Category: learning curve

Heart v Head

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I desperately want(ed) to get down to the coast this weekend. The weather this week has been atrocious (once we’d got past Tuesday with its ridiculous midwinter 30 degreedness) and the wind has whipped up some epic swells around the South African coast. The weather service were warning of 7m off Agulhas. Yummy.

I love that kind of weather. It’s dramatic, elemental, Wuthering Heights kind of stuff. I would much rather wander along a beach in a gale, with crashing surf and disturbed seabirds than sit there in the baking sun, baking.
There are other considerations though. Family, for one, two and three. Coming from South Africa, rather than the UK, they are not so keen on the epic waves and howling wind. They want sunshine and warmth. They like to be able to see the sand to sit on and to dig in, rather than have it littered in smashed weed and marooned jellyfish. Suffice to say, their preferred conditions are not going to be much in evidence this weekend. And there’s more to do with two small kids in Cape Town than in a tiny village miles from anything except a windy beach and a wild sea.

Add to that the frankly rather scary conditions forecast for the Cape on Sunday – if you thought last night’s ice storm was bad, just wait – which is when we’d be doing the 230km back and it’s sadly a no-brainer. Or rather an all-brainer and a no-hearter. Not that I struggle to drive safely in storm force winds and heavy rain, but unfortunately, it has come to my attention that a lot of other people in this country do.

So I’ll be around this weekend, I think. Which makes it all the more important for you to take the few seconds required to ‘like’ the new 6000.co.za facebook page, download the 6000 miles… feed Android app or even the one for your Nokia Ovi, thanks to Nokia SA and #mobiblog.
And – big news – the 6000 miles… iPhone app is under development and should be with you shortly. Possibly even more shortly now that I’m going to be around some internet for the next few days.

So many ways to stay in touch. No excuses anymore.

Somewhere Ovi the Rainbow

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Nokia have been in touch and they sent me a cactus and some post-it notes. Did I, they also asked, realise how easy it would be to make an Ovi app for my blog? And was I, they continued, aware that if I made an Ovi app for my blog, I could win a trip to next year’s SXSW Tech conference in Texas, Texas?

I was hugely confused by their quickfire questioning.
Things weren’t looking good – like a particularly poor ice hockey team – I was 0/2 in the seven game series.

But I turned things around after a rousing and inspiring team talk in the changing room and, having viewed this video which explained all, I headed to the Ovi App Wizard site and followed the overly simple, step-by-step instructions to create a little 6000 miles… presence in the Ovi App Store. And, what’s more, because you can include up to 5 RSS feeds to your Ovi app, I included my flickr RSS as well, so Nokia users can get some pictorial goodness as well.

It’s all ever so straightforward and took no longer than 10 minutes, including coffee breaks.

Then all I had to do was click a button and submit it to their Ovi Store Approvals Board. 24 hours later, I got an email telling me that my app was all approved and ready to go.

If you are on a Nokia or if you know of people who are on a Nokia (there are an incredible 825,000,000 compatible handset out there), please tell them to visit the Ovi Store and download my app – it’s right here (you can have a look at it on a PC too). The more downloads, the more chance I have of jetting out to Texas, Texas next year.

This competition also proved to be the catalyst for me to finally “do” a 6000 miles… Facebook page (which you should sign up to) and I’m already making plans for other apps on other mobile platforms.
However, I’m guessing that none of them will be as simple or as user-friendly as this one was to create.

6000.co.za is now on Facebook

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With Facebook rapidly becoming the all conquering behemoth as far as the internet is concerned, it seemed wise to finally take the plunge and make one of their ridiculously named “fan pages” for the blog. Now it should be noted that for the amateur [waves], Facebook doesn’t make it easy for you to do this – the interface is horrible and not at all intuitive, the language is confusing and everything is that nasty Facebook blue.
It’s probably for those reasons that I haven’t done it before.

But anyway, all in all, it’s been a steep learning curve and I have a horrible feeling that it will continue to be a steep learning curve. But click that LIKE button in the side bar there ~>, (or alternatively, click here) and bear with me and once things are up and running smoothly, I’ll sort out some Facebook-only competitions to make it seem that the 0.5 seconds it took you to click your mouse button was completely worth your while.

Now let’s see if the dlvr.it app does its thing and plonks this post where it needs to go.

Removing Mention and Retweet Email Notifications on Twitter

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Catchy title, hey?

Twitter has a new default setting to send you an email notifying you of each time you get mentioned or retweeted.
While I like notifications when I get direct messages (because I don’t use them much) or new followers (because I like to say hello), if I was to get emailed each time I was mentioned or RT’d, things would get a bit ridiculous.
So I have switched those options off.

Sorted.

However, it seems that some people aren’t aware of how to do that. Don’t worry – it’s not hard and we’re here to help.

While logged in to twitter, go to: http://twitter.com/settings/notifications. You can also get there by clicking the drop down menu next to your picture in the toolbar and selecting SETTINGS and then clicking the NOTIFICATIONS tab.

Now simply choose which email notifications you want to receive.
Here’s one I did earlier:

Oh, and DON’T FORGET TO CLICK SAVE! to update your notifications!

That’s actually all there is to it. You’re welcome.

The Perfect Setlist

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It’s always a toughie when a band is touring. They’re out there promoting their new material, but the fans turn up wanting to have a good night listening to their classics. Finding a suitable balance is always going to be difficult, but apparently, there is some thought that goes into it.
Here’s how my hometown boys and recent 6000 miles… featurees work it out, their strategy revealed by lead guitarist Jamie Cook to NYMag.com.

“The View From the Afternoon”
“When I saw the Strokes at Madison Square Garden, they started with the first song on their first album, and it was great. I thought we should do the same.”

“Brianstorm”
“To start off the set, we play stuff people can dance to.”

And then, that awkward moment discussed above:

“Don’t Sit Down ’Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair”
“This is the first new one, five songs in. Some people are waiting to hear it, and some people are going to be like, F*** this! Why can’t they play an old one?

Before he demonstrates that he’s been to gigs as an audience member as well:

“I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”
“I imagine a fan bringing a date to our show who doesn’t know us that well. We play loads of new stuff, and when we get to ‘Dancefloor,’ he turns to her and says, ‘You’ll definitely know this one.’ If she says, ‘I don’t know this one either,’ that’s when maybe you shouldn’t see much of her again. We’re helping our fans: If they pass this test, it must be love!”

Acknowledging the difficulties of introducing new music on tour:

“She’s Thunderstorms”
“We’d love to go out and be able to play twelve new songs, but that’s not really fair, so there are five new ones on here — this one opens the new album. At the first few gigs, the idea is to test them out and see how they go.”

And ending on the right note:

“Fluorescent Adolescent”
“It’s good for singing along. For the last song, that’s what you need. That’s it! Let’s hope the sun shines, but just in case, bring an umbrella.”

And I agree with most of what he says, but let’s be honest, his hands (and those of every other band on tour promoting a new album) are tied. That might account for the “interesting” guitar work on the new album, incidentally. The fans are not there to hear the new stuff – even when it becomes a hit some way down the line, they won’t remember seeing it live.
There’s no familiarity with a  favourite lyric, no personal link to an event or events in one’s life; there’s no emotion attached to it.

But  – against what the Arctic Monkeys told us “There’s only music so that there’s new ringtones” – without new music, there would be no tours and the whole argument would be rendered invalid anyway. Thus, it looks like the age old recipe of the 70:30 split of old to new. And working on a set of about 20 songs, that still means that you’re going to get 14 of your favourites in.

It’s probably still worth the price of a ticket.

Suck It and See is the fourth studio album from the Arctic Monkeys and is released on 6th June.

The band recently announced two hometown gigs at the Don Valley Bowl on June 10 and 11. They will be headlining the annual V festival occurring August 20-21 with Eminem, Rhianna and Plan B and will also be headlining the T in the Park festival with Coldplay and the Foo Fighters which runs from July 8-10.