THiS and THaT
Lots of iPod stuff to clear up:
First, I had a guy email me out of the blue the other day asking me if he could buy my iPod poster off of me which appears in the iVideo that we made. “It would really brighten up my student wall room!”, he writes, “And as I can’t find one on eBay anywhere – would you be willing to sell it to me?”. I think I should charge him twenty quid, and make him pay it all in 50p’s. Or of course, I could just charge him 50p – but make him travel to come and meet me and pick it up in person. What do you think?
Contributor Steven (#2) points out to me the fun that you can have if you have two iPods (er.. like I do!) as there is now this piece of dedicated hit for iPod DJ’ing.
It’s the iDJ Mixing Console for iPod and I think I want one! I don’t need it .. I just want it. Subtle difference.
I also had an interesting experience with my PC this weekend. I was fiddling with the settings on the BIOS, and ended up doing a ‘jumper reset’ to clear something and put it back to factory settings. This was fine until I later ran up iTunes, played a protected AAC song that I’d bought off of the music store, and found that I had to re-enter my ITMS password, and one of my five authorisations that you get got used up!
“That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think?” I emailed to Apple straight away, and asked if many other people had this problem when they upgraded or had similiar issues with their PC’s.
Well hats off and full credit to Apple, because within 24 hours (and they said it would be up to 72 hours), they came back to me with a very nice email which said:
“Dear Geoff,
Thank you for contacting the iTunes Music Store.
We have manually deauthorised your registered computers from the iTunes Music Store. You can now reauthorise the computers that you intend to use.
For security reasons we generally do not perform this service. However, in this case we have made an exception. If you plan to sell or stop using a computer, be sure to deauthorise it before you no longer have access to it.
Sincerely,
The iTunes Music Store team”
Wow! How good is that off them? Nice one Apple, and a superb bit of customer service, I think.
To wrap up this iFest, it’s worth pointing out (and I feel like publishing again) my current Top 10 ‘most played’ on my ‘pod/tunes, because that Depeche Mode track which I’ve only had for just over a week now, has stormed its way into the Top 10. And it’s put me in such a good mood, that I’m not even embarassed to admit anymore that there’s an Atomic Kitten track in my overall Top 10 as well – and yes, you may heckle away!
After living in London for the first 33 years of my life and working for the 
So for ten weeks in June, July and August 2009, I drove 20,000 miles around the the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA visiting towns and places that shared the same name as places on The London
Not being privileged enough to own an iPod – does it really put the key of the music in there itself, or is that you adding it by hand?
Guess it helps if you want to be depressed – dial up songs in D minor (the saddest of all keys…)
Being a dedicated iBlog reader, i can tell you that he adds it by hand, as he mentioned this a while ago
Geoff, Geoff, Geoff …
Please have word about number 4 on that list.
Actually, forced to make the choice of a song to listen to from that list, I’d take the Atomic Kitten.
But each to their own.
There’s a song named after the South Coast’s finest resort, Hayling Island?
I do indeed work out on my keyboard, and add in manually the key that my favourite songs are in.
I then have playlists which group together songs that are in the same key (e.g. E Flat, my favourite) for a more seamless listening experience when you mix them back to back.
G major’s another good one, as is B Flat.
FC Kahuna’s “Hayling” is the most sublime, blissed out tune manageable – I used to think it was The Groove Armarda’s “At the river”, but this is just that little bit better than that for those ‘ultimate’ chillout moments….
What you want to do is be a bit more clever and make it so the ending chord of one tune is the dominant (or 5th chord, chord V if you like) of the starting chord of the next tune, meaning each tune leads into the next with a lovely perfect cadence.
In other words – end chord G, start chord of next tune C, end chord Bb, start chord of next tune Eb, etc. Blimey, this is enough to make me want my own iPod to do this. Anyone fancy donating me 50p towards it?
You can only take the “cirle of fifths” listening strategy so far. Good luck finding a pop song in F# or other such obscure keys. I do like the idea of it though. Mind you, the way so many songs tend to modulate upwards by one (or even two) semi-tones also plays havoc with steady progression through the keys. Pity really.
Last minute modulations, or “boy band key changes” as I call them, don’t neccessarily mess with things that much – as long as you’re basing it on the chord at the end then everyone’s happy and it’s all sorted! Marvellous.
Of all the Atomic Kitten tracks to choose, you could have chosen a better one. Like Be With You or The Last Goodbye…
BDB – I disagree. It’s in B-Flat, which is a beautiful beautiful key to play in, and not that far removed (in terms of notes/frequencies used) from my beloved E-Flat.
I’m still getting my head around the ‘Circle of Fifths’ stratgety – sounds like it should actually be the name of the next Lord of the Ring film. Heh… What do you think I am – muscally educated or something? Pah!
“Wow! How good is that off them? Nice one Apple, and a superb bit of customer service, I think.”
Geoff, Apple rocks. You will find the same level of good quality CS when (or if) you ever get a G5 computer.
Hmm, I still haven’t played the Atomic Kitten track you gave me, maybe I will right now.
Hey, we met t’other day in case you’ve forgotten me
and i think that is a fantastic top 10 list of music!! I like 7 out of 10 of them at the mo… and i don’t know the other 3, so maybe i’d like them as well.
Good luck at this quiz thing tomorrow, keep an eye on chris 4 me
Hmm Charlotte, if that is your real name.
Fancy seeing you on here!
In responce so somebody claiming there not to be a great song in F# I thought i’d throw in that Radiohead’s ‘Pyramid song’ is in F# and thatis quite frankly that greatest genius of a song i’ve ever heard.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4286294.stm
Anyone know any more about the iPod nano screen-problems? Is this a storm-in-a-teacup?
wots going on with ure comments…y is it all under each other
a
bit
like
this
?
What screen resolution you running in Kathleen? You should at least be on 1024×768 nowadays!
I saw more first iPod-nano yesterday – someone on the graphics team got one, and they are AMAZINGLY tiny! and very light. now i want one just for the sake of it.
Sod the Pod – I want a PSP. Not to play music on, mind – I can’t afford those ridiculously expensive Sony corporate world takeover memory “sticks”. I already have a MuVo2 4GB player (WHICH DOES HAVE A HARD DRIVE EVEN THOUGH IT IS SMALL, thanks!).
could just be cos I’m not very good at remembering to where glasses so I keep huge text on the computer. Tis ok tho
Its sorted itself..and i was getting the same thing at uni too!