Hard Fi

Get a load of how Richard Archer of the British group Hard Fi plays the melodica. No need to decide between the straight moutpiece and the angled one, no sirree. He just blows right into the body of the thing, with his nose on the low F. Perhaps he even plays the F with his nose?

Melodica madness

I bought myself a melodica recently. A melodica is a keyboard harmonica. It's really easy to play if you already play a little piano. It can play chords but it seems most handy for single note lead playing.

Here's a video of a couple of guys in Portland playing a melodica and tenor ukulele duet. It's very dark but you get the idea.

"Classical Gas" on the Ukulele

Jon Prucha plays Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" as a solo ukulele piece. Can it be real? Nope, as he admits here.

Shared hosting

I had a problem with a website that I maintain. A CGI program crashed because we ran out of disc quota. The quota was 20MB which a quick glance at competitors will tell you is completely out of date. I asked and our hosting company isn't offering any free increases. Also we had to wait the whole weekend to get things restored from backup as they only offer support during weekdays, also no longer competitive.

So I'm looking for a new shared hosting company. We need at least 100MB disc quota, 1GB monthly transfer, shell (SSH) access, a modern control panel, 24/7 service, and the usual goodies offered nowadays. We'd also like it to be a local company, as we like to support local businesses. So far I like LiveHost (Vancouver, WA) and Flux Services (Bothell).

I have found these websites to be useful in researching shared hosting companies.

• HostSearch
• WebHostingTalk
• WebHosting.info

I should add that we need reliable hosting, with a paid staff of competent people. There are hosting companies that promise the moon but deliver very little on the likelihood that people will use hardly any resources for their blog or whatever.