Ups and Downs

With music and software. I came across Artisteer and was very impressed with it, so much so that I forked out my hard (ish) earned cash for the cheapest edition; $49, just over £30. It’s a great little program that creates WordPress themes at the push of a button. The pro edition had features that I didn’t need or want, in particular additional export formats. But what turns out to be in the pro edition which isn’t in the standard edition are dialogs for adjusting the templates. A bit mean of them I think. It’s like getting a version of Word that doesn’t have a page set up or print preview.

I bought Kerrang! for the first time in many many years. I used to get it quite regularly when I was younger. Always like the noisy stuff. The magazine was disposable; I only have one copy of it, and that one I kept because there was a review of a Gamma concert I was at.

What made me purchase this issue was that there was a promo to get a 4 track download by Biffy Clyro. I like them a fair bit and have bought their music in the form of downloads from 7 digital and other sites. With the Kerrang! tracks you gave them an email address and typed in a number from a card and got the free tracks. Well, I say tracks but it was one track only: the back of the card – only visible after I bought the magazine and removed the card from the plastic wrapper – informed me there was a limited amount of downloads. The four tracks available to the first 2,000 only. Two tracks for the next thousand and one track to the final 2,500. I was among the last 2,500 but felt cheated so I didn’t bother downloading.

Kerrang should have made it more clear the downloads were limited but no, they splashed ‘FREE Biffy Clyro 4-Track download’ on their front cover. It looks like it’ll be years and years before I buy that magazine again.