Yesterday, I'd just about had enough. I called their first line of support who went through the usual song and dance and we ended up precisely nowhere. That's when I mentioned that I'd called several times in the past and, if they didn't resolve the problem quickly, then we'd cancel the service. I told the support guy that their line had actually crashed twice in the past 10 minutes, once whilst I was looking up the number to call for Technical Support and again, whilst I was looking up the service details available on the Orange network. I also said that if they put me on hold and/or asked me to call their second line support team a little later then I'd cancel the Direct Debit instantly.

Silence.

Beautiful silence.

The kind of silence that whispers, "Oh! Shit! We're gonna have to fix this one..."

I got through to the second line of support. A very polite, professional gentleman took me through a handful of steps to reconfig the ADSL modem, reboot it once, then again and then... Shazam!. It's fixed.

He said he would call back in an hour and he did. So far, I haven't seen the line drop once this morning, when the problem is at its worst, and it's been a fairly intense period of internet activity.

So, one more dragon bites the dust. I just think that it's a shame that you have to get absolutely spitting mad and start threatening to pull the service before they'll actually fix it.

  09-Apr-08: The Engineer's Victory Dance

The Engineer's Victory Dance is a tradition/ritual that began, for me, in the Technical Support Section of Caterpillar's Peterlee Plant, although the practice itself is has its origins in the Dilbert cartoon strip by Scott Adams.

Much of what we take for granted these days - high speed internet, one PC per desktop, multiple redundant servers etc - was cutting edge back then and the good folks at the Peterlee plant really were pushing the envelope every single day. It was a great place to work and learn but so much of their technology from that period was held together on a wing and a prayer that keeping it all going was pretty stressful.

Working on a long, difficult project with no obvious end in sight wasn't easy, especially when the needs of the business are constantly biting at your heels. Creating something good is never easy when a manager is constantly sitting on your shoulder, checking that you're hard at work. A success - any success, no matter how small and insignificant, was always one step closer to the goal, one inch nearer the finish line. Hitting a major milestone was always worthy of a celebration, which is where the Victory Dance usually entered the equation.

The Engineer's Victory Dance has no strict format and seems to vary from individual to individual. You see, it's not about moves or the need to show off. It's about a state of mind. It's a celebration that you, as an Engineer, have triumphed, if only briefly, over the technology that would seek to make your life difficult if not impossible.

But to invoke the Engineer's Victory Dance carries a health warning because to perform the dance risks angering the Gods and the Gods that rule the technological Universe do not like a smart ass, which is why the dance is always performed with due respect to the aford mentioned deities. So, you learn not to be too cocky lest your technological marvel comes crashing down around your ears. Just watch the last reel of Star Wars to see how a superior technology can come undone by something you'd formerly considered completely insignificant.

So why was the Engineer's Victory Dance invoked not once, not twice but four times in the past two days?

Firstly, I managed to find a solution to the non-functioning switch problem, which occasionally stops the push buttons on the sequencer from working properly. It seems that the height of the switch cap is about 0.2mm bigger than it should be and this sometimes causes the cap itself to make contact with the body of the switch before the switch actuator has made contact with the other terminal. If this happened then the only solution was to rip the switch out of the board and replace it with a new one. Instead, I found that if I deform the top of the actuator very, very slightly then the switch cap no longer fouls the switch body and the switch works perfectly.

Secondly, I took two CPU boards that, due to manufacturing errors, had been scrapped and, with little more than a bit of common sense coupled with an engineer's eye for the most miniscule of cock ups, traced a number of faults that would stop both boards working properly. The result was that instead of trashing 2 CPU boards worth around £400 ($800) each, we had 2 extra boards in stock.

Finally, late on last night, I switched on a new sequencer for the first time and ran through the basic front panel tests. For the first time ever, the QA sheet read ZERO DEFECTS. Most sequencers require some remedial action from me when they're first powered up and the amount of remedial action has decreased more and more as we begin to phase out the lousy One Way PCBs from the earlier production runs. However, given the number of components, the number of solder joints and the overall complexity of the instrument, to walk away with ZERO DEFECTS felt good. Really good.

But, as ever, one performs the Engineer's Victory Dance with due humility and a knowledge that, if you are overly triumphant, then someone, somewhere will screw up royally and all your good work will be undone.

  06-Apr-08: International Space Station

On Friday night, just before 9 pm, Jules and I went outside in the freezing cold to go stand in the Hetton Road cemetery. See, I know how to show a girl a good time, right?

The sky was clear with a slight northerly wind creating a distinct biting nip in the air. On the TV, the season finale of Torchwood was about to air and so we had plenty of reasons to be inside. So, what were we doing outside? We were trying to spot the International Space Station going overhead.

There's no mystery to spotting the ISS. So long as you have a clear night, spotting the ISS is just a case of going over to http://www.heavens-above.com, keying in your latitude and longitude and then selecting ISS from the list of observable objects. You're then given a table for the next 10 days which tells you exactly when the ISS will be over your house.

At precisely 21:02hours (UTC +1 aka UK Summer Time), a small bright light appeared in the west, about 10 degrees above the horizon. The lack of navigation lights immediately indicated that this was not some jet bound for sunnier climes. It's apparent brightness, about the same as Venus, indicated that not just another orbiting satellite either. This was Zarya, the International Space Station.

I settled my camera on a gravestone - yes, really - and aimed it upwards and in the direction of the constellation Leo and the planet Saturn. I pressed the button and waited for the time exposure to complete.

One of our neighbours, Anthony, approached with his dog, Rosy, and together we watched this modern technological miracle sail overhead. I think we were all pretty thrilled.

The time exposure finished and, in the viewer, we could see the unmistakeable trail of the ISS against the background of stars. Afterwards, we watched the ISS sail towards the east and then fade to nothing as it moved into the Earth's shadow.

Back in the house, I connected the camera up to the iMac and waited for the images to transfer. A few seconds later and everything was across. There it was. The ISS - a thin trail against the constellation Gemini with Mars and Saturn easily visible in the same field.

Here's the full image. Enjoy.

Over the weekend, I was visiting the JPL area in Second Life. I found their planetarium and a very kind gent from Gottenburg in Sweden showed me how I could configure the planetarium for any date and time - and therefore any astronomical event - that I could recall. We decided to recreate what we'd seen on Friday night.

It didn't take long. A couple of mouseclicks and we were done. And, yeah, there it was - a CGI rendition of the ISS, exactly as we'd seen it two nights before.

Here's a screen snap. Enjoy.

I found this whole experience thrilling. Jules was shoulder-surfing at the time and we both stood there with a look of awe on our faces as the ISS sailed overhead in a virtual sky, surrounded by the same stars and planets that we'd witnessed and captured on camera a few days earlier.

Awesome.

  04-Apr-08: Who's the bigger crook? The Pirates or... ?

I don't normally stray outside of my music-related remit in this blog but the comments of Charles Dunstone, owner of Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk with respect to the widespread sharing of music over the internet this morning really got me annoyed.

The BBC reports thus:

"The head of one of Britain's biggest internet providers has criticised the music industry for demanding that he act against pirates. The trade body for UK music, the BPI, asked internet service providers to disconnect people who ignore requests to stop sharing music. But Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse, which runs the TalkTalk broadband service, is refusing. He said it is not his job to be an internet policeman."

"BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said that the music industry has been fighting a losing battle to prevent people from swapping songs for nothing on the internet. Mr Dunstone, whose TalkTalk broadband is Britain's third biggest internet provider, said the demands are unreasonable and unworkable. He also said his firm will refuse to cooperate with the BPI, despite threats of legal action. But the BPI said internet firms need to educate their customers not to steal music."

"It also claims that if they do not help with the fight against music piracy, then the government will bring in legislation to make them cooperate."

Now, for the time being at least, I'm a Talk Talk customer. The only reason I'm still a Talk Talk customer is because they're cheap. Well, cheaper than BT that's for sure.

In my humble opinion, Talk Talk offer the worst customer service of any company I've ever used, with the possible exception of One Way PCB Ltd.

My ADSL link had been fairly stable this morning. Most mornings, it's a disaster. Most mornings, I can expect to reset my modem at least twice because it just stops working. Most mornings, the ADSL link just drops, maybe 5 or 6 times before 12 am, no apparent cause, for no apparent reason.

At nights, say 6pm onwards, the line performance drops dramatically. We've learned to avoid uploading or downloading between 6pm and 9pm because the link slows down to the point where it's unusable for anything except checking the BBC News Page. I can't use it for anything like Second Life or EVE until after 11pm.

I've complained to Talk Talk, who consistently maintain that my line is in perfect working order. However, when my line was last doing the whole yo-yo thing, one call to Talk Talk resulted in some furious typing at the other end and, well, the line came back almost straight away and, miraculously, didn't fail once for another 3 days. So, I have come to the conclusion that something is amiss with their network and they don't want to admit it.

When my line failed completely a couple of months ago, Talk Talk Technical Support were completely unable to resolve the problem. I fixed it myself with a replacement micro filter from my old BT kit. It took them 3 weeks to ring me back to find out if the problem had resolved itself.

Yesterday, a replacement ADSL micro filter arrived. I'd even forgotten it was supposed to be coming in the post. It had been promised last week due to a fault reported the week before.

This morning, I read that Charles Dunstone won't do anything to stop his customers sharing music across his servers, which clearly breaks their terms and conditions of service, which are clearly detailed on the TalkTalk web site. He says it's not his job to be an internet policemen. But then these customers are not stealing his property, are they? They're stealing my property, right? Doesn't that bother him?

Equally, doesn't this mean that Mr. Dunstone is aiding and abetting a criminal in the act of committing a crime?Doesn't that mean he can be charged and tried in court? I would urge Mr. Dunstone to tread careful before spouting forth on this subject again.

Whatever. I think it's time for the government to act against piracy before we don't have a music industry left.

But, then again, when did this administration - or the one before it - ever think twice about destroying a national resource and a global leader? So long as the UK is a good place for the tourists to visit and to recycle other people money...

End of rant.

  02-Apr-08: We're on Amazon

Monday was a big day. I had a web site demo to do for The Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne, and in front of the Lord Mayor of the City, no less. This was what we call a 'skin job' - a complete makeover of an existing site. (Apologies to Philip K. Dick.) It was a lot of fun to do and certainly one of the easiest jobs we've ever tackled. It should also help raise the profile of the company a lot, which in turn means more money, which, logically, means that I can continue this adventure a while longer.

I received notification from CD-Baby over the weekend that Future Forever would be available for purchase through their on-line shop in the very near future. I received a further e-mail today indicating that the disc is now available on Amazon too. We should be on iTunes by the end of the week.

This is one business goal that I plan to savour because, essential, it means we've cracked the distribution problem.

About a month ago, I sent an email to a well known UK musician asking for a bit of help. I was stuck and, as I'd just helped him out with a major commercial venture of his own, I figured that he might feel like reciprocating. So, I asked him how he got his discs up on iTunes. The reply was "I don't know."

Huh? "I don't know." What the fo? How can he not know who's putting his stuff up on iTunes?

Yes, well, you guessed it. This was just a less-than-subtle way of saying "Piss off, you little twerp. You don't get to play with us Big Boys just yet..."

Instead, I e-mailed my friend Andy Condon of the Glimmer Room and Andy said just get the disc up on CD-Baby. So that's what I did. The whole process costs about £25 - including £10 for the bar code - and takes around 3 weeks.

Why is this important?

To sell discs, you need to have some way of gaining access to an audience because, in this business, publicity is everything.

In the past, you sold discs by sending a couple of review copies off to some fanzines, who then published a review and the reviews helped sell the discs. If you were good enough, you got the chance to do a gig and that helped raise your profile a little bit more. One well known musician used to liken the whole process to that of a snowball at the top of a hill. Do enough gigs and get enough reviews and slowly, the snowball starts to move. Every release, every gig adds to the snowball and it steadily gains both speed and momentum until it is moving so fast that it is unstoppable. This rather neat analogy fails completely when you realise that the snowball is moving in a downhill direction and that, sooner or later, this snowball is either going to melt or hit a brick wall. Whatever happens, the outcome is sure to be one big soggy mess that will be gone just as soon as the sun comes out.

So, let's skip that analogy although it certainly has described my friend's musical journey to date.

In around 1995, the scene was just big enough to sell around a thousand discs with comparative ease. However, around this time, the all conquering Berlin School dross was suddenly rekindled into life and, almost overnight, everything stopped selling under the weight of this dull, unimaginative, derivative bollocks. Gigs dried up, sales dropped off like lemmings over a cliff and the audience, which had numbered in the thousands, found something more interesting to listen to.

Suddenly, companies which had been selling thousands and thousands of electronic titles found that their audience had disappeared. The festivals stopped. EMMA, KLEM, Alfa to name three just ceased to exist. Gigs became few and far between. The fanzines, the critical lifeblood of the scene, all but disappeared. Zenith, Voyager, Inkeys, Space Rider, Sequences - all well-produced and widely distributed but they have all simply vanished.

In recent years, we've experienced real trouble getting certain dealers to take our titles. Groove Unlimited, for instance, won't even answer my e-mails anymore. I have no idea why. No reason has ever been given. I've mailed them, politely asking if there's a problem but there's never been a response. I am not aware that I've done or said anything to offend either Kees or Ron but something is obviously wrong. So be it.

Another example is Archie Pattinson over at Eurock. He used to take small quantities and always promised to take any new titles as soon as they came along but he didn't even reply to my last e-mail. The same happened with Compact Disc Services, who used to take hundreds of copies. Again, they didn't even reply to my last letter. Fair enough.

Even Synth Music Direct don't take much these days but that is almost certainly because they've convinced themselves that the CD itself is dead. Far from it. Just ask anyone in the CD Duplication Business. Business is booming. Only CUE Records in Germany have taken a steady stream of discs, no doubt because they can sell them on in ones and twos to the other dealers who won't deal with us directly.

Now, as I've often said and still maintain, I don't do this for the money. I write music because it touches my creative buttons. It's fun. I like it that people enjoy the music. I'm happy that it gives them pleasure. One customer who became a firm friend said that he and his wife liked "Future Forever" because they could get jiggy to it on a Saturday night. That sort of response puts a big smile on my face. It did just now when I wrote that sentence and I bet it did the same for you too.

Music is about communication. But it's also about announcing to the world that "Hey! I exist! I've created something! This music may not be much cop but at least it will be around when I've gone to dust." Think of these albums as gravestones, if you will.

"Here lies what's left of David Hughes. He had a big nose, a crap haircut and wrote some slightly above average shagging music."

That's not a bad epitaph, really.

Now, if I had gazzilions of dollars in the bank then I wouldn't mind subsidising this adventure but I don't and so it's reasonable to expect some kind of return on the investment.

It's no use having lots of airplay if the fans can't buy your disc. We have an online shop but, given the problems that punters face with identity fraud, there's a very obvious reluctance amongst fans to use the shop. And so you're reliant on dealers to distribute your CD for you.

However, as I said above, we've had a great deal of trouble getting certain dealers to handle our discs and for no good reason either.

This stranglehold on our sales grew worse and worse until, late last year, I decided that I'd had enough. To survive as an artist, we had to break out of the scene and look elsewhere.

The first step was to see if we could release through the very excellent Magnatune, and this was an astonishing success. The next step was to release through MusicZeit, which was not nearly as successful but I'm sure this will pay off in the long run.

With sales starting to pick up again, we then began to look around for every possible source of airplay we could find. We went back to old friends who hadn't played our stuff in years and they helped out, adding our discs to their roster every now and again. Then we found many, many new friends such as John Diliberto of Echoes, Chris Neumann of TDFZ, Pat Murphy of WXLU and Terry Hawke of Harborough FM and they all began to play our stuff to a new audience.

That's why I decided to take a gamble with CD-Baby. It's hardly cost anything to get the discs up on their site and, with digital distribution via iTunes and Amazon, there's no longer anyone or any company who can restrict access to our discs. We no longer have to ask dealers to take our titles at knock down prices and customers no longer have to put up with their piss-poor service.

In short, I feel that we're at last free of what remains of the UK EM scene. We're truly independent again, no longer reliant on a handful of dealers who operate what is almost, in effect, a closed shop.

Slowly, sales have begun to pick up again. Slowly, our profile is rising and our confidence returning.

Finally, after almost a decade out in the cold, we feel like players again.