David's Blog

Leeds and Manchester

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:44:00 +0000

A couple more pics taken with my iPhone and tweaked in Photoshop

Manchester Town Hall

Leeds Railway Station

Ice Sculptures in York

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:22:00 +0000

Pictures taken with my iPhone. A few of them I played about with the backgrounds using Photoshop - the sculptures themselves are unedited apart from the Lion which had his green eyes added :)

Angel

Bob

Lion

Creating a Sculpture

Scooby Doo

Scoobly Doo 2

Spiderman

Images from The Yorkshire Guitar Fair 7-11-2010

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:52:00 +0000

Really enjoyed my visit to Ken Dixon's Yorkshire guitar fair in Thirsk today. Good crowd, plenty of stalls and some great kit to be found.

Guitar and Amplifier Photos

Internet Marketing Resources for Free

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:44:00 +0000

Jim Daniels is an Internet Marketer that I've been following for probably 10 years or more. He's just launched a new marketing resource website and is offering free membership at the moment.

Go take a look while it's free - check it out

Google Instant - A new type of search?

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:28:00 +0000

Google Instant is a new type of search.

'Instant' differs from standard search in that results immediately appear while you are still typing in you search term. For example if I type the search box Music t as if I was about to search for Music Technology Google presents results immediately after I type the 't' connected with 'Music Theory' as this is the most popular search, according to Google! I'm not sure how useful this, I guess like anything new, you have to get used to how it works. Google also switched 'Instant' off automatically while at one stage "due to slow broadband speed" which I thought was a little strange. I don't have a particularly slow connection by any means.

If you would like to learn more about Google Instant and how it might affect your SEO if you have a website, Jonathan Leger has written an interesting article at http://jonathanleger.com/does-google-instant-change-the-seo-game/

Happy Searching : )

Augmented Reality - What is it?

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:36:00 +0000

Well it's difficult to explain and as it's such a visual technology it's best demonstrated via video. Below is a quick demo of Augmented Reality technology being used in a simple greetings card from the card company 'Hallmark'. This is a 'light-hearted' use of the technology but it's uses are infinite.

Here is an application of AR from Olympus advertising one of their new compact digital cameras.

Augmented Reality or 'AR' was developed by the French company 'Total Immersion'. It's well worth a look at their video gallery to see applications already in use by companies in the car, aircraft, amusement, and games industry to name just a few.

Here is a video of how Nissan use 'AR'

York Early Evening

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:31:00 +0000

On an September evening walking in the City of York....

link to photos

"Improvisation is like skating on ice....." Lang Lang

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:55:00 +0000

"Improvisation is like skating on ice....." Lang Lang

What amazing talent they have!!

Amazing Stone Carving Festival in York

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:58:00 +0000

York Minster's International Stone Carving Festival took place today. The skill was incredible.

Flamborough Head - Nature Reserve

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:48:00 +0000

This is an amazing place. Dramatic views, cliffs, sea, and wildlife. Well worth a visit.

All taken with my Nikon D5000

Blogger grows up....

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:31:00 +0000

Well I have to say well done to Blogger for including new design template tools for their blogs. The old templates were getting very 'tired' looking and desperately needed updating. The likes of WordPress had left Blogger for dead, but now you can now change backgrounds, change the width of your blog and side bars individually, change layouts, headers, text, link and theme colours really easily from their interface by using sliders, colour pickers etc etc - I'm impressed : )

iPhone app updated - background listening arrives - at last!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:20:00 +0000

What's good about the latest IPhone software iOS 4? - Multitasking!

It's really useful - you can now continually listen to music on Spotify for instance while surfing the web, checking your facebook page etc etc. It seems faster to me too. You don't have to have the latest IPhone either. I upgraded my 'old' IPhone 3G without a problem.

James Taylor and Carol King Live - Extraordinary!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:29:00 +0000

James Taylor and Carol King preformed together at The Troubadour in an extraordinary concert. You can catch it on BBC Iplayer. It's a 'must watch'

Brand New Website

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:35:00 +0000

The NCEM (National Centre for Early Music) has a brand new website, combining the NCEM and Music4U sites in one. Put together by One To One Productions - headed by Andy Campbell who's enormous amount of work and patients has created a fast loading, elegant, and easy to use website. There's a comprehensive 'Whats On' calendar, an Early Music Artists Directory, education resources, information about recording and conference facilities plus much more. Take a look at the new National Centre for Early Music website and see for yourself

York Illuminate Festival

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:38:00 +0000

Here is a video of some of the interactive Light and Digital Art exhibits at The York Illuminate Festival

New Version of Spin It Again V2.5 now available

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Having tested several type of software for transferring LP's and Cassettes there is no better software than Spin It Again to make the job as easy as possible. The wizard takes you through the process in easy steps and Spin It Again has some powerful audio restoration built in to reduce annoying clicks, pops, and tape hiss.

Product features:

Supports monitoring on USB sound devices
Type in track and album information while recording
Automatically look up track information online
Great track detection based on typed or looked up information
Record two times longer Up to 13.52 hours at CD quality
New easy speed/rate adjuster for recording 78rpm records at 45 rpm
Change volume of each track for geat sounding compilations
Supports Vista fully
Dedicated interface to easily record cassettes and records. Easily transfer your vinyl LP to CD or cassette to CD .
Visual and audio wizards guide you through the recording level adjustment, hardware connections, recording and edit process.
Automatic track detection and silence removal algorithm splits your albums into tracks ready for your iPod, MP3 or CD player.
Automatically removes annoying clicks, pops and tape hiss.
Create audio CDs and/or convert recordings to MP3, OGG, WMA, and hi-fi WAV files.
For the more advanced users, easily record at hi-fi sample rates and bit depths and render out to hi-fi DVD audio ready files, if desired and supported. (48khz -> 192 khz, 24 bit audio)
Use Spin It Again to split up previously recorded MP3s, WAVs, WMAs or OGGs into multiple tracks or burn to CD.
Will burn tracks longer than one CD. For example, if you wanted to record a 4-tape audio book, it would burn it over as many CDs as it needed.

Hope you take a look - it works really well

Testing Electronic Components

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Testing Electronic Components is an essential part of fixing any electronic piece of equipment so if you are a 'newby' to electronics this ebook will help enormously. It's full of photographs and easy to understand techniques and will walk you through the essential processes needed to fix your electronics. I service guitar amps and audio related gear and found it really useful.

Testing Electronic Components is written by Jestine Yong, a professional engineer who mainly repairs and maintains TV but the type of components used in TV are exactly the same as any other type of equipment so this is truly a universal resource. Find out more about Testing Electronic Components at my website

Creating a Professional Website the easy way

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:06:00 +0000

I have a couple of websites, one I designed using Dreamweaver 3 quite a few years ago (and it looks like it!) which is my www.SoundAbout.net website and the other I designed and produced using X-SitePro2. Now X-SitPro2 isn't as versatile, and doesn't have some of the advanced features of Dreamweaver but what it does do, it does fantastically well. You produce static html webpages, but you can add video, audio, Adsense, Amazon affiliate links, PayPal buttons and stacks more with a few clicks of the mouse.

Updating your site is a breeze. If, for instance you wanted to edit the navigation or indeed change the entire look, then you can carry out your edit, or even choose a different navigation design altogether and X-SitePro2 updates the whole site for you - magic.

I produced my www.about-guitar-amps.com website with X-Site Pro2 and it was a breeze! I can add images or links to the header, side panels or footer and it'll be updated site-wide in an instant. It's so easy. It's not surprising that PC Adviser gave it a glowing review - see it here

You can also check out the review I wrote on my about-guitar-amps website at http://www.about-guitar-amps.com/web_design_made_easy.html

Oh - it's a Windows only based software - Shame, I'd like a Mac version too

Great New Electronic Component Testing Book

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:04:00 +0000

I came across this great e-book from Jestine Yong who is a professional electronics engineer specializing in electronic repair. Jestine has written a whole book dedicated to testing electronic components and it's pretty good! Take a look at it on the About Guitar Amps website

Thinking blog

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:04:00 +0000

go to http://jgnorbury.blogspot.com/

John Etheridge - guitar magic

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 30 May 2009 09:50:00 +0000

For you guitarists out there check out http://www.johnetheridge.com playing with his band Sweet Chorus

Saw them at Thornagby and it was magic

More Bad Things About Macs - Beware!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:46:00 +0000

Well I guess it was my fault but I have just deleted all my emails in my inbox on my mac.....

All I wanted to do was to delete a mail account and re-input the mail server data as, for some reason the account wasn't working properly. In MS Outlook or Express I could have done this, but in 'Mail' on a Mac, if you delete the account it takes all your emails in your inbox with it - never to be seen again, so beware.....

Funny old life isn't it

Free Music on 'Spotify'

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 09 May 2009 11:31:00 +0000

I was recommended to a new music service on the net yesterday - It's called 'Spotify' goodness knows why, but it is good. The freebie version which I've been using is great, although there is the odd ad which is fine by me - they don't interfere with the music though. There's a huge amount of music available and definitely worth a look.

concern.net

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Please go to www.concern.net You're needed......

Record Quality Audio on your iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:35:00 +0000

FiRe !!! no - don't panic - not that sort of fire. FiRe is an app for your iPhone. I've just downloaded it, at great cost £3.49 : ) ! and it's brilliant.
I wanted to be able to record quality audio to my iPhone and this app does just that. I can record my band practices and new songs, share the recordings with the other band members so easily.
So what does your £3.49 get you.....?

Record low, medium or high quality audio from internal or an external microphone. Excellent level meters, visual waveform creation as it records, insert markers, navigate audio with taps and double taps on the screen, export audio, email audio.....

It's great, and I dont have to fork out mega bucks on a portable audio recorder now. Find out more about it at http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/