Get Rid of in-app Ads

Here’s a quick tip for my Apple Trove followers.

I heard you can get rid of in-app ads by turning on Airplane mode on your iPhone. All you have to do is swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone to access the Control Center, tap on the airplane icon, and then streamed ads can no longer reach your iPhone! I’ve tried this with several apps and it works like a charm. The apps work and there are no ads popping up.

There are downsides to this, like not being able to receive phone calls, texts, and other online services. But why should the world be allowed to disturb your game, right? Just don’t forget to switch Airplane Mode back off when you’re done!

What about morals? OK, if you really use an app a lot and there is a cheap option to get rid of the ads then give them a buck.

Meanwhile, if you are willing to disconnect yourself from planet Earth, there is a way to get rid of those pesky ads.

I am not Charlie

If I knew of a person or group that was so sensitive about a certain thing that they have in the past gotten murderously violent about it and that they have a known agenda to do so again, I would not tempt them by flaunting that certain thing. This happened with a French publication very recently and, surprise surprise, people got killed.

Militant Fundamentalist Muslims are more than just sensitive about images of Mohammed. Who knew? Everyone, that’s who.

Don’t misunderstand me, I do think the killers were wrong. But I also think it was foolish beyond belief to bait them. Cloaking this whole thing under the banner of “freedom of speech” somehow doesn’t do the situation justice. I don’t think “suicide by speech” is fair either; but, again, knowingly pissing off sensitive people anxious to make a violent statement is just plain wrong.

Here, in the USA, we don’t use the N-word because it is known to be related to horrible things in our country’s past and present. There are other groups where we don’t cross certain lines for similar reasons. I guess in some cases we exercise self-control in our free speech and in other cases we don’t. Discretion is often the better part of valor.

Digital Comic Books

New Suicide Squad, DC Comics – Jan 2015

You’ve come a long way, baby!

Going Viral

I need to get my head examined.

Over the holidays we stayed a week at a relative’s house where my wife’s daughter was recovering from pneumonia and her husband was just starting to regularly sneeze. A few days after returning home I started sneezing regularly, coughing persistently, and blowing orange snot out of my nose on waking for two days followed by green globs of snot this morning. Afraid of developing bronchitis, I went to the doctor today.

Trove

For quite a while now instead of blogging I’ve been curating something called a “Trove”. This is similar to an RSS aggregator or even along the lines of Flipboard or Zite. The difference is that I am the sole curator of this particular Trove, picking articles on a particular topic to appear in other people’s newsfeed. To include my selections, one must follow the Trove I curate.

Soundcloud and Vimeo Embedding

This is a quickie test embedding a Soundcloud audio file into my blog. This is a very basic real idea I have for my next song attempt, just four chords. Click the triangle in the graphic below to play the little file.

There is a WordPress page which helped me along HERE.

Revamp

I just checked my annual WordPress stats and saw that I uploaded a total of 9 blog posts this year. That’s awful. In fact it’s wasteful given I’m paying WordPress about $300 per year in order to directly host video and audio content. That amount of money is clearly wasteful. Going forward I’m going to try two new services for hosting video and audio and revamp this entire site. My fear is that downgrading WordPress will wreak havoc on my current content. Let’s look at what I’m considering.

Chopin: Waltz in C# Minor, Opus 64 #2

I’m on a piano teacher’s forum at LinkedIn. Once in a while a guy named Joe posts a link to a piece he’s learned and kindly asks for constructive criticism. With his last posting he did Chopin’s Waltz in C# Minor. My comments focused on how his ornaments should have been more crisp, his phrasing needed work — shape the phrase with your hands drawing an arc, and he needs to be more at the bottom of the keys. The biggest compliment I could give was that Joe inspired me to learn this piece myself simply because I like it.

What follows immediately below is my audio performance of this early-advanced level masterpiece.

 

I will discuss this piece in a little more detail.

The Sad Little Princess

I composed this short piano solo with a particular student in mind. It is in the musical form of a rondo (A – B – A – C – A). I’ve done some reevaluating of my style and how I go about things and this is the result. If you’d like to listen to this two-minute piece just click the play button immediately below.

 

If anyone wants the score in PDF format, let me know. I’ve given it to a couple people so I had to rush out this recording for reference on how I think it should be played.

A Peace Corps for Music

I was asked to help along a National Geographic project by submitting a video presentation for their Expedition Granted competition so there would be some submissions live before the project started. Basically, people have a pet project they want funded and the winner will be granted $50,000.00 toward that end. You might be able to see my submission on the main page for this project, just go there and scroll down a little, under “ADVISOR PICKS”, and then click on the “Find Out More” text to view the video. Here’s the site:

—> Expedition Granted <—