I pulled off an epic rickroll today; it was a total success. Here's what I did:

• Grabbed an MP3 of Never Gonna Give You Up through flv2mp3.com.
• Using an audio editor, converted it to WAV format and added five seconds of silence onto the beginning
• Copied it to my buddy John's computer while he was out for a smoke
• Set the WAV file to be the sound played by Windows whenever a program is closed

He spent half an hour trying to figure out why he kept hearing Rick Astley… the five-second delay was enough to make it unclear what caused the music to start, and of course once it's playing you can't turn it off. There's no program to kill - the only way to make it stop is to turn off the speakers or shut down the computer. In the end he just restored his sound settings to the defaults.

I really got a taste for doing pranks on April Fool's Day this year. I'd never really done anything before, but this year I emailed the whole department, saying that I was going to go work for Microsoft, and professing my undying love for Internet Explorer. This is an obvious joke for anyone who knows how I really feel about Internet Explorer. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, although kind of nerve-wracking. On Facebook I pretended to be a conservative for a day.

I'm thinking that for a software developer and system administrator, there should be all kinds of ways to rickroll people that I haven't explored yet. So we'll see what else I can come up with.

In my inbox just now:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING IN RAINBOWS. THIS IS AN UPDATE.

YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT TOMORROW MORNING (UK TIME). THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

In Rainbows is, of course, the new Radiohead album. I am beside myself with excitement about this. For me, any new Radiohead album is cause for rejoicing; but this one comes with an added bonus: this is the first album that Radiohead has released outside of a record contract. Because of this, they can offer the music as a DRM-free download under the "it's up to you" pricing scheme. This is exciting in itself; In Rainbows is a valuable opportunity to find out what major-label music is like without the major labels.

I thought a lot about what price to pay for this album. I believe records are overpriced, because I believe that the services record companies offer to musicians are overvalued and encourage the production of crappy music. I think artists are not compensated enough for their work. And I've always talked about how great it would be if there was a way to send money directly to the artist.

I certainly wasn't going to pay the minimum price (1p) - I'd find that pretty insulting as an artist, I think; and besides, that would just give the record companies cause to shout about what would happen if everyone cut them out of the process.

I thought about paying what I think records ought to cost - say, roughly about $10 (with a significantly larger percentage going to the artists). That would be fair, certainly - Radiohead, after all, would see nearly all of that, instead of the minuscule cut they'd get from a label album.

But In Rainbows is more than just the music. It is, as I've said, an opportunity to try something new in music production and distribution. Everyone knows the old system can't sustain itself. The Internet has empowered the artist again - it's the biggest distribution and marketing network ever created, and you don't have to pay to play. It is entirely conceivable, these days, that a determined artist could go from unknown, to cult favorite, to international superstar, entirely without the involvement of record companies. It hasn't happened yet, not really, but it will; and it is going to take bold moves by artists like Radiohead, Prince, and Nine Inch Nails to pave the way. They can afford to drop their contracts and experiment with alternatives, and once we figure out what works, it's going to become a lot easier to get noticed on the Internet.

I want Radiohead's grand experiment to be successful, and I want people to take notice. I don't want it to make as much money as a label album; I want it to make more. And I want to express my appreciation to Radiohead for doing this.

So I'm proud to say that I paid £20, or just over $40, for In Rainbows. It's already worth every penny to me, and I don't even have the record yet. Tomorrow morning, when I stumble out of bed and start downloading it, is going to be the start of a new era in the music business. And I'm beside myself with excitement.