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I’m a browser snob. I run Chrome. I ran Firefox until it go popular. But besides popularity, here’s three tiny things that make Chrome my favorite browser for client-side development.

Just right click that element.

1. element inspection: right click and there it is. Then the element you’re inspecting is clearly identified and it’s dimensions (margin, padding too) are easy to see.
2. easily view style inheritance and edit styles: when you inspect an element, its styles are at your fingertips. No more pixel pushing – if I need to fix a style, just make it look right and copy the new values to my style sheets.
3. javascript debugging: yeah FF and IE8 do that. Chrome does it best. I’ll get into the head to heads in a second. But I can javascript the DOM the same way I edit the styles using the console. And I can easily explore variable contents in the same place I call them up. (more…)

Let’s root my slide!

That’s right I finally got it to work. Here’s how I did it and what you might expect if you’re trying to root a myTouch Slide 3G from the fiends at T-Mobile (and HTC).

Why I did it:

1) I HATE THE BOOT SCREEN (more…)

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….

Today in apps!

Last night I went uninstall crazy. A good thing too, because at dinner last night Tom the Talking Cat was requested the cutesy parlor trick it is. I ended up taking Broadsides off too. I loved the game, the writing was phenomenal. I figure I reached the best and worst possible endings and was skimming most of it so I feel like I outgrew it. I’m ready and waiting for them to come up with a new story though! They did a great job on it. I took out Craps and Othello because I never really played them.

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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.

I know it’s been a while faithful, if sparse, readers. And I apologize. Recently a great travesty has been done to my normal way of life. Pandora has begun putting invasive advertising in my playlists. Normally, I listen in peace, enjoy new music and can avoid the passive advertising on their site. Of course they offer a subscription service for money, but seriously, NOT WORTH IT OK. Streaming netflix and hulu to my XBOX because I don’t get cable, is a little more worth it.

so here goes, I googled “pandora alternative,” and while i mostly found yahoo! answers… here’s the results of my search (untested).

• musicovery - this is probably the one i will recommend for being the most like pandora in the way it takes your input and gives you new music to listen to.
• finetune – this is a really interesting one. I signed up for this a long time ago when they first came out with their player for the wii. I’m thinking I may get back into this one if musicovery bombs out. You enter an artist that you like and they make you a playlist with music you may like. A playlist that you can share! on your wii!
• allmuzz/lavabeat - these aren’t really suggestion programs as much as they are media purchasing centers. I’d recommend lala over these any day.
• rhapsody – i think this one is also like lala/allmuzz/lavabeat, but you have to subscribe, and i think realplayer is trash, so avoid this one like the plague.
• delicast – internet radio, not so much music recommendation, but it has a huge variety of stations to check out. presentation is uber lo-fi, so shoutcast may be better in this genre of things.
• shoutcast – AOL‘s streaming radio. it used to be winamp’s streaming radio… or maybe it never was until aol bought winamp. i personally prefer podcasts to radios, plus itunes does the whole streaming audio thing too. but for a web based music source, this isn’t too bad.
• imeem – this is like virb or myspace for music lovers. i haven’t really jumped into this one mostly because i’m clinging to last.fm for dear life and honestly i’m not sure how many more social networks my life will support.
• last.fm – you get the plugin and listen to music. it logs what you’re listening to. then if you’re ever without your prized music library, you can login, and they have a radio that recommends music to you based on your listens. i’m trying this out now as we speak, but it’s tricky because i haven’t used their audio scrobbler in ages.

just a quick update to post about some neat new sites i’ve been using lately.

first of all, this is a game called loops of zen. i’m linking you to the full window version because it’s way better that way. the game is a great little brain teaser that doesn’t require that much commitment… not that i’m afraid of commitment… well maybe i am when it comes to video games.

in the way of games, i’ve added two more neat ones to my arcade repertoire. the first is age of booty. it’s a fun pirate themed real time strategy game that strikes me to be in the theme of settlers of catan… but in real time, not turn based. at any rate, it’s probably just the hex tiles that remind me of it. you move your ship around the ocean board attacking merchant ships, other players and harbors around the map. i’ve been extremely addicted to it as of late, and i highly recommend it.

the second xbla title i recently downloaded is castle crashers. i’m not sure on the history of this game, but i do know it has quite a cult following so i’m guessing this game was originally launched as an artsy flash game. at any rate, sarah saw the demo of this one and we were hooked. it’s a well designed 2d side scrolling rpg reminisce of the old days of gauntlet.

finally, my good friend phil introduced me to portal for the first time last night. from the guys that did half-life and a group of college kids, this game presents an interesting and worthwhile twist in fps to bring you the fps puzzle game like never before. basically, you shoot portals out and warp everywhere. it sounds underwhelmingly simple, but it actually makes for a great new puzzle idea that i’m now itching for more of.

next up is a shiny new site that i’m dying to tell everyone about. it’s lala.com, and it’s part itunes, part itunes music store, and part last.fm all blended together into one, pretty easy, pretty familiar interface. i signed up yesterday, uploaded my entire library over the course of the evening, and voila! i can listen to almost all of my music over the internet through lala.com. if you go there, sign up, and like it, be sure to friend me.

oh yeah! and last up, before i forget is hobnox.com. the site has a bunch of interesting stuff, but i haven’t really taken the time to explore. the big thing that’s really caught my eye in the past is their audiotool. it’s a reason-like synthesizer that’s web-based. they finally added a record feature, so besides just doodling around on it, you can now save what you’ve done.

over and out!

I want you all to know, I almost didn’t post this. But then I thought, “self, this is not your life.” And I thusly decided to reveal to you the secret innermost workings of the internet. It is, manbabies.com. Yes, you heard me correctly. Now when you visit this site try to image yourself in one of those pictures. And from now on, consider how you compose your facial features in a picture. Because you never know when someone may swap your head with a baby’s head. Just sayin’.

In an article at the daily galaxy, there’s an interesting idea postulated that perhaps the next space war is between software companies. I would agree. HAL 9K anyone? I mean we meandered through the days of WIN 2K, I just figure it’s the next logical step. But I digress. I think previously, I linked to google sky. It’s a fun program right up to the point where you sit down and try to figure out exactly where you are in the sky. That’s the trick. You’re behind you. Oh nevermind. It’s an interesting article. Go read it.

The New York Times must always be patting itself on the back for naming their “BITS” section. I mean come on, who comes up with all those clever little acronyms. However, they do have an interesting, not so assumptive article about a media giant mfer who is now without express permission, as a part of their “service”, going to log EVERY WEBSITE THEIR USERS GO TO and sell that information to an advertiser. In Karl Marx language, they are flexing untapped capitol created by their users to create more profit. Now, I’m a business likin’ kind of guy, so I don’t mind profit too much. But I do particularly care about personal information. Who is to stop them from selling to the highest bidder? What if that bidder was the US Government? Would you like it then? What if the ad company was simply a shell company created by the government to legitimately purchase private information without the oversight and overbearing (dis-)approval of the public? This is dangerous folks, and it should not be allowed.

Finally, my google dear hearts (also cutthroat advertisers) have integrated their photo service and wikipedia directly into google maps. I recommend you all check it out. It’s a lot of fun.

here’s a couple neat things and info I’ve collected this week.

First is hobnox. Most of you who know me, know I’m always rattling on about music I make with ableton live and reason. Here is a audio generation tool that is based off of a similar usability theory as reason: graphically recreate the instruments and their interaction (i.e. cables etc.). The plus side for all of you and myself is that you don’t have to install anything (until they come out with an adobe air version). Which means that you don’t have to know a whole ton about music software, just music hardware in general. If you can hook up some guitar pedals and fiddle with a beat machine, you’re there. It’s a lot of fun. My cube-mate wasted a couple hours because I introduced him to the site (sorry). So have fun. If you figure out a way to record what you’ve done (you can’t save yet) put it on muxtape and let me know about it.

Second, is just a little article for all my friends looking to get their money into the money making business. High yield savings is the first step, and this article shows you how you can figure out just how much interest your savings account is bringing in. Very helpful. Also, you’ll want a calculator. I recommend and use instacalc on a daily basis.