n3wjack's blog

enduser and bong-ra breakcore set

n3wjack — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:07:34 +0000

I’m going to keep it short and simple in this one. I noticed an Enduser mix being posted at the Ad Noiseam label blog (great label btw),which also links to a sweet Bong-Ra mix (also wicked). Both are hosted at the Electronic Explorations blog which is starting to become one hell of a resource for cutting edge electronic music. Time to keep an eye on that one and store it in your feed reader.

If you like this, I posted about similar sets here and here.

Also don’t forget to check out the Love Love free breakcore EP’s (and more) I posted about here. I’m still listening to this quality material.

must see vid: prodigy – smack my bitch up

n3wjack — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:29:54 +0000

Time for another one of these. A wicked song with an even more wicked video. You’ve probably seen the original on TV after the kinds have gone to bed, since it features some behaviour that they’ll have to find out about for themselves when they start going out. You don’t want to ruin all the fun in advance right? This video especially owns because of the twisted ending. Had to look for the uncensored version for a bit though.

The second video is also interesting to watch if you want to find out what Liam sampled to make this awesome tune. There’s a few of those going around as well, but the one I picked is the most original and creative of them all without someone trying to show off their Ableton skills.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So here’s that “making of” video, sort off.

Click here to view the embedded video.

get your free and legal breakcore fix

n3wjack — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:28:31 +0000

As the holidays are only a few hours from being over and done with, I’m burning myself a neat little CD-R filled with mp3′s I’ve downloaded for free over the internet from a few netlabels I’ve been pimping in here a few times before. Never the less I’m going to mention them again because they have brought me hours of good breakcore tunes without having to leave the house or dish out some real or digital cash.

If you are in for some new and good breakcore tunes for cheaps, be sure to check out these labels.

The ZombFreeMP3 label over at Ninja Columbo from Miike Teknoist bringing hard DJ mixes and great hardcore drum’n'bass/breakcore releases. If you know the man’s music, you know what to expect. Sort of.
Then there’s Love Love Records. I mentioned them before with the Piss On Your Rave EP which turns out to be just one of the great releases hosted there. They had a bit of a hosting problem at the moment of the previous post, but that’s been mostly fixed now. So you can go ahead and get yourself some free mp3s ranging from banging breakcore beats to more IDM-ish synthy techno sounds. This compilation is a good starting point for one. Check it out!
Last.fm isn’t bad either. I’ve scrobbled the noise I listed to over there for quite a while already. The last.fm boffins came up with some sizzling algorithms that figure out what kind of music you are into and give you a bunch of free similar music just for the heck of it. The music itself is posted on last.fm for free by the artists themselves, so it’s all fair play too. Which is nice. I got myself a good 200 MB of free tunes that way and I have to say that the larger part of it is stuff I indeed like. An interesting new way of finding out about new artists I’d say.
If you have an account there, log in and check out Recommendations > Free mp3s

Photo by Viqi French, cc-licensed.

mobile internet in belgium, who’s the cheapest?

n3wjack — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:29:15 +0000

Note for international readers: this post concerns data limits for Belgian mobile providers making this probably not very interesting if you don’t live in this small but lovely country. You are however free to brag in the comments on how cheap your data traffic is, as that will probably be the case.

Updated 28-8-2010 due to new Base surf-5 changes.

I’ve heard good things about Mobile Vikings lately. That they offer cheap data access for your smartphone for example. And they have a cool sounding name. I’m with the lads from Base myself and quite pleased with their service and pricing so far. But since the Mobile Vikings are actually using the Base network, I thought it was worth checking out who of the two is the cheapest and if it would be worth switching.

Comparing cellphone providers is always a bitch. So I’m keeping it simple here. I’m only looking at the costs for data traffic. Costs for text messages and phone calls are simply not included. If you feel like switching you’ll have to look into that as well to see if it’s still a good thing for your personal situation. For the iPad or netbooks some providers have specific formats which are also excluded.

There are basically two type of accounts:

The so-called “top-up account“, where you pay up front and get a fixed volume of bandwidth to spend. If all your megabytes are used up you fall back to a basic (and usually expensive) rate. The volume only lasts a month after which not spent but paid for megabytes are lost. Yes, they are clever like that.
The monthly fee is where you pay a fixed amount every month (hence the word “monthly”) and get a certain volume to spend on data. If you spend more, you are charged for the extra traffic on a fixed rate. This rate is usually more interesting than with the top-up accounts. Next month you start fresh again. Any bandwidth not spend is of course lost. Yes, they are also clever like that.

That roughly counts for most providers, but details may vary.

Now what did I compare?
What I wanted to know is: how much would I pay with each provider if I spend X megabyte a month.

So I slapped that in a grid calculating the price for each combination of volume in MB with each formula, going from 1 to 2500 MB. Then I added some colours to make it a bit easier to spot where you get more surfing for your buck.

The cheapest ones shop up in green.
White is OK. It’s in between the cheap and expensive.
In orange you see numbers light up that are twice as high or bigger than the cheapest calculation for that volume. You have the right to feel screwed if you’re paying that much.

(Click for a bigger view, see links further to download the spreadsheet.)

What does this pretty coloured table show us?

What I see is that Mobile Vikings is indeed cheaper if you are a big spender (over 500 MB). Mobistar Max does well there too for volumes over 1 GB.
If you’re surfing at no more than 10 50 MB a month, Base is the winner. That however is extremely low for a smartphone I’ve noticed. This is only good for very occasional use. Good for the occasional surf session.
Mobistar is the best below 150 MB apparently, with Telenet and Base as a close second.
You can also see that some formulas turn out crazy expensive at some point, so it’s better to steer away from those if you’re thinking about doing some serious surfing.
There is no clear winner. Depending on the volume, you can end up with the best or the worst.
Proximus is not a winner. Lot’s of orange over there.
One thing I see is that’s a good thing to stick to free WiFi, as these rates aren’t cheap at all.

Take a look for yourself to see what is the best option for you depending on your monthly spending rate.
You can take a more detailed look with this PDF, the original Open Office spreadsheet or this converted online Google Docs spreadsheet. Colour coding is missing there, as that doesn’t seem to convert.

Some notes on the spreadsheet:

The Mobile Vikings Jumbo pack isn’t in the table as it’s not interesting when looking at data only.
For the top-up account I assumed that as soon as the volume is spent, it’s topped up again using the same fee as before. So in this scenario you never pay the more expensive base rates charged per megabyte.
The lowest value is checked with a margin of 0.1 cent. That way Proximus doesn’t end up being the cheapest with their sneaky x,99 rates just by a single cent.
Pricing info came from the Base, Mobile Vikings, Telenet, Mobistar and Proximus websites of course.

Photo by svet, cc-licensed.

motorola milestone europe android 2.1 update

n3wjack — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:21:38 +0000

I got myself a totally bad-ass Motorola Milestone Android phone a while ago. I was excited about it cause it looks so damn awesome with the black shiny display and all, and it’s got frigging Android on it so it rocks with all the apps and geekness it offers. After a while however I noticed some things are kinda buggy on it too and I started looking for some answers online.

At first I wanted to figure out if I was having a broken phone (hardware issue) which I could simply return or if it was the OS/software which was the problem. After a long search online finding lots of people with the same issues on Motorola Droid & Milestone phones (and also on HTC actually) it turns out I was plagued by some Android 2.1 problems. The good thing is Motorola is currently sending out updates for these problems for Milestone mobiles all over, including Europe. The annoying thing is that it’s taking them a while and it’s unclear which countries will be next in line. First off, here’s the bugs that are to be fixed in that update. If you’re having any of these issues, that patch should fix it:

Improved Stability Prevents the phone from random power cycling (turning off and on), and minimizes force closes in certain applications.
Alarm Improvements Resolves issues with alarm functionality.
Music Player Functionality
Eliminates accidental starting of music.
Audio Quality Enhancements Eliminates instances of choppy audio experienced by some users.
PIN Lock Improvements Allows users more flexibility in setting the PIN Lock timer when using Exchange email.
Proximity Sensor Enhancement
Provides more accurate proximity sensing during phone calls.
Flight Mode Enhancement
Ensures phone service is restored after leaving air-plane mode.
“My Location” Improvements
Resolves the issue of Google Maps failing to find “My Location” when “Use Wireless Network” is enabled without using GPS.

Quit something isn’t it? Personally I find the random reboots the most annoying, the failing clock a perfect excuse for turning up late at work and the accidental start of music the best way to scare the crap out of your cat (or yourself when you’re checking your mail in the middle of the night).

The best place to track info on where the update will be launched next for Europe is at the Motorola Europe Facebook account apparently. I’ve looked all over for this kind of info, including various twitter accounts (@motomobile, @motodev), their own owner support forums (unchecked by Motorola it seems) and even direct emails to the guys where I got the phone from. That last one was pretty crazy as they contacted Motorola UK which claimed to not even know about the restart issues which I described in quite some detail.

For the world-wide upgrade schedule + the schedule for other mobiles like the Backflip, Dext and Quench you can look here, although it doesn’t contain a lot of details.

the teknoist filthcast

n3wjack — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:10:15 +0000

More Teknoist goodness this week! If you checked out the Filthcast sessions from the Barcode recordings camp you know you’re in for some really kick-ass beats with the Teknoist behind the decks.

This mix is packed with the hardest drum’n'bass, breakcore and industrial-techno-rave-hardcore, or whatever it’s called. It rocks. Check it out.

Interested in finding out some more about this mad hatter behind the decks? Check out this interview at the Ad Noiseam label site.

DJ Shadow – Outsider (Universal Mowtown)
Diode – Antimatter (Abducted)
Hellfish – Theme From Fuck Daddy (Deathchant)
Spor – Kaori (Lifted Music)
Eendymion – Abduction (Enzyme)
I:Gor – Icebreaker (Counterstrike Remix) (Nekrolog1k Recordings)
Bkey – Scanner (Barcode Recordings)
Unexist & Mad Dog – Fight THe Power (DT6 Inc)
Skeptic – Tear (East Side)
Remarc – RIP Remix (Planet Mu)
Bizzy B – Darkside (Brain 2)
Spor – Kingdom (Lifted Music)
The DJ Producer – Tectonics (Rebel Scum)
The Teknoist – Unheard Voices (Sustained)
Noisia – Machine Gun (16 Bit Remix) (Division)
Hecq – Bane
Donny – HUH, ER, OW (The Teknoist Mashup)
Donny – The Resistance (Algorythm Recordings)
AK-Industry – Nekrolog1k Anthem (The Teknoist Remix) (Nekrolog1k Recordings)
The Teknoist – Richies Breakcore Love Song (AD Noiseam)
Dolphin & The Teknoist – The Ordasity
Dolphin & The Teknoist – John Carpenters Squidsophrenic Lovechild
Enter Shikari – Sorry Your Not A Winter (The Teknoist Remix)

Photo by Mr Guep, cc-licensed

the teknoist breakcore mix on bbc radio 1

n3wjack — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:10:37 +0000

The topic tittle says it all doesn’t it? You just know this is going to rock your socks off.
Say no more! Say. No. More!

Hard breakcore, drum’n'bass and a slice of ‘ardcore dubstep in the mix by The Teknoist. Only 21 minutes and 28 seconds long unfortunately, but hey, better than nothing right? It’s up for grabs over at his very own Soundcloud account, and you’ll better get is ASAP cause you can only get about a 100 downloads from there before the download option is deactivated.

The Teknoist Live on BBC 1 09.07.2010 – Radio 1 gets it’s trainers robbed mix

Photo by Gandy_EA, cc-licensed.

google docs as a wiki?

n3wjack — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:24:00 +0000

I love Google Docs. The fact that you can share documents online with anyone in a matter seconds and collaborate on documents is something I really miss when it’s not there. Like at work. With MS Office. And emailing spreadsheets and documents back and forth. Blegh.

In fact, the whole document publishing/sharing thing even allows you to use it as some sort of rudimentary open wiki site. You can share any text document and publish it as an internet page. But you can also open this page up for editing by anyone, with or without a Google Account. How’s that for openness?

// how it works

Once your document is published, you change the share settings to public for the internet, and allow anyone on the world wide web to edit the page as well. You don’t even need a Google Account to be able to edit the page, but if you have one you have some more options of course.

It’s awesome.

When two people are editing the document at the same time, they will even see the changes happening live on their screen. By clicking the name in the top right corner of the other person viewing the page, they can even chat about what they want to do with the page. There’s more room for collaboration by using the comment feature. Just select a portion of text and insert a comment for it (you can only see those when you edit though).

And it’s all free.

// downsides?

You don’t have the same level of control over this kind of editable open page as you’d have in a regular wiki website of course, but then again you didn’t have to set up a website either now did you?

Depending on who’s editing your page might evolve into something that looks like a good old Geocities or Myspace mess of clashing image, font types and colours, but if people behave a little it might turn out just fine.

Maybe not to be used for too large and open projects as it’s too easy to vandalise, but for smaller groups this might be the cheapest and easiest way to set up a shared online mini-site open to anyone who receives the link.

If you want to give it a shot, there’s a completely editable page right here, with roughly the same text as I’ve posted here.

Photo by dhammza, cc-licensed

slugplates are full of dub

n3wjack — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:02:00 +0000

All this breakcore needs to be balanced out with some slowish yet manly dubstep now and then doesn’t it? Manly indeed, cause this isn’t the kind of music you slow-dance too now is it? It’s all about smoking fat spliffs, downing a few pints and bobbing your head to the low frequencies. Or at least, that’s what I imagine it is about anyway. No matter how you enjoy your dubstep, be it at a summer BBQ with a glass of spiked sangria in your hand or while sitting in your cubicle at work under artificial lights and in an air-cooled climate injecting the beats and bass in your brain through your ear buds, still bobbing that head, it’s all good.

Slugplates 5 contains tracks from among others : Kryptic Minds (also the drum’n'bass lads I suppose), Loefah, Vex’d, Benga, N-Type and a number of Cogent tracks from the Counter Motions free EP.

You can get it and stream it at SoundCloud, get it as a SendIt download (including artwork) or listen to it on MixCloud.
You can also get their previous mixes on SoundCloud, so don’t tell me you ain’t getting your dubstep fix with this one OK?

Photo by Mr Guep, cc-licensed

paniq is making an album

n3wjack — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:11:08 +0000

That’s right. The final goal has been reached, so Paniq & Sylvia now have all the funding they need to can this awesome piece of free music in the next months.
It’s great, it’s awesome and it’s gonna be free for everyone and all over the web (I think). Well it should be at least, so keep an eye open for this one cause this could be the start of a great new (r)evolution in online art and music making (see this post by @Kurreltheraven about it as well) and it only took 190 folks to donate.

From Paniq’s post:

You people are awesome. I simply don’t know what to say other than: thank you, times and times again. Never would we have believed that it takes only 190 people and a few days to make something good happen.

Wicked. Now go make a smashing album!