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….

Happy 3rd week birthday

Yesterday we realised that the Green i Design blog has been chugging along, an archaic 3 weeks now… We feel so old!

But… yippy… We’ve had over 1500 views so far… Keep them coming!

Imagine 3 years!

Thank you to everyone who has been involved so far, and for those who are sending us your stuff… ohh you guys are good!

Expect more talent ones too watch and design joy to be coming your way soon.

Bo!

Film review – The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is everywhere right now – If you haven’t seen it and don’t want any spoilers, then read no further…..

But, if like 400 billion other people (real life actual stats) you have already seen the ‘film of the summer’, we wonder if you had the same opinions on the suit and that Ledger bloke as this weeks featured creative.

Here at Green i Design we have a guest post from the sparky young writer Rupert de Paula. Having been printed in the Australian Times and a keen fiction writer, he wanted to show you all his skills and we thought, why not?

So a warm welcome to Rupert within the Green i community and we’d like your reviews of his work… ohh how the tables are turned.

What do you think? Will he be the next Alexander Walker?

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The Dark Knight – Rupert de Paula

When it comes to superheroes, Batman was always the way coolest of the lot.

Yeah, he doesn’t have any actual ‘super’ powers, but he has bitching gadgets, a not-actually-totally-gay costume and awesome villains, who everybody knows are far more interesting than the actually heroes themselves (Note to Superman: yes that means you and your slaphead nemesis).

So, after his fun, but rather back story heavy Batman Begins, with its less than iconic bad guy Ras Al’Ghul, it’s unsurprising that Brit director Christopher Nolan has returned for a second crack at the Batwhip. And this time he’s brought the godfather of comic book villains along for the ride. That’s right: The Joker’s back.

Everybody knows that Heath Ledger carked it after the movie wrapped, so no need to go back over the masses of fawning hyperbole circulating the media (how someone derided as ‘that gay cowboy guy’ transforms into ‘the best actor of his generation’ only after they die just goes to highlight Hollywood’s crass hypocrisy). Let’s just say that Ledger is f**king amazing, ramming all the dismayed fanboys original criticisms straight back down their acne-scared, blog-obsessed throats.

Yep, he owns this movie like fat kids love cake.

The film itself cracks along an attention demanding pace, with all the murky sub plots slightly convoluting the final act. But there is no denying that Nolan has crafted an unrepentantly adult superhero movie, with recurring themes of madness and the much lauded War on Terror analogy (which is pap by the way, this is a movie about a man dressed as a clown bringing the ruckus to man dressed as a bat). So don’t take they kiddies, it’ll scare the bajeezers out of them.

No doubt some people will hate on this movie, saying it is vastly over rated – the Godfather Part 2 of comic book adaptations it aint. But after a summer of uniform mediocrity at the box office The Dark Knight is a rollercoaster ride that refuses to dumb down or patronise its audience.

Oh, and Heath Ledger really is THAT good.

BEST BIT: The Joker – Steals every scene.
WORST BIT: Batman’s stupid sonar/mobile phone thing – WTF?

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Want to showcase your skills… whatever they are?

Get in contact….

Photography – ‘Hellllllo Ladies’

‘Hellllllo Ladies’

This isn’t the best photograph in the world but we caught our little mascot cracking out his best pulling pose. He is only 5 months old but he’s got the skillz. You go Zizou…

He’s such a tart!

No stats: This is candid cat cam, you could have taken this with a phone – we just got lucky!