I just love it when I get an email saying “I have an album out, would you like to review it?” It’s one of the ways that I can discover new music and some new artists.

A little while back an email dropped in my inbox about an album called New Earth by 8-time international award-winning composer Sakis Gouzonis, so how could I miss the opportunity of getting his album and giving it the music review treatment here on my blog!

The first name that always springs to my mind when I hear the term “Greek Artist” is Vangelis and I’m a big fan of his, specially the Blade Runner soundtrack, so I was intrigued to hear what this album by Sakis sounded like, with a track record of awards won for his musical compositions, I just couldn’t wait to get his CD on my iTunes and get playing it.
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OK there I was about to boot up iTunes when my Apple software updater informed me of iTunes 10 and something called Ping.

So as I usually I installed the latest version of iTunes that usually also includes a few bug updates etc and I was interested in what this “Ping” actually was.

The first thing I’ve noticed with the installation is the shiny new icon on my desktop for the latest version, after clicking and waiting for iTunes 10 to boot up I also noticed the option for “Ping” in then left hand of the screen.

I clicked it and was confronted with the option to turn Ping on, then update my profile etc.

Now supposedly this new addition to iTunes is meant to be a cross between Twitter and Facebook, it’s been described as “Social network for music” it allows us to follow artists and friends via iTunes and post recommendations and status updates!

If you are a fan of a certain band you’ll now get updates from them via “Ping”.

Now I’m not personally sure that I will be utilising this new option on iTunes 10 it seems a good idea, but I suppose its early days, so for now I’ve got Ping turned on just to see how it runs and if it’s of any use to help build my ever-growing list of downloaded albums.

Something else I noticed is that now the list view of your music includes the album artwork, but this is only available for albums where you have five or more tracks from the album.

This version of iTunes also seems to have a slight update when you sync your iPod, instead of the screen just telling you that it is syncing your iPod it now shows you a progress bar and which tracks and how many it is actually syncing, a nice touch as at least you know now how long it will take to sync your iPod after you have connected it and strangely it does seem faster syncing my iPod than the earlier version of iTunes.

I dare say there are some other updates and changes that I haven’t noticed yet and will do in time, but for now a question to those that have downloaded the latest version of Apples flagship.

If you’ve not got the new version yet then you can download it direct from Apple..

Are you using Ping and if you are what do you think of it?

If like me you use iTunes, there comes a time when you have probably made a few playlists, these can be for anything, like a party mix or even something where you have selection of tracks for a certain mood you may be in.

I like to have a collection of different playlists with ones for my favourite remixes or ones containing a certain word!

The one I really listen to a lot lately is the one that I made from the music from the TV show Monkey Dust, which has been getting bigger over the time that I have discovered tracks that were used in the classic BBC show.

So what’s your excuse for making playlists, do you make then often, or don’t you bother?

Welcome one and all to even more weekly stats.  in my series of weekly updates from the Blazing Minds blog where I list blog posts I’ve enjoyed reading as well as some of the stats for the week, such as the top 5 referring websites that have graciously sent me some traffic over the week.

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Another week and another in my series of weekly updates from the Blazing Minds blog where I list blog posts I’ve enjoyed reading as well as some of the stats for the week, such as the top 5 referring websites that have graciously sent me some traffic over the week.

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It seems to be the big hit in news on the internet at the moment with thousands and thousands of people downloading the track “Killing In The Name” by Rage Against The Machine and joining the Facebook group to try to stop the X Factor winner from having a number one this Christmas and it may just happen! But how about an alternative, how about an artist that you may all know and read their blog, me

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Continuing my series of weekly updates from the Blazing Minds blog where I list blog posts I’ve enjoyed reading as well as some of the stats for the week, such as the top 5 referring websites that have graciously sent me some traffic over the week.

Read the rest of this entry »