Saturday, April 10, 2004

Radio Userland Problems

Why is Radio Userland so bloody difficult to use? That last post took me about eight attempts to get right. I had a couple of typos to fix, but RU kept losing my changes and, once again, the latency drove me to distraction. Getting the lyrics laid out was also a hassle. RU wrapped them over two lines, instead of four. I know, it's an HTML thing, but the editing facilities ought to give me WYSIWYG in this day and age. There's no preview facility either. I've prepared this entry in LogBook, because I can trust it not to lose my stuff. I can see that I'm going to have to add blogging and a web preview to it. Guys, get the usability problems sorted out, please! 2:02:22 PM

Internet Radio

Good, god! I've discovered internet radio. Last time I heard it was at my father-in-law's about five years ago. The quality was appalling. David is a radio buff so he was willing to put up with it, indeed, he was inflicting it on the rest of the house at maximum decibels. I dismissed it. Today I came across a post on Ongoing recommending Dainbramage, so I gave it a try. It was playing REO Speed Wagon when I dropped in, so I quickly moved on, but the sound quality at 128 kbps was marvelous. iTunes is stuffed full of radio channels and I've tried a few of them out. I love Magnatune World Music for its really eclectic mix of world music, and it's right up Jill's street. She's just be clumping around the room to some old English folk tune. You know the sort of thing, to be sung in a nasal tone with a finger in one ear... As I was walking down the lane, A maiden I did spy, She looked me up, and looked me down, Then poked me in the eye... IranianRadio.com was interesting too. I though it would be too harsh to listen to but this wasn't the case. It was pleasant to listen to music with a completely foreign set of instruments. Just now it's playing some euro-style crap with the repeated chorus 'Hello, hello', so I don't think I'll be spending a lot of time there. I think they are at their best when they're true to their heritage. One thing to note: if you're listening at 128 kbps, it kills all your other downloads. I need to switch the radio off to get any other throughput. 1:29:40 PM