Anyhoo, as a result of a series of random conversations in work (and when I say random, I do mean random – that’s one of the great things about where I work), I challenged one of my colleagues to the Desert Island C90 Challenge.

I partook in this a year and a half ago and found it great fun – you should try it; If you could only take one c90 cassette (remember them kids?) of music to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you put on it?

As I say, it came up in conversation, but it prompted me to look back on what I chose, to see if I would change anything on there.

Then I remembered that I posted again in March 2009 to say that the music industry were suing Youtube for unlicensed material unless it was removed. So I thought I’d check how many of the embedded videos I had added to my mixtape had survived. It made interesting reading.

So here we are; a naming and shaming of bands/artists out of my 2009 top 24 tracks that allowed their publishers to remove material under the guise of ‘copyright infringement’. Granted some of the artists are dead now, but let’s not let that get in the way of a rant. More than half of the tracks I chose are now barred on Youtube:

The Mamas & Papas, The Rolling Stones, The Cocteau Twins, The Sex Pistols, Billy Talent, Bon Jovi, The Go Go’s, The Associates, Nirvana, Muse, U2, The Smiths and The Jam. Disappointing, given the amount of money I’ve contributed to those very bands through vinyl, CD, merchandise and gig tickets over the years.

And of the others; The Cult, Bluetones, Queens of the Stone Age, Stevie Wonder, Radiohead, Ugly Kid Joe, The Bangles, REM, Simon & Garfunkel, Gary Jules, The Four Tops, all but two of them (The Bluetones and Gary Jules) were either live versions or soundtrack only with pics.

Perhaps “the man” doesn’t have as much control over the usage of those.
So maybe I need to do a trawl for some live examples…

I even offer a ‘purchase’ option on the post, giving those very fat cats a slice if someone paid.

Get a grip corporate sharks!

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A while ago when I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook all was seamless, syncs downloads etc.

Then I got my ‘proper’ camera and installed the EOS utilities on the Mac. All was working fine, but the next time I plugged the iPhone in, I got a little popup dialogue saying there was no camera found.

Everything else still synced OK, but I couldn’t see any way to get pics off the phone. Tonight I wanted one of the pics off the phone, so decided I’d better have a look about.

Turns out there’s a handy app on the Mac called “Image Capture” you can utilise to do just this.

Just search for it using the spyglass search on the top right of the Mac toolbar. Start this app and you can download the pics from the iPhone. You can create a folder on your drive and download them all to there.

Short and sweet, but there you go!

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Following a random conversation (we have a lot of them at work – it’s great) about the above product some time ago, one of my esteemed colleagues in some sort of Twilight Zone-style coincidence/conspiracy happened across the stuff at a visit to, of all places, a garden centre!

It was in small clear-plastic pots, as opposed to the original packaging, illustrated above. It looked more like some kind of illicit drug, I suspected Methadrone, given the powdered form, garden centre connection and recent publicity.

For anyone not familiar with Creamola Foam, this was a powder/crystalline product from the 60′s/70′s that, when added to water, creates a fizzy, foaming, flavoured drink. I have fond memories of this. I remember eating this stuff off a spoon and letting it fizz and bubble in my mouth.

The product has not been on sale, as far as I know, for a long time and according to various reports, the maufacturers have lost the recipe. So although the ingredients are known, the quantities and process are not.

As if getting her hands on some of this wasn’t enough, Vicki managed to get both orange and strawberry flavours. Orange was a particular favourite of mine from back in the day. We all gathered round this afternoon to sample the delights of yester-year. The scene resembling a group of adolescents daring each other to try out some kind of illicit substance. Some of those present weren’t even old enough to remember when this was out first time round.

Once the powder was added to the water, cups of the fabled elixir were passed around the assembled throng. The smell of the fizzing concoction transported me back over thirty years in an instant, it was amazing. And the taste was exactly as I remembered it. Fantastic!

Factoring in my age now, I would have to say I would probably think twice about giving this to my kids. I think they would be absolutely fleeing after drinkling, or should that be ‘taking’, this.

Nevertheless, the experience was fantastic. The garden centre that sells it isn’t far from me – I may just pay a wee visit…

If you want the ingredients off the packet, here they are (courtesy of Mr Foamy)

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So, after a quick assessment of the models on the market and a bit of (perhaps biased) consultancy from a good friend of mine, I plumped for the Canon EOS 500D.

I was swithering between the 50D and 500D but, given I’m no pro-type photographer, decided the 500D was good enough for me. Having a whole load more settings I didn’t understand how to work wouldn’t have added to the fun.

And, in any case I could spend the price differential on extra glass.

See, I’m talking the talk already…

I’ll perhaps look at creating a new area within the blog for some of my pictures. Sorry, shots. But given there are so many ways to share everything on the web these days, I may just stick to the usual suspects.

I know I’m no David Bailey, but I do know what I like to look at. So I plan to aim at seeing if I can produce anything good enough to warrant putting up on my own wall as a starter for ten.

To get to that stage will require a combination of learning, practice, feedback and more practice. So I’m going to publish some shots to see what the opinion is via downloads and/or comments.

So far, I’ve opted for a stock photography site, what seems like an arty-types site, good old Flickr and the excellent concept site Blipfoto.

Feel free to have a look, and/or comment.

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A pet-hate of mine is that annoying noise that plays when your machine starts up. Whether it’s a PC or a Mac, I have no idea why someone would think it was a good idea to by default play a sound at startup, or shutdown for that matter.

What is the benefit of that? No, I can’t think of it either.

Strange thing is, on the Mac it’s not something you can easily get rid of. So, other than remembering to mute the sound before shutdown, you’re was stuck with it. Grrrr.

However, after a little bit of digging about, I’ve found a method to stop the startup sound on the Mac without the rest of the sound being muted.

Unfortunately it’s an add-in as opposed to a hack, but it does the job.

Just go to the Arcana Research site and download their little add-in – StartupSound.prefPane – and follow the instructions.

Once you install, an extra icon, called “Startup Sound”, appears in your System Preferences app. Just click it and check the ‘mute’ checkbox: Job done. No more annoying startup noise.

(although for some strange reason it also lets you set a specific volume for it should you so wish; more craziness!)

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