Aug/090
Stretching SMS out across the internet is a complex business
What wonder of modern civilization the Internet is.
I think of it like the wheel. And sometimes even like fire…
The arena that is the Internet is a porous affair, a permeable membrane… a space where fault lines cross, rivers converge and ideas splinter in a trillion directions.
SMS is out there now. Goodness knows who’s picking it up and playing with it. There could well be someone in Alaska under the influence, or a Russian child dreaming of how to do the same thing over there.
This blog continues, and will keep on going…
The Facebook Group is well and truly on the march: 62 members from many countries and counties, & 250 photographs, each of which tells a story.
And so far we have only scratched the surface.
Not a single newspaper, radio station or TV programme-maker has picked up the story of how this blog is an interesting innovation. No one’s come to us and said “tell us the story of why you’re doing this… Why blog SMS?”
It’ll be interesting to see who gets that story first.
Aug/090
The live broadcast of music on the internet
Here are some links if you’d like to know more about the current state of play on live streaming of classical music on the internet…
Atanar.com - This is a company dedicated to the area of Internet performances, CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) & Video streaming over the Net.
Medici.tv – huge resource of concerts to listen to…
Communications Breakdown – a blog post I found
Classical live on-line radio – not live video streaming, but useful link for music lovers
Jul/096
Problems encountered so far
It’s almost the end of the first week of Summer Music on the Shannon 2009 and time, I feel, to share some of the problems, many of them perennial, we have encountered in the last four days. I would like to emphasize that this is not a grudge list, rather is it a factual account of the problems the programme faces year in year out. The order I list them in is random
- Photocopier jammed yesterday evening at the worst possible time – machines seem to have a knack of doing this.
SMS is given the use of a photocopier upstairs in the Foundation Building by the University via UCH. - Still awaiting internet access – the delay is down to O2 I believe, as UCH has done its utmost, in the person of Marie Healy, to get an upgraded Broadband USB stick delivered asap. This is a perennial problem also. Perhaps we will finally get it sorted this year so we have broadband access from the outset in future.
- Problems contacting Brookfield Hall manager, as set out in a previous post. This is a temporary thing, but no less frustrating for that.
- Office equipment is barely adequate. The programme could do with a couple of properly specced laptops – preferably a mac and a PC running Windows, as well as a couple of printers, a mini-photocopier, and a telephone line (we have always had to rely on our own mobile phones during the programme!). It is thanks to Michael Hennessey of Ennis that we have a computer and printer this year, as he kindly donated his old PC to the programme. It runs Windows 2000, has adequate RAM (500Mb), and a reasonably sized hard drive (16Gb) for the purpose. The printer, however, would not work, despite all my cajoling, and a reinstall. Marie Healy kindly came to the rescue once more by donating her own printer as she recently upgraded to a newer model.
- One of our supervisors, Nicola Moroney, fell ill on her second day and is not now coming back to the programme. This lead to a mini-crisis on Tuesday afternoon when there was nobody to pick up Sara Ripoll and her father who have come to the programme for the first time all the way from Alicante, Spain. The result was that Ana Marques had to drive to Shannon to pick them up as Colie Tublidy had both of his buses in for their NCT test., and we had to postpone a meeting to mid-afternoon as a result. Another consequence of Nicola’s absence was that Deirdre Stack Marques who was helping her with the supervision of the Ennis students on the return train journeys each day has had to do it by herself. As there are only 6 students this week, it hasn’t proved to be a problem.
- We need an adult volunteer to do the train supervision for Week 2.
- Dearth of information – some faculty members who are due to arrive the first weekend in August have still not confirmed their dates of arrival, or indeed their accommodation requirements. Bob Creech has e-mailed them and is still awaiting replies. This makes it more stressful for us in the SMS Office to arrange accommodation, airport pickups, and supply accurate meal numbers to the Paddocks Restaurant ahead of time.
- There seems to be a problem with some promised bursaries not coming through, but I can’t say any more about this at present.
There you have a typical first week at Summer Music on the Shannon.
I must pay tribute to the wonderful work done by UCH staff in particular by Marie Healy who is a colossus in the work she does, and Emma Foote who does the PR.
Jul/093
SMS on the move: the challenge of getting this blog off the ground
How on earth will we build up a following, a readership, an audience?
That’s what I’m wondering.
On the one hand, there’s this extraordinary “event”, SMS, which already has a personality – a rich, textured, tuneful history…
Years of remarkable effort & successes.
SMS has transformed lives.
One of my wife’s friends contacted me from London to say:
“How do you know Bob Creech? My son was at SMS for 5 years. It was wonderful.”
I only began hearing stories about SMS recently. The stories grabbed my imagination & influenced me. The more I hear, the more I feel open-mouthed about what been achieved over the years.
Then there’s this blog.
A new kid on the block. Hardly anyone over 35 in Ireland knows what a blog is. (OK, I exaggerate.) But I bet almost all the kids who come to SMS this year know about Bebo… I bet they use the internet a lot.
So this format, this platform, is tuned into the world of the future.
Hopefully, if we do it well, we’ll have plenty of older people coming here because it’s going to be interesting.
There won’t be all that much stuff about SMS in traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio): there’ll be plenty here.