I was going to say what is the point of a tech journal like IT Pro when MSN has it’s own Tech news. My tongue was going to be firmly in my cheek as MSN’s idea of News usually involves Paris Hilton so I assumed the tech stuff would be the same. However, I did actually find an interesting story 

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=11130442

 and I agree with the comment. This is the way to use the net to sell stuff not just get it ripped off. The point the record company people have missed since the days of cassettes is that 5,000 personally made illegal copies  is NOT 5,000 lost sales. 4,000+ of those people would just do with out and of those 5,000 some at least will be new fans who will go on and buy a genuine copy at some point.

Of course if we are talking about Hear Say X’s latest single then it will be totally forgotten in a couple of weeks so no one will buy it. But what kind of loss is that?

Over at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/audience_panel.shtml they are asking you to sign up and are going to database your knowledge area so they can contact you for expert or just informed or maybe even relevant comment. Is this is a step on from blogging in that your views might get national airtime or a step back in that it won’t just be your naked views that are expressed?

I’m not sure about it. One of the things I love about the web is that you can get to talk to opinion formers and decision makers in a way you never could before but would I trust the Beeb with my hobbies or career details? Do I want to be a freebie advisor?

I’ll think about it - if anyone else signs up let me know how it goes!

Answers to http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/17/never-a-crossword-part-ii/

Not too hard I hope - not with the explantions anyway! 

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters USER

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters! STRAP

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue) DECADE

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK? PEGS

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word YEATS

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word! ITPRO - had to get that it really!

On http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/16/never-a-crossword-2/ I promised the answers and some more clues so here goes.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

LEAD

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

SINGER

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….) Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

ELVIS

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

PEEK

And some other egs - getting harder!

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters!

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue)

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK?

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word!

And I’ll publish the answers to these another day!

The current add on the IT Pro home page gives me an excuse to plug one of my hobbies - cryptic crosswords. I’ve been doing them for years but some time ago I thought “that’s a rubbish clue, I could do better than that” and after a while I gave it a go. 

Only once I had computers and the internet to help did I manage to achieve much - however it is still very difficult and deserves a huge payment ;-) Anyway I regularly write a crossword for a guitar magazine (so it has a guitar theme) and occasionally branch out to other themes.

There are several basic types of cryptic clue - if you don’t know how they are code here’s a couple of clues with hints - I’ll publish the answers tomorrow.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….)Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

There are other types of clue - I’ll do some more egs another day. And I’m always open to commissions!

I feel bad referring to an MSN blog - call me a snob for decrying the populist but let’s face it most MSN stories are about Britney or X Factor or something else no one should care about - however… http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/music/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9617667&ocid=today>1=61501 is just so right. Abba - clever, competent, catchy but not great.

I’m tempted to say not music but that would be unfair. Music doesn’t have to be inspiring, life changing art but it can be  and anything that isn’t just shouldn’t be lauded - it can be enjoyed but not worshiped.

If Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” is Manet’s “The Bar at the Follies Bergere” then Mama Mia is the tennis girl scratching her bum - cleverly done and not without a simple (if guilty) pleasure but it ain’t great.
But  maybe I am just a snob  decrying the popullar.

I think I may be the victim of a “phone scam”. This morning two lasses came round claiming to be students just moved into the house a couple of doors a way. The said they were trying to set up their internet connection  but they needed a corded phone to check the line - of course they all had mobiles but not much use! In the spirit of kindness I lent them a phone, but it hasn’t some back.

I’ve read about phone scams but didn’t really know what one was until now. I expect the guys from the real hustle are explaining what you can do with four thousand used land line phones…

Update! They just brought it back, with thanks and cake (students feeding me? isn’t it supposed to happen the other way round?).  People being nice to each other, I’m sure this is more frequent occurrence than The Daily Mail would have us believe but they make their money out of worrying the worried with “news” of real scams. If we weren’t worried we wouldn’t buy the rag so they have keep up worry levels to keep up sales.

I’m using quite an old Music Match Juke Box (v7.5) as my CD ripper. The newer one screws up some other apps and is just bigger & bloatier & I have registered this version (I don’t just use freeware, on occasion I will pay for stuff!).

I use my own player “what I wrote” as an MP3 player as MM tends to hog resources, displays the tag name when I want the file name and doesn’t do some of the shuffle effects I want (like play next sequential track when in shuffle mode). Also it saves play lists as text files so it’s easy to manipulate them & doesn’t create weird libraries I never use. Anyway writing your own apps is cool & a CD / MP3 player is so easy with Visual Basic why not?

 However, back to MMJB. The problem I have is that it doesn’t tend to find newer CD & I end up typing in track names (well not typing, cutting & pasting from Amazon CD listings usually). Is there a new CDDB? Can I get MM to look it at it? Has someone declared copyright on track listings so they can’t be accessed?