Life Ponderings

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Interesting Article : How to be productive

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I just came across this article, and given that I am in the midst of my Daily Creation Challenge, I thought it was apt to see another approach on how to be productive. I am not sure I fully agree with all the points raised, but on the whole there are some great nuggets of advice in there. The #dcc has certainly taught me what makes me productive, whilst some of the elements are contained within the article, I think part of the process was discovering, 'how I work best' and 'what do I need to enable me productive'. For me the main thing is time pressure, time limits really focus the mind, and all the extraneous stuff (e.g. worrying about what people will thing etc etc) go out the window and the job gets done...which ultimately is what we all want to achieve!PeaceNeil

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Google Nexus 7 and BBC iPlayer not working

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Not sure if anyone else is having this problem, where the the fantastic BBC iPlayer doesn't install or work on the equally fantastic Google Nexus 7. Well fear not, it is actually relatively to sort out. Basically, Adobe Flash Player 11 doesn't install with the new version of Android (Jelly Bean), and it seems that the only way to install it is manually via an apk. The very helpful people here have provided links to the two apks. Once downloaded, click install and you are good to go!PeaceNeil

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Passive income and freelancing

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I guess the goal of most creative types is to gain some form of passive income from existing work to fund new projects and actually gain some income from the material you produce. There are many ways currently of doing this, from stock photography to the more traditional licensing of works (e.g. music libraries). Getting material up can be a bit of a slog sometimes, and I find some of the terminology and hoops some companies make you go through to upload material can be a little of putting (but I guess this ensures quality control!).Anyway, I digress, I have just come across this website and it really good insight and loads of useful information, so I thought would share it with you!PeaceNeil

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Music Piracy - Most downloaded - Manchester!

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Wow, so in the UK, Manchester is the home of the most downloaded pirated music. This report makes interesting reading. I guess it is still a sorry state affairs that this is seen as the norm now, but there has been a generational switch and the norm now is that content is free. The arguments have been done to death since the Napster days, about the pros and cons of downloads, wether it is theft or a form of promotion. I know which camp I reside in! Having said that, a simple solution to me is this.....It is very similar in operation to how the PRS works, collects money and distributes it to artists. This model could be applied to music download channels too, I should add this is similar to what Spotify do with ad revenue, but as well as getting advertising money shared out, end users could also contribute...how you ask? Basically, you add a levy to their communication bills (be it mobile, broadband, cable etc). This could be say at an extreme level between £5-£10 per month, or as low as £2 per month. Looking at stats from Ofcom for 2011, we see that there are

  • Number of mobile subscriptions in the UK 81.6m (Q4 2011)
  • Number of fixed residential broadband connections in the UK 18.8m (End 2011)

This is roughly 100m 'bills' which are being paid. So the inclusion of a £2 levy for example would generate roughly £200m for the music industry. This money, could then be distributed via the same system that the PRS currently use (based on what would be legal information on downloaded material). If the levy is low enough, the majority of people would not really notice the increase, and it would generate > £200m for musicians which is currently being lost to music downloads.Just a thought….comments below….PeaceNeil

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Logic 10 or Logic x release?

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No not today, just an iPhone 5 and to be honest from the looks of it that isn't very exciting either. Bigger screen and some other fluff. Oh dear what is happening at Apple?Also, no update to the iPod classic (a device for those who love music and only music), has Apple forgotten about the creative types who stuck by them and got them where they are today?Hmmm?!PeaceNeilLight%20B4%20Sound

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One year of music (and photography) and Daily Creation Challenge | Day 237 - One year in music

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Yes, today marks the one year anniversary of starting the piece a day (and now daily creation challenge), where I write a piece of music (and latterly upload a photograph) every day. The challenge started as a positive way to approach the period of redundancy I was under going at the time. I wanted to do something positive for myself and I also wanted to see if I could actually discipline myself to actually sit down everyday and produce a piece of music (or photography). I can't actually believe that a whole year has gone by already! Doesn't time fly! The next stage is to actually sit down and apply all the learning I have obtained from this challenge to finished the next Light B4 Sound album.With the Daily Creation Challenge (where I am continuing the piece a day challenge and producing a piece of music/photography everyday from the 1st of January until the 31st of December 2012), I have another 93 days to go until I make it until the end of the year and the end of the challenge!! I think it is going well and I am on target to achieve it!! I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone out there for their support, I hope that you have all enjoyed some of the output! Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment on which track(s) you have enjoyed the most!I think the biggest thing I have learnt from this challenge is that you can do anything if you put your mind to it, and after about 15 days it starts to become a habit which is then hard to break! It is now something I have to do everyday! The other thing I will take away from this is about how I work. It is crucial (for me) to have a set time to do something (i.e. a deadline), having that removes the biggest of all creative endeavor evils....procrastination. With time against you and a blank canvas, things just seem to happen, rather than putting things off until you are in a more creative mindset, the deadline forces the creative lobes of the brain into action and things start to come out! Perhaps we all need deadlines :)Enjoy<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F57416059&show_artwork=true"></iframe>PeaceNeil