The James Kilgour Blog

Spotify is a new music service, where you listen to as much music as you like for free! It all runs through it’s very well designed client, and the service has all the latest music.

Getting an invite to the service was the easiest! Luckily, I managed to win a competition to get an invite; the code arrived today in my inbox!

Downloading the software was very quick, and installing even more so! I only had to make one click inside the installer window!

Once installed I opened the program. I was shocked! It look almost identical to iTunes, except with no prices! The choice was good; ‘Funhouse’ by Pink and ‘Human’ by The Killers were just two of the available albums.

You would expect with such a service, (especially one in beta) would be very slow to load. Not at all. The songs start straight away, and actually, quicker than in Napster or  in iTunes. Neither have I had any problems with the streaming.

The service is also meant to have ads, but after 20 songs, I’ve only heard one of these, which lasted about 15 seconds or less. It was for Xbox Guitar Heroes, and I didn’t really bother me much.

The only thing that could improve the service would be the ability to download the songs free as MP3s! Here’s hoping. If it wasn’t for my Napster subscription, which allows me to download, than I’d probably switch to it.

So, if you want to give the service a go, I have some invites to give out. The first commenter’s on this post will be sent one each, (to as many as I get).

JK 

I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here is set to start at 9pm this Sunday on ITV1! It will be the eighth  series of the show, which has provided some of the funniest moments of TV ever!

This years Celebrities are set to include: Brian Paddick, Carly Zucker, Dani Behr, Esther Rantzen, George Takei, Joe Swash, Martina Navratilova, Nicola McLean, Robert Kilroy-Silk and Simon Webbe.

So. No real celebrities there then. I wonder if this series will be as good as some of the past ones. Last years for example was fantastic, with Janice Dickinson making the show. I still think she should have won!

Esther Rantzen should be fun though, and she’s the oldest ever to go in! Anyway, we’ll shortly see good the series will be. I’ll leave you with this funny video:

JK

Wordpress 2.7 Beta 3 has now been released, and this blog if proud to be using it!
JK

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Here we have the CERN Rap! Not sure they should be rapping when they have a multi-million pound science project to do: although it does explain everything very well! Find out more here.

JK

AcoBox is a new service offering blogger thousands of blog pictures and images to embed into their blogs.

The one next to this text is from the service, which as you can see is a very high quality, professional image.

All the images on the service are of the same quality, after being screened and optimized for blog use.

The Images are also licensed, and adding them to posts is really simple. I tested this myself with the image you see above. I registered for the service, which only took 10 seconds after entering a username, email address and a domain name. My password was them emailed to me.

After I logged in, I did a search for some landscape pictures. I could have chosen an abstract one instead, like this one for example, (a favourite of mine).

Then I just selected the size, the alignment, then copied the code from the site, pasting it into my blog.

The images load really quickly, the service is easy to use, and best of all you don’t have to spend a penny, (unlike other certain photo sites). Most images are also licensed to be downloaded from the site to your hard drive.

Overall, this site is excellent for finding images. Normally, I use Google, but this site is fantastic, because of the high quality nature of the content.

JK Sponsored Review.

YouTube, the amateur video service is rumoured to be on the verge of streaming full length movies from the likes of MGM. Soon, we could be enjoying James Bond, Legally Blonde and more, for free!

It’s all a bid to earn more in advertising revenue; something the service desperately needs to keep afloat, with such high bandwidth and storage costs.

But will the service be of any value? YouTube is characteristically slow, with small and bad quality streams. How much fun will the videos be in YouTube style?

JK

Bingo was once the preserve of the elderly, who enjoyed playing the game at a club with friends. Now it seams everyone is playing, and no longer do you need to leave the house.

bet365 Bingo offers a wide range of games, which can be enjoyed with mates, on your own or even with the family. There now offering an excellent Promotion to UK Players, with £10 free when you sign up, plus a 200% bonus on any deposits you make.

You can also play free during 7pm to 7 30pm Mon-Thurs, which means that you can enjoy all the services without risking, or gambling a penny.

Another promotion is Winter Wonderland. Win £500 spending money so that you can shop to you drop in London, just by playing Bingo. What a great way to bypass the Credit Crunch, and treat yourself and friends to same great presents.

With the promotion you also get a 2 night stay in one of London’s finest hotels, an all inclusive, three course meal, tickets to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland show,  a private Gondola Ride, an Ice Skating Pass, and also VIP tickets to a West-End show of your choice!

Click here for full details.

JK Sponsored Review.

So last Saturday Laura White was evicted from the X Factor, despite being a hot favourite to win.

As we could see from her and Cheryl Cole’s face, there was a lot of shock at this result. It all fell to Louis to cast the judges vote of cause, between her and Ruth Lorenzo.

Now it is being said how it was “tactical” voting on behalf of Louis, and how the public was angry because she was supposedly going out with an X Factor executive, which actually wasn’t true.

All I know is that I think Ruth was actually better in the sing off. Laura too was amazing. What is strange is how certain people are still in the competition, such as Daniel. He tries his best, but he’s just isn’t in the same league as Laura.

I think as always, the public voting goes down to who has the best story, and who gets the nations sympathy.

Here’s Laura’s performance:

JK

Nikon, who I’ve heard make some of the best hunting and observation gear, have started a new deal, offering Free ATB Pro Gear in the from of up to $50 in gift cards, for those who purchase Nikon ATB Binoculars before the end on December; perfect for Christmas!

A friends of mine is into Bird Watching, and he has a set of these Binoculars, which he says are brilliant. Not knowing personally a lot on this topic, apparently they are reliable, durable and clear, which I suppose are the qualities that you want in Binoculars.

JK

Funhouse is P!nk’s new album, which I downloaded from Napster yesterday. And I love it!

P!nk is amazing artist, and as everyone should know, she doesn’t make bad music.

So What, the album’s first single is probably my favourite. However, I also  much recommend Sober, Funhouse, I Don’t Believe You, Mean and It’s All Your Fault.

Here’s looking forward to the next album!

JK