May 2011 Archives - 2/3 - TheWayoftheWeb

Veebeam could solve streaming to my TV (Sponsored Post)

May 18, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Like many people, I’m streaming more and more content on-demand from various places – especially keeping up with motorcycle racing I’ve missed, or finding specific children’s TV shows for my son, but unless the family want to crowd around my laptop screen, it’s still a bit of a hassle.

I’ve got Windows Media Extender to connect with my Xbox, but generally that means downloading the actual programme first, which can take a while, especially in HD – not good for an impatient toddler. Or I can hook up my laptop via HDMI, but then I’m left with the laptop balanced on the TV unit, and can’t do anything else until I can finally reclaim my computer.

So the Veebeam is genuinely really interesting – it not only streams whatever it on the computer onto my TV wirelessly, but the Play To mode means I can stream files without having to watch them on the laptop at the same time – which means I can actually get work done whilst also impressing the family by being able to find their favourite shows on-demand!

Obviously it’ll take a bit of processor power, but judging by the details on the Veebeam website, you don’t need any unreasonably powerful hardware. And apparently the signal is good enough to even get through a wall, which means I can work in one room, whilst the family watch a programme in another. And it's not too pricey – it's available for around £139, which is worth it for some peace and quiet while I get some work done.

If you're interested, check out the Veebeam site, and you can Buy it now from various places.

Disclaimer: This is a Sponsored Post. I do accept sponsored posts to cover my costs, contribute to my new personal business projects, and only accept the most interesting and relevant (I actually end up missing out on probably 75% of the sponsored posts available in an attempt to limit them to the most useful and pertinent).

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Filed Under: Digital Television, technology Tagged With: connecting pc to tv, digital tv on my television, media extender, pc onto hdtv, streaming tv, veebeam, wireless streaming

How Angus Young has lost my £5

May 17, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Music is pretty important to me, as you might have seen from my acceptance last month that the CD has finally died for me. So when I was getting close to a project deadline, some non-nonsense rock seemed like the perfect soundtrack, and as my AC/DC CDs are amongst those in the loft, I thought I’d go and pay again to legally download my favourites for the sake of convenience.

It seemed like a good plan.

Angus Young, Barcelona Spain, 2009 by Edvill on Flickr (CC Licence)

But then I discovered that apparently AC/DC have said as recently as this week they’ll never authorise their songs to be available legally because they don’t want individual tracks downloaded – they only want to deal in albums.

Now, there are two sides to this. As the creators of the music, AC/DC have a right to try and distribute their work in whatever way they see fit – as much as their insistence on ignoring digital downloads annoys me personally, those same choices allowed bands like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead to embrace new distribution methods.

But.

They’ve made a stupid, stupid, stupid choice here for a number of reasons. Firstly, they could licence their tracks to only be downloaded as a complete album, which would still irritate a number of people, but would at least enable a large number to pay for the full album for the sake of getting the songs they want.

Secondly, I already own ‘Back in Black’ for example on CD. And I’m pretty sure it’s been recorded with individual tracks on it, and not one long 40 minute mixtape-style track for each ‘side’ of the album. So all I need to do is find the desire to go into my loft and rip the CD to my PC, and I have individual tracks to be listened to in isolation.

Thirdly – they’ve released singles for radio play, as they’ve even mention in the linked article. So they’ll comprimise their artistic beliefs for the radio station and record company, but not for a fan?

And fourthly…

It’s utterly pointless. Within seconds I could either choose to search and find illegal copies of whatever individual AC/DC track I wanted, or, as I decided to do, I had a quick look on Youtube, and found enough AC/DC tracks to keep me going all night long.

And that’s the most frustrating thing. If Angus and the boys had wanted me to listen to the whole of ‘Back in Black’, a full album-only download probably would have meant I’d have bought that album and listened to the entire thing on repeat last night. By blocking my purchase, they lost cash, and I ended up listening to the selected greatest hits as supplied by numerous people on Youtube, and as I don’t want to have to buy and store CDs anymore, I’m stuck.

Ironically, given their views on Napster, I’ve ended up buying some Metallica tracks instead…

The lesson for me as a content creator is a simple one – I’ll never know or understand all the ways in which people may wish to use and hopefully enjoy my content, but by choosing the right approach and licences, I stand a reasonable chance of being able to accomodate even things that haven’t yet beeen invented. And that gives me the best chance of gaining new support – not trying to force people into only ever accessing what I do in the strict way I have prescribed as the ‘best. Because there’s no such thing as the perfect content format, just as there’s no perfect piece of music that every single person on the planet enjoys.

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Filed Under: Business, Digital Audio Tagged With: ac/dc, alterante usage, angus young, creative commons, digital downloads, licensing, music, no legal downloads

Essential viewing for freelancers and agencies

May 11, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Not sure why I didn’t post this earlier, but it’s such a good video I thought it was worth belatedly sharing. Mike Monteiro from Mule Design covers some of the issues for a new creative services business around the most important, and most often ignored area of actually getting paid.

It really is essential viewing if you want to avoid making some potentially expensive mistakes, and it’s also pretty entertaining as long as you don’t mind a bit of swearing, as you might have guessed from the title…

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

One of those videos it’s worth saving and rewatching every so often to remind you that you need to be taking care of business when you’re running one!

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Filed Under: Consultancy, Freelancing Tagged With: consultancy, creative agency, freelancing, getting paid, invoicing, legal, starting

It’s 1am and all is well…

May 10, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

I’m writing this at 1am. I’ve still got a couple of emails I have to send before the day is over, but aside from that, I’ve finished everything that’s been needed today. And I’m put in mind of an excerpt from a Seth Godin book (I think it’s from Tribes, but my copy is with someone else at the moment).

He writes about being unable to sleep whilst on holiday, and going into the hotel lobby to check his email at some odd hour of the night/early morning. As he’s online he overhears someone commenting how sad it is that someone on holiday feels the need to be doing work on a computer, and his response in the book is to say how sad it is that someone does a job they need to escape from with holidays.

And that’s how I feel at the moment. I’m naturally predisposed to a more nocturnal existence anyway, but I’m also appreciating the fact that I’m able to structure my day differently to a lot of people.

For instance, today has included:

Looking after my son for a few hours this morning as my partner had to go into work for a meeting.
Wrote and published two articles for clients
Set-up the official Jodanma hosting and reseller account for all clients going forwards. Incidentally, if you’d like reasonably priced WordPress installation, and hosting, let me know!
Purchases two domain names for my personal sites (More on that later).
Finished two proposals for clients which I’m really hoping I can get – more because both projects are incredibly cool and interesting more than any prospect of financial security.
Finalised and got sign-off for one of Jodanma’s first official clients.
Managed to grab some shopping and cook lunch and tea for the family.

Plus I also had a quick chat with my father, and did other little bits like a load of washing, some extra keyword research for an existing client, and sending and answering a myriad of emails for various topics and projects, plus scheduling some meetings, and checking various invoices.

Not a bad haul for a day which was more disrupted than normal – but that’s why I’m writing this – to remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to spend 9am on a Monday morning setting up farm animals on the living room floor with my son, and to be able to spend 9pm in a call with an American client, or 1am writing a blog post.

I actually revisited by longterm aims and ambitions recently, and I realised something rather cool. I’m obviously hoping that my businesses continue to grow – I’ve already spoken to some very qualified and trusted associates who will be able to augment what I do here, and what we’re doing at Jodanma.com, plus I’m really keen to be able to invest more resource in my digital media publishing experiments.

But if everything stayed the same for the next 30 years, I wouldn’t be particularly upset. If I’m lucky enough to be able to pay the bills and support my family on an ongoing basis, and keep the flexibility and opportunity to hang out with them in the mornings, at lunch, and in the early evenings, then that’s a success in itself.

Now can someone just remind me of that when I get woken up by a small person shouting ‘wake up daddy’ at me in about 5 hours?

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