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semisolidradio.com
Here you will find all sorts of free, originally composed music for download. And no other kind.
Our mission is to provide an easy to use distribution platform for independent artists, so they
can promote their songs to the widest possible audience with a minimum of hassle.
The music on this site is free to download for your private, personal use. In order to use any of
the tracks for commercial purposes (i.e. 'performance in public'), you should contact the copyright
holder of the track. Further details are provided in the terms and conditions on the download page
for each track.
Our MP3 files are a bit larger than what you would normally encounter out there in the wild,
because we produce them at a high quality 256kbit/sec. If there is enough call for it, we may
offer lower quality versions in future.
Anyways, enjoy the music!
The semisolidradio.com team, contact us at:
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Apple QuickTime plug-in update
Over the past few months, the Firefox browser has gone from version 3.5.something to 3.6.8. And in the same period, QuickTime went from version 7.6.5 to 7.6.7.
The latest versions of these work together again, so one of the parties fixed something. As with a lot of these compatibility problems, even once the smoke has cleared, it's difficult to determine exactly what the problem was and who fixed it unless the responsible party is forthcoming about it.
Anyway, I suppose all's well that ends well. But it hasn't changed my opinion of Apple that much. My next phone will be running Android.
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:15:07
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Apple's vicious little circle
Warning: this is going to be lonnngggggg... but that's what happens when you really piss me off.
I've always been a big fan of Apple because I respect them for being one of the greatest innovators of our time. But lately, and I suspect because they've gotten so big (their market cap just surpassed Microsoft's I believe, and that takes some doing), I've caught them doing stuff that puts them right up there with the Big Evil™ companies like the aforementioned Microsoft (or Mickeysoft, as I prefer to call them). I'll get into the straw that broke the camel's back in a moment, but first this:
<rant>
I recently bought an iPod Touch just to see how our site would look with it. I was pretty dismayed to discover the following in short order:
- You can't download a file from the web using the browser. WTF? This is basic functionality for a browser, and without it, you've just broken our site, Mr. Jobs. What's that you say? You don't want people to be able to download anything for free? Oh.
- Flash isn't supported. So that renders all the work we did to put our neat little preview movies inside our trademark radio. But wait... we could make MP4 versions of them and run those when we detect an Apple mobile device is attaching to us but that wouldn't work either because:
- The browser won't show movies in-line. You instead have to display a static image, and then when the user clicks on it the movie runs full-screen. Which pretty much ruins the effect you want to create by showing a movie in-line :-(
</rant>
But even all that is only mildly annoying in comparison to their latest feat: they broke the QuickTime plug-in. In *every* browser. That's right: IE8, Firefox, Chrome, et. al. And from what I can determine it's been broken ever since QuickTime 7.6.5, which was released last November. The reason it took me so long to spot the problem was that I use Safari for Windows as my browser (because it has the nicest fonts). And of course, duh... it works in Safari. On our site, the symptoms of the plug-in not working are that you can't listen to the high quality streaming versions of our tracks that are supposed to run right under the image of the radio. Instead of start/stop controls, there is nothing there at all and the track doesn't play.
It was not an easy thing to figure out what the problem was. I only noticed it last week when I happened to have our site opened in Firefox. At first I thought I had done something on the site to cause the problem. But then I Googled it. Go onto any support forum and you will find people complaining that ever since they upgraded their Firefox to either version 3.5 or 3.6, that they can no longer play any movies or MP3 files. Even more worrying was the fact that on all the forum threads I looked at (at least 15 or 20) no one had come up with a solution. But I finally figured out that it wasn't the browser that was the problem, because it wasn't just happening in Firefox...
Today, it occurred to me to try installing an older version of QuickTime. So I un-installed QuickTime 7.6.6 (the latest at time of writing), and installed an older version that I found up on the web: 7.5.5. Bingo. Now our site worked again! More disappointment was soon to follow, though. When I tried to crank up iTunes, it refused to run because it said that the earliest QuickTime version it supported was 7.6.4. One more shot then. Un-installed version 7.5.5, and managed to find a copy of version 7.6.4 here:
Download QuickTime 7.6.4 page
Fortunately, that works. I can now browse our site, listen to the full versions of our tracks, and run iTunes too. However, that's a *very* narrow window of opportunity. Suppose an upcoming version of iTunes requires a later version of QuickTime than 7.6.4? Screwed then. You see, that's what's been happening all along. As Apple continuously updates iTunes (I'm using version 9.1 at the moment), and now that QuickTime is attached to iTunes at the hip, new versions of Quicktime were slowly creeping onto people's machines until... BAM! You eventually picked up the QuickTime 7.6.5 'virus'.
So one question remains: when are Apple going to fix this? It's been ongoing for at least 6 months, and Apple don't even seem to acknowledge that there is a huge problem out there. Come on Apple, 'fess up. The latest version of Quicktime still works fine in Safari for Windows, so please tell the other manufacturers what you did to break backwards compatibility!
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:04:44
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So, I guess you want lyrics then?
Ian looks at the site stats often, and he noticed that one of our readers in the States was searching for the lyrics to Corner Of Your Dreams. So we obliged.
We'll get the lyrics for the rest of the tracks up there in a bit.
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:45:27
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Cotton Candy Killer played on EKR!
DJ Steve Stone of European Klassik Rock (EKR) just played Cotton Candy Killer about an hour ago on his Tuesday afternoon show.
He's also added the track to the station's A List, so we should be getting some more play over the next few weeks. Way to go, Steve!
You'll find a link to EKR just there to your left. I've been streaming them a lot lately, and it's good stuff.
Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:48:03
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Some airplay
Our guitarist Tony bumped into Liz from European Klassik Rock (EKR, based in Kent, UK) and good things are happening. She liked our stuff, and Ian sent her a copy of the Sea Of Cans CD last week.
Note the EKR link to your left. Please pay the good folks there a visit, and you might even get to hear some of our tracks. For those of you new to streaming internet radio, here is a quick 'how to' on hooking up to EKR's streaming services:
1. Download and install the latest version of WinAmp from here.
2. Go to EKR and then click on the 'Listen live' link.
3. Click on the play button that best suits the bandwidth of your connection. I chose 'mp3 64k Stereo'. Save the .pls (playlist) file to your hard drive.
4. In Winamp, use the ADD/ADD FILE button and navigate to where you put the .pls file.
That's it, you're now plugged into EKR.
Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:44:22
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Site design by Steve Metzler and Ian Monahan, copyright © 2009.
All rights reserved.
The copyrights for all music and pictures used on this site are held by their respective owners.
Sounds used on the 'turnedOn' page provided by the Freesound Project
under the Creative Commons license: cognito perceptu - radio_interference_from_DVD_burner.wav, nicStage - lightSwitchImpact.wav.
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