Listen to ANY Song, ANY Time, TOTALLY legally, and FREE!

Downloading ‘mp3s’ has been a touchy subject in the eyes of the law, and even more in the eyes of music industry mogals since the launch of the now famous ‘Napster’ file sharing program.

The industry have tended to take the good old corporate approach by bitching to the high courts about it whilst doing pretty much jack s**t to find a way for people to still use technology to enjoy music… oh no, wait – iTunes – how the hell did I forget about that one! THANKS APPLE! Thanks to your AMAZINGLY SUPER-TRENDO service – with those funky adverts you have that make us feel all trendy for listening to our iPods! Thanks to you guys, I can now pay money and by the same old albums that I already had to pay for on Vinyl, Eight Track, Cassette, CD, MiniDisc and Hey! not forgetting that must-have ‘digitally remastered’ DVD of my favourite band in concert! hmmm…. I think you get my point….

I wanna make it clear though, crystally clear, that downloading material, pirating and profiting from it should be clamped down on. It makes sense – if someone is reproducing material and making money out of it when they don’t have permission to – they need to be taken down and given a good lesson.

However, you and me; ‘the average Joe’ who have just had that annoyingly catchy ‘MIA:Paper Planes’ beat stuck in our heads all morning and just wanna hear it once more, are currently not able to do so because unless you can justify paying money for a song you dont want – there aren’t many options for you left out there!

Time to sit by the Radio all day in case it might come on? Or maybe an afternoon flicking through all the advert-ridden MTV channels in the hope you might catch the end of that song you can’t shake?

Don’t think so! So what do you do?

What’s become popular on the internet in recent times are websites offering to play you streamed music of your ‘choice.’ Most of these, such as ‘Jango‘ don’t let you play what you want, when you want – they just let you give them the ’style’ of music you are looking for and it will play a selection from that – all very good, and a lot of these are great for discovering new bands, artists and songs that you like – but it doesn’t solve our ‘I need to hear this song right now!’ problem!

Thats where this nifty little site we’ve found comes in handy – It’s called ‘Songza’ and has been branded as ‘The Google of Music’ and you can see why – the page hits you like a colourful Google for starters, and from then it’s what you see is what you get – whack a song title or band or whatever the hell you want and hit go! from their you can listen and share songs for other users – without the need to download anything or pay a penny! Check it out here!

The new Google? Hahahah hahahah hahaha

Just when you thought you might be getting the hang of the big G, a disgruntled former employee only goes and sets up his only rival search engine!

Ohhhhhhhhh techno scandal…. you love it!

‘Cuil’, (ancient Irish for knowledge i’ll have you know) declares it has the largest index on earth and that they offer a new search function for an every changing internet.

Sounds promising hey? Except after launching itself online, via all the correct marketing channels and funding itself with a sizable pile of gold, it only went and bloody crashed. Yes, imagine if Google crashed on you? No… Not possible is it?

Cuil may talk the talk and my god it might even walk …a little bit. But taking on Google and the algorithm of website doom? Thats just madness.

Don’t think much of the logo either….

South Park funnies – Create your own Cartman!

We at Green i Design are big fans of South Park. For a long time in fact, ever since we were mere 12 year olds, when the hit show first burst on to our screens in 1997, we have loved it – all 12 seasons. The genius duo, Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s South Park, has since grown from the ‘ingrate cartoon’ it was initially deemed, into a first class satirical parody of our times.

If you haven’t seen such classic episodes as ‘Cartman gets an Anal probe’, ‘Big Gay Al’s big gay boat ride’ and ‘Osama bin Laden has farty pants’, then to be honest you haven’t lived.

In the mean time, for any of you who care, we found a funky little application online which allows you to create your own Southpark characters. Take a look below, you may think it’s stupid but it’s actually super addictive, not unlike the programme itself.

I made one below, I like to call him ‘Cedric the gored ginger kid’

So go on make one yourself and send us your screen shots… a prize for the best one!

How to be found on Google – An idiots guide

How many times have you just clicked the first result you see, when you have searched for something on Google ?

What’s that? You never go past page 3…

Fear not. No one gets past page 3. This doesn’t mean your lazy and cant be bothered to look any further, this is just typical online behaviour.People don’t want to search too much, they are too busy plus why the hell should they? People want their results and they want it now, most importantly they KNOW Google will give it to them.

To be the number one spot on Google is to essentially win at life. It stands for that illusive integrity in a fast paced world of instant gratification. Online users know that the results Google presents are THE most relevant to their search and that’s why they go to it.

But how do you get to be there?

You may have just started to get involved with online media or maybe you already have a website or a blog and want to be able to be found more for your content. You may just want to show off to the world or you have realised the importance of the power of online marketing. Well you’re in good hands as we at Green i Design know how to be found.

Unfortunately it’s no simple task and getting good rankings in the Google Search Engine can be a full time job, no, there is no easy route and you have to be prepared for the long hall. Any sneaky short cuts, Google’s search bots will find them and you will be punished…

Like Wikipedia, Google is built on trust and of course, some rather complicated techo jargon. From the huge air hangers that house the Big G’s hubs, processing over 100 search factors and the relevance of over 8 billion web pages in a matter of seconds, for your convenience. To the secret Google algorithm that works out exactly what you are looking for, with over 90% of search results online found by Google, there really is no substitute.

So to be found on Google?

HOW TO BE FOUND ON GOOGLE: TIP no. 1

Well as we have mentioned there are loads of factors (over 100) Google consider when making a search, some we* know, some only Google know, but the first and most important factor to get found on Google is to write good content. Matt Cutts (aka the public face / ‘man who is super smug becuase he actually does know everything about’) of Google.com, says good content is his first and primary factor when decifering the relevance of a web page – will it tell the reader what they wanted to know? Have you written about your topic well? with passion and commitment? Do you appeal to your customers?

More often than not, the key to a successful business is their customer satisfaction success rate – and of course Google is on it with that!

Write what you want and write with enthusiasm, write for your audience and not for the search engines and you WILL get found.

………………..

If your still finding this a little complicated and you’d rather someone do the work for you, contact us at Green i Design – We can help you get your web page found.

*We = Search Engine Optimisers

Search Engine Optimisers is the posho way of saying ‘the people who specialise in getting your stuff found online.’

Keep posted for more SEO information and how to’s from Green i Design.

Photography – HDR – Canary Wharf – ‘God Save Us’

‘GOD SAVE US’

HDR Imaging techniques can often cause dramatic results

high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

Confused? Don’t be. In simple terms, HDR is a photograph made up of several or many different photographs all taken at different exposures. No other setting on your camera need be changed, simply set up a good shot with your tripod and take 3 to 4 pictures of the same object at different exposures.

Where HDR becomes HDRI is in the processing of your picture. Adobe Photoshop CS3 comes with an HDR/Tonemapping tool pre-installed and there are a few great programs out there on the market that blend your collected photos into one tonemapped/HDR photograph.

The above shot is one by Green i Design’s resident photographer as an example of how you can play with HDRI for a truely dramatic, bold effect.