Money For The Haiti Earthquake Appeal

Abandoned at $0.01 as it really wasn't working as quickly as i'd hoped...

Todays Dump: What Language Are Popular Sites Written In?

I thought i'd try and compile a list of various popular sites and the languages/API's that hold them together:

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FACEBOOK

Most of what is presented to the user is written in PHP/MySQL.

TWITTER

Written originally in Ruby On Rails. They switched to Scala for some of the backend once traffic levels rocketed and the badly written Rails code couldn't be efficiently scaled.

DIGG

Written entirely using PHP/MySQL .

YOUTUBE

Youtubes server-side is written in Python.

FLICKR

PHP

WIKIPEDIA

PHP

WORDPRESS

PHP

EBAY

The engine is written in C++ and Java.


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If anyone knows anything else that I should add/correct please comment.

Todays Tune: Brenda Lee - Always On My Mind

"Always on My Mind" is an American country music song by Mark James, Johnny Christopher, and Wayne Carson Thompson originally recorded by Brenda Lee.

Other version have been recorded, most notably by Elvis and Willie Nelson.

Todays Tune: College Humor - I've Got A Feeling

A great parody by college humor of the Black Eyed Peas song "I've Got A Feeling".

Todays Dump: How Bands You've Never Heard Of Are Making Money On iTunes

How is that possible?

A band you have never heard of -- AC/DC cover band AC/db -- made over $32,000 from music sales in November.

Under the elderly business model of music sales on physical media, it would not be. For a band to finish up with that much funds in its pockets after the distributor and record label had taken their cuts, its music would must have posted garish, unmissable sales numbers.

AC/db, on the other hand, had to do around $45,000 in sales at the iTunes store. After Apple took its 30 cents on the dollar, that left $32,000, of which the band's distributor -- TuneCore -- took nothing at all.

TuneCore is six of a few digital distributors that have turned the music business model on its head, treating distribution as a service. The company charges an up front fee to system recordings and upload them to music stores like iTunes -- which won't deal with individual artists. The band retains all rights to its music and keeps all the revenue past what the stores keep.

This model is obviously appealing to musicians. CEO Jeff Price says TuneCore, a startup with a mere $7 million in venture funding to date, distributes more music for sale than any company in the world -- and by a wide margin. In 2009, TuneCore processed and uploaded over a song per second; its iTunes sales were nice for $32 million after Apple took its cut.

That doesn't seem like a giant sum in the context of a $10 billion industry. But as most of TuneCore's customers are unsigned ("whatever that even means anymore," Price says), that is mostly going straight to musicians; in that context, $32 million is serious funds.

And it is not music -- TuneCore put a collection of Halloween-themed sound effects on iTunes, which sold for around $20,000 in November.

The barriers to entry are low -- TuneCore charges around $10 for a single, $40 for an album, much in line with its main competitor, ReverbNation -- so somebody can record anything and offer it to the masses on a whim. And if they happen to catch a viral wave, they can finish up making a decent living.

Todays Dump: Incredible Tool - Drawter

I just found an incredible site Drawter. It allows you to draw all kinds of html tags out on a WYSIWYG basis and then generate the html/css code.

I'm definately going to have to try this out on some future designs.

Todays Tune: Dire Straits - Walk Of Life

"Walk of Life" is a 1985 song by the British rock band Dire Straits. It appeared on their best-selling album Brothers in Arms. It subsequently appeared on their live album On the Night. It was released as a single in 1986 but had first been available as the b-side of "So Far Away" released in advance of Brothers in Arms. The track peaked at number 7 in the US charts & was their biggest commercial hit in the UK, peaking at number 2.

The music video for the song shown in the UK video features a busker or street musician wearing the same shirt as Mark Knopfler intercut with the band performing on a stage, while the U.S. features sports bloopers intercut with footage of the band performing the song on a stage.

A simple rock 'n' roll rhythm is used, with chord changes limited to I, IV & V chords. The long introduction has became iconic in some circles, with an instantly recognisable melody played on a synthesiser organ patch. The singer mentioned in the lyrics is said to perform "down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay," a reference to busking in the subway. The songs he plays are oldies, including "I Got a Woman", "Be-Bop-A-Lula", "What'd I Say", "Mack the Knife" & the "Talking Blues".

Live performances of the song have often been concluded with an elaborate pedal steel solo by guest performer Paul Franklin.[1]

"Walk of Life" was the song played during the Space Shuttle Discovery crew wake-up call on STS-114 Flight Day 7.

The walk of life was also the name of the charity walk from London to Khartoum 1985-1986, to raise funds for famine relief led by John Abbey. The band donated Brothers in Arms Gold disc in recognition & support of the expedition.

The introduction to the song was also used for a time as the theme music for Check Match Special cricket in the United Kingdom.

When the song was originally released, the band explained that a "walk of life" in the context of this song is a traditional journey taken by a storyteller in the countryside, in which he went from town to town telling stories, in the days before radio, tv, & recording.