Blogs

Introduction

Here at The Music Pie we all tend to collaborate on the different aspects of the business, so we needed a way to share To-Do lists. If one person completed a particular task how would the others know, without phoning or emailing everyone to say: “I’ve bought that software now, so don’t you all buy it as well!”

As we already used Google Apps for much of our workflow, we really wanted to find a method which would fit into the Google Apps system. Using the GMail Tasks feature was the obvious choice - it’s easy to use, has a great mobile web app, but you can’t easily share task lists. One employee can’t have access to another’s Tasks list, even using email delgation.

The solution: using the Google Apps admin account.

1) Log into your Google Apps ‘admin’ account, and in your mail, select ‘Tasks’ from the ‘Gmail’ drop-down menu at the top-left of the screen. You will see your Tasks list open at the bottom-right of your Gmail window. Here you can add new tasks, create new lists of tasks, and check tasks off when you’ve done them. If you run a small business then several of your employees may have access to this admin account, so you can share the tasks lists, however you’ll have to keep logging in and out of your personal areas and into the admin area to do this. Not ideal.

2) Download ‘GoTasks’ for the iPhone. When you open the app simply enter the login details for the Google Apps admin account and you’ll be able to view and manage all the Tasks lists you saw in your browser. Several people can do this to the same Apps account and whenever a change is made, everyone will be kept perfectly in sync!

3)You can add the details for several Google accounts in GoTasks, as well as using the ‘Local Account’ feature, which is a totally independent set of tasks and lists not linked to a Google account.

TIPS:

- I recommend you set the ‘Manual Sync’ slider in settings to Off - this way the app will sync upon opening and on each subsequent edit to any list.

- There’s a handy button to ‘Clear Completed Tasks’ - choose to view All Tasks at once and select that for the quick clearing of finished To-Dos.

- We have a list for each colleague, this way you can add tasks to each others task lists, and see when they have completed their delegated tasks.

At The Music Pie we don’t even use the Gmail web interface for the task lists anymore - the app is a much quicker and more portable solution. Enjoy!

JC

Three new pieces were added to The Music Pie library this week. Two of them (One Blue Bottle and Glass Storm) make use of unusual instruments and textures - more about this in a future blog post.

The third piece, Harping On, is a first for The Music Pie, in that it is a joint collaboration between two of the partners of the company. The piece is a crossover between classical and jazz composition and was written, recorded and produced by Jon Melville and Jon Chamberlain. Harping On features (not surprisingly!) a harp, along with soprano saxophone and later in the piece a tenor saxophone.

Please go to the Browse Music page to check the new pieces out!

Here at The Music Pie we’re delighted to have been working on an enormous live project which will be performed for the first time on Friday 18th November in the Netherlands at the Gelredome, Arnhem. The Queen Experience is one of the world’s finest Freddie Mercury Tribute shows and promises to be an incredible night out.


The Music Pie has been providing high quality orchestral arrangements and recordings to support the live band and singers.
The show is presented by EJB Productions who recently produced the european tour of “Hair - The Musical”, and if that is anything to go by this will be a night never to forget. It has been a pleasure to work under the musical supervision of Dave Keech.

Unfortunately this first event is sold out but keep an eye out for further performances, which there undoubtedly will be!

- JC

Well, after a lot of hard work and testing, The Music Pie is very nearly on-line!! Just a couple of final points to iron out on the site and our full catalogue of music will be available for licensing and use.




We’ll be adding lots more music to our catalogue over the coming months so be sure to stay tuned for all our updates. Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to this blog.