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Our demi-continental journey - Asstastic
Here’s video from our unexpected road trip last week. This is my first pass with iMovie, please forgive the cheesy transitions. If the whole thing strikes you as long and boring, well… the camera doesn’t lie. Matt and Maggie’s demi-continental journey from Matt Raw on Vimeo. For those of you wondering how we found ourselves in a [...]
Pandora - Marktopia
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made this a pick yet, so I figured I had to throw it out there. Pandora is a internet radio service that learns what you like and don’t like in an effort to introduce you to new music. You start off by giving it an artist you like, then plays a song by them. After that first song, it makes a guess about another song you might like. You can then give it a thumbs up or thumbs down to help Pandora learn. This keeps going as long as you like, occasionally going back to songs you marked with a thumbs up. The best part, it is all free, with the limitation that it only is available in the US and UK. If you are a music person and havn’t taken a look at Pandora, give it a whirl.
Song of the Summer - Marktopia
Every summer there seems to be one song that becomes unexpectedly popular, and is typically a one-hit wonder. For example, in 2006 we had Hey There Delilah. You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing it that summer. It is a good song, but I bet you can’t stand hearing it. All of those are defining traits for the Song of the Summer. Since it is August already and I have been listening to some radio on our travels over the last three weeks, I spent sometime trying to think what this summer’s song is. After some pondering, I have decided on Time to Pretend by MGMT. Not to say that the rest of their album isn’t decent, but it won’t catch on like Time to Pretend and could prove to be a one-hit wonder. Now I realize my music world is a bit different than others, so feel free to throw out other songs as your Song of the Summer
DVDPedia - Marktopia
Rebekah and I have been tossing around a shared movie database where we could keep track of the movies we have, what we have watched, and an easy way to pick a movie to watch. After some planning, it was going to be an elaborate web database project. Thinking that would take a fair amount of time, I investigated a program that might be able to handle this already and stumbled upon DVDPedia from Bruji. For 18 bucks, you get searching and importing data from the web, a customizable interface and smart folders to make that list of romance movies under 90 minutes. As a bonus, Bruji also released a free app for the iPhone called PocketPedia that does the same stuff and can sync with the desktop application. If you are trying to organize stuff and maxed out the usefulness of the Amazon Media Collection, I would recommend checking this out.
The case for Narrow Stairs - Marktopia
On my 6 month recap, there was a commenter that said they has been diaapponted by the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Narrow Stairs. Now I have not been a big Death Cab fan and have actually just recently really investigated there past catalog, so I have a different perspective than there long time listeners. That does afford me an interesting opportunity though, where I can make the case for the album to both new and old listeners of the band.
I dare say this is the top Death Cab album, however I doubt many long time fans will agree. I think the quality of the music is just as good as their previous albums, it is the content and establishment of the songs that works well for me. Take the first single, I Will Possess Your Heart. It runs with a 4 minute instrumental intro before getting to the lyrics of a jadded admirer turned stalker. The 4 minute intro can be read as the normal persuit of a lover, escalating to when the lyrics kick in at which point the person is now a stalker and fully creepy.
Almost more haunting is Grapevine Fires which initially sounds like a family escaping the seasonal fires in California, but on further listens could be the arsonist admiring his work from afar. The album just aches with common and not so common troubles of the Gen X population living in California. Does it get a bit drab at times, sure, but this is where the quality of the music really lifts the album up to be really fantastic. If you have not listened or have given up on the album, I encourage you to take another listen. You might just find something there that you were not expecting.
Fuzzy Clock - Marktopia
This pick will not be for everyone, as it is kind of different. Fuzzy Clock allows you to replace the clock on the menu bar for your Mac with a human readable display. For example, instead of saying 8:25, it would write out twentyfive past eight. It allows you to customize it a bunch of different ways, including different localizations so your clock could be in German if you like. It is free and kind of fun.
Flickr: It’s a perfectly cromulent interface - Oculon
This one must have slipped by the tech writers…
Photos From Michigan, enjoy! - Oculon
Photos from our trip in July. We went to Mackinac Island with Jill’s girlscout troop and then went camping on the shores of Lake Superior at Twelve Mile Beach…
Firebug - Marktopia
A belated Pick of the Week, I chose a really useful tool for all sorts of web design and development, Firebug. This is really useful to inspect page elements for CSS styles, but really shines when inspecting Javascript errors. You can view the console easily and really debug Javascript problems, something that was very troublesome in the past. If you are doing any sort of web design or development, I highly recommend Firebug, a free extension for Firefox.
Really, how does this help anything? - Oculon
Security related applications tend to tell usability people to screw off because security is the prime concern. This is the basis for having ridiculous password length and type requirements (with almost 0 innovation on that front), password change policies, and (my personal favorite) the exceeded number of attempts lockout. Not only does every site out there [...]