Langhorne Slim has been just off my radar for a few years now. I’ve heard him mentioned here and there but can’t remember actually hearing any of his stuff. Then a couple of months ago I find myself using Shazam on a Windows 8 commercial. I guess they finally figured out Apple’s marketing scheme. It’s a vaguely Bob Dylan like upbeat acoustic romp. Here he is performing live for the Cardinal Sessions
{ 0 comments }
If you’re new to the guitar, learning chords is going to be one of your essential steps in learning how to play. Your fingers gradually learn where to go with a lot of practice. This guitar chords video on Youtube will help you learn the 14 basic guitar chords. You can start with easy ones like A, E, and G, and slowly progress up to the harder barre chords like Fm, Bm, and Cm.
{ 0 comments }
Allow me to channel my inner Nick Burn’s Your Company’s Computer Guy for a moment. Part of my job entails handling customer service for people who have trouble opening our downloadable lessons. Here are a few of the more inane issues I’ve had to deal with.
- People who add www to their email address. Like www.oldguy007@aol.com. Not surprisingly, an overwhelming percentage of customers with issues still have AOL addresses. I’m also guessing about 5% of the male population has 007 in their email address.
- One of my standard responses to a customer’s email is “Are you getting any error messages?”. This usually starts the dialogue and gets me closer to figuring out an answer. Recently a woman responded “I don’t know what an error message is”. At this point in a conversation I just refund their money and give up.
- It’s shocking how many people don’t know how to copy and paste. “What’s that?”. I frankly can’t figure out how these people even found our website and managed to complete a purchase online.
- People who order a product that is listed on their invoice as something like “Banjo Download: Dueling Banjos ” and then two weeks after ordering, call us and wonder why their DVD lesson hasn’t come in the mail yet.
- Recently saw someone double click on every internet link they saw. And by recently saw, I mean, have witnessed this person do this for over a year now.
- These are the most searched for terms from 2011:
1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Facebook Login
4. Craigslist
5. Facebook.com
6. Yahoo
7. eBay
8. www.facebook.com
9. Mapquest
10. Yahoo.com
So what we have is a startling number of people who don’t understand the difference between the address bar and the search bar at the top of their browser. “I entered the download link you sent me and Google says there are no results”
- If you order something from the web and don’t receive an invoice or other response email in the next few minutes you should probably check your junk/spam mail folder.
{ 0 comments }
Over on the FGV Guitar Blog, I posted a list of the Top Fifty Youtube Guitar Channels. All of the previous lists I had found were specific to guitar lesson channels. So I spent roughly 20 hours drudging through every channel out there covering magazines, guitarists, gear reviews, brands, and the overwhelmingly popular lesson channels. Judging by total views for the channel, our unfortunately named beefcakejcc channel for freeguitarvideos.com ranked 10th on the list.
{ 0 comments }
Atlanta Cuisine just released their list of the Top 25 Beer Destinations in Atlanta for 2011. It’s a good list featuring both bars and restaurants. Two things jump out at me: Location and Duration. You’ll notice that roughly half the list falls outside the city limits with Decatur nabbing six spots. Which is a great turn of events for people who live further out. You may also notice that the growth in beer culture has lead to several of these places being opened in the last three years. I have no problems with either or these things. But it leads me to something I’ve been thinking about recently…
What are the classic Atlanta bars? Not a ranking of the most popular bars in 2011. Not a list of which places have the biggest and best collection of beers and liquor. But a list of great Atlanta bars that have been around for awhile and will still be around in ten years. I plan to spend some real time on this in the future and really flesh it out with links and reviews, but for now, here are my thoughts. To qualify, the bar must be located in the city limits and have been opened at least ten years ago. Then there’s some subjective qualifiers that basically come down to being unique and “barness” or whether or not I personally like the place. If someone has lived in Atlanta for awhile you should scoff “You haven’t been there?”.
Virginia Highlands: Dark Horse Tavern, Atkins Park, Neighbors, Moe’s and Joe’s, Highland Tap, Fontaine’s, Manuel’s Tavern, Clermont Lounge
Little Five Points: Euclid Yacht Club, Brewhouse, Star Community Bar
Grant Park/East Atlanta: Six Feet Under, The Earl, and then maybe Gravity Pub or Flatiron
Piedmont/Midtown: Park Tavern, Smith’s Olde Bar
Buckhead: Churchill’s, Five Paces Inn, Fado, Johnny’s Hideaway, Treehouse
Westside: The Northside Tavern, Mr. C’s.
Did I leave anything off? Do you disagree?
{ 0 comments }
I just wrote a summary of our most recent jazz lesson called Learning to Play in Double Time for the FGV Guitar Blog. My knowledge of jazz is limited and thus I have to spend a lot more time asking questions and researching to create a coherent recap of the lesson material.
We’ve been using Wistia as a video hosting service for a couple of months now. And we’re in the process of slowly converting our older videos while we release all of our new demos and free lessons in their format. This switch has not coincidentally occurred at the same time that we upgraded to shooting in high definition. The result is the really sparkling screen shot you see in that blog post. Guy’s guitar looks great and everything else just sort of pops. Having the videos show up on the page should be a big boost to customer engagement on both the product pages and the free lessons. Not to mention that we avoid the compatibility issues people were having with the on page Quicktime and Flash videos.
{ 0 comments }
This website is an experiment on many levels. The urgency for it was brought on by Google’s rel=author tag. Beyond that, it’s also a learning experience in online transparency. An effort to put a face and personality along with the writings you may have found across the internet.
I will be mainly publicizing my work elsewhere. Whether it be the full time sites that I manage or just a guest post on somebody else’s site. But this may become a place where I post the thoughts and links that don’t fit on those other projects. So there should be no expected theme or concentration. Other than being a guide to all things Jeremy. If you know me and want to keep track, my social profiles are linked to in the right sidebar.
{ 0 comments }