In ASP.NET 3.5 a GridView has built in paging, which is nice, and a DataList has a RepeatColumns property so you can display data in columns as well as rows. But, wouldn't it be cool to have a databound control that has both features? Well, you can.

To turn something that looks like this:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Next >

..into something that looks like this:

1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9
Next >

..use a GridView and a bit of code behind.

Google Analytics is a great tool for keeping track of your website traffic. It can tell you what you're doing right and where you're going wrong. It can also keep track of clicks from websites and search queries that you weren't targeting but just pop up all on their own. For instance, this site has been on the first page of the Google search for 'brawn gp merchandise' for a while now without me even trying for that. Likewise, you can target specific keywords and only see a tiny dribble of traffic in the Analytics reports. Go figure.

This morning I noticed a little traffic spike coming from an unexpected website. Someone contributing to the discussion on the demise of GM on economist.com cited a 47 Pontiac as an American road classic and had added a link to a song by Richard Studholme called '47 Pontiac' on my music download site. You can never tell where website traffic is going to come from...

Here's another addition to the 'Labs' section - a studio demo for my song "I Won't Give Up On You" - the song was written in 1996 (I think!) and the demo was recorded during a little studio downtime with the Saville Collective a couple of years ago.

For my new 'live' section of my website I decided to use Google Calendar to manage the events and ASP.NET with LINQ to XML to display the events on my site. Getting the right syntax turned out to be a bit tricky, so here's some code that I came up with that should do the trick:

Dim myDT As New DateTime()
myDT = Now

Dim strStartTime As String = ""
Dim strEndTime As String = ""

strEndTime = Left(myDT.AddMonths(12).ToString("s"), 10)
strStartTime = Left(myDT.AddMonths(-1).ToString("s"), 10) 

I've been a Napster To Go subscriber for several years now. It allows unlimited downloads on up to three computers and MP3 players and even though you never actually own the music (you are basically renting it as the DRM licences expire if you cancel your account), it's a great deal. Recently, however, I've found myself using it less and less.

Napster's buggy software has long been an annoyance. They issue new versions every now and again, but it's always slow to load, slow to download tracks and frequently hangs. You find yourself trying to download an album, wasting half an hour, then just giving up. Napster use 192kbps WMA encoding and while its fine most of the time it can sound very flat and compressed. Also, the lack of any integration with Vista Media Center is a real missed opportunity. I would love to have my Napster library accessible from my Xbox extender, but it's not to be.

My daughter buying an iPod (not Napster compatible, not even a teeny little bit) was the final straw. I had to ring up to cancel my account as you can't do it online, but it was a simple process. So long Napster, maybe I'll be back, maybe not. We'll see how it goes.

Santa got me an Xbox 360 last Christmas and I love it, it's a great piece of kit. I have it hooked up to the main TV in the living room and networked to a Vista Media Center PC. It gets a lot of use for TV, music, photos and gaming. However, nothing's perfect, so here's my Xbox 360 features wishlist:

1: Gapless playback of music when used as an extender. This is a major annoyance. I have loads of CDs ripped on my Vista PC and use the Xbox as an extender to listen to them. I was surprised to find that the Xbox 360 has no gapless playback support, especially when it's promoted as a media extender. Try listening to Jean Michel Jarre or Pink Floyd with gaps between tracks..

2: Volume control when used as an extender. Again, like gapless playback, an extender 'what the' moment. When streaming music or TV from a Media Center PC there is no way of directly changing the audio output volume of the Xbox. By design apparently. You have to change the volume on your TV or hi-fi or whatever you have it hooked up to. Mad.

Here, in no particular order, are my top tips for online affiliate marketing in the UK.

1: Do add value. It's a dreadful term, but it's very pertinent to affiliate marketing. Build websites that are different and that add something to the online shopping experience. It could be, for example, a site featuring in depth expert reviews of digital cameras, if that is your area of expertise.

2: Do find you niche. This is closely related to the first point. If you have a subject you know a lot about then concentrate on it. It's likely that you'll be able to provide unique, relevant content that search engines will love and your users will find engaging. If it's your passion as well, all the better.

3: Do think like an end user. Ask yourself A: "What would I like this site to do for me?" and B: "Is my site doing this?". If the answer to A is "Show me some relevant information about something I'm thinking of buying" and B is "Yes", then you're doing well.  

4: Don't join get rich quick schemes. You'll probably come across plenty of 'upload this link and retire' type affiliate programs which promise the Earth for very little effort. Avoid.

Having finally got round to trawling through a load of old CDs and searching the web, I've now uploaded a new section on the site with details of sessions I have done. A few of them have my old surname, as I explained in this post , but it is me, honest!

Some of them are full albums that I'm on, while on others it's just one or two tracks. If the album is available I've put up track samples and links to the CDs and/or MP3s.

My erstwhile songwriting partner Errol Walsh rang me up a while ago and asked if I had the demo we did of a song we wrote together called "Blues Is Callin'". Errol wanted to work the song up with his new band in Northern Ireland, but couldn't remember the lyrics or the verses. I searched around but couldn't find the demo, but did manage to find a scrap of paper with the words. So, I turned an old tape recorder on and bashed out a quick demo of the song, which you can now hear online on my website.

I'm planning to upload more demos and works in progress to a new 'Labs' section of the website in the upcoming weeks.