I’ve been testing out some new Drupal modules for upcoming websites and to make the process more tolerable I’ve produced a working website.

I’ve got loads of playlists on my computer grouped by random links so I figured why not keep them online for posterity and for others to enjoy. The site is dead simple, it just lets me upload playlists “Mix Tapes” (to be a bit retro) that can then be listened to by others.

Visit the site

Getting it running is really easy but a little counter intuitive, this guide should help you out.

Before you start make sure you have Bonjour from Apple installed (it comes with itunes or can be found here).

Step 1 – Client (where the sound will output)

Download and extract the zip file, and run SpeakerShare.exe and you’ll be greeted with this screen:

Click the “Share” tab, then click the “Share” button. That’s it! Move on to the server.

Step 2 – Server (where the music streams from)

Download and run the program and this time we’ll be using the “Use” tab. When it loads you should see the computers you’ve set up as clients listed as speakers.

Select the sound output mixer, this is either “Stereo Mix” or “Wave Out” (if you can’t see either of those read this guide to enable the option). Now choose the speaker you want and click connect.

That should be it, the sound will play with a 1 second latency. A mac version is also available, for instructions see the readme.

SpeakerShare Home | Download for Windows (Zip)

All the links are to youtube.

2009

Owl City – Ocean Eyes (2009)

Apparently massive in the state but yet to break the UK. I love the cross between electro, dance and pop.

Best Single: Fireflies  | Best Album Track: Bird and the Worm

Robbie Williams – Reality Killed The Radio Star (2009)

A return to form for Robbie with some brilliant new material. My hope for the next decade is that he sticks to working with Guy Chambers.

Best Single: You Know Me | Best Album Track: Blasphemy

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You (2009)

Some of the best lyrics from any contempory artist. The songs bounce between raw emotion to political statement without even alerting the casual listener. Backing tracks are random, with elements of pretty much every genre.

Best Single: Not Fair  | Best Album Track: Fuck You

Lady GaGa – The Fame (2009)

Surprise hit of the year. Even more surprising is that I really like it. Great club songs.

Best Single: Just Dance | Best Album Track: Brown Eyes

Paolo Nutini – Sunny Side Up(2009)

Probably my favourite in this list if I had to pick one. A very happy album with a old school ska/reggae vibe. Makes a great gift for pretty much anyone.

Best Single: Pencil Full Of Lead | Best Album Track: 10/10

Amateur Transplants – In Theatre(2009)

Not your typical album but since I listened to it so much I had to put it on the list. Can’t wait until I see these guys live again.

Best Single: n/a | Best Album Track: Myrrh

Frank Turner – Poetry of The Deed (2009) & Love, Ire and Song (2008)

Probably my best discovery this year. As a folk/pop/punk/singer songwriter/acoustic/country performer he ticks a lot of boxes on my list.

Best Single: Long Live The Queen | Best Album Track: Thatcher Fucked The Kids

Bowling For Soup – Sorry for Partyin’ (2009)

Possibly the worst live gig I’ve ever been to but the album is brilliant.

Best Single: My Wena | Best Album Track: I Gotchoo

Keith Urban – Defying Gravity (2009)

Not Urban’s best album but there are about 5 songs on there that beat most of the UK chart, just a shame he doesn’t promote his records over here.

Best Single: Kiss A Girl | Best Album Track: I’m In

Brendan Benson – My Old, Familiar Friend (2009)

Missed this guy live this year, much to my disappointment, but this album makes up for it. Some great power pop.

Best Single: A Whole Lot Better  | Best Album Track: Garbage Day

Bruce Springsteen – Working on a Dream (2009)

What can I say really, it’s The Boss. With one of the best albums this year he and the E-Street band prove from the first track that they still have it.

Best Single:  Working On A Dream | Best Album Track: Outlaw Pete

2008

Jason Mraz – We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things (2008)

Not quite as good as Jack Johnson but he can knock out a great acoustic pop tune.

Best Single: I’m Yours | Best Album Track: Love For A Child

Georgia Middleman – Things I Didn’t Know I Knew (2008)

A stunning jazz/easy listening album I found on spotify. Well worth seeking out.

Best Single: n/a | Best Album Track: The Best Thing (Spotify link)

Kings of Leon – Only By Night (2008)

Not usually my thing but this album is outstanding. Their move into the mainstream is well deserved.

Best Single: Sex On Fire  | Best Album Track: 17

Panic At The Disco – Pretty Odd (2008)

I never really listened to this band because I didn’t like the look of them, once again proving the old book and it’s cover adage correct. Recorded at Abbey Road and man can you tell! It’s a huge production, with a lot of nods to Sgt. Peppers.

Best Single: Nine In The Afternoon | Best Album Track: Pas de Cheval

Toby Keith – 35 Biggest Hits (2008)

I couldn’t disagree more with this guys politics but he writes a great country song so I love him regardless. (Watch the first video if you like cheesy and half naked women!)

Best Single: Whiskey Girl | Best Album Track: The Taliban Song

Gaslight Anthem – The ‘59 Sound (2008)

A lot like Springsteen but with their own edge this New Jersey band is a big hope for the future.

Best Single: The ‘59 Sound | Best Album Track: Miles Davis and The Cool

Pink – Funhouse (2008)

I expected this to be a single heavy album, but was pleasantly surprised by what I found. All the songs are well written with some lovely cynical lyrics.

Best Single: So What  | Best Album Track: Mean

Taylor Swift – Fearless (2008)

Cheesy and girly this maybe but my love for a country song got the better of me. This is a great album.

Best Single: Fifteen  | Best Album Track: You Belong With Me

Pre-2008

Del Amitri – Hatful of Rain (1998)

I can’t believe I’ve lived most of my life ignorant of this band. Perfect power pop.

Best Single: Roll To Me

Jackson Browne – Running on Empty (1977)

The best live album ever recorded. From start to finish you can join Browne on the road. Love it.

Best Single: Running On Empty | Best Album Track: Rosie

Brilliant live version of a great song.

The only application that did what I wanted is airfoil, but it didn’t work great for me and cost money to use. I figured there must be a way to achieve what I needed for free.

VLC to the rescue.

Here is how to stream the output of my soundcard (specifics may vary for you but the principle is the same) and open the stream using VLC:

Using the HTTP stream you can access the stream from anywhere in the world by connecting in to your IP address (you’ll need to sort out your router to do this though).

Thankfully ChromeMailer is just the application I needed. It’s very no frills as all it does is set Gmail as the default e-mail client.

Download ChromeMailer (.msi)

Today I stumbled across a radio interview of Mr. Davies speaking to a presenter on BBC Sheffield and I couldn’t contain my frustration. The presenter was aggressively “questioning” the mayor by asking questions requiring hard numerical answers that, having not actually stepped foot in office, he reasonably couldn’t answer. From there the DJ started making grand claims about the illegality of his manifesto pledges.

Davies walked out of the interview in frustration in the end, realising the interviewer wasn’t going to let him make any points. The problem with the interview is the unfairness of the battle. All the media savvy interviewer has to do is read some scripted questions, while the retired school teacher, with little media experience, is expected to return his questions with accurate answers. I respect Mr. Davies for not fobbing the presenter off with wishy-washy answers, but in the circumstances, you could see why a politician may resort to doing so.

Policies

Here are some of his pledges, with the criticisms offered by the radio DJ:

• Get rid of translation services in the council on the grounds that people should be required to speak English in England.
• Response: It is illegal, in particular “under the European Court of Human Rights”.

Assuming that the DJ meant European Convention on Human Rights (since something can’t be illegal under a court) he is quite wrong. A council is doesn’t seem to be under any human rights obligation to employ translators. The only mention of language in the convention is regarding arrest and fair trial. Therefore the only people who need to employ translators are the Ministry of Justice and the Police.

• Scrap the council newsletter
• Response: How much will it save? Will the writers lose their jobs? Won’t this “stop communication with the people”

I get a local council newsletter, and even with an interest in local politics it is unreadable. They are biased and quite dull, and every important issue is covered in local press of one medium or another anyway. Communication will not be stopped by scrapping such a publication, if anything it will be improved by stopping the bias.

Writers may lose their jobs, but that’s just the way things go. I’d maintain one writer to put every council document online to ensure full transparency and put the rest on notice.

Given they go to every home in the area, normally quarterly, I suspect the cost including staff nears £1millon/year.

• Stop council funding of the gay pride parade as a persons sexuality, straight or gay, shouldn’t be celebrated with public money
• Response: How much will it save? Don’t the 8,000 people who congregate bring in money to the town?

The DJ here made a good economic argument. It’s entirely possible that the gay pride parade actually generates money for the area but he is only guessing. The mayor chose to take an ideological stance based on sound, non judgemental, grounds (he made it clear he’s happy for the parade to continue, just without public money). The DJ however, is speculating on an issue that really needs an evidence base.

National Perspective

Overall, I’d vote for a candidate like Peter Davies, on the simple grounds that he makes it clear what he wants and will work to achieve it. I may disagree with a few of his policies but at least I know where he stands. The problem with politics today is politicians being afraid of the media. The media are slick and brutal and the only tactic politicians have to fight them with is the non-committal-answer. These non-answers are pushing the public to feel more and more apathetic about voting, as they don’t really have anyone left of substance to vote for.

I’ve been using the excellent Peer Guardian program that blocks any intrusive organisations from contacting your computer in any way. These organisations include advertisers and organisations that try to stop peer to peer (P2P) file sharing.

The only problem with it is that on Vista it doesn’t work most of the time! However, there is a patch available that fixes the problem.

To install the patch, all you do is:

1. Extract the zip file into the PG directory (C:\Program Files\PeerGuardian2).
2. Create a shortcut to the file pg2loader.exe by right clicking on it, then “Send To –> Desktop (as shortcut)”.
3. (Optional) Drag and drop that shortcut to the start menu directory “Startup” so the program runs when you turn on your PC.

Download Peer Guardian (Vista)
Download Patch (pg2loaderRC5.zip)

But there is a strong counter argument that has been less well articulated. Do we want to end up with the likes of Fox News able to spit out utter rubbish and have people believe them? Do we want national coverage of politics and important but unexciting issues to fall by the wayside like they have done locally?

Politicians really should be stepping up to make these arguments, but in their absence BBC reporter Robert Peston does a pretty good job of summing up.

I urge you to read the full transcript of this speech, but here is the key section:

…What I am talking about here is the importance of public service journalism, about informing and educating the public so that there is democratic participation in big decisions about the future of capitalism.

Against this backdrop the certainty that commercial news groups will start charging for online access is relevant. We should be in no doubt about this. Every news organisation – with the exception of the BBC – will start charging very soon for any information that has any proprietary element to it at all.

Against that backdrop, much of what the BBC does – especially the stuff we do online – may look like unfair competition. And as someone who worked in the private sector without a break from 1983 to 2006 – and who rather assumes that he will return to the private sector one day – I completely understand why James Murdoch has argued that the BBC’s online news service looks like state-subsidised unfair competition. Much of the private sector sees the BBC as crowding out legitimate commercial players. I feel the private sector’s pain on all this – although there is a counter argument.

With financial paternalism in its death throes, just as we are being forced to take control of our financial lives as never before, are we sure that a wholly liberalised commercial news market would ensure that everyone has access to the kind of news and financial information they need and deserve? There already appears to be a consensus that in the provision of regional news there has been a massive market failure that will require state intervention and subsidy to rectify. But is that market failure limited to regional news?

Will the new paid-for online model inform and educate on hard issues – financial matters, but also medicine, the environment, education and so on – that matter to us, or will it concentrate on the more sensationalist and titillating bangs for the buck? And even if paid-for online services do endeavour to fill the gap created by the death of financial paternalism, will millions on low incomes be excluded from access to this information? Should we be relaxed if ‘can’t pay’ means ‘can’t know’?

There is a debate here about two kinds of fairness. There is the fairness of ensuring a level playing field for players in a commercial market. And there is the fairness of the distribution of information and knowledge to all who need it, irrespective of their material circumstances. These are two different kinds of fairness. They are apples and pears of social justice. But having just lived through the greatest failure in history to distribute financial resources in an efficient and equitable way, we certainly shouldn’t assume that a commercial digital market in news will distribute information in a way that would support a healthy democracy. Walter Bagehot – as luck would have it the greatest ever writer on banking – defined democracy as government by discussion. But you can’t have a decent chinwag without having the facts. And the big question – one which perhaps Richard Dunn would have relished – is whether the incipient structure of our new digital news industry will promote or undermine the healthy discussion that is necessary for democracy to thrive.

iDownload uses a well know exploit to download the programmes in .mp3 or .mov format so you can watch them whenever or wherever you want.

I’m sure the BBC will close the exploit soon so enjoy it while you can!

You can download the program here in an installer or head over to the developer’s website for the original zip file.

Download (.exe)

[via Ghacks]