Hello September!

Today Apple is having a big surprise ‘thing’, so no doubt there will be some kind of shiny new technology for everyone to coo over. I’m hoping they resurrect Lala and get rid of that Genius crap. I never bought a single thing on iTunes because of genius. Whereas on Lala my web (and some mp3s) library was up to date with the latest in what I was listening and what was in my library. I’ve never gotten relevant or interesting recommendations for purchase on iTunes. So mostly I just torrent mp3s. On top of that I’ve been floundering around trying to get my library streaming on the web. The replacement services never really matched up to lala’s awesomeness so I dabbled in home media servers. First I tried Sockso, and that was sufficient for awhile. The playlist and flash player system was functional, but mostly annoying and it was only for audio. It did a good job letting me share my library in a user by user way, but had no social plugins. Then I needed to share video with my xbox, so I tried out TVersity. That definitely worked when I needed to stream P90X from computer to home gym, but listening to music at work has been so bad I’ve ditched it almost entirely, returning with tail tucked in to Pandora. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pandora, but sometimes I like to dig into the recesses of my own library, and no ADS please. So there it is, my only wishlist item for Apple: bring back lala…. please….

http://www.appbrain.com/

http://www.appbrain.com/my_apps

In addition to learning how to build apps on android, I’ve also gotten my very own android based phone. I found appbrain to be the best alternative to the Android Market. It syncs my apps and tracks them in a shareable way. I find that its recommendations are terrible and never really changing, but I do love the “hot” listing. It changes frequently and I’m always finding new.

My other new awesome app for your desktop is the Vista Switcher: http://www.ntwind.com/

I used to use the XP advanced switcher when I was on XP, and then Vista’s tab switcher was OK. I recently found this in one of my software feeds and I’ve really liked it. Moving forward it will be my new must-have switcher.

Hi all, some banal updates from yours truly.

First off – I’m on twitter as prodaea. Fun little microblogging piece of software that you can update from anywhere and basically do anything you want with it. Some sites that I like to use with twitter are:

• twtrfrnd.com - for those times when christi1987 is following you and has NSFW pics.
• tweet stats - nice graphs etc.  to let you and your friends know just how much you tweet.
• twanalyst.com - brings you one of those personality tests – based on some twitter stats algorithms. is fun.
• twitpics.com - by far the most useful you can email or txt twitpics and it will post a short url for that pic to your twitter account.
• twitter.grader.com - gives you a grade out of 100 based on how you’re networked and some other stuff that i never really took the time to care about. i got a 70.
• www.twibes.com – is a system for group management and group tweeting based on the # thing that some genious came up with. i’m in a twibe, but i’m hoping twitter just integrates groupings.

I’m sure there’s a ton more that I’m not aware of, but I use these fairly regularly. Also you can plug twitter right into your facebook status. is fun.

Finally get involved in politics using twitter. Starting with Mr. Obama, there have been many politicians to get into Twitter. Some are good and informative – even responsive, some suck. Here’s  a great aricle I found that highlights several and let’s you know how useful they found them to be.

Ok, I’ve been a blog slacker, but since my wife is making me post at our new family site : Talk Is Sheep, I’ve been more apt to write interesting things.

I’ve started using some new fun software that I thought I’d fill you in on.

Digsby – Multi chat client that also logs into social services like facebook and twitter, putting all that stuff in one fun place. Also has a nice proxy and account setup system which makes it great for going from my work computer to my home computer.

Songbird – they say it’s an iTunes killer, but I’m holding my breath. Mostly because I’ve moved my media to the cloud using Lala, and I get my music recommendations from Pandora (despite the ads, its still my favorite for music discovery).

Dropbox – this thing is a life saver. Its software that syncs a file on your computer (up to 2GB) over the web. You can install it on multiple computers and if you can’t install it, you can grab your files over the web. I’ve also heard rumor of a portable version that would allow you to have a thumb drive that synced with dropbox. I need to get a big enough thumb drive, but don’t worry, I’ll get there. Currently, I’m using it to keep my working files in a convenient location.

Wired has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year that I must focus on and finish by the summer. Also, I’m planning a wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully is still really entertaining to me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day that I can play GTA IV uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City. …sigh… Though I’m not sure how long sandbox genre games can survive without being MMO in scope. Just a predictive tidbit.

Freeware genius just put out a little ditty on a piece of software I’m planning on trying out called Xneat. I’ll let you, my faithful reader know how it goes. Its supposed to help manage your windows. We’ll see about that.

Finally, a web2.0 grammar checking site called gramlee. I’m gonna put this post through its engine to see what kind of filth it spits out. I’ll get back to you on that as well.

*edit* BUT WHOA! for gramlee it appears that you have to pay per word. Apparently real people are editing these. To that I say:

1. That’s not web2.0
2. People are so out, computer programs are so in. Get with it.
3. Also, pay-for services are lame.

***Here’s what gramlee thinks of my first 100 words***

There’s some news about neat software and games today. Politics are stupid
and boring.

Wired Magazine has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great
game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the
many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year. My deadline for the
deliverables for these various jobs is this summer. Also, I’m planning a
wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully still entertains
me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day I can play GTA IV
uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City.

***Funny right? I think so***

The site Muxtape lets you upload and manage a playlist, for your friends to check out. Its outrageously simple and a fun way to spread what your listening to.

Also for those of you who love Facebook (I’m not thrilled about it), and have a million and one feeds that you update like a fiend (that’s me!), there’s BlogIt. Its a new Facebook app that will let you update your million and one blogs/feeds from one place. Its new and is lacking on the features, but it has a lot of promise.

England is now going to include a clause in their athlete contract that prohibit any political speech or negative discussion of conditions or “situations” while in Beijing. Failure to comply will get them on a plane home, pronto. Just look at the ridiculous picture of the Football team “Heil Hitler-ing” and you get the idea of how ridiculous it is to put those kind of restrictions on people.

Also my personal friend Hugo Chavez is threatening to stop exporting oil. I would normally see this as a good thing since it would continue to put pressure on the automotive industry to become oil independent. I say normally because I then read an article in wired about how there are several new studies showing that the biofuels movement may not be so green after all. Add that to the really environmentally bad chemicals in batteries and you’re left with… oil!

Which then brings me to a recently formed, unvented gripe: Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. Now it seems like the fashionable thing to these days is to FORCE your subjects to use these environmental wonders. But I would like to ask, “at what expense?” They contain mercury which among other things is POISONOUS. So while you on the one hand save a lot of money on energy and also a lot of carbon output by power plants, you really aren’t doing anyone a favor by having mercury hang out with your children, just like you go totally insane when there’s lead in childrens’ toys (no pun intended). On the other hand there was a comparison graph of mercury output by CFL’s compared to regular bulbs powered by a coal plant. The CFL’S won. So all I can say is: if you want to save some coin, be a little easier on the environment, don’t mind some poison in your house, and don’t mind the nagging buzz sound from cheaper cfl’s, by all means, fill your house with the buggers. But mostly I don’t want some socialist enviro-fascist bureaucratic junky telling me that these are so awesome that they are the only light bulb I’m allowed to buy or sell.

Speaking about lead paint in kids toys, this netflix for kids toys startup does test their toys for lead. Making life easier for you Type A’s (what in the world does that mean anyways?).

a: check, b: check, c: check. houston, we’re ready for take off. good article on choosing a spouse. very concise and to the point, but still a very good read.

We never made a real kilt, just an improvised skirt pattern that I wear (and it looks really awesome). But this was a neat (albeit hard-to-read) article on how to fold a kilt. Now if I could just find a pattern for a real kilt.

And finally to wrap things up, some software to download! Now I know most of my loyal readers don’t do this, but anyways, if you’re playing warcraft and you need to launch firefox, but it hogs memory, you could switch to a less memory intensive browser like ie or opera. But i’m hardcore firefox so I found a little preloader program that keeps some of the settings and things loaded in memory so it talks a lot less time to boot up when i’m hardpressed for good info from thottbot. W00t.

A quickie: an engine falls off a plane during take-off. Where’s superman when you need him to make sure airline timetables are kept?

The girl with 8 limbs continues to recover. She showed movement in the limbs they kept, which is a good sign apparently. Among the stats: it was a 24+ hour surgery, it took  30+ doctors, it cost $625,000 (I assume that’s US$), they were charged $0, being thought of as a reincarnated god: priceless. (I know, I know, lame… pfft)

If I could invent a disease to get out of life, this is what it would be. 30 Students walked out in protest, 300 or so students simply aren’t coming to school, and parents are flipping their lids because some students and teachers have a weird “twitch”. How rich…

A neat looking program I’m going to be using asap.  Xentient thumbnails does a much better job putting your images into icon thumbnails in windows.

Just a simple, interesting article about how a guy won an award (or awards) for a piece of software that was actually a text file that simply read something like, “this is not a program.” How? Because the software download sites just want you to post a badge on your website saying that you won the award so people check out their site (really basic version).

If you’re not following it, you should be. We very well could be at war with this man’s country because of things that he says and things that our government says. The transcript of Ahmadinejad at Columbia University is much easy to understand than trying to listen to his translator’s voice superimposed over his voice.

Strangely enough (or not) MS has released a downgrade patch for vista. I’m not surprised if there is a patch, but I’m not totally convinced that the source is solid.

Finally, for a bit of monday fun: the relative/comparative sizes of sci-fi vessels. WHERE’S FIREFLY YOU HOES?!?! (I know, I know, the Serenity is probably only like one or two pixels comparatively, but surely that alliance ship could go on there)