Rewinding to ones computing past

I was looking a bit at the statistics Google give you about what posts people read, where they're from, any sites they used to find this blog and so on and one thing that struck me was actually some of you do read the older posts. It was that which got me thinking.

I think must of us are aware of how our experience of the Internet has changed over the years, how that's fed into what we use to access it and the different programs we've had connected with our use of computers.

I suspect many of us have what you call a desktop that after some seconds, comes up often with a colourful design.

Well as some of you have been reading posts from 2008, here's one of mine from December that year that tells you quite a few things.

To start with like now in 2008 I also was in love with Miss Kitty so I made it the main image rather than that bland Windows XP Pro  screen.

Also look at the dimensions specifically the aspect ratio, it's 4:3 that tells you I had more traditional CRT monitor the time compared to the near universal 16:9 or 16:10 Widescreen Lcd ones we have today.

Also, it's resolution is 600x800 which is very low by modern standards.

Looking at the toolbar you'll spot firstly Microsoft were highlighting an urgent security issue with that shield with ! mark and Skype was set up on the machine although I didn't use it much.

Like today you'll spot the Avast antivirus program (the blue ball with an A) that I've always used, a program for a separate webcam I no longer use, the Nero 6 Smartstart cd writing program and Yahoo messenger that I suspect a good number of us had back then as we used Yahoo's services like Geocities, messenger and email.

Also you'll spot a trio of Mozilla Foundation programs such as the browser Firefox which was much better at the time when it came to security and features than Internet Exploder 6  (I.E to some), the email program Thunderbird which I used with a lousy Internet Service Providers (I.S.P.) email services until I moved to web based mail exclusively, that organized my mail and allowed me to have coloured backgrounds and text that help my dyslexia and Sunbird, a desktop based calendar to help me with organizing my life which is effectively replaced now  by the Google cloud based Calendar.

I now use Pale Moon a Swedish forked version of Firefox as my main browser on my laptops and the old desktop is gone!

The keenly eyed will also have spotted the installation files for the cd copying program, dbPoweramp and the shortcut for music player Winamp both of which are installed and much used on my newer laptops.

 was no iTunes installed as the machine was incapable of running it although it was very popular back then.

I wonder how many of view still have pictures of your old desktops and can tell the story behind them?

Rumer:the albums

This weeks featured artist is a Pakistan born Britisher going by the stage name of Rumer ('real' name Sarah Joyce) with her new lp entitled Into Colour released this month that features the much airplayed track Dangerous.

It's usually a dangerous task to define an artist by others, but it's fair to say her style is very much routed in the singer songwriter mode and has many things in common with the late Karen Carpenter, which as seasoned blog readers know was the stuff very much on my stereo back in the 70's when I was a child (one can hardly say growing up with a straight face!).

Much to some peoples surprise in 2012 she released this album, Boy's Don't Cry which was a covers album drawing from the 70's although the lead off single P.F.Stone actually goes back to the 60's.

Initially some folk issued groans thinking she was jumping on the lucrative covers bandwagon but she makes every single song on it sound as if it was her own. 

This was the album that started off her solo career, 2010's Seasons Of My Soul which as belatedly issued in the States the following year featuring the singles Slow and Aretha which were followed by an EP recorded with Burt Bacharach on download and very limited 7" vinyl.

She performed A House is not a Home, a  Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis song at the White House May 9th 2012 event honouring Burt.

Rumer's lp's feature different cover art from the corresponding cd and digital download editions usually designed by her and it is in that form  my collection of her recordings exists and is enjoyed.

I have made 'vintage' minidisc editions of these albums for posterity with the first two combined to a single 'extended play' disc.

New Pj's for the Sissy Gurl

Brrr it feels cold right now and that translates on into staying warm at night although that loveable scallywag cat of mine put his paws through my old Dalmatian pj's last week.  Blooming cats,eh?

So i had to do something about it as the holes were pretty big so I bought these fleecy ones that are also ideal for just lounging about in first thing before formally getting dressed not that in my family that was exactly condoned.
They're really warm too!

Reflections on the little side of being a Sissy Gurl

 

For I suspect most of us, this life in its differing aspects such as our child-like interests, sense of dressing more as a little - for me little/middle feminine boy - gender presentation for some and so on comes from within.

Certainly speaking purely personally it's something I've felt for a very long time in my so-called real life even if some individual aspects may of changed over time like my more recent feeling comfortable with the more overly feminine side.

It is something that we feel, something that we need perhaps in our lives not that we may not have balance this sometimes with more adult responsibilities like paying the bills and for a good many, needing to work too.

We own that sense of self, working it as best we can to suit our requirements and we're in control of that at all times. In other words we're responsible for our sense of little and where we take it.

This is I feel a bit different than what you may see elsewhere where it's portrayed as being "Forced" although I'd say that's not an accurate description so much as the person doing that is more the one enabling, using psychological suggestions, a sense of wanting to be enabled in the subject as no one can in the everyday sense of the word make you do feel or do something you don't wish.

The person buys into it in other words and I suspect they may not have the confidence to just do it by themselves if that's really them. 

It's a different feeling I think from any sense of, if you're transgendered, wanting wrongs in the form of gendered presentation to be put aright as being enabled to say attend school in the gender you feel.

For me it's more being very happy with my gender role as a boy by physical sex having no dysphoria with that, wanting to wear skirts and play with girls more for some things as much as happy to play action games with boys.

That's just about you as the child back then, being able to be yourself, the gender you really feel, and to have the childhood involving  play and schooling you deserved and all to often never got although through the miracle of age re-enactment you may well be able to recreate something of it such as at meets or in creating say school based role playing especially if it can be face to face.

All I know is I love some of these things, they made me feel more complete and very happy. 

Maybe it does for you?

London American years continued (1964&1965)

Hi pop pickers. It's been a while since I posted a series of entries around the Ace Records (and they are Ace!) series "The London American year By Year" series which explores a range of recordings as issued by this most iconic UK label.

By way of a background capsule, London American was a label owned by UK Decca for recording licensed from many at the time small US record labels for marketing and distribution in the UK making use of UK Decca's strong operation.

In time many of the labels whose recordings had been licensed set up their own UK operations such as Atlantic and Liberty while others got absorbed into increasingly big US concerns or with changing tastes the labels ceased to exist as outlets for new recordings such as Sun.

Ace began this series way way back in 2009 with the 1960 volume covering a number of recordings I heard on many 'oldies' shows while I was younger that played material from period immediately before the popularity of Merseybeat and the British Invasion of North America's airwaves had began.

There had been something of a hiatus since 2012's last release the 1956 volume captured much of the initial rock and roll boom witnessed on radio, television and your local movie theatre.

The most recent release like it came out this very week, is this, the 1965 edition which showed how a combination of changing tastes, increased competition by UK EMI and Pye Records for licenses and that British Invasion had reduced the output considerable and the number of genuine hits.

This said the set does include a number of gems such as Dobie Gray's the In Crowd a number of hits by the Righteous Brothers, Shirley Ellis's infectious The Clapping Song which was covered in the early 80's in the UK, a great version of Trains,Boats and Planes by Burt Bacharach and a UK act signed in the States and issued by London American - the Pageboys - and their song When I Meet a Girl Like You

1964 for many of us was when Beatlemania  struck, we got Stoned with Richmond's finest and an English accent was a guarantee of acceptance!

In throws of all that,  even the mighty Beach Boys would struggle chased off the top spots by some many darn fine UK artists however America still had a few tricks up it's sleeve not least Phil Spector's unforgettable productions that were licensed by London American so we're treated to such numbers as Crystals and Ronettes plus hits from Atlantic, Kapp and Monument stables  such as Ben E Kings Around The Corner, the Drifters with One Way Love and Otis Redding's  Come To Me.

It was also event licenses that had been profitable such as those to Sun Records and Cadence  from the 50's were becoming irrelevant.

Although it had taken some time to put together this compilation - licensing often is complex - the result is highly enjoyable adding a  fine collection of songs to ones collection of favourite oldies.