David Emery OnlineThe Wrong Kind of Breathtaking
This is just brilliant. The utter bollocks that traditionally comes hand in hand with professional design and art school is the reason why I originally decided not to go down that route (instead opting for this whole computer/internet malarky). I just can’t stand it.
The gravitational pull of Pepsi
I kind-of hope this is actually either a wind up or some misjudged marketing stunt.
Visit ➔CSS Animation
WebKit now supports explicit animations in CSS. As a counterpart to transitions, animations provide a way to declare repeating animated effects, with keyframes, completely in CSS.
Yet more nice improvements in WebKit, although I think they’re butting right up against the boundaries of what should be in CSS and what should be in javascript (not that there are elegant ways of doing this natively in javascript anyway).
What’s most impressive is that this is already supported on the iPhone, and the performance is exceptional – the leaves demo (which will only work in a recently nightly or on an iPhone) runs as smoothly on the iPhone as it does on my MacBook, but my MacBook uses 50% of its CPU while doing it…
Visit ➔Tips for a transformed twitter
I am wrong to lament what Twitter once was and should embrace it as a tool I can use. Nevertheless like everybody, I need to be careful how I use it. I do not believe Twitter users will allow the tool to be reduced to a broadcast mechanism for pimping the latest blog post or special offer.
Good to see I’m not the only person thinking along these lines.
Visit ➔Artists, Bands and Musicians on Twitter
As a timely companion to my last post, here’s a Google Spreadsheet full of all the bands and labels that are on Twitter.
Visit ➔Despite iTunes Accord, Music Labels Still Fret
…Disagreements over the timing of the changes also resulted in a particularly tense conversation on Christmas Eve between Steven P. Jobs, the chairman and chief executive of Apple, and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, the chairman of Sony Music.
A spokesman for Apple declined to comment, as did a representative for Sony Music. But chatter about Mr. Jobs’s combative tone on the call ricocheted around the music industry, and it was regarded as another display of his tough bargaining tactics, made possible by Apple’s position as the dominant seller of music.
When Steve Jobs finally leaves Apple – whether it’s soon or not for a while – I don’t see their being major changes in the kind of products they make or the way they do business. What they will lose, however, is Steve Jobs the negotiator. And from what I’ve heard from people that have dealt with him that will be quite some loss.
Visit ➔Sky Larkin on Dopplr
God darn it, why didn’t I think of putting a band on Dopplr? Considering we already generate iCals for most of our bands this should be a doddle…
Visit ➔Web Design+
Welcome to Web Design+. This is, in no particular order, an amalgamation of web-standards solutions for common web development issues and problems — a way to tackle development in the cleanest, most accessible and semantic way possible. By using Web Design+, the aim is to standardise practices throughout an organisation; from accessibility to hacks, Web Design+ covers the best ways to tackle a variety of dev problems.
A great idea in theory, and not massively different from a internal document I wrote a while back, but you’ve got to laugh at something like this that has a section on semantics almost directly followed by a bit on generic classes like ‘clear’, ‘left’, ‘right’ and so on being extremely handy…
Visit ➔Record labels pressure Spotify to restrict service
In a blog post yesterday the startup outlined how it will be removing a number of songs from its catalogue and adding country restrictions to some tracks, which may make them unplayable for many users. The changes are being made because record labels have slapped restrictions on Spotify’s service. It’s a bizarre situation to think of in 2009 but it means that a user could share a track with a friend in another country, but that friend wouldn’t be able to play the track.
It irks me somewhat that people don’t seem to grasp how complicated territory rights are for music. Basically, most releases are dealt with by different labels in different territories, so there’s no way to simply use a track or release worldwide – you have to get agreements with all the appropriate labels involved.
It would be great – and solve so many headaches – if most recorded music was licensed for distribution globally, but it’s just not the case.
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