zard's Oddcast

Cian from View from the Quad has very kindly lent me his show for the weekend.

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You should download this episode of View From The Quad by going to www.ViewFromTheQuad.com right now, young man! Don’t make me tell you again!

The first in a series of VFTQ Takeover shows so that I can safely sit my Leaving Cert, Zard brings us through half an hour of some wonderful music that he found lying around, interspersing it with both mindless nonsense and the oral scribblings of a misunderstood genius. I will leave you to work out which bits are which.

Remember: This show runs on YOUR donations! If you like what you hear here and want more of the same, head over to www.ViewFromTheQuad.com and leave a donation! It can be any amount you want, or a monthly €2 subscription. Thanks!

Here is the song list, with links.

Music from Music Alley – http://www.musicalley.com/

Millencolin – Kemp – http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=97007092b961d7e9a7d77c2614ee0086

The Milwaukees – Save Me – http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=835a96cfbeeff69de8100818165ccfba

Babylon Bombs – Hometown Hero – http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=4919bc647e8f9c08bbd0ca97baa1f470

Justin Hopkins – Why Would God Come to L.A. –http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=09fa9a56a7863b3850de6543fe682903

Black Lab – Gone – http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=835a96cfbeeff69de8100818165ccfba

Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains – http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=97007092b961d7e9a7d77c2614ee0086

You can find more out about John Merlin, this week’s guest host, at http://zard.me/ , where he runs his very own podcast, Zard’s Oddcast. Check it out! He can be found on twitter athttp://twitter.com/zard .

You can contact Cian by emailing cian@viewfromthequad.com.

Follow Cian on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cianmm and follow Scodio Studios athttp://www.twitter.com/scodio

Leave a comment on the show at www.ViewFromTheQuad.com and phone the voicemail line at 001 206 203 4610

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It’s essentially one of my regular shows, just with some intro and outro stuffs.

 

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zard Podcast Babylon Bombs, Black Lab, Jonathan Coulton, justin hopkins, millencolin, Milwaukees, music, Podcast, rock, view from the quad

Lots of heavy music in this show. Go grab it no

• JT Bruce – Dreamer’s Overture released under CC-BY-NC-ND
• Angel Vivaldi – As the Sky Lay Burning
• Dream Evil – Fire! Battle! In Metal!
• Antarhes – Still Fighting released under CC-BY-NC-SA
• [munk] – Blow Away
• Urbansnake – Alive and Lonely

Thanks to Music Alley and Jamendo. Thanks to you guys for listening and spreading the word.

 

 Standard Podcast [26:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

zard Podcast Angel Vivaldi, Antarhes, Dream Evil, JT Bruce, metal, munk, music, Podcast, rock, Urbansnake

Yesterday, I heard a couple of my lecturers talking about a page that one of them was trying to sort out. He was after, if I understood it correctly, a way of increasing the size of an area of the page or an image (so, zooming, in effect) whilst leaving the other areas unaffected.

So I sat about working this out, starting at about 1am. I did some basic work on it, before getting stuck on some of the logic, at which point I headed to bed.

This morning, returning with a refreshed mind, I was able to see where I was going wrong. Here’s a link to the working files.

What’s basically happening is that there are 5 divs that have been positioned absolutely – one in each corner and a fifth in the middle. When you hover over any of them, their size and positioning is altered and their z-index is upped (the font-size is also increased). It’s easy, really.

As you can see, it’s pretty basic, but it does the job. It can be used with sprites as background images and could prove useful.

zard Blog css

I use twitter. A lot.

I normally use TweetDeck, unless there are circumstances that prevent me from doing so (shitty Uni network, or being on my dumb phone). It’s powerful, but can be annoying at times, especially as it depends on the Adobe AIR framework. So I’m taking some time out today to look for a new client.

Here’s some basic criteria:

• OS X native – not AIR based
• Auto-complete/suggestion of user names
• Integration with the OS X dictionary
• Growl integration a benefit
• If it’s not free, it’s got to be really good
• Lists and searches need to be there

Quite a simple list. So, who are the contenders?

Syrinx

Is a good looking client, in so far as it fits in perfectly with the rest of OS X. The fact that you can display retweets in their own tab is a nice function. Sadly, it lacks everything on the list, except Growl and being native. No lists, no (obvious) retweet function, a gimped search function. Sorry Syrinx, you started strong, but fell so very early on.

Tototl

This app loses marks, in my book, because it throws all of your inbound tweets into the same column. It lacks dictionary integration and auto-complete/suggest, and there’s no list option. Oh, and you can’t cmd+tab to it. MAJOR flaw.

NatsuLion

This is another nice looking app that seems to fall short in the functions list – no dictionary, no auto-complete/suggest, no list function. *sigh* And loading tweets at the bottom? Counter-intuitive, to me at least.

Lounge

Oh Lounge, you get so close. Your search function is awesome, you suggest usernames as I type, but you don’t support lists, the new retweet function or spell checking. I will be keeping my eye on you.

TwitterPod

I’d heard good things about TwitterPod and so, I’d hoped that it would able to do what I wanted. Sadly not. A lot of the commands are buried away in the menubar, and it suffers from the same problems that almost all of the above clients have.

Twitterrific

Twitterrific is an ad supported app, (or ad free for $14.99), and yet it lacks so many of the items on my list, I wonder why anybody would pay for it. At least it spellchecks, I suppose.

Echofon

This has been my fall back client, for when TweetDeck fails on me. It’s pretty good – supports lists and the new retweet, but doesn’t spell check or auto suggest.

I know there are more OS X native apps out there, some that are python based, some that run as a dashboard widget. If you have a suggestion email me or @me. (Note: I’m currently awaiting an invite t the closed beta of Nambu.)

zard Uncategorized

If you read the site at zard.me and not in a feed reader, then you may have noticed that I’ve added a PayPal donate button to the sidebar. I’ve done this incase any of you like what I do and wish to support the show. I’m not going to push it in every blog post or podcast, but I reserve the right to remind you from time to time.

~zard

A quick edit: I should have pointed out that all donations will be greatly received and go towards covering the server and domain name costs here at zard towers.

zard Blog

Grab the show now.

Jonathan Coulton – W’s Duty
Blake Morgan – Danger to Wake You
The Beautiful Girls – Sir, Your Fashion Has The Cold Heart Of A Killer
Milwaukees – Oak Ridge
Black Lab – Learn To Crawl
Matthew Ebel – I Know You’re There

Thanks to MusicAlley and Jonathan Coulton.

 

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zard Podcast Black Lab, Jonathan Coulton, Matthew Ebel, Milwaukees, music, rock, The Beautiful Girls

Get it while it’s fresh!

Black Lab – Mine Again
Supersuckers – I Like It All, Man
Matthew Ebel – Trees
Milwaukees –  Moonshaker
Babylon Bombs – Louder

Thanks to Musical Alley for the music.

CC Chapman, man of awesome.
Matthew Ebel, musician of awesome.

 

 zard's Oddcast Episode 2 [19:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

zard Podcast Babylon Bombs, Black Lab, Matthew Ebel, Milwaukees, music, Podcast, rock, supersuckers

So it’s only been out there for a couple of days but here are my views on Google Buzz:

It’s rubbish.

Here’s my reasoning. All it does is bring features from Google Reader into my GMail inbox. I don’t need that in my inbox because I have Google Reader. Don’t believe me? Well let’s look at what Buzz offers.

1. The ability to see what your friends are up to on other websites
2. The ability to comment on what your friends are up to
3. The ability to share 3rd party pages/content
4. The ability to see what’s going on locally via GPS enabled mobiles

Let’s take a closer look at each of those points:

1. The ability to see what your friends are up to on other websites

Way back in 1999 some people were working towards this magic thing that they called RSS. This magic allows people to get updates from websites, on another website! It’s true! Not only that but in 2005, Google announced a project that they had been working called Google Reader. It was a way of reading RSS feeds. It meant that you could get all the posts from your favourite blogs and news sites in one place. It’s still around today.

Take my tongue out of my cheek now. Just about every site you are a member of has an RSS (or ATOM) feed: Twitter, Flickr, Picasa even Facebook has RSS feeds. Saying that Buzz allows you to see what your friends is up to is just saying that it subscribes you to any new feeds that your friends come up with.

2. The ability to comment on what your friends are up to

One of the things that sets Google Reader apart from other RSS readers (in my opinion) is the ability add notes on whatever it is that you’re reading, which can then be read by the people that are following you. Well knock me down with a feather if that isn’t exactly what Buzz allows you to do.

3. The ability to share 3rd party pages/content

So Google Reader allows you to read RSS feeds from not only your friends, but from other places as well, whether it’s a news website, a tech site or a niche blog. Imagine then, that you come across a post on Lifehacker (for argument’s sake) something that you know your friend will find really useful. Google Reader has a simple link that you can click that will share that post with your followers, much like the notes, mentioned above. I’ll be damned, so far, we’re 3 from 3.

4. The ability to see what’s going on locally via GPS enabled mobiles

And here is the one thing that Buzz has that Google Reader doesn’t. If you’re on an Android 2.1 handset or an iPhone, then you can see what people nearby are Buzzing about. I can see that being kinda cool, but I really don’t know that many people will actually use it. Who knows? What I do know is that the kind of thing I’d want to see from “non-friends” that are nearby are the kind of things that can abbreviated into a 140 characters. Oh and look who rolled out a geo-location API not so long ago.

So what if you don’t use Google Reader?

What are you stupid? OK, that may be a little harsh. Seriously though, if you’re not using an RSS reader (whether it’s Google Reader or not), you’re wasting time. Pretty much every website that you read, can be read in a feed reader, meaning that you don’t have to visit each individual site to get their latest updates. More than that, you can get the updates right in your feed reader, when the site updates. No more hitting refresh, to see if something new has been posted. If you’re using a feed reader, you may as well use one of the best, from a well known company that is (largely) trusted.

Everything I’ve said thus far is just why Buzz is a nothing new. Why do I go so far as to say that it’s rubbish? Because I’ve only been using it for a few days and I’m already seeing a huge amount of redundant data, whether it’s somebody’s tweets or shared links from Google Reader, I’m getting a lot of data twice. What does this mean? It means that I’m spending longer keeping up-to-date, except that I’m already up-to-date because all the data is a duplicate of data from somewhere else.

Here’s a quick anecdote to wrap up with: My wife signed in to her GMail account this afternoon.
Her: What’s this Buzz thing?
Me: Oh it’s kind of like Facebook, but in your inbox.
Her: Why would I want that? It’s not like Twitter is it? Because I definitely don’t want that!
Me: …

I honestly don’t see this catching on, outside of the geek set, except the geek set, IMHO, don’t want that extra redundancy.

zard Blog Buzz, Google, Google Buzz, tech, technology

In the show today:

Fire Underground – Beauty Queen
Supersuckers – Paid
The Freefall Effect – Redemption
[munk] – Sometimes Life Starts to Fall Into Place
Spanking Charlene – I Hate Girls

If you like the show, leave a comment or email me.

 

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zard Podcast fire underground, freefall effect, munk, music, Podcast, rock, spanking charlene, supersuckers

I live in what most people call Cornwall. It’s an amazingly beautiful area located in the far south west of the British Isles. It’s steeped in history. People from Cornwall have taken their skills all over the world. A certificate from the Camborne School of Mines is amongst the most prestigious and sought after qualification in the mining industry, even today. But perhaps the most famous Cornishman is King Arthur.

Yet, it al lis not quite what it seems in this outwardly peaceful corner of England. Cornwall is the English name for what, in the local language, is called Kernow. This is the native name for this country. You see Kernow was never formally inducted into England. in 1508, the Charter of Pardon was signed, saying that no act of Westminster will effect Cornwall, without ratification from the Stannary Parliament. This act has never been rescinded. And as recently as 1616, Arthur Hopton, English ambassador to Madrid, described Cornwall and Wales as being separate countries to that of England. That was almost 400 years ago, what resonance could that possibly have in the early 21st century?

The Cornish people never forgot.

With 20th century advances in technology information came easier to come by. People started to spread ideas, no longer fearing reprimand from the English. With the foundings of Celtic leagues, Old Cornish Societies and political parties, it started to become clear that there was more to Cornwall than meets the eye.

Cornish people started to remember.

I’ve had arguments with people that have nearly come to blows, over the whether Cornish people should be called English or not. Should the topic come up, I will talk the ears off of anybody that will listen. Do I want Cornish independence? No, because I don’t believe that Cornwall can support itself as a country. Do I want Cornish people/council to have a greater say in what happens here? That would be nice, as it would be for all regions of the UK. Do I want people to know about Kernow and it’s history, regardless of whether it will change matters? Yes.

So what’s the point? Why do I feel so strongly about educating people to these facts, this hidden history?

Because if I don’t, who will?

It’s all to easy to keep quiet and let the historians debate the point. But if everybody thought like that, then ideas and thoughts become academic – they no longer have meaning for the common man. But by arguing and debating between average people, ideas stay fresh, they stay relevant.

zard Blog Cornwall, Kernow