Bar in Cadiz now reaches clients on line.

One of Olvera's most popular bar's, Mi Pueblo, now has it's own website. http://www.olverarestaurantemipueblo.com/ is the site's address. The website has been constructed jointly by Mojito design and Seonyx.Com, who have also been asked to do the online marketing for the site. Mi Pueblo's properietor Paco Medina Troya said his intention was to imitate the sandwich board that advertises events and special offers outside of the bar. This is acheived with a blogging engine that returns feeds back to the site.

Seonyx founder Steve Gould said that in addition he also provided the ability for Paco to update several menus and his drinks list using a customer built database backend. The text on the site can also be changed using a Jquery based content management system.

You can see from the screen shot on the left that the masthead graphic can be edited via the CMS. this mimics Paco's chalk board that he has outside the bar.


The CMS which is custom made by Seonyx uses the Jquery javascript library to make the editable areas 'clickable' by an administrative user with the appropriate privilages.

"One of the (many) nice things about Jquery is that it enables collections to be made from CSS selectors that can then be looped through. We use this to attach the javascript click events to the areas we want to make editable simply by giving them a class name." Once they are so identified it is a trivial matter to run them through a script which enables their contents to be linked to records in a database."

Bar mi Pueblo have also contracted Seonyx to handled the website's online visibility by handling the SEO for the site. This week Seonyx also won the contract to promote the Artesanía del Prado pottery in Cadiz province. 

I’ve just installed Live Writer

 

Not sure what the point is but I’ll try anything once. First impression is that  it gives a more familiar Windows feel to the editing process. What value that will have to a seasoned blogger who has already gotten used to another interface isn’t very apparent. I can see a benefit if you are writing to multiple blogs with different interfaces though as then you only have one set of menus to learn your way around.

I see it allows for mutliple blog accounts, but I must try to find out how many. I had a bit of a problem with the full version of Outlook. When I got up to about 14 email accounts it wasn’t happy and became really sluggish during send and receive – then the error messages started so I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and switched to emClient.

The most common alternate tuning that is used these days is probably drop D tuning. Dropping the heavy E string to a D gives you two more notes (i.e. a D and a D#). It's the easiest tuning to to learn as there is only one note to change. The other five strings stay the same so most of the chords you know remain the same. All you have to remember is that you play notes on the lowest string two frets higher that you used to. So for example the low G is now fretted at the fifth fret. See the diagram for the most common chords - the others are all easy to figure out.

Have a go with Drop D and see what you think. The Beatles' "Let it Be" works really well in drop D and is probably as good a place to start as any. They played Dear Prudence with a drop D so try that too.

Some of my favourite singer songwriters use drop - D tuning e.g James Taylor and Steve Earle, though Steve often sings a song in E rather than D and will put a capo over the lower five strings, leaving the lower E open. This means he can play the D chord shape in the diagram sliding it up a whole step to E at the fifth and he still has an open E on the bottom. Effectively drop E without retuning the guitar! Check out Steve playing Copperhead road on guitar using this technique:

Venezuela seeks to regulate Internet with media bill | Reuters

Venezuela seeks to regulate Internet with media bill Reuters: Venezuela plans to include the Internet in a law that regulates the media, under a proposed bill presented to parliament on Thursday that the opposition claims will result in censorship.

Well that's not a surprise given that Chavez has closed down TV and radio stations that have showed any hint of opposition to him. I had hoped that this would be the first century without maniacle despots but guess I was wrong again.

Apparently the bill seeks to limit adult content on the Internet so that it is only available after midnight. Good insight there that the lawmakers have got no idea at all how to police the laws they are introducing. Watch this one - there is a story developing.

Ry Cooder - Vigilante Man (live)

Wow - Now this takes me back - loved the Old Grey Whistle test. Looking back on it Bob Harris shaped a generation! A lot of what I am is because of that programe!

What can I say about Ry Cooder that hasn't been said already. I've been a fan since the early seventies. When I first started to work for a living, buying vinyl records on a Saturday afternoon where's where a lot of my money went. Often I'd end up getting a Ry Cooder album because they were always being sold of in the bargain bin. Then one day I looked around and I had twenty Ry Cooder albums!

Anyway Ry Cooder is know for his slide playing and a lot of guys like me learned to play slide through listening and watching Ry play. He always plays in a open tuning, usually open 'G' so you have to tune the guitar like this: First tune both the E strings down one whole step to D. Then lower the fifth string (that's the thicker one - the second one down from the top) also a whole step down to A so the strings are now D G D G B D

The thing about playing in open G is that the sixth string is not the root of the tuning - the fifth string is. A lot of guys miss the point and avoid playing the sixth string but infact it gives you a lot of melodic options.

Hey I got straight into talking about open G and didn't even check whether this video of vigilante man is actually in that tuning - I think it is - check and let me know.

Take it from me though open G is the best tuning for playing Delta blues. The lowered sixth gives it a rich dominant sound. Anoth place you'll hear open G is on the Rolling's Stones tracks such as Honky Tonk Woman and Brown Sugar.

It's all in the detail

I thought the tiles in Spain were good - until I went to Morocco!

I was sitting in a restaurant enjoying a mint tea. All of a sudden I looked down and saw the tiles in the picture on the right just lying at my feet!

That's what gets you about Morocco though - it's still a place where everything is hand made so there is much more attention to detail than there is with mass produced items.

So come on DIY chains - copy these - I want them on my floor!

Oh how I miss u....

Last winter I was living in a house with this log burner - the kind with the lift up lid that you can cook with. Well you can get a good temperature in one of these things so it's good for pizzas or roasting things.

I found particularly good was roast chicken the way the spanish do it. Cut a whole chicken into pieces and place in a roasting pan. Add thickly cut potatoes - halved is normally about right. Then add some onions, garlic and tomatoes. Throw over some thyme, and season with sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. Then pour over a can or two or beer and a cup of olive oil.

Let it roast for an hour or so and stuff yourself silly!!!