Uncategorized – I am Ashley Elsdon

If I have DayOne and this site why have both?

Posted by ashleyelsdonon November 13, 2022November 7, 2022in UncategorizedLeave a comment

It has been a while since DayOne was acquired by Automattic, the owners of WordPress. By now I was expecting some kind of tight integration between DayOne and WordPress. However, it makes me wonder what is the point of having both? Obviously one is very much public (a wordpress site), and DayOne is the exact opposite. Perhaps that is the essence of the problem though, perhaps that is why there has been no news on some kind of clever integration. I doubt it though.

It leaves me stuck with this question. Why have both?

What else will Disney remake?

Posted by ashleyelsdonon January 24, 2022January 19, 2022in UncategorizedLeave a comment

I noticed that Disney is making a series of the original film ‘Willow’, which made me wonder what else they might make. If I had any say in the matter I would want them to make ‘The Black Hole‘ again. It was an excellent film back in its day, and in fact it still is pretty good. I think it has stood the test of time pretty well.

The original film is on their streaming service. I had bought the DVD a few years ago, and even went as far as to read the book. Which was almost identical to the film of course, and gave no more clues to the ending (see my previous post).

I think that this is a story that is just ripe for revisiting, especially as science fiction is very popular right now. I’m sure I’ll be wrong though. I have every expectation that this will never happen, but you never know. Stranger things have occurred.

Ten years of Movember

Posted by ashleyelsdonon November 1, 2021October 21, 2021in UncategorizedLeave a comment

It is somewhat amazing to think that this will be ten years of doing Movember! In many ways it does not feel like ten years, but it is. Once again I have a page for donations at the Movember site. You can find it here.

Here is the progress I made from last year. It was fun. Maybe I’ll make another one of these this year.

PalmSounds would have been 15 today

Posted by ashleyelsdonon May 25, 2021May 25, 2021in Mobile Applications, Music, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It seems odd to me that my original blog would have turned 15 years old today. Odd and slightly sad that it is no longer an ongoing thing. Like all good things, it naturally came to an end. If that were not the case, it would have been a cause for celebration. But perhaps it still should be. There were a lot of high points from my long journey with PalmSounds. I made a lot of friends. I saw a lot of people get a huge amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from using mobile devices to make music, and I saw some truly amazing technology during those years.

To mark the occasion I thought I would remember some of those high points, and share a few of them with you. Like talking at Roli’s ‘modern music industry‘ event.

And meeting Roger Linn at another event at their offices. Which was an unexpected treat.

PalmSounds brought me to Heart n Soul too. Which was an amazing experience for me with many highlights. Again, I won’t list all of them, there are simply too many, but the events we did were truly incredible experiences.

And those were just some of the high points. There were so many more.

Goodbye IFTTT

Posted by ashleyelsdonon November 4, 2020in UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have been a user of IFTTT since very early on. From when I first became a user of the service it has always been free. However, now they have introduced what they call a ‘pro’ subscription tier. Apparently you can pay what you want for this tier, and for your money you get to keep all your existing automations running. If you don’t you get 3 automations and everything else is disconnected.

It doesn’t seem that you get a lot more from this ‘pro’ tier either. They have said that there are new triggers and other stuff, but I expect that for a lot of users that won’t be very helpful.

In recent times though I had all but stopped using IFTTT. Automation no longer seemed to be of that much use to me somehow. As a result I have stopped using IFTTT. So it’s goodbye IFTTT, it was fun for quite a while.

Mindset from Blancmange

Posted by ashleyelsdonon June 6, 2020June 6, 2020in UncategorizedLeave a comment

I can’t exactly remember when I started liking Blancmange, but it was pretty early on. Probably when they first appeared on something like ‘Top of the Pops’. I’ve liked them ever since. When they made they’re somewhat unexpected comeback I was very happy indeed. Since then the output has been steady and I believe I’ve bough everything.

This latest release, ‘Mindset’, arrived this morning, although it was actually released yesterday. I listened to it yesterday, and it is a solid album. My initial impressions are it is very good and will probably grow on me.

I’m pleased that Blancmange is still going, and pleased to be able to support them wherever I can. In the current climate there are many artists who are suffering and those of us who love and appreciate music need to do whatever we can to support the people who help to give meaning to us. It’s important.

Blancmange’s latest album ‘Mindset’ in yellow vinyl

Once again it is time for Movember

Posted by ashleyelsdonon November 2, 2019November 10, 2020in UncategorizedLeave a comment

I don’t know if anyone ever visits this site anymore, but, for what it’s worth, I’m doing Movember again. If you’re here, and you’re interested, then please visit my Movember page.

Whilst I’m not a huge 7th Doctor fan, I quite enjoyed this

Posted by ashleyelsdonon February 6, 2019December 1, 2020in UncategorizedLeave a comment

Like I say, I’m not a massive fan of the 7th Doctor. Not of the TV show or indeed the audiobooks. However, I do like the 4th Doctor story “Robots of Death”, and some (but certainly not all) the spin off stories from it. The most recent of these was Sons of Kaldor. That was an excellent story and I really enjoyed it, and actually, it was where I found out about this one.

The worst was a BBC story called “Corpse Marker“, which simply didn’t deliver at all and was a real disappointment. This story wasn’t bad at all. Not the best, not the worst by any means.

Some more music from me … Here’s Homeward

Posted by ashleyelsdonon March 31, 2018December 15, 2020in Music, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Another track from me that you can now find on Spotify, or Bandcamp, or SoundCloud, so take your pick as to where you listen to it.

The track was made entirely in an iOS app called Auxy, which is currently one of my favourite apps for writing whole tracks. It’s very intuitive and easy to use, whilst still giving you enough depth to get a lot done.

The track art is a photo I took on a flight home just after leaving Belfast airport. It seemed like the ideal image to go along with the sentiment of the track.

I hope you like both.

We Are Robots

Posted by ashleyelsdonon November 6, 2017January 5, 2021in Events, Festivals, Music, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I went along to this event fairly early, so I think that there were probably a few things I didn’t get to see. Even so it was pretty good and there were definitely some excellent pieces there which were very inspiring. So I’m pleased I got along there.