Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Need for Speed World: What it offers
Monday, March 31, 2014
The Passion Of Christ Set To Pink Floyd... Whatever Next
The Passion Of Christ Set To Pink Floyd... Whatever Next
After a modest success as a psychedelic outfit in the 1960s under surreal wild man Syd Barret. Pink Floyd dumped him for guitarist David Gilmour and went on to become one of the world's most successful bands ever, selling more than 200m albums worldwide.
Their Dark Side Of The Moon album was first to hit mega sales in 1973 followed by monster album hits with Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979). In 1986 singer Roger Waters declared the band finished though the others continued without him and with considerable success. Waters then rejoined them for the 2005 Live Aid concert and there were hopes of an album release, but in 2006 Gilmour suggested the band would no longer tour or produce records - so effectively dead then.
Pink Floyd's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn , with most of the songs by Syd Barret, is today regarded and one of the best examples of British psychedelia. The follow up album A Saucerful Of Secrets consisted largely of noise, feedback, loud bangs, oscillators and tape loops and was a disaster. Wayward experiments in atonal, jarring, meandering pieces with extended percussion solos typified their output until the 70s when they ditched the 'psychedelic' nonsense for a more mellow sound, polished performance and pieces of epic length.
This is the era many consider the finest with two great albums, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. The first was a watershed giving them their first big break in the US staying #1 for an unbelievable world record breaking 741 weeks, the other the first Pink Floyd album to reach #1 in UK and US charts.
In the late 70s, jazzy keyboard and sax lines were dropped as the band turned more 'orchestral' and moans grew at the pretentious lyrics and tediously long songs. The criticism was stemmed party by the release of the rock opera The Wall in 1982 which sold over 30 million copies worldwide, became the third-best selling album of all time in the US and currently certified 23x platinum though it only ever made #3 in the UK.
A movie Pink Floyd: The Wall grossed $14m in the US. In the wake of such acclaim the band did what most bands do when fame reaches astronomical levels - they went their separate ways. Gilmour and Waters released solo albums and other opted for collaborations with other artists.
In 1986 Walters announced he was quitting the band prompting a bitter legal wrangle over the Pink Floyd name and song credits. The band (ex Walters) released A Momentary Lapse of Reason which was pretty well just that, according to the critics, though it hit #3 in the UK and US. In 1987 came a double live album and a concert video taken from some 1988 shows, called Delicate Sound of Thunder followed by a nine disc box set release of Shine Onthat included re-releases of the studio albums.
Pink Floyd were in danger of becoming empty and formulaic though it didn't stop the 1994 The Division Bell hitting #1 in the UK and US. It turned out to be the last studio album to be released. There was the splendid Echoes album in 2001 - a great career compendium and some recordings of live shows and remastered disc releases.Hopes that the band's Live 8 appearance would trigger a reunion tour failed to materialise despite rumours of a $250 million tour deal.
In January 2006 Gilmour issued a joint statement for the group stating that they had no plans to reunite. Gilmour plugs away with solo releases. Waters and Wright are both reported to be working on solo albums. For all their achievements they never escaped the long shadow of loony Syd Barrett who died in 2006.
Using music by Floyd to interpret the passion of Christ is unlikely to turn many none-believers, but it's important to note that Christians must see something deep in the music which still sets my pulse racing after all these years.
Pink Floyd best album: Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
Pink Floyd rated albums:
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1987), Wish You Were Here (1975), The Wall (1979), Echoes (2001)
Pink Floyd missable albums:
Atom Heart Mother (1970), Delicate Sound Of Thunder (1988), The Division Bell (1994), Pulse (1995), Is Anybody Out There? The Wall: Live (2000)
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
New Skills Are Needed To Work On Internet Of Things
For instance, in September, the University of California at Berkeleys School of Information unveiled a masters degree in information and data science. All classes are held online; the programs first cohort is learning advanced statistics, software programming and how to process the data collected from sensors and mobile devices, among other skills. The students are also required to study ethics and data privacy. Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University, among other schools, have introduced similar data-science programs. Whenever large companies like Intel and Cisco mention new Internet of Things initiatives, it is a reminder that technology curriculum must evolve to meet the growing demand for IT skills, said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of Berkeleys School of Information. People need to be able to work with data often unstructured data at very large scales, and need to be able to explore it, Saxenian said. Then they need to be able to communicate it with decision-makers. Almost all in the 28-person pilot class are working professionals who are completing the degree in their free time, Saxenian said, and it could take 12 to 18 months to do so. Most are 10 to 15 years out of college, and many have PhDs, she said. But specialized data-science programs like these are not yet commonplace.
For the original version visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-it/new-skills-are-needed-to-work-on-internet-of-things/2014/02/14/b986fda4-94cb-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
Monday, February 17, 2014
an Introduction To Viral Marketing
You should be using Viral Marketing in your business! There so many different aspects involved in being a successful Internet Marketing entrepreneur. The one thing I always advise whether you are a beginner or reasonably experienced is to constantly take Internet Marketing Training courses. This will enable you to short circuit the learning process and earn money online easier and faster. I will cover Viral Marketing in this publication and have conveniently split the topic up into relevant sections for reading convenience.
Creativity:
This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.
It doesnt matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don't know that you exist, it doesn't matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.
While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.
While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.
Viral Marketing Overview:
Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one's product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.
In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won't block it and open it as well.
Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.
Using Viral Marketing to your advantage:
The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.
Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.
Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them more popular. Remember the movie The Blair Witch Project?
Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsofts Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.
Now it's your turn to continue to take Internet Marketing Training and use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.