Archive for October, 2008
Bad news for the UK, music is winning the digital war!?
There is very nearly some very good news for the music industry in the UK. The Digital Music Surrvey 2008 recently released a press release that suggests that a large number of us people here in the UK will soon be unable to download and share our music with others over the internet :o. This press release was given a headline to turn heads and that it is doing.
“Light in the tunnel for the music industry: revenue opportunities are increasing, illegal downloading is down.”
I really don’t think so myself, and, IF this is true, it wont be for much longer. I know for a fact that this war is still a very mixed picture. There are signs that threats of action against illegal downloaders is having an effect but there is still a lot of evidence that the music-buying (or not buying but “sharing”) public is very underwhelmed by the legal digital offerings.
The figures are pretty inconclusive anyway. Illegal downloads down from 43% of the sample last year to 39% in 2008.
Now how do I know that IF illegal music downloads are down and there may be an increase in revenue opportunities in the music retail industry, that this will not last for long.
One Laptop per Child – Blog Action Day 2008
The internet is an item that many people take for granted. Especially me! I rely on the internet so much that I even make a living off of it. This means that I also rely on my laptop, and, without my laptop I am completely lost. I feel strongly that if I and many others are able to have a laptop many, many more people who, currently are not able to have one, should be able to benifit from technology. The One Laptop per Child project is not about giving people technology however. I use my laptop a lot not only for my work but also for my education. 
If there is something I do not know, or need to revise yet do not have the sufficent resources I just turn on my laptop and go online and use Wikipedia or, if I have no connection, I open – dare i say it – MS Encarta. Now there are thousands of people who do not have this luctury. But, imagine if we could. The One Laptop per Child mission is to
“create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.”
Now I could ramble on about what you can do and about the amazing technology in the amazing laptops that this project has produced but, to be honest that is not what I am like. I give you my point of view and a little bit of info mixed in with it. This I have done, however I beg of you. Please support this project and learn more about it, and the way it can help by visiting laptop.org. Thank you for reading this Blog Action Day 2008.
The new and improved EmotIcons
Some of you may have noticed some technical muck ups today, and for that I appologise. These technical muck ups were due to my intergrating our new EmotIcons system on the site. we now support a wider range of what people often call smilies including some brand new, bonus/hidden smilies. Below is a full list of the supported smilies with their call signs. These call signs are split up using spaces and the smilie will only show when you use the call sign without the spaces.
}:) -> } : )
:D -> : D
:) -> : )
:o -> : o
:P -> : P
:( -> : (
:3 -> : 3
;) -> ; )
:note: There are ofcourse other ways to call these smilies for those of you who use slightly different calls e.g. :p can also be called using : p, and >:) can also be called with > : )
The full list of bonus emoticons
->, <-, :bell:, :bomb:, :cake:, :clock:, :coins:, :comment:, :x:, :cupa:, :email:, :!:, (!), O+, <3, (?), :hrGlass:, :house:, (i), :iPod:, :key:, :idea:, :lock:, O>, :bronze:, :gold:, :silver:, :music:, :news:, :note:, :mob:, :gem:, <>, :star:, :tel:, :tick:, -*
Enjoy these nice new EmotIcons. Im off for a :cupa:
Asus X51L Notebook Unpacking Video
As promised here is the first unpacking video of the Asus X51L notebook. Great notebook for the price. Cheap yet pretty powerful with a Core2Duo processor. A short review will follow up tomorrow, don’t forget to check it out. Included inside there are: