Inside View

Things You Might Miss in the Sunday Papers

ON A GRAY Sunday in Ireland, it might be easy to miss some of the little things that pop up in the Sunday papers. On the left, the most defaced general election candidate in South Tipperary, Ireland. [Note to readers: Evidence gleaned from personal foot leather analysis while walking my dog.] Special look at the scariest Irish election poster. For real coverage of the Irish election, check the blog channel.

Mmmm Coffee

WE GRIND our own coffee while listening to Adam Curry ramble on about Folgers. Or is it Senseo? Whatever. There's no coffee like truly domesticated freshly brewed cuppas that you sip while you shave.

Tried Ringing Twenty

I TRIED RINGING Twenty Major to chat about some budgies needing incarceration and discovered his practise reverts to an answering machine [0.8 MB MP3 file] on weekends.

Rising Microblogging

CASUAL READERS--especially the ones who despise Twitter--might have missed a few things happening in the margins with Twitter. We like the phone-friendly m.twitter.com because it's quick, inexpensive and more thorough than a Google Reader trawl of twitterings. We're also curious whether Twitter embracing  microformats portends the coming of docs inside Twitter. That would be special.

---

via Biz Stone.

x_ref13p4

How music industry can do itself a favour

ANTOIN O LACHTNAIN asks a few questions about the music industry and online behaviour worth considering here.

• What concrete steps can the music industry take to stop, or at least slow down piracy? I think the industry should attempt to monetise the channels seen to be piracy channels. What looks like piracy to a music executive is a sratch-and-sniff marketing tactic to podcasters. It means setting up large libraries of 96 kbps free MP3 samples and 192 kbps tracks of the same material. Let anyone download and distribute the 96 kbps samples. Make it easy to find the links to the high-quality stuff. I buy my tracks from Yahoo! Music, the Podsafe Music Network and iTunes. I think others would too.
• How can the music industry make money from peer-to-peer and music downloads? Make it easy to hear the samples and make it legal to download an entire track at 96 kbps. The industry won't make its margins when selling tracks one-by-one. However, there are all sorts of eye candy that encourage people to buy the whole album or to take time to get the album, the album art and the hard copy CD in a shop.
• How could they trial this? Tell everyone they can download and pass along the low-quality MP3 tracks. Set up sales relationships with the major online distributors listed above. Let podcasters know they're free to use music from signed acts at sample rates of 96 kbps or below.

---

It's legal to listen and share an MP3 sample. Isn't it?

x_ref125mc

Flagpole Sitta After Work

Connected Ventures did this video one night after work. They are a group of friends who work for the Vimeo video-sharing service, CollegeHumor, Busted Tees, and Defunker.

---

Thanks amandalynferri and mediahackers (you, Tim Kirby). CH Media, 555 West 18th Street, NY NY 10011.

video

Related articles

• Video for SEO - Vimeo (marketing.yell.com)
• Harvey Danger Radio (Last.fm)

Reading Invisible Man

NOT ONE to tune into Rush Limbaugh, I decided to dust off Invisible Man for another reading after hearing Limbaugh poking at Barak Obama in yet another cheeky moment. Limbaugh is playing "Barack the Magic Negro" as part of his syndicated radio show, sung to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon." Time to read Ralph Ellison for balance. His work was in my home when I was growing up, the first work by an African-American to win a major literary award. In 1965, critics polled by Book List voted Invisible Man "the most distinguished single work" published in America since World War II.

Most Effective Peer Review Ever

ALONG WITH A boatload of other lecturers and staff from Tipperary Institute, I just completed the most effective peer review ever. Then we made a half-hour [28.1 MB 96 kbps MP3 file] podcast about it. We submit ourselves to routine reviews of our third level (collegiate) creative  multimedia degree programme every five years or so. The goal--to win approval from the Higher Education and Training Council for our programme, then to market to prospective multimedia developers by launching it into the market during the next five years. We succeeded during this HETAC Panel Visit. The impact has not settled on the staff yet.

This important result has its roots in the dedication of Eamon Dalton, the vision of Padraig Culbert, the leadership of James Greenslade and the careful review of Professor Michael Ryan, Orla Flynn, Barry Feeney, Mark Riordan, Chris Exton, Sean Blanchfield, Ian McKenna, and Joe Cox.

Serial SoundForge 9

ADVICE FOR THOSE searching here for a serial number that works with Sony SoundForge 9: the serial number given with the software is not the serial number that appears on screen when using the software. You need to register online and only after talking to the registration server is your software well and truly ready for use. You might get away with reloading the software several times but from those on the dark side of the mailing lists, I think you need to manually edit registry keys to remove all traces of the software before subsequently reinstalling the program. I bought SoundForge 9 out of my own pocket money and it is much more potent than its predecessors. It's also much more stable, lossless and comes packed with a ton of effects that I intend to discover during the next few months. It will take me months of use to increase my post-production process. In the meantime, I'm very impressed with the program and recommend it to anyone whose audio editing has collapsed into a pile of temporary files.

---

x_ref261763

Youthful Optimism

ANYONE WORKING near an Irish college campus could validate the results of the inaugural Ireland Graduate Survey. [1] The most striking feature is the unbridled optimism evident among the Class of 2007. Most anticipate qualifying with a strong honours degree. Having completed their university education, students expect to breeze into a good, well-paid job by the age of 30. By this stage, almost one in three expects to occupy a senior management position. The survey findings are dominated by this huge confidence in the future. More than 70 per cent expect to own their own house or flat by age 30; one in five expects to have two cars and a buy-to-let property investment. These results don't surprise me but some of the footnotes point to trouble for those seeking to promote Ireland as a nation that boxes above its weight with creative energy and innovative ideas.