Couch Boy Music

In honour of the release of version 3.0 of WordPress, the ubiquitous blogging-platform-slash-cms used, I have switched to the new default theme ‘twenty-ten’.

Not sure how long I’ll stick with it but it’s here for now.  I’ll post more of this boring, techy stuff at www.chrismackie.co.uk, if you’re interested.  If not, the next post will be along whenever it gets written.

I must say I was sceptical about Spotify‘s mobile service. One factor was certainly cost (£10 per month). But battery life on my Nokia 5800 was another.

Happily, I’ve found the service to be well worth the money and also not too much of a strain on my poor battery – as long as you accept daily charging as a reality. Streaming is possible but only where a 3G mobile signal is present. Therefore, as others have stated, I’ve found the most effective way to use Spotify Mobile is to sync my phone to create offline playlists, so that playback is be unaffected by breaks in 3G signal. If you’re commuting between Glasgow and Edinburgh (or similar), this is a definite consideration.

What concerns me more is the low level of royalties that are passed on to the songwriters. The Guardian reported that one million plays on Spotify had earned Lady Gaga a total of $167.

Clearly this is a legal service, in that the record companies have signed up to Spotify but whether it is morally right that royalties are so low is another question entirely…

I’ve just moved my WordPress hosting for this blog over to Dreamhost apps.  Early days so far, but seems to be pretty cool (not to mention FREE)!  I’ve been messing about with some of the other apps (Mediawiki, Zenphoto) but having WordPress is the way forward for me at the moment.  I might even move my work site over as well when the hosting comes up for renewal.

Check it out:

Free Application Web Hosting: DreamHost Apps