Kettel, Zeilenga, and headphones

After quite a while, I finally have the time and the music to really look at another album. That, coming at the bottom, will be Volleyed Iron from Kettel. First with some little news.

S. Zeilenga has released his first music video for “Where there are no roads” off of his next album. You can check out the video (Quicktime format).

On the personal front, I bought myself some new headphones for my mp3 player. I chose to go with Sennheiser CX300S headphones (that links to NewEgg who has the best price right now and other people’s reviews as well). They are amazingly light (0.1 oz) with an 18-210000 Hz frequency response. The sounds is clear and amazlingly in tune for mid and high range. The bass response is no where near muddled and only starts to become noticable on very bass intensive songs. They are also pretty comfortable to wear for a couple hours at a time. It cancels noise quite well also which can be a problem when walking (I don’t hear normal speech from someone directly next to me). Still an outstanding value for USD 50.

And now for the Kettel review. This would fall into the ambient genre as opposed to just chillout, but it is near the boarder of the two (Unlike something like Air I from Namlook or Tetsu Inuoe which I consider very ambient). The sounds are beautiful and flowing throughout employing some non-traditional instruments to almost a classical feel. What starts out somewhat odd and jumbled quickly flows into something beautiful and melodic. The entire CD flows very well together to such an extent that it looping doesn’t even seem odd. It is slow, as ambient should be, but it isn’t boring. There is a great variety of sound to relax and possibly even musically entrance you. This has to be some of, if not the best ambient I have ever heard. It is highly recommended.

Web Shame!

I was browsing the BBC news as I frequently will and found a very depressing article for all web designers. Most people who know me and have ever asked about web development have heard me preach about standards and accessibility. I realize my site itself is pretty plain, but it is very functional for screen readers among other things. I even verify it works on mobile devices (though I can’t post with my blackberry. That failed horribly). I know that most people don’t like to think about it, but it is really not that hard to keep things accessible. All of the people who need them will love you for it. If you have a really accessible site, I would love to even show it off. For a nice example, take a look at Molly Holzschlag’s homepage. Molly is an advocate of web standards and a good designer to boot. She is a good author and excellent speaker on the topic of web standards and accessibility. Her site is a good example.

So what is most of the web like according to Nomensa (referenced in the BBC article)? Almost all major sites do not even provide basic access to those needing assistance such as screen readers or magnifying tools. That is not acceptable. We as web developers need to think about more than just how pretty things are. Standards are your friends! Follow them and all of these problems will virtually go away. The article is a good read. Even if you do follow standards. The article is ‘Most Websites’ failing disabled.

Oh and if I remember, I have some music news to post as well.