Chris: Geek Guy

I just stumbled across a great blog, Cover Lay Down,which features folk-style cover versions of popular songs. Highly recommended, although if you’re anything like me you’ll be there for hours!

New legal music download service We7 offers free, non-DRM MP3 downloads from a number of popular artists. The catch? Each track has a 10-second advertisement tacked on to the start. A month after downloading an ad-supported track, you are able to go back to the We7 site and download a version with the advert removed. However, I downloaded two test tracks and found that the advert can be removed easily through the use of simple audio editing software. A very interesting business model indeed… only time will tell whether it is ultimately successful.

I recently bought the 512MB iBall from Geil, a company perhaps better known for their high-performance computer memory. Labelled as a “GMV Player” (or “MPV Player” on some versions), it can play video files on its tiny OLED screen as well as acting as a simple MP3 player. I haven’t experimented with the video feature beyond watching the included sample clips, and I have to say that I wasn’t impressed with the quality.

It looks fairly stylish and works perfectly as a standard MP3 player bar one somewhat major flaw – it won’t resume from where you left off if you switch the unit off and on again, so you end up having to skip the tracks you’ve already heard. This would probably have caused me to return the player if it wasn’t so cheap (£2.99 from the Overclockers B-Grade section, no more left unfortunately!).

The player also packs an FM radio no better nor worse than those I’ve seen bundled into other MP3 players and mobile phones, an e-book/text file viewer which allows you to view an impractical 24 characters at a time, a voice recorder which  haven’t experimented with, and a picture viewer which I imagine is of similar quality to the video player.

All in all, it’s a fun little toy but not what I’d consider a serious digital audio player. Much more details over at Dan’s Data, an independent PC hardware and gadgets blog which I recommend highly, by the way.

DJ Earworm’s United State of Pop is a mix of the year’s Billboard Top 25 hits squashed into a little over five minutes, and it’s very well done.

If you’re into this kind of thing, be sure to check out the free Best of Bootie 2007 album too!

Bootleg Browser has links to sites offering bootleg tracks and entire live shows, sorted by artist. There are a number of popular artists listed including some of my favourites. Be warned, you’re likely to spend a few hours on this site!

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