Tech bits

Q2 Internet Radio

My goddaughter’s birthday (6 years old) is coming up next week and she wanted a device so that she could listen to music. Ideally, that something would have been an Ipod touch but it’s far too expensive for a 6 year old. So i got her this Q2 speaker from amazon to listen to internet radio music in her room.

It’s brilliant and because it’s a 2 year old device it’s very reasonably priced now. What Hi-Fi rated it with 5* at GBP90. Easy to setup (simply drag and drop stations) and smart in how you can change the channels and volume levels simply by moving it around.

“No displays, knobs, buttons, switches or dials, simply flip the Q2 Radio to change channels and tilt to adjust the volume.”

I set it up yesterday so that it’s ready to use. If it wasn’t pink i would have kept it for myself. 🙂

Spotify

Last Sunday i got a text from a friend who lives in London.

“Try Spotify. I think it works in CY.”

I had tried both Spotify and Pandora before but neither provided the service in Cyprus unless you messed around with the network/ip etc. But Spotify is now available (Pandora is not) and it’s fantastic. While i enjoyed Jango for what it was this is on a different level in terms of content and options. With the premium service you can also download albums and listen to them offline.

 

A young woman, a wall and Optimist

While listening to this

have a look at these

 

Lover Of The Bayou , by Mudcrutch

 

Jango

Streaming music is a difficult thing to have in Cyprus. Services like Spotify and Pandora are not available to us. Internet radio helps to an extent. I was using Tunein until about a week ago. Both on my media player but also on my phone/ipod. It’s ok, but quite limited on the kind of music you can listen to since you can’t really choose the artists. It’s just radio of a specific music genre.

But now i have discovered Jango. It’s a service, available in Cyprus, where you create your own stations based not only on the genre but more importantly the artists. Based on that initial choice of band the service will stream other similar artists in your station. For example, start with The Maccabees and it follows it up with more UK rock bands. You can give a thumbs up or down on a specific song and it will appear more frequently or less in that station. You can also skip songs and/or add more specific bands in each station,

The service is free but has commercials (not frequent) and also promotes unknown artists by asking you to rate them. I still have not seen everything that the service is offering nor limits with regards to the artists it has.

Possibly not as good as subscription based services but for us located in Cyprus who do not have that choice it’s fantastic. I love it. Highly recommend it for music. It’s available on PC, Android and iOS.

 

Try something new for 30 days – exploring music

Jazz/blues – Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue album is brilliant!

 

Hugo Alfven

This piece by Hugo Alfven is lovely.

 

Exploring music for 30 days

I mostly listen to the same genre of music and artists on a daily basis. Rock, some country and hip/hop and that’s about it for the most part.

In the next 30 days i will be well outside my tastes and comfort zone. Using internet radio applications, either on the phone, Pc or media player, i will only be listening to different genres and world music.

The Different Music for 30 days challenge started yesterday morning with Classical on BBC Radio 3 and surprisingly, i loved it.

 

Cypriot Tourist in Cyprus (2)

When travelling by car, great music is critical as it makes the journey from just a chore to being a pleasure instead. Sometimes i wished i could drive a while longer just so that i could finish the track.

Dire Straits ‘ first album kept me company most of the time on the road.

Every single song in this album is magical but my favourites are Down To The Waterline, Water for Love, Sultans of Swing and Wild West End.

 

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Late to the party but The Suburbs is a fantastic album.

 

ILL MIND OF HOPSIN 5

This is one of the best rap songs i’ve heard in the past few years. Here’s the link to the music video ILL MIND OF HOPSIN 5 and this is the link to listen to the song while reading the lyrics.

Thanks to @Hatchetjob (http://hatchetjob.libsyn.com/) for linking this.