See also - Introduction
/ Review
Policies / Agenda
This page has been created in order to reduce the amount of repeat
email hEARd gets. Please read through this FAQ carefully as email
including questions answered here will not receive any
reply.
Click on one of categories to go to that section:
You can contact hEARd by one of 3 methods - see the contact page for this information
Sending Review Or Other Material
Many people seem to be under the impression that we at hEARd are mind readers. You should package your material carefully as the postal services of some countries seem hell-bent on damaging in whole or in part whatever goes through them. At this stage, only one package has as yet been totally destroyed beyond playability despite extra care being taken to package it.When submitting material for review or other purposes, you should be sure to include the following as well as your material clearly printed or written:
You should also be aware that hEARd does not review material via download as this is exceptionally time consuming & the sound quality simply doesn't allow for a good indication of what your material sounds like. This may change when we all have multi-megabit connections that cost next to nothing, but while dial-up connections for hEARd are limited to 56K, this will never happen.
* Please note that if you do not include a valid email address with your review material, your release will be reviewed, but you will recieve neither notification of it's arrival or a copy of the review - it is up to you to check the site for your review being posted.
This is another area which hEARd users seem to think we can read minds with. When submitting a link for inclusion on the hEARd site, be sure to include the following.
hEARd does not offer graphic link options, to aid in the sppedy use of the site. Text links are added without descriptions unless they are for inclusion in the hEARd Online Industry Index. Your link will not be added if it does not include the above information.
Inappropriate sites such as pornographic, political, advertising or censorship related are not eligible for inclusion.
Have You Received My Material?
Each release received by hEARd is carefully checked upon it's arrival for damage & contact addresses. If you have included no email address, then we cannot contact you & thus you will not receive a copy of your review unless you happen to read it in the hEARd review areas. (Refer to the Sending Review Material section)If you have included your email address, you will receive an email from hEARd a subject of - Re: hEARd Confirmation Receipt, indicating the current review periods.
News items on the hEARd news page can be added unedited to the page by emailing the item with the subject of HEARDNEWS. These items must be a maximum of 2 4 line paragraphs & include a valid email address. URLs & email addresses do not count in the size of your news items.Your news may still be added to the page if it is longer, but will be edited by hEARd. As noted at the top of the hEARd news page, submissions of news items via email should have the email subject line read - HEARDNEWS
If you have a release you'd like added to hEARd's New Releases column, forward the relevant details by email or post
You might also like to use hEARd's Online Message Board to post news items.
hEARd Hasn't Replied To My Email
Unless we haven't received your email because of server error or your address is being filtered due to earlier spam mailings, or perhaps your return address is invalid, you should receive an email reply of some description within 7 days of receipt. If you do not, it is because your questions have been answered within this FAQ hEARd also auto-deletes unsolicited attachments, message with multiple cc: addresses & as already mentioned, spam mail.
Why Doesn't hEARd Review Some Releases?
hEARd reviews all material sent, whether from a major or independent label or from an unsigned band or artist. If an album hasn't been included for review, it is because the company, artist or band in question, did not forward it for review.
Can I advertise my release or product with hEARd?
In a word, yes. hEARd has a special area set aside on the site called Products. This is the only area on the hEARd site which allows any advertising. This may put off some advertisers, wondering if they will still receive the exposure as the rest of the hEARd site, but log files show that users are interested in new products.hEARd's advertising rates are inexpensive & all revenue from advertising goes back into hEARd to allow for creation of services like the Online Industry Index & the hEARd Educational & Regional Projects as well as the hEARd Inbound Sounds CD compilation.
If you are interested in sponsoring hEARd or advertising, please email.
Could You Please Post Me A Copy Of hEARd
hEARd began in late 1994 as a photocopied newsletter distributed through a local record shop. Early 1995 (issue 3 in fact) saw a significant investment in equipment & a professional printed version of hEARd was born. The printed edition of hEARd ceased publication in September 1996 & is available online at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~hmagThere is currently no printed version, though if the possibility of funding arises through sponsors or by the hEARd projects, a printed version will again be undertaken. At that time, hEARd will be made available.
As noted above, hEARd began operating as a small photocopied newsletter consisting of about 10 pages. Issue 3 of hEARd saw an investment in new equipment & an online version was born in the early part of 1995 at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~hmagThe printed version became extremely popular & hEARd picked up sponsorship from HMV Music Australia, who funded printing in exchange for advertising & some editorial content until the arrangement was terminated in September 1996. hEARd was distributed from Newcastle to Sydney on the New South Wales East Coast of Australia through record retailers & live venues among others.
After ceasing printed publication, hEARd became even more popular via it's online version & the site was expanded with many new services due to the increased time without worrying about getting the printed version out. It has been featured in numerous Internet related magazines such as Internet.au, Australian Net Guide & Australia's Internet Directory & apparently in numerous overseas publications.
hEARd can be found linked from the major search engines as well as links from thousands of sites worldwide who are too numerous to mention.
hEARd is a non-profit organisation, which was conceived by Terry Allen, who runs the organisation, along with a virtual revolving rollcall of volunteers who send numerous articles & links as well as news items. The organisation has also been a vocal advocate of numerous organisations like Educate, in which hEARd is a development member, plus PCR-FM, a local community radio station, The Entrance Youth Centre & Wyong Youth Centre.
The organisation also strongly supports Triple J FM, Australia's National Youth Broadcaster, a government funded radio network which spans Australia & can also be hEARd via the Internet on Real Audio worldwide. Triple J is run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation & hEARd strongly opposes the fund cutting to the ABC & also the notion that the ABC or Triple J should be privatised.
A rather surprising variety of equipment is used to create hEARd. All reviews are written on a 1984 Apple //c using a program called Appleworks (not to be confused with the new Appleworks for the Macintosh) They are then transferred on 3.5" floppy disk to an LC 630 Macintosh & imported to Appleworks V5.0(For Macintosh) & to the Homepage HTML editor, the Simpletext text editor or Adobe GoLive.Images of CD covers are scanned in using an Apple Colour OneScanner & Ofoto software, then batch converted to GIF or JPEG format using Yves Piquet's Clip2GIF program. HTML is laid out using Homepage & then uploaded using a Hayes Accura 56K or Hayes Accura 288 modem.
Other site areas, such as logo creation or image editing are carried out using a variety of Image editing software, page layout packages etc... on either the LC 630 or a Power Macintosh 7300. Photographic images are sometimes also incorporated on the site & these are either captured using a Pentax camera or an Apple Quicktake 150 digital camera. Any paper based printing is done on either an Apple LaswerWriter Select 360 or colour on an Epson Stylus Colour 800.
Files are transferred via Ethernet between machines or by Iomega Zip 100 removable drive. Site files are uploaded via dial up modem (mentioned earlier) using FTP to OzEmail's server, where they are once again checked for links & made available to the public.
Can I Work For hEARd Or Do Work Experience There?
A surprising amount of email is received each week, which in a variety of ways, asks if either work experience or full time employment is available with hEARd.The answer at this time is unfortunately, no. hEARd would love to do this, but as the organisation is run by volunteers & the manager also works full time, this is currently an impossibility. It is hoped that hEARd's Educational & Regional Projects may provide full time employment as well as a number of training positions in the future, around the world & at that time, this may become a possibility.
If you'd like to become involved in hEARd, you may like to look at creating your own Regional or Educational version of hEARd.