Charanjit Chana

When it comes to web based apps, surely your location (language permitting) shouldn't exclude you from being able to access a site or service.

Off course, governments and organisations may wish to block you, but that's a different story.

Why are those of us in the UK blocked from using Pandora? I really want to download the Pandora app but being outside the US makes this impossible.

It looks like an excellent app and I really miss using Pandora.

This isn't the only case of this either. In this day and age, anything served up as a digital download should really be released simultaneously across the globe, shouldn't it?! I don't think I'd be far off if I touted greed as the main reason, but how much money do record labels and film studios not make by not having international releases for digital companies compared to the money they loose from piracy and people using proxies to get around these restrictions?

DRM sucks too by the way.

I randomly checked out the High Speed Scene's website yesterday for the first time in months and was greeted with a new message that was posted by band member Max a couple of weeks ago

The band are one of my favourites and I can't wait to get my hands on the promised EP. If you haven't heard them, please check them out. Fuck 'n' Spend is an awesome, upbeat, track and their album is just perfect in my eyes.

As a result of reading the announcement, I've been listening to, and become a fan of, We Are Scientists. Check them out too!

Prior to, and in anticipation of, the iPod Touch announcement earlier this month, I began making better use of the iTunes store. Rather than using it to find podcasts and free music, I began exploring the app store and even tentatively adding potential purchases to my basket.

I haven't really spent much in the past 3 weeks, maybe £20 all together on things that I really want. Admittedly £9 of that was on PangeaVR Pro, which I wish I hadn't spent as the free version is exactly the same from what I can tell :(

The Genius feature in iTunes certainly hasn't helped matters by recommending various songs that really appealed to me.

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The album pretty much defined my summer holiday in Spain by being played while we drove around the South East coast for 10 days. It's been months since I've been back, but the album has found itself, along with Robin Thicke's The Evolution of Robin Thicke, in regular rotation.



Thriller has now been around for 25 years. 25! Despite his real world problems, his music speaks for itself and I wouldn't bet against it becoming considered timeless.

Admittedly, I had heard the singles, but not with all the 'filler' tracks and they really do help to make an amazing album. I highly recommend it, especially the 25th anniversary special edition(s) that feature additional productions by Will I Am, featuring various artists and a DVD with the music videos. I have discovered some real gems, although slightly cheesy, that I really wouldn't have heard if the 25th anniversary of it's release hadn't been publicised so much!

I've always enjoyed having the full details of the MP3s in my iTunes library. Long before I started sing iTunes, Winamp got the same treatment!

With iTunes, it's been easier to keep the data correct because it gets most of the info before ripping commences, but I used to use Audiograbber, but as it's a Windows only product, I had to make some sort of switch.

Another drawback from manual updating files is that the artwork is often missing. I don't have a colour screen iPod (yet) so artwork isn't necessary at the moment, but it's always been something I've wanted to have for the fancy features in iTunes and for when I eventually upgrade my iPod.

A few days ago I came across an app called MPFreaker which takes care of a lot of the meta data. I gave the trial version a whirl but within a few minutes I was ready to purchase the full version. The $20 wasn't exactly steep and with ability to now rip through 1000s of songs at once, it seems like a bargain.

It can update almost all of the meta data for the songs on your machine and even adds lyrics! It has a play function, reads from your iTunes library and even lets you search and refine your listings by the playlists you have in iTunes so it really could just take the place of iTunes on your machine. If I didn't download so many podcasts, I'd probably make the switch myself.

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N*E*R*D are a band I came across some time ago now, back in the days before Pharrell Williams was cool and long, long, long before his somewhat ill-fated partnership with the Japanese outfit A Bathing Ape.

In Search Of... is an album I have, and will, recommend time and time again. It may not be a perfect album and has it's share of flaws, but it was a good start for the R'n'B/rock fusion that the Neptunes and Shay were going for.

Fly or Die, like ISO, had some great lyrics and really just picked up where they left off. Soon after, Pharrell announced N*E*R*D was to be no more, but soon took it back and no one really knew where anyone stood.

Fast forward 4 whole years and all of a sudden, they're back with a new album, Seeing Sounds. After hearing In My Mind, Pharrell's solo effort, and Hell Hath No Fury, I wasn't really expecting to take much interest in the Neptunes. Robin Thicke's album was very good, one of my favourites in fact, but knowing that a new N*E*R*D album was on it's way out, I'll admit a small smile appeared.



Shortly after seeing some artwork that makes it into the inside of the cover of the album, I heard that a single had been doing the rounds, and there was a video, called Everyone Nose. Straight to YouTube for a first listen/watch and first impressions were not good, a complete change in direction to what made them so likable. 10 or 15 seconds in and I was hooked. What a song. It may not be lyrically rich or deep like we're used to from the boys from Virginia, but it was catchy. It was fresh. It was the Neptunes (and Shay) at their very best again.

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I picked these up for a bargain price on Play.com (have since gone up a little) and was very pleased once I finally got my hands on them.

After the initial charge, I instantly tried to pair them with my Mac Mini, not knowing that OS X doesn't support the correct profile for a stereo bluetooth device... no matter, Skype wasn't my main reason for buying these! Being able to use these with iTunes would have been a huge plus, but again, no biggie!



Syncing with my Nokia N70 was easy as anything, but the resulting sound from the MP3s I had stored on the memory card wasn't great, but the bluetooth profile was the most likely cause for this. I haven't had a chance to use these when taking a call yet.

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