marramgrass

I got my access code to Orchestra.io today. It looks interesting if you’re a PHP-type. Haven’t had a chance to get anything running on it yet, but look forward to doing so, albeit mainly for the novelty. It appears to be something similar to Heroku for PHP, but the difference is that whereas Heroku seemed to get traction because it provided easy Rails hosting (something which I understand — I’m not a RoR guy, so I may be wrong — used to be at least a bit of an issue for some), but now focuses on fitting into your workflow for easy deployment, that latter seems to be where Orchestra comes in, since PHP hosting definitely isn’t an issue. We’ll see how it goes.

Basecamp is the web-based project management software all the cool kids apparently use. We rely on it pretty heavily at Banjax, too. I’m not much of a fan, but it’s there as an “it’ll do until someone comes up with something better” kind of option. If you’re in need of some PM workflow gubbins, the free plan has been beefed up a bit, so it’s maybe worth giving it a whirl.

Finally, Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference sold out in less than a day, yesterday. A technical conference, aimed at developers, sold out in hours. That’s nuts. Someone’s doing something right, it seems. And no, I’m not going. This year is not that year for me.

For several years I’ve been telling a friend of ours, Alex, he should write a blog. He’s an interesting and thoughtful fellow, and I had an inkling it would be worthwhile. He’s now taken up the challenge, at The Gap Films, where he’s working his way through those movies in the IMDb top 250 that he hasn’t seen. Worth a read.

On a bloggy note, the shortlists are out for the Irish Blog Awards. Handy if you’re looking something new to read.

Finally, Brian Houston played a gig last month that I missed, but you can grab a CD from the rehearsals. Always a good listen.

Ugh. Metablogging. I, too, hate it. So please accept an apology in advance.

This blog has become dormant over the last year or so, maybe a bit longer. There are a whole bunch of reasons for that. Most of them come down to how radically different my life has become to what it was.

Obviously, there’s parenthood. That’s the biggest thing. I must observe that it just keeps getting better and better; that kid’s amazing.

Also, it is happening again. Wow.

Work-wise, too, things are different. Quite a while ago, now, the project I was working on with CCWA (NI) came to an end. Long story short, I’m now working full-time as web developer with a small studio in Belfast, doing generally interesting work with some generally quite interesting clients. I split most of my time there between Facebook apps, Expression Engine work and Magento development. With the latter two I get to spend a very satisfying amount of time building custom add-ons to augment their functionality. That’s fun.

Then there are the various personal/side projects I am/have been working on. All still in dark mode. Time, you know (see a couple of paragraphs above).

All of which adds up to less blogging, which disappoints me. My first post to a blog was eight years and twenty-four days ago. I don’t want to let this thing go gracefully after all that time, so here we go again.

The plan is for more of the same, but with some other stuff thrown in, too. I’ve often thought about tackling more technical blog content (code, general computer/tech stuff, gadgetry and so on) as well as the random personal stuff and occasional photo, but am totally against having more than one blog. I think I’ll try mixing the two and see how it goes. Bear with me with the bits that aren’t your thing.

The blogroll (old word for those sidebar links) is well out of date. I’m still deciding what to do about that; it may disappear altogether in the meantime. And this place is definitely due for a bit of a visual refresh.

Meta-blogging over, for now. Let’s go, then.

The best camera, and all that.

Earlier this year, there was an ad for John Lewis with a cover of Billy Joel’s “She’s Always A Woman”. The internet came through and told me that the cover was by a lad named Fyfe Dangerfield, from his album Fly Yellow Moon which came out at the start of this year.

It’s an interesting kind of cover. In arrangement it stays very close to Billy Joel’s recording of the song, yet it manages to still be quite different in feel. There’s a little more space in the production, with a slightly more live feel to it. The rawer piano tone and the singer-songwriter vocal style combine to give the song a much more contemporary feel than Joel’s original.

I’ve listened to the two versions back to back several times now, and I’m having trouble getting my head ’round how they can be so similar and so different, all at once. If I had to pick one, I’d say that Dangerfield’s cut is the one I prefer — and I’m something if a closet Billy Joel fan. (Don’t worry. I didn’t have any credibility left to lose.)

This song interested me enough to buy Fly Yellow Moon. The album’s a grower. Lots of gentle pianos, mixed with some more Brit-poppy moments, and a vocal that reminds me a little of Damien Rice, only much better. The opening track, “When You Walk In The Room”, is a blinder, with “High On The Tide” and “Livewire” other standouts. Definitely worth picking up.

On a sunny day while I’m waiting on someone to come and open the office, this could definitely be worse.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife suggested to me that I do a bit of tidying up in the room I use as an office. (It was a fair enough suggestion.) I was digging through a pile of old CD-Rs, cassettes and floppy disks, and turned up a tape I’d sort of half been looking for for months.

One side of the tape was a set of demos from 2001, five from Iain Archer and a few from The Amazing Pilots. The Archer tracks are from before Flood The Tanks, and include a couple of songs in very different forms to the ones that made the album.

The best of them is “Mirrorball Moon”, which I remember hearing first at a small acoustic gig in Edinburgh at what must has been roughly around the time these were recorded.

Archer’s music has changed quite a lot over the years, and you wouldn’t thin, listening to more recent albums, that this was the same guy who recorded the lightweigt “Wishing” not that long ago. These demos are probably the most recent recordings I have from him that I genuinely enjoy. The tale in “Mirrorball Moon” of an old dance hall’s changing character over time reflects the change in Archer’s music — not necessarily for better or worse, but definitely changing in character. Sadly, that change has left me behind.

I haven’t done one of these in quite a while. Six or seven months, maybe.

We watched (500) Days of Summer one evening last week. It was pretty good: easy-going, interesting, a little bit different. Maybe a bit too self-aware, but aren’t a lot of movies, these days?

It turns out that the female lead, Zooey Deschanel, appeared on the soundtrack and sings with the band She & Him. I grabbed their two albums, and have had them on repeat pretty much the whole time I’ve been at my desk since. The music is cheerful, easy, confectionary for the ear, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

“Over It Over Again” is from the second album, imaginatively titled Volume Two.

“Over It Over Again” [YouTube]

Moira Demesne + sunshine + camera phone + cheesy post-processing.