Sunday 24th February 2008
Earlier tonight as a bit of an experiment (and just to pass some time) I started playing around with GarageBand, creating with just my laptop (no guitar) the intro to Guns N' Roses classic, Sweet Child O' Mine. It came out quite well, so I then added the power chords underneath. Still without actually using any real instruments. Then James came along and it suddenly got a lot more interesting. So good in fact, we felt the MP3 had to be let loose on the internet.
Click here to listen to the masterpiece. We're so good at this music stuff.
Friday 22nd February 2008
Oddly I just found a little piece of myself on the internet. Looking at the website of the company who were running those music lessons at Sun shortly before I had to leave, I found this (second from bottom). Made me a bit nostalgic. They were quite good fun, even though we were all pretty awful.
Also earlier I found a Facebook group for people who once worked for Sun... It's odd seeing some of them mentioning being RIF'd and the general trouble that the company was going through. There was one wall post in particular got my attention:
"There is very much life after Sun. It is interesting looking back on how psychologically draining it is living under the constant threat of RIF, even if you are secure, many of the people around you are stressed.
It is really interesting working for a company where money is not the problem, time or resource are. We did amazing things at sun on a budget of nothing, and even more amazing things with no business case."
It got me for several reasons. First I was never under threat of being RIF'd due to the circumstances of my employment there, but I certainly saw the stress it put on everyone around me which had a knock-on effect on me obviously. Since then I've found myself in a situation where my biggest obstacle and stress causer has become time, which was never an issue at Sun.
I do find myself missing Sun on and off from time to time. I do feel my time there wasn't as good as it could have been, but I certainly got a hint of what it once was. I still find myself being very fond of Sun's products, and having a bias towards a lot of their stuff even in cases where there are obvious shortcomings. I have subscribed to Jonathan Schwartz's blog (he's the CEO), I'm also currently sat here drinking tea from my Sun Microsystems mug. I don't think however, that if I were offered the chance to go back to Sun today, I would take it.
Monday 18th February 2008
Song: Frank Turner - A Decent Cup Of Tea
I really want a new domain name, for several reasons. One reason is because domain names are exciting. However I'm having trouble thinking of what domain name to get. Ideally I want it to be a .co.uk, and I want it to be sensible enough that I could put it on a CV. I'd quite like something witty or thought provoking. Choosing domain names is a very tough task! :(
Rob, any luck with the RSS?
Sunday 10th February 2008
Rob reported a problem with my RSS. It should hopefully be fixed now. Each <item> has a <pubDate> so that readers can know when each entry was written.
Thursday 7th February 2008
I'm currently doing something I've principally disagreed with for ever, and am still not sure it's really a wise move... I am paying for a legal album download, from the iTunes music store. It annoys me how nice the store is to use actually, it certainly is done very well. Anyway yeah, I'm downloading (it's just finished) the debut EP by a lovely girl called Marié Digby. I first discovered her from her cover of Umbrella on YouTube. Despite being amazingly good looking, she also seemed to have a lovely voice (even through a normal computer mic and YouTube's compression) and be no stranger to a guitar (lovely muting technique). A bit more poking around seems she's had a go on a piano too. Anyway I suddenly remembered her again out the blue today, and listened to some proper studio recorded songs on MySpace. So I then did something dangerous, and looked on iTunes to see if there were any songs on there. There was a four track EP. iTunes' typical £0.79 per track (I believe this is still far more expensive than the US equivalent). Anyway, four tracks at 79p, or £1.99 for the whole EP. This was the deal maker for me. So now I have these four useless files on my laptop. Would be nice if I could listen to them on my main computer, or maybe in the car. Sadly just a dream.
I was reading the T&Cs of the store. I'm apparently allowed to "copy Products solely for personal, noncommercial use". Fantastic, I thought. I then read on where "[I] agree that [I] will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any person to, circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules, or interfere with, remove or alter any rights management information on the Products."
So it seems I'm allowed to copy the file wherever I want, but I can't break the encryption... So essentially I can move the file to my Linux computer, but not actually listen to the song. I assume it's not referring to being allowed to copy it to another Mac, or iPod, or iPhone, as there was separate clauses for that higher up. I'm a bit confused. I certainly will have a crack (no pun intended) at getting an MP3 out of these files though.
On the plus side, those four songs I bought are lovely. One is a studio version of Umbrella which seems a bit of a waste. I would have rather had another original, but nevermind. I think I'd certainly pay for a proper CD of her album whenever it appears. I don't think this will be the start of my buying lots of DRM encrusted pieces of crap from Apple though.
Shit, it's 4:30am. I need to stop doing this.
Tuesday 5th February 2008
I got in trouble yesterday for not having updated this since making my RSS feed.
My sleeping pattern is completely messed up again. Sunday night/Monday morning I stayed up until about 5am doing stuff for work. I then woke up at about 9:30am and did some more work. Then some time in the afternoon I slept again waking up at about 9:30pm when I continued to do some work. As much as my crap sleeping isn't good for my health, it certainly does seem to encourage me to do more work!
Saturday night we all went down to Basingstoke to celebrate Hayley's birth. It all seemed to come to an end quicker than I had expected. I was quite tired, but was having a nice time when the pub suddenly seemed to be closing.
So I've been quite seriously thinking about buying a Diesel car lately. Hayley and Matt both seemed to think this was a bad idea, but I was trying to explain that in the last 6 months I've done over 10k miles, and spend most of my time on the A3 or the M25. I think petrol cars definitely feel better to drive in a fun way, but I think I've hit a time in my life where a Diesel is the more sensible option. About a year ago, I remember Rob saying something that stuck with me. He likened buying a Diesel car to buying an Apple Mac computer. That is, until he had one, he wouldn't have thought they'd be any good, but once he'd got one, he wouldn't go back. For those confused why it stuck, I take my Mac laptop to work with me every time without fail. I just find I can get stuff done so much quicker on a Mac. So yes, maybe it's Diesel time!