New music discussion forum

Just writing to let you know that I have set up the Wireless Cranium discussion forum as a companion to this blog. You can find it at the following URL:

http://wirelesscranium.stackexchange.com

The mission statement of the Wireless Cranium forum is:

A discussion forum for music lovers all over the world. If you have passion for listening to music of any form, please join and contribute to this community.

So really, anything goes; just keep it music-related. The emphasis of the forum is more the appreciation of music than the playing of music.

This forum utilises the superb Stack Exchange framework, a generic platform created by the founders of Stack Overflow, a programming Q&A website. Stack Exchange is currently in beta, which means that they want people to try it out for free before its public launch (and before they start charging to use it).

If we can build up a nice following, I might consider registering it when it goes out of beta.

Unlike the Stack Overflow trilogy of websites (which includes the system-admin focused Server Fault and general computer focused Super User), I don't expect most questions on the Wireless Cranium forum to have a definitive answer.

While subjective questions are generally discouraged on the Stack Overflow sites, the focus of the Wireless Cranium forum will be subjective questions.

Note that the voting system still applies:

• Voting up a question means "I find the question interesting".
• Voting down a question means "I don't think this question adds much to the community".
• Voting up an answer means "I agree with this answer".
• Voting down an answer means "I disagree with this answer".
  

Registration is optional, using Open ID. While you can do many things on the forum without registering, doing so will allow you to participate in other aspects of the site.

Enjoy!

A change is gonna come

You may have noticed something different in one of my recent posts. Yes, for the first time ever I actually included a song to download in the post. I have been thinking about where this blog is going and I have decided to start including downloadable songs in future posts. After all, it's much easier to appreciate a song if you can actually hear it rather than read about it.

Because I will be hosting the files myself, links to the songs will be removed one week after the date of posting them. All songs will be in AAC (.m4a) format, as that is the format that I use on the iPod. You can listen to these in iTunes, or download a plugin like this one which will allow you to play them in WinAmp.

I have a few questions for you, dear reader:

• Is this a good idea?
• Do you think it's a good way to get into new music?
• Will you download the songs I post here?
• More importantly, will you listen to the songs I post here?
• Will me posting songs make you more inclined to comment on this blog?

Please reply via the comments with answers to these questions; I appreciate any input.

Please note that I do not condone music piracy in any form. So after listening to the songs, either delete them or buy them. If you like the songs I post, you can ask me for more information. Maybe the album that the song comes from is a great one, in which case I can recommend the whole album to you. Maybe it's the one good song off an average album, in which case I can recommend that you buy the song from iTunes (or your prefered online digital music retailer).

In honour of the title of this post, here's the classic Otis Redding song (actually a cover of a Sam Cooke tune). Enjoy!

Otis Redding - A change is gonna come [Link Removed]

UPDATE: For some reason both FireFox and IE change the extension of the file to .mpeg when trying to save the file. Please rename the file so it has a .m4a extension before trying to listen to it and I'll try to figure out what's going on.

UPDATE: Song links removed.

Welcome to the new blog - Wireless Cranium

Yes, jiggys.blogspot.com is no more.
Mindless, boring, getting to know you chit-chat is no more.

Let's all have a metric moment's silence for the blog that is no more.

...

Welcome to the new and improved* blog, Wireless Cranium (wirelesscranium.blogspot.com).

This blog has a new name, new look and new charter to actually reflect what I am actually talking about on the blog. Music, that is.

This doesn't mean that there can't be posts about things other than music. But it's good to focus and at least have a concept in mind for a blog to ensure that it doesn't go off topic too much.

Feel free to reply to any of my posts, or create a new post yourself. My blog is yours. Make yourself at home.

Why Wireless Cranium? Well, firstly wirelesscranium is my eBay username. And there is a connection between the name of the blog and the topics I generally post about. But I'll leave that up to you to figure out.

* Actual improvement is purely superficial. The blog really hasn't changed!

Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome to my blog.

Watch this space for more interesting posts.

Hope to see you back soon!