Find and Support Independent Music

If you're tired of the same 'ol music from big industry record labels, tap into Jamendo.com.  I believe the name is a combination of "Jam" and "Crescendo", hence, Jamendo.

At Jamendo, music can be streamed or downloaded for free under the Creative Commons license.  If you have your own local band, you can go global by giving away your music on Jamendo. 

The artists on the site, who are often indlependent, get needed exposure, and music listeners are able to find these artists that sound like their favorite commercial artists, who are referred on the site as "external artists".

The beauty of Jamendo Pro allows businesses to license the music on Jamendo for background music, multimedia project, and performance rights.  Prices start at $144 per year. 

I think they need to make a more obvious way of being able to monetarily support artists.  I myself like to support independent artists, and this would be a great way to create a much more intimate connection with the band.  Facebook fan pages allow for that, and MySpace was the original place for musicians, but it would be nice to recognize true "fans" as people who have made a donation to support a band.  This would provide a way for musicians to show a trend that they have a paying fan base, in hopes of a major label deal. 

Font Conversions

Need to convert TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts between Macintosh and PC platforms? 

CrossFont is the solution.

Visit http://www.asy.com/ to download a trial version. Single User license is $40 US.

Classical Concert Hall Online

http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de/

"It was only a matter of time before someone created a sophisticated site like this one featuring live concerts for a global audience with CD-quality sound and high-definition video on a digital platform dedicated to the world's best orchestra. First, you'll need to do a stream test to check the power of your machine and connection. Click How It Works to run the test. Once you have verified you have a machine and a connection that can stream concerts at full-screen, click Archives to watch some free footage. The site is essentially a pay-per-view experience, but there's enough free content to whet your appetite." ~ Adobe.com

Site by argonauten G2 - http://www.argonauteng2.de

Plugin to the Smartgrid

This site is so professionally done it's incredible.  The content is very straightforward, narrated well, includes splendid animated illustrations and really shows the general pathway to clean energy.  A well-done branding tool for GE.  Site was done by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and North Kingdom.  The augmented reality section is is not necessarily new technology, just one that is now mass-consumable with an installed base of webcams and flash player.

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/landing_page

Augmented Reality toolkit called Saqoosha used: http://www.libspark.org/wiki/saqoosha/FLARToolKit/en

Design Intellection

Really great website on design and excellent use of stylesheets.  Has a really nice Renaissance WordPress theme available for free.

http://designintellection.com/

Photoshop and Illustrator Stylized Backgrounds

This week we're going to combine Photoshop and Illustrator to produce
some very stylish background effects that would be difficult with just
one program alone. You'll see that, starting out with just a few simple
lines in Illustrator, we can use the Blend tool to create a very
popular effect that has a 3D feel to it. Then we'll move into Photoshop
and finish it off with the brushing and special effects that's made
Photoshop so popular. Let's get started.

http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=426

Enhancing Hair in Photoshop

When it comes to improving portraits in Photoshop, we often think of
the facial features and skin as the main areas for improvement. But in
this week's video we're going to take a look at working with hair to
really help add more depth to a person's photo and build a more
dramatic look.

http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=427