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.

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

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

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

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.

Technorati tags: blogging, live spaces, web publishing, tools, windows live writer

Andy McKee – "Gates to Gnomeria"  

Don Alder – "Sayonara Calm" 

Michael Hedges – "Because It’s There" 

Albums on Amazon

• Andy McKee – Art of Motion 
• Michael Hedges – Aerial Boundaries

Reference

• Guitar Tools Lens
• Wikipedia: Guitar Performance Techniques

Tags: acoustic guitar, Andy McKee, Don Alder, harp guitar, guitar, guitarists, Michael Hedges, music, videos, YouTube

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

• Comixpedia: the Webcomics Encyclopedia
• Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog
• Wikipedia Category: Webcomics

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.

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.

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.