Day: 23 July 2007

My first iTunes iMix compilation

iMix screenshot from iTunes

This evening I compiled my first ever iMix: The Original Songs From The Mirror (link requires iTunes to be installed).

What is an iMix?

With iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, you can publish your music recommendations for friends and family anytime.

When you publish a playlist at the iTunes Music Store, it’s called an “iMix.” iMixes allow others to preview your favorite songs and purchase the ones they want. Creating your own iMix on the iTunes Music Store is as easy as clicking a button.

Creating an iMix

Creating my compilation was pretty straight-forward:

  1. Create a new playlist of tracks
  2. Go to File > Create an iMix …
  3. Add a few details
  4. Click Done
  5. Er …
  6. That’s it!

The Original Songs From The Mirror

Yesterday I was listening to Fish’s 1993 album Songs From The Mirror, a recording of some of the songs that inspired Mr Derek W. Dick as he was growing up and getting into this thing we call music. These were his songs from the mirror — we’ve all sung along to our favourite bands while miming into the mirror … haven’t we?

Well, my iMix compilation pulls together the original songs:

  1. Question by The Moody Blues
  2. Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
  3. Fearless by Pink Floyd
  4. Apeman by The Kinks
  5. Hold Your Heady Up by Argent
  6. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) by Genesis
  7. Solo by Sandy Denny
  8. Time and a Word by Yes
  9. The Seeker by The Who
  10. Jeepster by T. Rex
  11. Five Years by David Bowie

Update: I’ve now included Jeepster by T. Rex.

The real St Andrews

There was a comment at the IWMW2007 conference in York last week about how deceptive many photographs on university promotional websites are; for example, they always show deep blue skies with hardly a cloud in sight.

So today I decided to put it to the test.

The frontpage news headline on the BBC News website says “Flood crisis grows as rivers rise“, and the UK’s bad weather has been the number one topic of conversation for weeks (besides Beckham’s move to LA, of course. And the release of the final Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Lucrative Franchise).

So of any day this ought to be the one utterly, 100% honest photograph of the real St Andrews.

St Salvator's Quad, St Andrews

As you can see: glorious sunshine, blue skies, hardly a cloud in sight and the green, green grass of home.

It’s like this all the time!