The Lost Art

When I'm not working on my work laptop which lives behind a corporate firewall and allows me to access internal systems and services, I'm usually using my iPad.

In pre-iPad days, I'd generally be found using one of several PCs around the place, desktop, laptop, netbook etc. Now, other for than specific tasks, they're generally gathering dust as I try to maximise my use of the iPad.

The iPad has changed my behaviour, changed my consumption habits and expenditure patterns. It has provided me with new ways to carry out all of the important things I used to do on different machines.

In the main, these new ways of working represent a distinct improvement on what went before. One changed behaviour which I regret though is the gradual tapering-off of my blogging habit.

Yes, yes,I know there are blogging apps available for the iPad, but they are all flawed. Usually, if you are able to attach a photo to your post at all, it'll be dumped somewhere incongruous in the post, which will be sprawled or centred in some bizarre machine font.

Not good.

By the time you've got on a PC to correct the mess, people have read it and gone away, thinking you're a complete amateur.

So, after a long lay-off, I'm blogging on PC for a while. Good idea?

One Tool To Rule Them All?

Lost something?

I don't know about you, but depending which PC, mobile device, app, or website I happen to be using I end up saving interesting items in different places depending one what's available...

I might add something to my Twitter favourites, add a social bookmark to Delicious, create an Evernote entry, or save it to either ReadItLater or Instapaper... all great cloud-based products, but then I can never find what I need....

Isn't it time for one tool to rule them all and aggregate all my stuff together via search?

Am I missing something?


Photo Credit: Jannem (cc)

Dear Prudence

I've disciplined myself to using Spotify for my music acquisition needs, reducing my average spend on music from about £120 every couple of months to £120 per year.

Using Spotify lets me listen to the new releases I would have bought as well as those I might well have dithered over. My overall music consumption in term of listening, rather than purchasing, is well up. What's more, I'm no longer shackled with the guilt of not listening to a new record more than once. Similarly, I can take a listen to the latest critically lauded releases without having to fork out for them or the necessity of having to ever listen to them again.

Not quite all new releases are available on Spotify, but it picks up most things, even many of the rarer 12" single and edits I was paying up to £10 for on vinyl. I'm better off and better informed. I make notes (in Evernote) of interesting reviews from online newspapers and magazines, from retailers recommendations and from social word of mouth and then go track them down.

A little discipline has now become a fun routine. All my stuff is available on the move and available to stream throughout the house.

It works... I'm sure someone somewhere is losing out... but let's be honest, making music is cheap and easy and there is more and more and more available all around us in every micro-genre.

The Spotify stuff I supplement with great live and session stuff from places like DayTrotter, Wolfgang's Vault and the great NPR iPad app, as well as from an endless array of Internet radio stations. Hell, I even get an old CD of LP of the shelf and play it now and again.

Having forced myself to get over the need to have packaging that I can touch, read and put on a shelf to gather dust, I can't see myself going back. I don't consume pirated tunes, all my listening is legit. I've reduced my listening costs by about 90% whilst increasing the amount I actually listen to by a similar amount.

Everyone can be an artist if they want, from DIY chillwave to queueing up for X Factor... Who's lost out? Where is the leak?

By the way, I'm just listening to the new Elvis Costello record on Spotify. If I'd purchased the CD I'd feel some sort of personal obligation to listen to it again. Thankfully, I don't have to.

Location:Attercliffe Common,,United Kingdom

3 Things I Learned Today

1. Trainers tossed over a telephone wire means "the drugs have arrived"

2. Fireworks in the middle of the daytime means "the drugs have arrived"

3. Teeth marks in rubber playground swings means roughnecks have been training their pit-bulls to maul.



Pic credit - Chris Devers (cc)

cobweblog

Well I had completely forgotten that I'd set up this catch-all blog, but it might be useful for a little project I'm kicking off to restart my writing engine, having had a little time off.

The picture, by the way, is a little shop in the small fishing village of Moelfre on the island of Anglesey of the north-west coast of Wales. I tinkered with the colours in the Colour Splash app and then sorted out the appropriate border effect in Camera+.