Open the preferences window by going to Tools > Preferences or pressing CTRL + P and switch the “Show Settings” radio button to “All”.

Drop the “Interface” menu option and click “Control interfaces”, you will now see an option labelled “Submission of played songs to last.fm”; check this option.

Drop down the “Control interfaces” menu option and click on “Audioscrobbler”, enter your login details on this screen, hit save and restart VLC.

I’ve recently switched back to Ubuntu as my main operating system and wanted to continue to use Spotify but ran into a dead end after following Spotify’s own guide to run it in Ubuntu. I thought I would post up how I got it working as there are a number of people who have the exact same problem I had (that being that Spotify would display a message saying “There is a problem with your sound card”).

First of all, remove your existing WINE installation as we are going to be using the version that is currently in Beta. Do this by running:

• sudo apt-get remove wine

Note: you will have to manually remove the .wine directory from your home directory (if you can’t see it press CTRL + H when viewing your home directory)

Now open the Software Sources menu by going to Applications->Ubuntu Software Center, then selecting Edit->Software Sources. Choose the Other Software tab and click Add then copy and paste the line below.

• ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Now that you have the repository setup use the following command to install the latest version

• sudo apt-get install wine1.3

Once WINE 1.3 is installed grab the Spotify Installer from This Page, save it to your desktop, name it “spotify.exe” and run the following command to begin the installation:

• wine ~/Desktop/spotify.exe

After the installation has finished use the following command to open the WINE configuration window:

• winecfg

In the configuration window that appears go to the Audio tab and you will most likely be presented with a message box telling you that a driver has been automatically selected for you (this is fine). Make sure that only the ALSA Driver box is selected and then press OK.

You can now run Spotify by using the following command:

• wine ‘C:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe’

You can also create a launcher on your desktop using this command so you don’t have to load up a terminal every time you want to open Spotify.

After getting my new jazz bass I have been dying to get some good recordings done with it, but due to lack of equipment I have had nothing to use until tonight when I remembered I actually had a £200 mixer sat away gathering dust.

It took me a while to get my head around it and had to mither a friend of mine for some advice (check out his band The Portlands), but I am pretty happy with the quality that some of the recordings were coming out.

Click the play button on the small media player below to check out a sample of a recording I did. There has been no editing on the recording other than lowering the master track’s volume, a pretty impressive sound for just a raw recording in my opinion; let me know what you think though.

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Woop, finally got my hands on a 75 jazz bass

This bass is absolutely awesome, managed to pick it up for £170 and it sounds brilliant; this is proof that Squier are fully capable of creating a bass equally as good as Fender. The Duncans on this bass sound amazing compared to the pickups on my other jazz bass (from a Fender American jazz).

In addition to how awesome it sounds, it looks brilliant! As far as I am concerned there is no better looking bass than the 75 jazz, I’ve opted to not have any pick guards though as I always feel a bit restricted when they are on (never been keen on them).

I’ve posted a little demonstration video on YouTube, but it really does not do the bass any justice, I recorded it with just my camera as I currently have no recording equipment so the sound has come out very low and a bit distorted at places, but believe me this bass is worth every penny!

EDK is a new project of mine which is still in its infancy but is progressing at a rather promising speed. The goal of EDK is to provide a high quality and customisable drum module that is compatible with a plug and play kit.

The drum kit consists of four highly durable pads (similar to those you would find on any retail electric drum kit) and one pedal which connect to the MadCatz RB module via male stereo connections on the end of each pad. Once the pads are connected to the module, the module then connects to the computer via USB.

As can be seen in the demonstration video below the interaction code is fully working, along with the resource management (otherwise you wouldn’t be able to load and use the sounds), however there is still quite a long way to go before it is of much use to anyone as I still have to work on the GUI that allows for customisation; it is all coming all very nicely though.

If you have the time leave some feedback and let me know what you think of it so far