A web agency weblog

Ready to launch, a new Drupal based site, mumobo is here. It’s a place for writing about the books I read, the movies I watch and the music I listen.

It’s a project I’m quite fond of, includes my most complete PHPTemplate to date and my first fixed 1024 x 768 layout.

Completely developed with open source tools: Freemind for IA, Inkscape and Gimp for design, vi for editing and, of course, Drupal for content management.

It’s all Drupal 4.7. I started working with HEAD first (pre 4.8) but then decided to go with the stable 4.7, many modules and some details were not working yet a couple of months ago.

I wanted to create an easy to use and different, kinda retro, design this time, but my focus is on content, writing with a very personal voice and sharing my comments about the stuff that fills most of my days.

Writing the articles took almost as many hours as design and programming, but I think it was worth the effort. Now I plan to add fresh content on a weekly basis.

What do you think?

Take a look at mumobo and publish some comments, would you?

Imagine a radio station playing just the songs you like, and giving you the ability to tell when a song doesn’t fit your tastes and not playing it anymore. That is what Pandora does.

Pandora is a web based service that allows you to create your own music stations. Stations that “learn” what kind of music you prefer based on the choices you make. Pandora only needs a web browser with the Flash player plugin installed, that is almost any computer in the world.

Pandora rewards our curiosity, hence the name. It’s a great way of finding new music. No matter if it’s the latest hit by a mainstream artist or an unknown local band from Biloxi, Mississippi.

I signed up to Pandora a couple of months ago and I instantly loved it; thus, when I got a newsletter written by Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora and who started the Music Genome Project in 1999, I decided to ask him for an interview.

Tim replied quickly and we had a talk over the phone yesterday.

Here you have it, Tim Westergren from Pandora, at Ventanazul.

Continua leyendo …

This one is going fast. I already have 6 referrals signed up under my account to win an iPod Shuffle and I’m just waiting for 3 of them to complete one offer, maybe they already did it but getting the credit can take some time.

Recently Freepay has imposed a time limit for all its sites. For the iPod Shuffle contest I have until May 30, 2006. They want people to complete the offers faster, but this could be a problem if you don’t get it quick.

Well, I still have some time and hope to get there soon. I’ll let you know.

I’m learning german, for the third time and by myself of course, I promise this time I’ll get it. I’ve got some projects running with Germany based clients, a good opportunity to add a new language to my small menu.

I learned english thanks to John, Paul, George and Ringo, yep, The Beatles songs are great for that, even now I can remember and sing (horribly to be honest) most of their songs.

I’m also thinking on learning some swedish because I really like Sweden’s Kent but anyway, this post is about german!

My tastes?, I like rock from bands like Kashmir, Mew, Radiohead, Pink Floyd (these fellows are gods), the already mentioned Kent, Sugarplum Fairy, Mando Diao (uh, three swedish bands in a row!) and many others but those will give you a good idea of what I’m into.

So, I’m asking you to suggest some good bands from Germany, or other countries but singing in german, bands to enjoy listening and learning the language.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Hello everybody, today was a bad day, at least from a technical point of view, I was told that I needed to make some expensive repairs in my car and my MP3 player died.

Can you imagine that?!, I say, I can live without a car but … no MP3 player?, wow!, that hurts, it’s really a big problem for every music addict, believe me.

I had an Audible Otis that came with my subscription to Audible, not a great gizmo but it worked, it only had 64Mb of memory and was just enough for listening to audiobooks (Audible uses a format that doesn’t take much space in the player) and kinda small for MP3 music but anyway, it could hold at least 10 or 12 songs for listening while being sit in a waiting room.

Now I really need a new MP3 player and have decided to continue my efforts with the FreeiPods site, no cash in the box right now (at least not for gizmos, the entity known as wife will kill me if I get another one so soon, last one was a Wacom tablet, “hey hon!, this will allow me to create wonders for the job!", “yeah right!, I’m still waiting for my wedding ring!") so I have to give this thing another try.

I signed up some months ago and without trying too hard I got some people in my list, four persons to be exact, but one of them was not approved, I’m not sure why, now I need a couple of guys, or gals, or one of each, in order to get my iPod.

I know these links are all over the net but anyway, it’s worth trying and I’m so close.

Enough talk: here my link to get a free iPod, if you feel like helping just sign up and complete an offer, I will really appreciate it.

Gosh, it’s quiet around here …

p.s: The free iPods offer is only valid for residents of United States, a U.S. Territory, Canada, England, Scottland, Wales or Germany

So, you read my first review about the swedish band Mando Diao.

Now I have to report that I got their second album, Hurricane Bar, if I would have to express it with one word this would be: fantastic.

I had already guessed these guys had real talent and great potential from their first album, but now, it is confirmed.

Hurricane Bar is not Bring Em In Part 2, it’s evolution baby, it’s the same band, you can tell, but they have a new sound, a great sound, I must say.

This is the kind of bands I love, bands than can transform in time, maintain their soul, but evolve, another band that has mastered this kind of music evolution, lately, is Kashmir, from Denmark, of course I will write about them later, but this time is about the Mando boys.

My favorite song from Hurricane? Well, hard to choose, I really enjoy All My Senses, it’s so powerful, the lyrics, the melody, everything.

Clean Town takes us back to their home town and has great rhythm.

Added Family is a song from another world, so sixties, so original, so great riffs and choruses.

These guys are so good that all songs in the same album feel like songs from different albums.

You can also download Hurricane Bar from iTunes.

If I could make just one wish today, that would be: Mando Diao, keep playing and creating such a beautiful music for a long, long time.

Ok, you are into new and different rock bands? Did you like Kent? Do you like The Beatles? Or maybe the power of The Hives or Hellacopters?

Well, then allow me to introduce you to: Mando Diao. Pure rock, a big dosis of garage with a Beatles don’t know what feeling. You are going back to 1960 and coming back with pure energy.

These four guys band from Borlänge, Sweden, which started playing together at age sixteen, are:

• Gustaf Norén, guitarist, lead singer, and, to me, excellent songwriter
• Björn Dixgård, guitarist and singer
• Carl-Johan “CJ” Fogelklou, bassist, and
• Samuel Giers, drummer

These boys, just in their twenties, have already toured Sweden with great bands such as Hellacopters and Kent, they have conquered Japan and have been put in the Swedish bands with international potential list. Not bad eh?

I’ve got their first album, Bring em In. There is a great mix of songs in there.

With no doubt I can say that Mr. Moon is the one I like the most, it has a genuine sixties taste in it but at the same time is so fresh.

To China with Love is also a good pick, I enjoy the lyrics, they make me think about what these boys tell us about their home town: “it has the highest drug and murder rate of anyplace in Sweden". A clear voice telling us this guy’s story, a perfect bass line and the guitar’s background chords really complete a great song. At the end, you just have to sing the la, la, la chorus, if you are not doing it, you are missing it all boy.

This year has seen their second album come alive. Hurricane Bar, a two year work which I have not been able to put my hands in, yet.

Well my fellow readers, go get a little of Mando Diao from Amazon or iTunes, I promise you will be dancing while sitting in front of your boring PC, I am doing it right now!