poweramp, and Behringer equalizer - 2005.

Via Hulger.org where you can find lots more interesting and arty contemporary designs.

The Double Bass

Along with classical music, the double bass has found its place in genres such as the blues, bluegrass, jazz, rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, drum and bass. It has been used widely in pop and rock music on recordings by artists like Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Frank Zappa. A well known example being the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side" where session musician Herbie Flowers created the distinctive sounding bass hook, by using a mix of old and new sounds. He recorded one part on acoustic upright and then overdubbed a crossing part a major tenth above on electric fretless bass. The song was later recycled by other artists including A Tribe Called Quest who used a sample of it in "Can I Kick it?" - You can just about hear it on the intro of the video remix below. For more examples of recordings using double bass, see this thread from the TalkBass forums discussing Examples of Upright in Pop Music.





Perceptions

David Ellis's work evokes some interesting perceptions through the marriage of old and new world technologies.

At first site the juxtaposition creates a slight element of cognitive dissonance, a clash between the older acoustic culture and the contemporary electronic culture. However, the sense of discomfort is lessened by the idea the two cultures are not completely contradictory. The fundamental function of sound reproduction, for the purpose of music and entertainment, remains intact. In fact the instrument has merely been rewired, the strings replaced by electric wires.

Originally the source of sound was generated by a human drive mechanism. The machinery of bow and fingers controlled the perceived pitch, loudness and tone production. These have been replaced by electronic counterparts. The output of the iPod is the sound source, the amplifier and equalizer control the loudness and tone respectively.

The acoustically resonating wooden body becomes the architecture for the electro-magnetic speakers and electronics which are embedded in the belly. The electronics span a progression of successive developments where each stage builds on the past, from mechanical, to electronic valve, transistor and finally digital micro-chip.

There's much to contemplate in this piece that embraces change and cultural heritage: the new functionality, shape, symmetry, the handle ontop, the missing head/neck, the fact that it's no longer 'upright'.

Detritus.net is a web site devoted to recycled culture. Budding detrivores wishing to make new creative works out of old ones will find it a good source of inspiration.

Resources
Wikipedia: Conceptual art
REPROMAN remix reuse recycle

Posts

January 15, 03:04 PM
SOPA & PIPA Information Tools

Information about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the US. Focusing on the current debate, opposing argument, security and technical concerns. Featuring content from prominent commentators, online awareness campaigns and a range of Internet protest tools. Links to both Acts are included.

September 05, 09:36 AM
Ogilvy Hosts Music & Brands Event 'Lab Day LIVE'

International advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy Group UK are staging a one-day event called Lab Day LIVE designed to engage both the advertising and music communities. On the 9th September Ogilvy's offices in London's Canary Wharf will play host to a music industry conference and live music festival.

It promises to be an informative and entertaining occasion focusing on the latest digital media opportunities mutually available to brands and the music business. The morning conference panels and talks will feature key figures from Last.fm. Spotify, PRS and other leading music organizations (List of speakers). During the afternoon live music performances from name and up-coming acts will take place across three stages (see below).

Entitled: Making music matter as much to brands as it does to consumers

The event is part of Ogilvy’s on-going drive to help clients and their brands navigate the rapidly changing landscape of the music industry in the digital age.

In this video clip Lab Day organizer Tara Austin talks about her role in making music a more central part of the creative process at Ogilvy. To see what other members of the team are saying take a look at the Video Wall.

The Rules of Engagement

Ogilvy are looking to the music industry for innovative ideas on how brands can use music to to build engagement with their audience. Earlier in the year, at MIDEM 2011, they made a stirring appeal for music publishers to "‘look beyond the cheque' and contribute more than just a piece of audio to an advertising campaign" emphasising Ogilvy's vision to "create added value: value for our brands and, ultimately, value for the artist whose music our campaigns promote". 

I'll be attending the event and listening closely to what's being said about sonic branding and new ideas for using music to create a 'brand sound'. I'm also looking forward to learning more about the power of sound and music when applied to areas such as 'retail soundscapes' and how we can be informed by hard data.

As a long-time advocate of Open Media licensing tools, when and where appropriate, I'll be hoping to see more open and collaborative business frameworks designed to minimize the friction permeating traditional licensing models. Many Internet audio and video platforms have already successfully integrated Creative Commons licensing making it easy for people to share, remix and reuse media legally, notably SoundCloud and YouTube (list of corporate support).

Creative Commons has always been about promoting creativity and the power of openness to build communities based on shared ideas. Unfortunately the established licensing system, especially with regards to CC licenses in Europe, makes widespread media sharing difficult, thereby blocking the most valuable thing which is attention. Hopefully the wider debate around open and closed systems will eventually lead to innovation that fosters audience attention, participation, and better user experiences in the digital music space.

 

Event Info & Live Stream

Website

 Full details and live streaming of acts from the 3 music stages on the day can be found at http://www.labdaylive.co.uk/

Twitter

You can follow updates using the hashtag #labdaylive plus there's further tweet analysis, tracking and visualization via my channel at The Archivist

 

Acts

Alexis Ffrench

http://www.alexisffrenchmusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/AlexisFfrench

Aloe Blacc

http://aloeblacc.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/aloeblacc

Boy Mandeville

http://twitter.com/#!/boymanband

http://www.youtube.com/user/boymandeville

Charlie Simpson

http://charliesimpsonmusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/charliesimo

Delays

http://www.thedelays.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/delays

Digitonal

http://www.digitonal.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/digitonal

Kidda

http://kiddamusic.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/iamkidda

Kinura

http://www.kinura.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/kinura

Laki Mera

http://www.facebook.com/lakimeramusic

http://twitter.com/#!/LakiMeraMusic

Newton Faulkner

http://www.newtonfaulkner.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/newtonfaulkner

Pete and The Pirates

http://www.peteandthepirates.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/#!/PetePirates

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

http://www.sophieellisbextor.net/

http://twitter.com/#!/sophieeb

To Kill a King

http://www.tokillaking.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/ToKillAKingUK

Tribes

http://tribesband.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/tribesband

Wolf Gang

http://www.wolf-gang.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/wolfgang

 

Media

Some of the performers appearing on the day

Digitonal

The Beating of Her Heart by digitonal


 

 

 

About Ogilvy

Wikipedia

Ogilvy & Mather are an International advertising, marketing and public relations agency founded in 1948.

YouTube

Visit the Ogilvy Museum on YouTube  to watch some of their classic ads, dating back to the 1950s. For more recent developments there's the Ogilvyvids Channel

Twitter 

Ogilvy Group Comms @OgilvyLondon for news and observations from the comms team at Ogilvy Group UK.

OGILVY @OGILVY their global staff blog aggregator.

Posted via email from David Holmes

April 26, 07:48 PM
Why we Need Renewable Food Tech to Feed the World

Angel investor, Ali Partovi, is stimulating discussion in the area of  "renewable" food technologies and has just launched FixFood, a forum for people to share ideas on how to fix America's broken food system. You can learn more about sustainable approaches to agriculture in his informative TechCrunch article - Food Is The New Frontier In Green Tech.

The rapidly growing world population is creating a shortage of natural resources and harming the environment.
These short videos raise awareness of the unsustainable levels of human consumption and the urgent need for renewable food production solutions.

Big Question: Feast or Famine?



Video from the University of Minnesota - Institute on the Environment
More videos available from the UMNIonE YouTube Channel


Population Growth



Population Growth - Infographic from Kristy Graybill on Vimeo.

Via Earth Protect

Related Resources


Infographics & Visualizations
8 Incredible Farm Infographics
Ecomagination Interactive Visualizations
Infographic: Ten Things You Should Know About Water
World Population Growth Infographic

Knowledge
Permaculture Knowledge Base
Wikipedia Agriculture

Video Production Tools
The software tools used in the production of these videos include Adobe Illustrator and After Effects.

October 16, 05:10 PM
A Vision of Students Today

This video was created by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

It provides insight and statistics on many important issues relevant to students and educators today, including cultural, social and technological concerns.

Music soundtrack by Try^d: Listen - Both the video and music are released under Creative Commons license.

You can learn more about the collaboration and data gathering at the Digital Ethnography blog

via Open Culture

September 24, 03:16 AM
The Changing Media Landscape - Did You Know 4.0

Facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

For further information and the story behind the making of "Did You Know 4.0" visit:
XPlane
The Economist

September 13, 11:04 PM
Carbon.to - CO2 Awareness Tool

Carbon.to - Carbon so you can understand it via kwout

An online CO2 converter built by David Kjelkerud, Henrik Berggren and Jorge Zapico at Ecomo09, an environmental hacking day in London. It is designed to help you more easily understand what a kilogram of CO2 really means.

You can convert CO2 amounts to other units such as bottles of beer or compare different emissions for instance how many apples are equivalent to a litre of milk. The data used is mostly localized to Sweden.

David and Henrick also built http://citysounds.fm/ the web app that lets you listen to the latest music from cities around the world.

Posted via web from David Holmes

July 29, 03:06 AM
The Importance of Innovation for Future Economic Growth Worldwide
Use the bottom right icon to view this document in full screen mode. The Slideshare page also has a Presentation Transcript and here's a PDF Version.

Posted via web from David Holmes

April 09, 04:13 AM
Instruction Manual for Life [cc]


A story about childhood, parenthood, and adulthood. Animation and words by TheraminTrees. Piano score by QualiaSoup (YouTube channel links)
March 30, 05:12 PM
22 Smart, Inspirational Quotes From Bloggers In 2008
22 Smart, Inspirational Quotes From Bloggers In 2008
View more presentations from Adam Singer.
March 16, 10:13 PM
Gaia - The Future of Politics


A journey through time charting the information power shift caused by the Internet and the ensuing development of a new global politics. Website
Gaia, a New World Order, is born today, the 14 August 2054.
Racial conflicts, ideological conflicts, religious conflicts, territorial conflicts belong to the past.
Every man is a world citizen, subject to the same law.
The Internet has driven the change, spreading communication, knowledge and organization at a planetary level. Transcript
Via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing
March 14, 09:39 PM
Contsructive Capitalism

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 - Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo. February 12, 2009, Stockholm.

A thought provoking presentation by the Director of the Havas Media Lab, Umair Haque,  about Constructive Capitalism and Why Ideals are the New Business Models. 

The Ten Laws of Constructive Capitalism

 1. Strategy is a commodity
 2. Competition is obsolete
 3. There is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal
 4. Tomorrow is today
 5. Connections not transactions
 6. People, not product
 7. Creativity, not productivity
 8. Outcomes not incomes
 9. Advantage is in the DNA
10. The next revolution is institutional
March 06, 09:38 AM
Video Explaining the Subprime Mortgage Time-Bomb

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

A short animation explaining the system of borrowing and lending that led to the current financial meltdown:
The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.
Created by Jonathan Jarvis.
Narration by John Levoff.

Update: Useful links for the global economic meltdown.

 A Great Recession Guide - a mini-guide to the lighter side of the current, prolonged recession.

Google Tip Jar - a collection of money saving tips submitted and ranked by the web community.
January 08, 01:12 PM
Copyright Crunch Leads to Pirates Prisons Project


A radical new project designed to punish and reform illegal downloaders of copyrighted music could prove to be a huge money spinner for tech savvy investors. The Pirates Prisons Project aims to capitalize on the current copyright crunch by building 100s of 1000s of new prisons to house the unlimited supply of illegal internet users. If proposed legislation to criminalise billions of music fans goes ahead, the high probability of re-offending represents a once-in-a-lifetime investment  opportunity to secure real financial gains for PPP shareholders.

The ingenious shares scheme relies on the music industry's desire for economic dominance. However critics of doom and bust policies believe the music industry's strategy of using a failed business model is enevitably doomed to failure (See links below). Only (prison) time will tell.

Prison/Copyright Reform Related
Two articles I wrote in 2006 warning of the impending copyright crunch:

What if The Beatles had used Creative Commons Licenses?
British Record Industry Loses Fight to Extend Copyright
January 04, 04:25 PM
Avatars Poll for Personal Photos Vs Abstract Designs

Do you feel more of a connection when you see a face on someone's avatar or don't you care what their avatar is? You can see what other people think and cast you own vote at this ask500people poll.

November 18, 02:57 AM
Perspctv - Real-Time Search Comparisons


Perspctv is a dashboard for comparing and monitoring search queries in real-time. The service also provides data comparison widgets of your search results to put on your webpages. The widget shown here compares today's Google search volume, news and blog mentions for the keywords Google, Microsoft, Yahoo.
November 14, 12:57 AM
Sprint: Plug into Now



A futuristic talking dashboard and web mashup for what's happening in the world right now. Full of real-time widgets providing facts and measurements on a range of data. This is a fun promotion for Sprint's mobile Internet service. To see the full interface visit Sprint: Plug into Now
November 03, 12:31 AM
Revolution X - Political Video Mashup


The trailer for an upcoming documentary about the 2008 presidential campaign. More political video mashups available at ThePartyParty.com and here's the YouTube Channel.

October 20, 04:48 AM
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights


Animation created by Seth Brau. Produced by Amy Poncher. Music by Rumspringa courtesy Cantora Records. www.humanrightsactioncenter.org
October 16, 05:13 PM
Overrated Vs Underrated Technology Products

The 10 most overrated products and their comparative underrated alternatives as noted by Darren Gladstone for PC World.

Includes mobile interfaces, gaming platforms, portable computers, online music services, social networks, media players, productivity suites, image editors, Windows OS, and video distribution.
October 16, 07:02 PM
The World Wants Obama for President
BetaVote 2008 is an experimental online polling site that lets people from any country submit their vote for a candidate in the 2008 US Presidential Election. At the time of writing the first several thousand votes place Obama well in the lead with 80.87% of the vote count, McCain has 10.88% and Other 8.25%.

It's a small but interesting sample bearing in mind the consequences of this election will affect the rest of the world. Consider the first Betavote poll in 2004 which finished Kerry 421,770 (88%), Bush 55,242 (11%).

My SpyPoint lens currently features some real-time tracking tools for the 2008 presidential election. You can also share and view sites with auto-updating crowdstreams for other types of social data.


Photo by pixarman
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
  


October 03, 05:23 AM
Print The Truth - Distributed Political Poster System


PRINT THE TRUTH is a blog offering poster designs about the 2008 US presidential election. The satirical designs have a pro Democrat Party spin designed to make you think about the election candidates, their opinions, facts and follies.

PRINT THE TRUTH is the first distributed political poster system in history. Every day until the election, we give you a free poster. Print as many as you can, paste em up. Put them on the office fridge, the cars in the lot, on your vacuum cleaner, wherever you can."

With 100,000 people printing 10 posters a day, we can hang 60 million important messages between now and election day. Power to the printer, power to the people.


You can track election developments and other real-time crowdstreaming data at SpyPoint

Wikipedia: Political parties in the United States
October 03, 05:43 AM
Muxtape Motivational Poster


Muxtape Motivational Poster
DISS001

Modification of webpage for Muxtape.com relating to the notice of shutdown that appeared on August 18th, 2008. 

Update: The official Muxtape story and reasons for the shutdown has been posted on the Muxtape homepage at http://muxtape.com/

Techmeme tracking of Muxtape story

September 17, 11:24 PM
Which Wiki?
WikiMatrix.org is a Wiki feature comparison tool. Simply choose the Wiki engines you want to compare from the panel on the left, click the button and compare their features in a convenient side-by-side table.

Via ResearchBuzz

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January 07, 10:09 AM
Best Albums of 2005 - Resources and Lists

Every year hundreds of "top lists" representing the opinions and recommendations of music enthusiasts worldwide are published online. Here are a couple of resources that make it easier to find and explore these lists, ultimately speeding your journey to discovering good music. Many of the lists also provide album reviews and information for buying the music online.

In Depth
DJ Martian: More Best of 2005 Music Links a central resource for 2005 music lists and information. Hundreds of lists are archived at del.icio.us/djmartian/b2005. Great for exploring specialist music resources and expert opinions.

At a Glance
Metacritic.com: best Albums of 2005 provides a table displaying the highest-scoring albums for the year in Metacritic's database with a minimum of 7 reviews. Also listed at the bottom of the page are year-end top ten lists provided by various critics and publications. Use this list for a quick overview and comparison of albums from popular music resources and publications.


If you're interested in creating your own list of things you'd like to share check out 7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.icio.us Popular Page for some useful tips on presentation.

More interesting things from 2005 at http://del.icio.us/tag/2005

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January 19, 11:38 PM
Sony Music's Route 666 the Lost Highway

When news broke about the potential security threat to computers caused by millions of Sony BMG's music CDs, most people had never heard of a Rootkit. Hopefully the blissful tide of ignorance is changing as wave upon wave of outraged opinion floods online communities. Or is it?

In a recorded interview for NPR, Thomas Hesser president of Sony BMG's Global Digital Business opined:

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

To many, his low opinion of Sony customers appears to be out of kilter with the main-stream of America and elsewhere. A Sophos survey of 1,501 respondents reveals 98% of business PC users think Sony DRM copy protection is a security threat. Since Mr Hesser's notorious rootkit sound-bite, the "Sony Sitcom" has taken a route all of its own. Every episode in the sorry saga has presented new and ironic twists in the unfolding story.

Consider the precarious road ahead.


Lawsuits litter the horizon and this may yet be a digital tragedy of epic proportions.

In another ironic twist to the tale CNet's John Borland reports Sony BMG has so far sailed through the rootkit CD backwash apparently unharmed. Data from market analysts Nielsen SoundScan and Gracenote shows no appreciable change in sales or trends for the titles in question. The Register follows up with further insight as to why this may be.

The crash course in DRM technologies offered by the tech savvy bloggers may have hit a brick wall. The vast majority of the CD buying public actually don't care, partly because they don't need to play CDs on computers anyway and partly because they are not very security conscious. The alarmed minority keen to alert consumers to unethical practices represents a blip in the blogosphere rather than a storm in the media. With the support of RIAA members, Sony will no doubt make all the right noises, sit it out and continue with the anti-piracy wars. (See Music biz to 'hijack' Europe's data retention laws - From terrorism to filesharing)

Did I mention piracy wars? The Wikipedia entry for a pirate is:


  • Pirate may refer to someone who robs other ships at sea, or sometimes the shore, without a commission from a sovereign nation.
  • Someone who commits copyright infringement, including pirate decryption, computer piracy and in particular, software piracy.
  • Pirate radio, the practice of making unauthorized radio broadcasts.
  • Unlike the stereotypical pirate with cutlass and masted sailing ship, today most pirates get about in speedboats wearing balaclavas instead of bandannas, using AK-47s rather than cutlasses. Fragment
Welcome to Neverland. In a story that gets stranger and stranger it appears the real battle is between the major record labels and Apple over the iTunes music store.

Both Sony BMG and EMI "hope to reach a deal with Apple, which will allow users to move songs onto iPods. But by launching the copy-protected CDs without iPod compatibility, the labels are raising the stakes in an ongoing conflict between Apple and the rest of the music business, which wants the tech company to open its proprietary iPod and let others sell antipiracy-protected songs that work on the device" Forbes.com

Instrumental in this "Treasure Island" the big labels are dreaming of is a variable pricing system where they can dictate what songs are worth. Variable prices means the labels can send signals to consumers that some products are better than others. This can be used as leverage against artists to manipulate deals in favour of the labels. Apple on the other hand (hook) uses a fixed price system. The conflict is about who gets to manipulate what music we buy. Joel on Software provides a good explanation in Price as Signal.

Looking more like the Battle of Trafalgar and the spoils of war, this is a struggle where the artists and consumers are the collateral damage.

With millions of infected CDs still in circulation and the prospect of similar DRM technologies to come, the emphasis is now on security software companies to protect us, but that's another story.

Beware the citizen who dares to rip, mix and burn. The blazing path to DRM glory rumbles with the sound of gladiators in their chariots of fire. This is no route 15, this is the hallowed ground of Hollywood and the only burning here will be heretics at the stake. This is the long and winding road to nowhere that angels fear to tread... a lost highway. Stand and deliver.

Repeat after me, the minority reporter's rootkit mantra...

"Most people, I think, would like to know what a rootkit is, and care very much about it."

Swingometer: Currently in Sony BMG's favour due to no obvious signs of a drop in sales to infected CD titles. However, the rootkit revelations are less than a month old and serious litigation combined with bad public relations could prove costly for the media giants in the long run. It remains unknown to what extent artists will suffer losses due to issues of trust. Consumers are the main losers having paid for products that degrade the performance of computers, open new security vulnerabilities, and install updates through an Internet connection to Sony BMG's servers.

Company Profile for Sony Corporation (Reuters)
Sony BMG Music Entertainment Company Profile (Yahoo! Finance)

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Bias Adjustment

Posts

September 08, 07:41 PM
SEQUENCE1 – Electronic Music Compilation by Futuresequence
SEQUENCE1 is a 42 track album of outstanding ambient and experimental music from various artists, compiled and released by electronica magazine Futuresequence.com. Conceived as an anniversary release, marking a year since Futuresequence's launch, this epic production contains exclusive tracks and new works exploring the global frontiers of the electronic music scene.

September 05, 11:48 PM
Cityscapes by Fetal Pulse

Fetal Pulse is the name of an experimental electronic music project by Canadian musician Pedro Costa. ‘Aurora’ was the first video for Fetal Pulse’s debut album Cityscapes, a 10 track album released on the 8th March 2011.

Cityscapes is an instrumental album with a lot of charm and character. Mainly down-tempo, part ambient, mostly melodic, the tracks sit perfectly side by side to create a beautifully balanced whole. Pedro puts his musicality to good use conjuring up themes and dynamic changes that always flow and sustain interest. The sounds are colourful and the cleverly designed musical arrangements offer the right sonic combinations at the right times. This is an album that always feels comfortable and welcoming, like an old friend whose company you appreciate, time and again.

Film by: Richard-François Léonard, Stéphane Drouot and Zakaria Mofril, licensed under Creative Commons.

Photography by: Craig Cloutier,  licensed under Creative Commons.


Also available via http://soundcloud.com/fetalpulse
and http://www.facebook.com/FetalPulse

July 27, 09:34 PM
Luna by Sergio Altamura

A haunting composition played to perfection by Italian artist Sergio Altamura, guitar and loop machine. From his first solo album “Blu” produced by William Ackerman in 2004, available at http://www.candyrat.com

More info can be found via his website: http://www.sergioaltamura.com/ and his Facebook community page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sergio-Altamura/47899619071

Fans of solo guitar music can listen to more gems like this via the CandyRat YouTube Channel and there’s a selection of favourite Solo Acoustic Instrumental Videos on this PLAYLIST

 

 


September 28, 08:47 PM
DISS Migration from Windows Live Spaces to WordPress

This post marks the migration of “Dave’s Imaginary Sound Space” previously found at http://soundblog.spaces.live.com/ to it’s new WordPress home, here at http://imaginarysoundspace.wordpress.com/

All blog posts from the original Windows Live Space are now archived here, however the extensive link-lists are not supported by the automated migration process and are only accessible via the original link. Eventually all of DISS will vanish by March of 2011 when Microsoft will disable access to the Live Spaces blogging platform completely.

Original announcements regarding the new Live Spaces/Wordpress partnership and related details can be found via: The Windows Blog and WordPress Blog


June 01, 01:25 PM
Windows Live Writer Beta 2 Released

Microsoft have released a new version of Windows Live Writer, the desktop application that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog. Having created this post immediately after a smooth upgrade installation, first impressions are good. 

Some of the new authoring features include:

  • Comprehensive table creation and editing tools
  • Auto spell checking as you write
  • Improved hyperlinking and image insertion
  • Full synchronization between online and offline applications 
  • Paste Special - Plain Text or HTML (Embed Tags, YouTube etc)
  • Support for categories, Blogger labels and back-dated posting
  • Excerpts and extended entries

Writer can now publish to Windows Live Spaces, Sharepoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, Community Server, and other weblog services.

Customization

With just a mouse click the feel and look of the application can be changed instantly to any color you like using the new colorize button on the menu bar.

New image editing options allow rotation and contrast adjustment and it’s now possible to automatically link to a previous post via the insert hyperlink menu.

Other useful Writer capabilities include back-dated posting – you select any date for the post to appear, easy insertion of maps from Virtual Earth, and rich media plug-ins like audio and video tools available from Windows Live Gallery and reviewed at Windows Live Writer Plugins. Just Select Add a Plugin from the app sidebar to launch the Live Gallery site. 

 

Good Things Coming…

Having been nine months in the making, this is a worthwhile update for existing users with a range of very usable improvements. The open plug-in platform and API-driven building tools make further customization ongoing and easy to implement. Judging by developments at Popfly the future looks very promising indeed, watch the video below.

The above video was inserted using Paste Special.

If you’re upgrading from a previous installation remember to update your account settings to ensure you’re getting all the latest features (Tools/Accounts). As usual with beta software releases, reporting and solving application problems is part of the process so don’t expect perfection.

Further details of this release and developer information can be found at the Windows Live Writer team blog – Writer Zone. For more Live news, free applications and Vista resources see Windows Live Tools.

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May 17, 06:33 PM
Videos of Harp Guitar Performances
Three videos of harp guitar performances by Andy Mckee, Don Alder and the late Michael Hedges.
 

Andy McKee – "Gates to Gnomeria"  

 

Don Alder – "Sayonara Calm" 

 
 

Michael Hedges – "Because It’s There" 

 

More Recordings 

YouTube has a selection of harp guitar performances by several exponents of the instrument.
 
Recordings of these performances under Creative Commons licenses are rare but Swedish composer/guitarist Thomas Almqvist ( right) is sharing a cool live recording of a 16-string harp guitar at MacJams.com called Embla. Thanks Thomas!
 

Albums on Amazon

Reference

 

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May 09, 11:02 PM
Free Cartoons and Webcomics from XKCD.com

xkcd is a webcomic created by former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe. His drawings are published under a Creative Commons license and you need no permission to reuse them for non-commercial purposes, just provide attribution to xkcd.com. New comics are published on the site at midnight every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Here are some samples from the collection archives, click on the images to visit the source.

 

Digital Rights Management

 

"If you think the purveyors of DRM simply want to protect artists, check out chapters 13 and 14 in Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig. Their goal is the elimination of all culture they don’t control." 

 

Content Protection 

"How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity" Lessig.

 

XKCD Linkage

There’s more info about the characters, themes and content style (Nerd/Romance Humor) at Wikipedia xkcd

You can also find lots of interesting things to see and do in the Forums including other artists sharing works under Creative Commons.

Here’s the Comic Feed: http://xkcd.com/rss.xml 

Here’s the Blag Blog and check out the Store for things that you can wear or put on your wall, like this Map of Online Communities –>

"I’m waiting for the day when, if you tell someone ‘I’m from the internet’, instead of laughing they just ask ‘oh, what part?" 

Resources for Drawing, Cartoons, and Webcomics


April 24, 02:45 PM
Ourmedia Relaunches with Channels of Creativity

Ourmedia has relaunched with a minimalist look and new focus on media channels. There is now more emphasis on the social interaction around media and ways to draw attention to the good stuff. Here are some of the features available.

Channels @ channels.ourmedia.org

Channels are media streams categorized by subject or interest that include content such as music, podcasts and video. People can highlight media hosted anywhere on the Web and group media together into themes. Ourmedia members can now easily create their own social broadcast networks and post items to their channels using the special browser tools mentioned below. Each item is a bundled document of media data; on posting you simply enter the relevant details into the template fields and click submit. The fields include:

  • Media URL
  • Media Page URL (source)
  • Thumbnail URL
  • Screen Shot URL
  • Artist Name
  • Artist Homepage URL
  • Comments URL
  • License (option menu)
  • Player (type)

Here’s an example that took just a few minutes to create: Chill Channel

RSS Feeds

Available feeds are split across two domains with the new user-created channels residing at channels.ourmedia.org.

Ourmedia.org

Has four main channels that are currently enabled for media streaming:

  • Audio
  • Images
  • Text
  • Video

    Channels.ourmedia.org

    All user-created channels have RSS feeds although at the time of writing these were not media-enabled for streaming files via widgets. Hopefully this will change as the new features are rolled out.

  • You can also view related news feeds using the aggregated News Reader.

    Browser Tools

    Toolbar Buttons – Let you post and view channels from within your browser.

    Two bookmarklets can be dragged to your browser bookmarks toolbar:

    • Post to Ourmedia Channels – This button allows you to post your current page to your Ourmedia channels.
    • My Ourmedia Channels – This button allows you to quickly view your Ourmedia channels.

    • These provide a useful way to populate your Channels with media just discovered or when revisiting favorite sites.

    Open Media Search

    Located at the top left-hand corner of all ourmedia.org pages is the new Google powered search engine. This makes it easy to search for ‘open’ media by source, media type and license. Searchable domains include:

    Creative Support

    The Learning Center provides help with key aspects of media creation and distribution through a series of how-to guides and tutorials. Everything is published under Creative Commons.

    The Open Media Directory is a list of free and legal media hubs, highlighting cool sources of audio, music and video that’s safe to share or remix. The list may be republished under the CC license terms, an example being the recent Creative Commons UK Mix and Mash Film Competition which used it to provide support for Video Resources.

    Putting Ourmedia to Work

    Along with the social functionality of Ourmedia, the features I’ve outlined above make it easy for people to create and share legal media in an open environment.

    The Search Engine and Open Media Directory both help you locate free and legal media which in turn can be posted directly to your Channels using the browser buttons. Overall a clean and tidy package without all the clutter and commercialization of other media sharing destinations.

    Related DISS Media

    Free Sounds – Legal Audio Samples, Loops, Software, Music and Video Downloads.

    OpenSonics – Open Music Community News and Copyleft Media Resources.

    Open Music Search – A Google Custom Search Engine for exploring the Open Music Ecosystem. Grab the widget and spread free music!


    March 08, 04:41 PM
    Convert RSS Feeds to Banner, Javascript or PHP

    Blog Signature Generator allows you to create a dynamically updating news banner (signature) that links to the original feed source. It also generates a Gravatar connected to your email address - "an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites."

    RSSConverters.com has an online wizard that converts RSS news feeds and podcasts into Javascript or PHP code. The wizard can batch convert multiple feeds and apply blanket customization features for display options and style.

    Mash and Grab RSS Feeds

    You can find a good selection of RSS feeds via the Mediaspheres Grazr - Right click on any list title to grab the feed (copy shortcut).

    You can also grab a selection of pre-mashed RSS feeds via Dave’s FeedRaider. Each single-page aggregator has RSS, OPML and Embed options at the bottom of the page.

    The FeedRaider RSS feeds can be pasted into the Grazr address field (open View on menu, choose Address Bar), then select the refresh icon on the right of the browser to view the combined feed mashup.

    For more RSS resources and web widgets see Feed Pitstop and Widget Finder.

     


    February 12, 01:31 PM
    ccMixter Adds Dynamic Audio Playlists

    The state of online music remixing and Open Music distribution took a significant step forward recently with the release of ccMixter’s new audio Playlist feature at ccMixter.org. A community-driven playlist tool for sharing Creative Commons sound samples and music.

    About

    The application combines several key areas for creators that make it easy to find, share and promote legal audio and music works:

    Collaboration – It’s about connectivity, creativity, distribution and interaction. Social media at the heart of Web 2.0 – Web4

    Creative Commons Licenses – Open, flexible, copyright options designed to foster freedom of ideas. Ranging from some rights reserved to public domain.

    RSS Feeds and Social Syndication – Preview and create dynamic audio playlists – grab RSS feeds for your web-mashups, podcasts and social networking websites.

    Killer Features

    There are currently four tabbed views for managing Playlists:

    Hot Playlists – Create – Popular Remixes – New

    Multiple playlists can be opened simultaneously in the ‘Hot’ and ‘New’ browse modes.

    Create Dynamic Playlists

    In the ‘Create’ view you can quickly make customized, automatically updating playlists using the simple online interface. There’s a choice of parameters to choose from that allow you to locate and filter media files for fine-tuning the list.

    These include: Playlist Types, Artists (users), Tags, License Type, Ratings, Time Period and more.

    Free Registration

    Registered users can save and share their playlists including individual list items such as songs and samples. Full integration between community lists make it a breeze to add media items from one list to another with a single mouse click.

    New playlists can be created on the fly instantaneously, for example when browsing and listening to audio, in a seamless listening environment. Each list you create is automatically added to your community profile area.

    RSS feeds are generated for all your playlists. You can also edit important elements in your list such as dynamic parameters, the order of list items, tags, playlist title and description.

    Simple html formatting is allowed in the description so you can include links to websites, contact information or the location of a web page widget that uses the playlist feed.

    The ability to dynamically create playlists/podcast feeds by licence type, combined tags and other key factors makes it easy to create hybrid audio channels including sound sample based feeds as well as music playlists.

    For example here’s a dynamic RSS feed for a capella melodies based on user ratings:

    http://ccmixter.org/media/api/query?tags=melody&reqtags=acappella&type=all&limit=50&f=rss

    Click on this icon to view and listen to the feed in a Grazr widget

    There are also filtering options for Popular Remixes, which shows the audio media most frequently included in playlists.

    Further details and upcoming features can be found at How to use PLAYLISTS

    CC Music 2.0 Fueling Web 2.0

    Make no mistake, ccMixter is the complete package. No other remix site commands the same level of respect amongst musicians, producers and content creators.

    The tight social networking fabric combined with a philosophy of open media creation provides a truly creative environment for users of all levels and musical styles. In this community everyone works together; sharing, rating, reviewing, mixing, promoting, distributing, learning – Forums

    ccMixter playlists utilize the power of citizen DJ distribution, contributing to the growing culture of shared media networks and social tribes.

    Artists, bloggers, filmmakers, listeners, and podcasters can all interact to create collaborative resources and original compositions. Anyone can use these compositions to build new, derivative works, be they music, video or other media forms like web-mashups, in accordance with the licensing terms.

    Widgets, Pipes and Tubes are the plumbing through which these rich media creations can flow using URLs and RSS feeds.

    These intelligent crowdsourcing activities are becoming increasingly prevalent as the need for media filtering and recommendation prevails. Musically and culturally speaking, DJs have always provided the editorial factor so important to informing the wider music community. Todays web DJs are restricted only by the technologies they use and their knowledge of Social Media. To learn more about this topic read the online ebook What is Social Media?

    Given the emergence of social mediaspheres and widgetized connective tools, now anyone can be part Data Jockey – Data Carrier.

    Widget Action: Take a look at some of the ways ccMixter and CC music are connecting in the Web 2.0 world.

    http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/412641/royalty_free_music_downloads_attention_all_metacafe_producers.swf
    ROYALTY FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS: ATTENTION ALL METACAFE PRODUCERS – video powered by Metacafe

    How to create personalized ringtones using ccMixter

    http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf

    Web 2.0 in Five Minutes

    Related Sites

    Audio 2.0 – List of music, p2p, podcast, sound, and radio sites.

    Opensonics – Open Music Community News and Resources.

    Swik Playlists – Open source projects wiki.


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    David Holmes
    Internet Music, Social Media, Photography
    Internet | London, United Kingdom, GB

    Experience

    • Jan 2012 - Present
      Photographer / DavidHolmes.net
      Artist and digital photographer specialising in unique photo imagery and photojournalism. Projects and exhibitions via Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Dellow Center, Rich Mix, Royal Academy of Arts, The Bermondsey Project Space.
    • Jan 2011 - Present
      Social Media Advisor / DavidHolmes.net
      Developing digital media projects for social enterprises and charity organizations, including social media strategies, digital asset management, content curation, web resource creation, photographic documentation, peer support workshops and training.

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