I’ve been a huge fan of last.fm since I started using it back in 2006 (for those who don’t know, it’s a social music website that logs every song you listen to, and connects you with people of similar taste, and suggests other music that you might like), but one feature that I’ve often overlooked is the stand-alone last.fm player.

On windows it’s the main tool that scrobbles your tracks as you listen to them in iTunes or Windows Media Player, but you can also type an artists name, or a specific tag, and listen to a stream of similar music; something I’ve been using a lost this Christmas. It’s been great to fire up the player on a laptop and listen to music tagged with ‘acoustic’ while I cook dinner, or type in an artist like ‘John Mayer‘ and find similar artists.

A side-effect of this is that I’ve also discovered 7digital, an online music store that offers DRM[?] free music (last.fm direct you to 7digital if you want to buy an album electronically) which is perfect now that I’m using Linux. There’s also a Linux version of the stand-alone player, and other options like built in support for scrobbling and listening to last.fm streams in Amarok.

One issue that I have experienced since I switched to Linux, is the downside to DRM. I’ve purchased quite a bit of music over the past few years from the iTunes Music Store, which is copy protected and won’t play outside of an authorised copy of iTunes, which is a problem if you’re using Linux and can’t actually run iTunes. Thankfully it’s a pretty common issue and thanks to the Hymn Project I’ve been able to all of my purchased music into a linux friendly format!

Happy days.

Tags: drm, hymn project, itunes, last.fm, Linux, Music, streaming

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Tags: drm, hymn project, itunes, last.fm, Linux, Music, streaming

Its official, I’ve decided to drop Microsoft Windows completely at home, and use Linux instead. It started off as a little experiment, to see what Linux is like these days (it’s been a few years since I used it last), but after a few days of using it I love it!

I’m currently running Gentoo Linux, with the KDE desktop (3.5). I’ve included some screen shots of what it currently looks like.

Tags: amarok, avant, avant-window-navigator, compiz-fusion, firefox, gentoo, gimp, kde, kopete, last.fm, Linux, open office, osk, vlc, xine

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Tags: amarok, avant, avant-window-navigator, compiz-fusion, firefox, gentoo, gimp, kde, kopete, last.fm, Linux, open office, osk, vlc, xine

I’ve just updated some images, and CSS styles to expand the size of the site. It should sit nicely inside a browser at 1024×768. We’ve had quite a debate at work about designing sites to 1024×768 rather than 800×600, especially with the newly designed BBC home page being 1024×768.

I really need to do some more work on the design of this site (well to be honest I need to do some design work in the first place because it’s a bit bland at the moment). Maybe if I get bored over Christmas you’ll see some updates.

For those of you reading in an RSS reader head over to the site and let me know what you think by leaving a comment

Tags: design, This Blog, version7

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Tags: design, This Blog, version7

I’ve just completed an upgrade to my Wordpress installation, and it looks like some of my plugins might not be compatible with the latest release. As soon as updates are released I’ll get them installed, but in the mean time tags are disabled. If you see any error messages, or anything that looks odd then drop me an email or leave a comment, and I’ll get it fixed asap.

Tags: tagging, wordpress, wordpress2.3

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Tags: tagging, wordpress, wordpress2.3

I obviously haven’t been keeping up with my blog subscriptions, because my good friend and colleague, Sean Johnson, has been busy updating his blog recently, with a new design, and some great book reviews and articles on Wordpress, CSS, HTML etc…

Head over to http://seanjohnson.net or pick up the RSS feed.

Tags: blogs, bluestone, bluestonecreative, designer, seanjohnson, webdesign

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Tags: blogs, bluestone, bluestonecreative, designer, seanjohnson, webdesign

Believe it or not, I’m finally writing the post from home, using a broadband connection! I’ve been waiting to get broadband installed for three years, but the local infrastructure couldn’t support ADSL on our line (for those interested, BT installed fiber cabling rather the copper, so they had to overlay copper).

It’s great to be online at the same time as the rest of my family, and not have to wait until the phone line is free before I can get online!

Maybe I’ll be able to get around to updating this blog a bit more often now.

Tags: adsl, british-telecom, broadband, bt

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Tags: adsl, british-telecom, broadband, bt

I’ve finally got my camera back, after my compact flash pin bent but a word of warning, make sure you remove batteries before you send your camera off for repair (with a well known high-street photographic shop). I left my battery in my camera and it came back with out it!

On the up-side it’s reminded me to write something on this blog (which I’ve been neglecting).

Tags: camera, canon-350d

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Tags: camera, canon-350d

It’s taken me a while but I’ve finally uploaded photos from my recent trip to Las Vegas. You can see all of the images on Flickr.

Here’s a sampler…

Tags: flickr, holiday, las-vegas, nevada, photo, Travel, usa

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Tags: flickr, holiday, las-vegas, nevada, photo, Travel, usa

I’ve decided it’s time to do something about the design of this blog, so I’ve knocked together a new design, as you can see (unless you’re reading this post in an RSS reader, in which case head over to the site and take a look).

Don’t get too excited tho, it’s a very (very) simple design. I’ve decided to stick to the motto “content is king” and not get distracted with a site that looks stunning (besides most people read things in RSS readers anyway).

There’s still a few areas that need some work, but the main parts are up and running, like comments, archives, categories, pages etc. I’ll get around to fixing the rest over the next few days.

Feel free to post comments with your thoughts and suggestions.

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This post is a little late, but last week I spent four days in Las Vegas staying at the New York New York hotel on the main strip. It was a great few days, and my first trip to the united states…

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