scottandrew.com

Don't Fear The Lizard!

News.com wrongly frames the potential AOL switch to Mozilla as something to be feared. Why? This is a wonderful opportunity, and not only to advance the cause of standards. Thousands of sites will need tweaking. Thousands of web developers are currently looking for work. Hmm. If I were an unemployed developer, I'd turn this into a huge consulting opportunity. Need to fix your hundreds of pages that suddenly won't work in AOL? Here's my card.

Don't Confuse Fans With Pirates

Roger Ebert: Don't confuse fans with pirates.

Scripting Web Pages

At Webreference: Why Script?

Search Link Shortcuts in Moveable Type

I often link certain keyword in my blog posts to Google or dictionary searches, so the idea occured to me to make a few shortcut buttons to make this easier in Moveable Type. These MT shortcuts work just like the standard HTML editing shortcuts, except they take the highlighted word or words and create a link to search Google, Amazon or Dictionary.com. Screenshot:
http://www.scottandrew.com/pub/mt-powerlinks.gif

Easily installed:

1. Download and unzip this file:
http://www.scottandrew.com/pub/mt-powerlinks.zip

2. Upload the 3 button images into the /images/ directory of your MT installation.

3. Go into /tmpl/cms/ and make a backup copy of your original edit_entry.tmpl file just in case.

4. Upload the edit_entry.tmpl from the zip package into /tmpl/cms/

That's it! Now, to easily make a search link, highlight the word or words in your post and click the appropriate button. The selected words become search terms.

BTW, for Amazon searches, there's an Associate code that's added to the search URL. By default, the code is "rhumba-20" (Moveable Type) but you can change this easily by opening up edit_entry.tmpl in a text editor and changing the value of the "amazon_tag" JavaScript variable, near the top of the page:

var amazon_tag = 'rhumba-20';

Sorry, there's no keyboard shortcuts for these yet.

A Re-Introduction to DHTML

Youngpup is back with a Re-Introduction to DHTML. Huzzah!

WebFX XML Extras

Erik Arvidsson's XML Extras script creates a common XML interface for Mozilla and IE.

The FlashSound API

Interesting: the FlashSound Javascript API:

The FlashSound API allows you to add interactive sound to a Web site by using the nearly ubiquitous Flash player to play sound-only invisible movies. Because sound-only movies have no user interface, they don't change your layout and they don't rely upon Flash graphics to work.

How the CBDTPA will hurt independent musicians

Over at the Walkingbirds site, I make all of the music I write available in MP3 format, for free.

If the CBDTPA becomes law, there may come a time when the computer, MP3 player or other device you use to make copies of my songs will be illegal. Even if I give you explicit permission to do so.

There may even come a time when the equipment I use will be forbidden, by law, to produce copyable MP3 files.

Heck, there may even come a time when I can't put any more Walkingbirds songs out on the Web at all, unless I pay Microsoft, Disney or AOL/Time Warner a fee.

These are the types of unintentended consequences I'd sure like us to avoid.

Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act

Yesterday I did something I've never done before. I wrote my senators in Congress. I asked them to oppose the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which is a smokescreen name for a bill that would require all digital devices to have copy-protection mechanisms built into them, so that we MP3-pirates-in-training, presumed-guilty-because-we-can-use-a-mouse can never ever copy music or movie files ever again ever.

I don't think I have the energy to write down all the reasons why I think this bill is dangerous and ill-conceived. It comes down to a few simple questions, best phrased by journalist Dan Gillmor:

1. Do you care if a few giant companies control virtually all entertainment and information?

2. Do you care if they decide what kinds of technological innovations will reach the marketplace?

3. Would you be concerned if they used their power to compile detailed dossiers on everything you read, listen to, view and buy?

4. Would you find it acceptable if they could decide whether what you write and say could be seen and heard by others?

Entertainment companies are terrified of the digital age, and would rather punish us all rather than let the market decide. It's exhausting, really.

All I can say is that if this bill passes, I will do my utmost to never buy anything from these companies again. Impossible, yes, but I'll try. I'm with Gillmor: I'm not a thief. I'm a customer. When you treat me like a thief, I won't be your customer.

Sorry Megan, we're not going to Disneyland.

HTML to JavaScript conversion

doc.Right is pretty cool tool; if you use Homesite as your editor of choice, Sam Foster's extensions are the bomb. (I find the DocWrite extension particularly useful.)

Megnut column at O'Reilly

Former fellow KnowNowian Meg has a new monthly column at O'Reilly. Meg is one of those people who seems genuinely interested in that cloudy, still-coalescing space where technology, society and culture intersect, and her thoughts should be a nice and necessary counterpoint to all the dismissive, Dvorakian "gawsh, isn't the Web silly?" pundits out there.

Walkingbirds review at EGBDF

Spinhead: "Somehow, it all manages to sound like acoustic Dishwalla or Better Than Ezra, tinged with Son Volt." Works for me!

The Blue Nile - Saturday Night

Originally posted February 18, 2002.

Download [1.8 MB]

(Warning: this tune is long, over five minutes, and I had to crank it down to 56K to keep the file under 2MB.)

I took advantage of the long weekend to dust off the guitar and get back into the groove of recording some of those neglected song ideas festering in in the area of my brain right behind the orbital javascriptus.

Instead, here's a cover of a song by an obscurish UK group called The Blue Nile. It's called "Saturday Night." I discovered their first album while I was in college, and was drawn to the strange, minimalist, guitar-free arrangements and vocalist Paul Buchanan's loungey voice. For a long time I've thought about covering one of their tunes as an acoustic song.

Anyway, this was done in a series of one-takes, because it's more important to me to get it down on tape (er, disk?) than obsess over things being perfect. It was originally supposed to be one guitar and one vocal, but then I added another guitar to thicken it up a bit, then another, then a backing vocal, then I got the idea for the "da-da-da" thing during the chorus, so I added that. You can see how these things spin out of control.

It was fun. I should do more covers, just for practice. I need the practice; my voice is severely out of shape. It's harder for me to sustain notes and stay on pitch without wheezing. This tune doesn't feature my best singing. Ah well, it'll come back.

[1 comments]

Easy Date Formatting

Dave over at gazingus.org has some great JavaScript snippets, including this easy date formatting script that allows you to format the JavaScript Date object in a much more flexible and sane way. Check out his JavaScript XML parser too.

Walkingbirds Site Update

Yawn...trying to get back into the habit of posting here. So hard to get excited about JavaScript after a week drinkin' Shiner and rockin' out to Cowboy Mouth in TX. In the meantime, I've updated the Walkingbirds site with a new mini-review and some other stuff.

Google It! Macro in Radio

Hey, look, Userland Radio now has a Google It! macro.

An Event Listener Interface for older browsers

Tim Morgan has created an event listener interface for browsers that don't support event listeners.

Back In San Fran

Cripes, the 3-song mini-CD has only been available for a week, only at SXSW, and only 100 copies, and it's already out on the 'net in CDDB. How does that happen? Anyhow, I have yet to post all my notes and pictures to the SXSW Journal, but all are welcome to read and comment. Bottom line: Big labels are dead, Napster wins anyway, don't stop a-rockin'.

In the meantime, I've posted another mini album review, and trying to get in to the habit of posting one review every week or so. This week: Michelle Branch's newish album The Spirit Room.

Day Four: Missed Opportunities

The SXSW Music Festival is always a study in missed opportunities.

For example, at the beginning of this journal I wrote that I'd be very happy to run into someone from Rounder Records. It was a joke, but two days later, I found myself sitting next to some guy from Rounder in the Performance Anxiety Workshop session. Turns out he's also a musicians' wellness advocate. Now, the question is, how do I engage this guy in a conversation so that I'm not perceived as pimping my music, but results in me giving him a copy of my music anyway? Answer: I don't. I couldn't think of a thing to say to this guy. Oh, I thought of a thousand things to say after he left, of course. We could have talked about ergonomics, RSI, musician's health insurance, whatever. And I wouldn't have had to fake it, because I know something about those topics. Eventually he would've asked if I was a musician, and then I could have pulled out a CD.

But I didn't do any of that. Instead, I went to the International House Of Pancakes. Ah well, we can't always be winning friends and influencing people.

At the songwriter's panel, Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens said to the crowd, "give me your CD this week and I'll play it on my radio show." That's almost a verbatim quote. After the panel, there were several opportunities to give DiNizio my CD. But he was always talking to someone else, and I'm not one of those people who feels comfortable "hovering" around, waiting for someone to finish talking so I can step up and join the conversation. So even though I spotted DiNizio several times over the next three days, he's flying back home without my CD.

I was planning on throwing a CD into the bin at the singer-songwriter demo listening panel. This is where a panel of "experts" pick a CD at random from a bin, listen to one song, and critique it in hopes that you're receptive enough to constructive criticism to learn something. At the very worst they wouldn't pick my CD and someone would take it home with them anyway, right? I missed the demo listening session.

Ran into singer-songwriter Jesse Malin at the Hard Rock Cafe. This guy's starting to get major traction on the acoustic concert circuit. Didn't give him a CD, either.

I still hold that going to SXSW without an agenda is the best way to go; it's so much more relaxing and enjoyable when you're not worried about finding a record deal or impressing the head of A & R of some label. But sometimes I wish I were a bit more -- um, not "aggressive," that's the wrong word. Maybe "proactive?" -- in promoting my music. I really do believe that my stuff is at least as good as anyone else's, so maybe I just need to work on the whole casual-shmooze-via-common-interests thing. Jay told me you sometimes have to practice being an extrovert. Good idea.

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Day Four: Copyrights in the Courts and Congress

Notes from the "Copyright in the Courts and Congress" panel on Saturday.

This panel seems to reflect the overall attitude of other panels: the current system doesn't work in the digital age, and panicked litigation is not the answer.

Despite what Hilary Rosen says, many online broadcasters wanted to play nice with labels. The RIAA brokered licensing agreements with 26 webcasters; the rest got hit with the arbitrary rate set by the Copyright Abitration Panel.

.25 cents per streamed performance (regular work)

.07 cents per streamed simulcast

.014 cents per archived stream

Contention: webcasting fees are seven times that of "regular" performance fees set by BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc.

CARP is only 35% of what the RIAA originally wanted to charge.


CARP deals with performances (webcasts), not downloads.

A missed opportunity: non-interactive webcasting could have been an antidote to the ills labels have suffered from radio consolidation. (see other notes in this weblog) The FCC has totally dropped the ball on regulation.

A graded licensing scheme is needed: should the people who webcast only for the thrill and love of independent, alternative content be hit with the same huge bill as commerical webcasters?

Consensus: Congress is frighteningly clueless. The DMCA is so broadly phrased that even the legality fair use (non-infringing copies) is questionable.

The SSCA Act (Secure Systems in Communications): give tech manufacturers 18 months to agree on a single method for enforcing copy protection in digital equipment, or else the Dept. Of Commerce will do it. The unintended consequences of these types of actions are potentially devastating, as Congress has shown that it lacks the ability to forward-think the technology.

I left this panel very depressed. It's almost as if the tech industry is being punished for being innovative.

[1 comments]

Day Four: Shit Happens in Zeroes and Ones

This was a very illuminating panel. I really expected to hear a lot of "fear the Web! Keep your songs off the Internet! Napster pirates are out to screw you!" sentiments from the panelists but in reality in turned out to be the exact opposite. The panel included a former RIAA member and a former honcho at MP3.com, one of the directors from the Future of Music Coalition, and several music industry consultants.

Panel in a nutshell: the big music labels are dead. File-sharing went way past the tipping point awhil ago (see Gladwell's book) and the consumers have spoken: they want digital music to be free and unfettered.

Napster raised the bar way too high with it's all-you-can-eat-for-free model. Latecomer subscription services like PressPlay, MusicNet and Rhapsody can't hope to match the quality of service and reach that Napster had. Plus, these subscription services reek of corporate control. They are not in any way meaningful and the public will ignore them.

The music industry is not equipped to listen to the consumer. It's too busy dealing with the demands of radio, promotion, etc.

Most likely future scenario: a per-month (not per download) charge at the service provider level for unlimited access to digital music. Like Napster, but with an AOL-like pricing model. It used to be that record labels were the gatekeepers of music; soon it will be those who control the broadband pipes.

Fleischer: adoption rates and licensing schemes will not work in the end. We're fooling ourselves. The consumers have spoken.

Labels usually can't agree on anything, but they're in lockstep over file sharing because their prfit margins are eroding and have been for some time. Why?

- The end product is broken (me: he means the music sucks). Last year, none of the Top 10 albums sold over 5 million, which is something like a %25 decline. That's death to the industry.

- Music is way too expensive to promote. Radio, independent promotion, payola, etc. Music industry has allowed themselves to become trapped.

Bottom line: It's over. File sharing has won; the only thing to do is to wait and see what new gatekeepers will emerge.

Cool: Mixonic

Still in Austin, still a-bloggin' it.

Okay, this is WAY cool: Mixonic is an online CD duplication service that specializes in extremely small quantities. Basically, you upload your MP3s to their server (they're deleted after 30 days) and create a track list. Then you design your CD label online with their way-cool CD Designer application, which is basically a low-level, Web-based Photoshop-like tool. You can upload images and position them on the CD template along with text. Then you save the design and track list and order the quantity you want. You can order as few as one or two or as many as a thousand. The CDs come to you with real full-color label, not stickers. What a fantastic idea.

Some constructive criticism: the CD designer, however cool, is way too complicated to understand. Break that baby up into framesets so the label layout can be refreshed without reloading the whole page. There's not enough online help available, what little there is in in the form of a general FAQ page that takes you away from your design. Maybe consider using Flash for the label preview window, so text and images come out clean and scale better. Overall, the whole site needs UI help; I was able to figure out how to use it, but I'm a Web guy and I recognize the metaphors. I fear the occasional web-surfing musician will become frustrated and go elsewhere, which is a big potential problem for something that obviously is meant to hook you with a cool service (you can save your CD configurations and reorder them as neccessary, awesome). And the only way to find pricing info was through the home page.

But there's a huge potential demand for this type of service. An artist can press ten CDs through Mixonic as a trial run without committing to a ridiculous quantity which may well end up sitting in the basement. (I mean, really, who's going to sell 1000 CDs out of the gate? I'm still lugging around about 100 copies of my first-ever CD and that was eight years ago). And the fact that you can upload MP3s and basically do everything via a computer makes it super-easy to dash off an order for 20 discs to sell at a last-minute gig.

Day Three: Friday Night on 6th

I spent Friday night hanging out with Jay on Sixth Street.

8:00 pm

We're standing in line to talk to Toby Slater following his set at Maggie Mae's. I'm hoping to purchase one of his CDs, but Toby is currently attending to two young female fans who seem intent on holding his attention for as long as possible. Behind them, two more women, both middle aged, and then Jay and I. After a while one of the older women, agitated with the long wait, turns to the other and says something, and I catch a few words about "groupie ettiquette." The woman notices that I heard, and we both grin. "Groupie ettiquette?" I say, and she says "there's a code, there's rules." I laugh a bit. "No, really! And I should know." And with that she holds out her badge for us to read:

PENNY LANE

I turn to Jay, trying hard not to react visibly. Well, she's about the right age for it. Hm. I sneak another peak at her badge while she talks to her friend. Penny Lane? Nah. That can't be right.

Toby is still busy with the girls, and the woman begins counting. "Five, four, three, two, one..." and with that, she and her friend turn on their heels and leave. And that is how Toby just missed talking with rock's most famous groupie. Maybe.

We talk to Toby for about five minutes. I ask him if he thought his online efforts to draw a crowd to his set were successful. He said something to the effect that every warm body counts, and it's inexpensive, so yes, it worked satisfactorily. However, it's just a drop in the bucket. Toby jokes about writing a song about MetaFilter ("Why Can't I Self-Link?" and "Take It To MetaTalk" are some of the titles we come up with); a novelty song like that would make him the darling of the moment, but Toby's skeptical of the inside-joke approach. He's a nice guy and seems to be working hard to firestart something. I buy one of his promo CDs.

9:20 pm

Now we're at Buffalo Bill's, checking out the Six Parts Seven, a band from Kent, Ohio. They've got an indie rock sound, but you can tell they really want to be prog rock. Someone in this group listens to a lot of Genesis and King Crimson; I'm betting it's the older-looking guitarist who has this crazy finger-tapping, Steve Hackett style.

11:10 pm

I had no idea there was a huge open-air amphitheatre behind Stubb's BBQ. Jay and I are here to catch Better Than Ezra, who are still alive and kicking even though no longer signed to a major label. Jay is a New Orleans native, and went to the same high school as the guys in BTE and had his own band. Apparently they fought over who would play the school dances.

Better Than Ezra comes onstage and proceeds to rock the roof off (well, there was no roof to begin with, but you get the idea). They've got a new album out which apparently has some acoustic guitar-based tunes, including a catchy sing-along song which seemed to be a sly jab at Sugar Ray. The lead singer is magnetic, waving his arms and playing to the crowd. "They're definitely not the same band," says Jay, who then explains that BTE was more of a shoegazer band when they started out in New Orleans. And loud too, without the subtlety displayed in tonight's set. We figure they must be drunk, or happy to be free from major label obligations. I recognize the few radio hits, although their breakout songs "Good" and "In The Blood" are absent.

12:15 am

Where is Johnny Lang? He was supposed to go on at midnight, after Better Than Ezra, but there's no sign of him. The tech guys are taking their sweet time setting up the equipment. Damn, it's cold tonight too.

12:30 am

Still waiting for Johnny Lang.

12:42 am

Lack of fiery blues licks is causing my ankles to freeze.

12:50 am

Lang finally takes the stage, and it's worth the wait. How old is this kid now anyway, 19? Jay and I come to a quick conclusion: it's just not fair. No one should be that talented. Lang's voice might as well be that of an old Mississippi delta bluesman, and he probably can't even legally drink yet. Oh yeah, and he plays guitar too. Like really good. Like better than you. Being the rhythm guitarist in Johnny Lang's band is probably as easy as being the bass player for Van Halen. Easy money, just strum and try not to get in the way of the scorching leads that arc from Lang's guitar. When Lang stops playing you can imagine smelling ozone.

It's not fair. Geez, save some for the rest of us!

"This music plays so well in this town," Jay says. "Everyone misses Stevie Ray." Jay, who attended school in Austin, tells me a short story about the day of the fatal helicopter crash. "There were people standing at a shop window where there were television sets, and they were crying. All of Austin was silent that day."

We hold out for three tunes before the cold drives us into the street and back toward the hotel.

[2 comments]

Day Three: Performance Anxiety Workshop

Notes from the "Perfomance Anxiety Workshop" led by John Hipple, Ph.D. He's a nice guy but he's one of those people who makes WAY too much eye contact than is comfortable. Even so, I'm determined not to look away when he fixes those eyes on me.

"Anxiety means you give a damn." If you didn't care, you wouldn't be anxious, right?

Preparation is the best proof against anxiety. Know the music. Practice.

"Straws that break the camel's back." Many people come under stress from many sources at once (job, family, money, etc.), and performing is often the one that upsets the balance. Examine the stressors in your life; can you remove a few of them? Take away a few straws and the camel can do its job.

Support is good. Find someone to talk to about your fear. Get it out. You cannot carry it alone.

Have realistic expectations. The chances of someone getting a record deal at SXSW are tiny; the chances of getting good exposure and meeting new people are greater. Know what you want to accomplish.

Focus on the parts of the performance you're pleased with, not the mistakes. Practice relaxing.

This panel was followed by a brief relaxation excercise, where we all sat calmly with our eyes closed, focused on breathing and trying to find our "special place." As soon as he said those words, I became anxious, because I thought maybe I was the only one in the room participating in this stupid excercise. Okay, no so much with the meditation next time.

[1 comments]

Day Three: Web Sites That Work

Notes from the "Websites That Work" panel, focused on using the Web effectively.

Moderator: Brad King of HotWired.

This was a very good panel with lots of good discussion. The most suprising aspect was that most of the panelists understood that the Web is a tool for creating relationships, not just a sales pipe for product.

One of the panelists is from a site called dmusic.com, and he's pimping his company way too hard. dmusic is a next-generation MP3.com type model with a focus on making it easy for bands to establish a Web presence. There are a number of sites that do similar things. I think they're all ugly and pointless; your stuff will be lost in the musical slush pile.

How do you keep visitors coming back to your site? Build community, make contact. Use message boards, keep a weblog and update it frequently. Establish relationships, just like you would in any other aspect of the music biz.

How can people find you? Participate in online community. Join mailing lists and discussion groups. Never, ever, ever spam. Get into the 'net. Do reciprocal linking.

Slater: the Web loves clever stunts. Example: pressplayster.com, a parody of the official pressplay site, links only to his own music.

Use Internet radio. Live365.com allows artists to make streaming radio broadcasts featuring not only the artist's tunes, but also music by artists they themselves like.

Just like in meatspace, you need to find people on the Web excited over your stuff and willing to help you out. Find those fans and have them run the discussion boards, advertise your gigs on mailing lists, etc.

More SXSW Goodness, Day Two

It's only the second day of the Music Festival and I'm already exhausted; I'm barely keeping my eyes open while I type this. I saw a ton of great bands tonight and took a ton of pictures. Unfortunately I forgot the cord I need to download the photos off the camera. Nuts. I posted some scribbled notes from the Hilary Rosen interview and a great songwriting panel over in the SXSW journal. I should have made more CDs; they're disappearing from the promo tables almost as fast as I can put them out.

I Am Steve's Obligatory Fake Webcam Pic.

Day Two: Good Singin', Good Playin'

Brief notes on the great songcraft panel. Panelists included Pat DiNizio (The Smithereens), Amy Rigby, Caitlin Cary and Mike Daly (Whiskeytown), and one other guy I recognized but I didn't jot down the name. I'll look that up later. I took a heck of a lot of pictures but I forgot to bring the cord I need to download them off the camera. :/

Tips on overcoming writer's block:

Daly: co-write. Find someone better than you.

DiNizio: hates co-writing. Pretend to write a song for another artist; what song would you write for _____? Perform instead of write for awhile. Best approach: "ass in chair." Turn off TV, unplug phone, confront the problem.

Rigby: Find someone better than you and work with them.

Each panelist performed one song:

Rigby: "Summer of My Wasted Youth"

DiNizio: a nice song about his daughter, didn't catch the title.

Cary: "Fireworks" a song about having deep religious/philosophical differences with someone you love. A real heartbreaker of a song.

Cary: "Put [your words] to a few chords and you'll get to say the best stuff over and over again."

Day Two: Notes from the Hilary Rosen Interview

Jumbled notes from the interview with Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), now infamous for opposing Napster and free music file-sharing.

RIAA: a trade association serving record companies, dealing with issues such as piracy, copy protection, facilitation of standards.

Why did the recording industry do so poorly last year?


- no blockbuster albums.

- poor economy. 9/11.

- radio consolidation (more on this below)

Reasons music-buying public is not buying, according to intermittent RIAA surveys:


1. I can find it for free on the 'net (%43)

2. I can't find what I want (%24)

(me: wish I had asked if the majority of numbers came from online surveys; that could skew the results greatly)

On Napster

Napster is buying time by throwing the kitchen sink at the courts in defense (i.e., antitrust suits against the 5 majors)

PressPlay is failing: too little, too late.

Rosen: Record companies are not taking enough risks with their business models, but fresh ideas for distributing music online don't deserve free content. Record companies have tried to "serve too many masters" (retailers, independent promoters, artists, distributors); there are "too many loud voices" that want attention.

Are CD prices really too high? RIAA surveys don't indicate a lot of complaining.

Rosen: The industry initially believed it could sell singles online (50 cents for download, etc.) but Napster upped the ante with its all-you-can-eat model. How can you limit the voracity? (me: how do you enforce scarcity?)

On Copy Protection

Record companies can't agree on model for copy protection, as it comes from many private vendors. Expensive to develop and implement, and is simply not good enough.

On The 7-Year Rule

7-Year Rule: 1987 California law that enables artists to exit record contracts after seven years, even if they owe albums to labels.

Rosen: Three truths:


1) a compromise will be reached

2) artists shouldn't be enslaved to record companies

3) yet no one should be allowed to simply walk away without examination

Record companies should have the right to plead a case in court, not guaranteed money to compensate for lost options. This often becomes a tool for contract renegotiation.

Risk is always involved when you sign a record deal. Newer models include shorter obligations (one or two album committments, instead of six or more).

On Radio and Airplay

Recent radio consolidation is hurting labels big time. Radio signs exclusive deals with independent promoters, which limit the amount of options labels have for getting songs on the air.

Music has become too expensive to promote. Too much money spent on the middleman, instead of on consumer outreach.

Current model cannot scale. Too expensive to promote one song.

Q: Why not spend money to help and partner with Internet radio, rather than slap a high royalty rate on the Web? Rosen: Web radio was reticent. RIAA wanted to offer a percentage deal, but arbitration problems led to flat rate.

Summary: overall, Rosen didn't come across as quite the dragon lady I thought she was. I feel she's basically written off the Internet until technology (Napster, PressPlay, etc.) is at a point where compromise can be reached without leaving labels in the dust. I get the impression she, like many, see the Web as a channel for product and not a place where people gather and share ideas as well as files, which I think is a concept labels will absolutely have to grasp if subscription models are to work. I also have issues with the results of the RIAA surveys, which seem to indicate that Internet piracy was the leading factor in the loss of label revenue last year, DESPITE that A) computer sales are slowing; B) most users are not "power users" and won't even upgrade from Netscape 4 much less install Napster or Morpheus; and C) broadband isn't that far reaching. Fat pipes are needed. A 2MB download of a crappy quality MP3 over a dialup can take forever; users won't wait. Somehow I doubt that the Slashdot crowd (which represents a fraction of online users) is responsible for the millions lost last year.

[4 comments]

Day One: Panel Schedule

Here's a rundown of the panels I'm thinking of attending. There are way too many panels scheduled way too close together, or sometimes overlapping each other. Upside: most panels don't start until 11:30 a.m., giving night-owl musicians ample time to roll out of bed.

Thursday March 14


11:30 - 1:00 Hilary Rosen keynote


2:45 - 4:00 Good Singin', Good Playin' songwriter panel, with Pat DiNizio (The Smithereens) and Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown)


4:15 - 5:30 Singer-songwriter demo listening session.

Friday March 15


11:00 - 12:15 Performance Anxiety Workshop (should be fun, heh)


12:30 - 1:45 Websites that Work. I'm primarily going to this one to meet UK musician Toby Slater, who ended up on the panel


2:00 - 3:15 Artists vs. Technology / Shit Happens in Zeroes and Ones I think I object to the confrontational names of these panels. Artists versus technology? Sounds like FUD to me.


3:30 - 4:45 Subscription Services Hurdles To Leap. I figure this will be another bitch session about how Napster ruined everything; I might not attend.


Saturday March 16


12:00 - 1:15 Copyright in the Courts and Congress. This claims to be a discussion about legislative changes to copyright in the digital age, but I suspect it'll be another FUD session. They'll also talk about the recent royalty adjustments made against Internet radio.


1:30 - 2:45 Courtney Love Interview. Courtney talks loudly about how her label screwed her. If this is boring, I may duck out and attend the O Brother, Where Art Thou? discussion, where panelists will probably talk about how great the album is while secretly cursing the fact that Gillian Welch can't be commodified for the Britney-buying public.

SXSW Journal 2002 Is Live

JavaScript and DHTML-related posts will be infrequent here over the next few days as I turn my weblogging energies over to my SXSW 2002 Journal, wherein I shall blather about my experiences at the famous music festival this year, if you should care about such things.

SXSW Journal Live

The Music Festival unofficially starts today, and I've started writing in the SXSW 2002 Journal section. I'll be writing about the Festival here all week.

Wednesday: SXSW Prelude

There's a lull between the Interactive/Film parts of SXSW and the Music part where all the volunteers catch their breath and begin tearing down the tradeshow floor to make way for the music and label kiosks. I made my way down to the registration booth around 2:00 pm to pick up my Music promo bag (full to the brim with SXSW music shwag: CDs, flyers, magazines, promo materials) before retiring to the "Platinum Lounge" upstairs, which was thankfully air conditioned. This was where the people who had the extra cash for a platinum badge were allowed to hang out away from the masses crowding the convention center floor. The lounge doesn't amount to much: it's a lot like another conference room, but with a vaulted ceiling and windows and a cash bar.

The festival hasn't even started yet, and already the volume of attendees dwarfs that of the Interactive and Film festivals. Musicians of every stripe: hard-looking punkers; sullen nu-metal rockers in black; tie-dyed jam band longhairs; lanky alt-country rockers and more. The crowd is a sea of glinting metal piercings, tatoos and strange hair. I love it.

But that's outside the lounge. Inside, there's a handful of people, mostly men, chattering on cell phones and using the free Internet access. This isn't the speaker's lounge, so I doubt Hilary Rosen or Courtney Love will walk in anytime soon, but I wonder how many of the people here were scouts, lawyers, managers, people sent by their respective businesses to check out the new talent.

So, on to my agenda: I don't have one. I have a handful of mini-CDs which I'll passing out as freebies, but only to people I talk to. I really have no interest in pimping my stuff to strangers who'll just end up using them as a coaster anyway. Here's my agenda: wander aimlessly in and out of bars and overdose on live music.

And the panels. I'm particularly intrigued in the handful of panels dealing with technology and the Internet: digital music, copyright issues, MP3s, Napster. Having just come from the Interactive festival, where the prevailing opinion of attendees lies somewhere in the information wants to be free/anti-corporate music vein, I'm interested to hear what musicians in the trenches think about file sharing, the RIAA and the fact that there's nothing can't be copied anymore.

It's nice not having an agenda. Mostly because I don't have to play nice with the crowd all the time, constantly walking on eggshells because I just might piss off the one A&R guy who has my ticket to the big time. There're a lot of hopeful musicians here hoping to get a break, and for once, I'm not one of them. That doesn't mean I'm not trying at all, though. I plan on dropping a few CDs in the demo session bins (at most, they'll draw it and my song will be discussed in front of an audience; at the very least, someone will end up with a free CD) and if I happen to run into a representative from Rounder Records I'll definitely be a happy guy. But it's not the goal. The goal is to hang.

Right now I'm going through the list of panels, picking the ones I plan to attend. I'll post them here later tonight. Then I plan to go out and hear some music, because all up and down Sixth there are drummers hauling their hardware into wood-paneled bars, scruffy guitarists are staking out their street corners and tech crews are dragging multicolored lighting trusses through back kitchen doors past short-order cooks who speak no English but know the drill enough to direct them to the junction boxes behind the stage.

SXSW 2002 Journal Home

All's Well In Austin TX

The SXSW interactive festival is over, and we're now in the one-day lull before the Music Festival begins. I'm sitting the in hotel lounge, where I've managed to sneak onto an open Wayport network. Thank you, mystery wireless network admin, wherever you are.

I was up at 5 a.m. this morning to put the girl on a plane back to SF, so she can spend four days in Scott-free solitude while I duck in and out of loudy, smoky bars listening to bands I never heard before. 5 a.m. is a horrible place to be when you've been up until 3 a.m. I never seem to learn my lesson with regard to travel schedules; it's like I have a disorder that causes me to blurt "6:15 a.m. departure time? Sounds great!" not realizing the peril I am placing myself in by committing to a schedule that denies Megan of the option of at least two cups of coffee before dealing with other humans.

I'm lucky to have lived this long.

So now it's back down to the convention center to pick up the Music Festival shwag bag (which will probably weigh more than Film and Interactive combined) and then back to the hotel to burn twenty more mini-CDs. I managed to give away at least fifty over the course of SXSW so far, and I have to say there's something to be said for taking it offline and into meatspace, even if it is more work. "You made these? That's so cool" someone would say, as if I'd just handed them something far more valuable than just a 3" CD with a laser-printed sticker on it. Yes. Indeed. I made this. "That's very -- punk," said the Veen, and I thought, yeah, us frustrated neo-folkies could learn a thing or two from the whole punk DIY thing. Why not? Push it out there anyhow, any way, and see what happens.

Wireless Blogging From SXSW

I'm trying to post via the various wireless networks here at SXSW, but DNS problems are making it hard to connect to my site, so I'm giving up for now. I did post a few rough notes over at SXSW Baby! (click on the Notes Exchange link in the upper right corner).

Post Titles in Radio

Radio users now have a new feature which allows them to add titles to their weblog posts. Now they too can have Google It! links or similar features.

Friendly URLs in Moveable Type

Pinder over at Blogzilla suggested this method of creating friendly (human-readable) URLs with Moveable Type:

1) Click on Edit Blog Configuration to pull up the config screen.
2) Make sure you have "Individual" selected as an archive type (this will cause each blog post to be saved as a separate document for archiving).
3) In the Archive File Template for "Individual", enter the following:

<$MTEntryTitle dirify="1"$>.html

This causes the filename of each post to be based upon a "dirified" version of the post title, rather than the post entry ID. For example, a post with the title "javascript pool game" becomes "javascript_pool_game.html" instead of "00063.html"

Hello From SXSW 2002

So here I am at the South By Southwest Music Festival, in Austin TX, home of the Dubya. Well, the Music part hasn't started yet, but the Interactive festival is just now getting rolling. I'll be posting sporadically here when the Music part starts next Wednesday.


I'm armed with 3-song Walkingbirds mini-CDs which are free for the asking. If you end up picking one of these little CDs up (like, from the floor or from under a soft drink can), I'd love to hear from ya.

I've started a SXSW 02 journal section to keep it all together. Stay tuned.

[4 comments]

JavaScript XML-RPC stuff

Those of you interested in the JavaScript XML-RPC message builder may also want to check out this interface I built to work with the Mirror Project (DOM-only browsers, please).

Blog Titles as Metadata

A lot of people really liked my Google It! link idea. Some are implementing it themselves, others are requesting it from their CMS of choice. Here's an idea, CMS builders: include an optional metadata entry box for each blog post. Users can use it to build their own meta-search links, or it they're using a CMS for document management (i.e., one blog post = one HTML document), they can use the metadata to write entry-specific META tags. Either way, it frees up users to use their post titles as titles (as intended); it's hard coming up with sufficiently descriptive (and human readable) post titles that double as metadata. (Of course, if you're using Moveable Type, why not use <?MTEntryExcerpt?> instead, right Mena? Mena? Did you take your pre-flight Valium already?)

Good URIs are Good UI Design

Paul has some good comments on the value of good URIs as part of good overall UI design. What a lot of people don't realize is that URIs are only indicators (that's what the "I" stands for uh, actually it stands for "uniform resource identifier; thanks Erik); a signpost. The URI you see in the browser location bar doesn't necessarily reflect where that resource is physically located, so there's really no excuse for having URIs that are overlong, filled with arcane digits and query strings, and hard to commit to memory. One feature I would love to see added to CMSes like Moveable Type is friendly URLs. With such a feature I could specify an optional URL with meaning, like "/weblog/uris" for this post.

Sorting JavaScript Arrays by Property

A new addition to the JavaScript Junkyard: sortByProperty(). This is actually an extension to the JavaScript Array object which enables you to sort the array order based on a specific property of each array element, instead of just the element itself. It also allows you to sort in reverse order. The array object already has a handy sort() method that rearranges the array elements in lexicographic ("dictionary") order by default. This is fine for one-to-one mappings, where each element contains one exactly one value. But I often use arrays to store similar objects with similar properties, much like a recordset. here I need something to examine a particular property of each element and used that value to determine the sort order. For example, if each element contains a "car" object with make, model and year properties, I may need to find a way to sort the array based on the value of "year."

What is usually overlooked is that you can hand the sort() method one argument: a comparative function that affects the logic of the sorting. You can read more about the comparative function of sort() here -- the general idea is that the sort() method hands two elements to the comparative function and says "here, compare these" and the comparative function says "okay then" and returns a result that tells sort() where to place the elements in the array.

So given this information, it's pretty easy to build a function that takes two elements, looks for a specifically named property on each and compares the values to determine the sort order. For example, to sort an array of "car" objects by model, we can build something like this:

function compare(a, b) {
  if (a.model < b.model)
  {
    return -1;
  }
  if (a.model > b.model)
  {
    return 1;
  }
  return 0;
}

Then we can do the sort like so:

cars.sort(compare);

Here's the kicker: the array object also has a reverse() method, that reverses the order of elements in an array. However, reverse() doesn't do any sorting at all. So what if I want to sort my cars array by model, but in reverse order? The easiest way is to modify the logic in the compare() function to return the opposite values:

if (a.model < b.model)
{
  return 1;
}
if (a.model > b.model)
{
  return -1;
}

So now all I need is to write a custom sorting function that allows me take advantage of the native sort() method of arrays and lets me specify the property name to sort on and the direction (forward or reverse) of the sorting. Here's the completed function:

function _sortByProperty(property,rev)
{
  var fn = function(a,b)
  {
    if (a[property] < b[property])
    {
      return (rev)? 1:-1;
    } else if (a[property] > b[property])
    {
      return (rev)? -1:1;
    } else
    {
      return 0;
    }
  }
  this.sort(fn);
  return this;
}

Array.prototype.sortByProperty = _sortByProperty;

Now to sort an array of objects by property, just call the sortByProperty() method of the array:

cars.sortByProperty("model");

To do a reverse sort, pass true as a second argument:

cars.sortByProperty("year",true);

You can see the sortByProperty() method in action here. Here's the array containing the objects:

var pets = [];
pets[pets.length] = {name:"Fido",animal:"dog"};
pets[pets.length] = {name:"Scratchy",animal:"cat"};
pets[pets.length] = {name:"Bubbles",animal:"chimp"};
pets[pets.length] = {name:"Pooyan",animal:"pig"};
pets[pets.length] = {name:"Donald",animal:"duck"};

Sort Pets By Name Reverse

Sort Pets By Animal Reverse

This script has also been moved to the JavaScript Junkyard.

Mozilla Event Handlers

Check out this list of event handlers supported by Mozilla. Shorthand for things like onoverflow, onnodeinserted and oncharacterdatamodified (the latter two being shorthand for two of of the little-known DOM Level 2 Mutation Events).

Walkingbirds Mini-CD at SXSW

So yeah, I'm going to SXSW again this year. Boy, do my geek friends like to bag on SXSW, probably because everyone knows SXSW isn't really a "tech" conference but more about the intersection of tech and culture, social issues, with lots of talk of "community" and "connectedness" and not a lot of code discussed. Oh, and with lots of webloggers. Here's what I remember from the first time I attended:

Me: Hey, isn't that Bryan over there?
Megan: Yes.
Me: Is that Ben Brown next to him?
Megan: Yes. Shut up, please.
(30 seconds pass in silence)
Me: Look! Is that the MetaFilter guy?
Megan: Don't point.
Me: He's taller than I thought he'd be. Isn't that Jack Satu...
Megan: Shut up or I'm leaving you here.

Anyway, here's the deal: I'm bringing a limited number of Walkingbirds mini-CDs to Austin. Each CD contains three songs: a remixed and remastered Gravel Road Requiem, the new song Cast The Net Wide, and the almost-award-winning Brickyard Bend. There'll be a short stack of 'em available at the So New Media launch party, and I'll be passing out the remainder to anyone who comes within three feet of me. And they're free, so take one, dang it.

Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA)

Let me see if I got this straight: the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) requires all manufacturers of digital audio recorders and blank digital media, like CDRs and DAT, are required to make royalty payments (2% of manufacturers' revenue, at this moment) to the U.S. Copyright Office, which are then supposedly distributed to artists as compensation for cash they'd lose to home taping. So in essence, every time I buy a blank CDR to burn some songs that I myself wrote, that I myself distribute, the RIAA is getting a bit of cash. Wonderful.

Speaking of the RIAA (hey, check out their member labels list -- it includes Righteous Babe, Epitaph and Zöe/Rounder), CEO Hilary B. Rosen is going to be at SXSW this year. And so am I.

CSS selector-case to camelCase

Tim Morgan gives us two tiny JS functions that convert CSS selector-case syntax into camelCase and back again. I love tiny JavaScript utilities like this, dunno why.

Mozilla Keyword Searching

Mozilla keyword searching. No bookmarkets or custom toolbars required, just define a keyword that represents search engine location, then type it and any parameters into Mozilla's location bar. For example, to validate a page against the W3 Validator, you could just type w3 http://www.scottandrew.com, where w3 has been defined as a shortcut to "http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=" (link via Blogzilla, natch.)

Drawing Charts with JavaScript

At Webreference: Drawing Charts With JavaScript.

Flash An Application Platform?

I've argued before that Flash is very nearly a web application platform, stabler than DHTML and Java, and missing only a few features to tie it together. Looks like Macromedia thinks so too. Flash is probably the only app that can pull this off, what with the ridiculously wide installed base of the Flash plug-in. Gotta think about this one for awhile.

Musicians, MP3s and the RIAA

If you haven't read Matt Haughey's future of digital music essay, you really should. No? Go read it and come back. While you're at it, you might want to read Steve Albini's now-famous essay, The Problem With Music. (If you're a musician, read the whole thing.)

How do we bring about the digital revolution and take some of the teeth out of the RIAA? I see only one way. Matt touches on it briefly. Some huge megastar is going to have to cross over and go totally MP3. Someone sufficiently pissed off with the industry to walk away from the huge star-making machine. Someone with enough star power to take several hundred thousand fans and millions in potential sales with them.

That's the hard part: walking away from the star machine. Major labels throw tons of money and influence behind the acts they believe will sell. That's why it has to be someone huge. What would happen if Dave Matthews said "hey, I've been getting screwed for years, I'm outta here" and took his fanbase with him? What if other artists just as big followed himout the door?

Whoever did this would be adored, worshipped, loved unconditionally by the music-buying, tech-savvy generations now and to come, the first artist to really "get it." Who will be the first?

Who will be the first megastar to count coup on the RIAA? Courtney Love could have done it, but she didn't capitalize on her notoriety when she had the chance. Prince? Too late. Green Day still reaches the kids, so there's an option.

David Bowie could do it and probably will, but he's not even on the radar of pop music today.

Pearl Jam could probably get another decade out of their career this way.

How about the Beasties?

Who will come forth and claim the crown? An adoring, international music-loving public awaits to receive you. We'll buy your GZIPped albums. We'll buy your t-shirts and CafePress mugs. We'll clog your message boards and chat rooms and create fan sites of our own. You'll get to keep the whole 50 cents per track instead of the two cents per album like you're used to.

You'll have to work a little harder and give a little more. My guess is it'll be worth it. And best of all, you won't hear some industry suit telling you that the material on your new record -- your songs, your creation -- isn't marketable.

Put it out here on the Web, the market will find it. You'll answer to no one except your fans and yourself. Who's first?