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Endless Groove is back with some super smooth beats to round out the summer. This session I went back to the basic idea that Endless Groove started with: mellow, driving repetitive beats with a lot of melody and some beautiful vocal effects. I also snuck in some true classics that I’ll let you find on your own. Enjoy.
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Nothing says summer like a bit of Chromeo.
Technically, it’s not summer yet, but this should put you in the mood. Enjoy.
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One thing that’s always bugged me about Apple’s Mail.app is the lack of a quick shortcut to your next unread message, irrespective of which mailbox it is in. Luckily, it was fairly easy to whip up a quick little script which does just that. Note that the script assumes your mail is sorted with the newest messages at the bottom — otherwise, you’ll need to edit line 7, replacing “last message” with “first message”.
Add a keyboard shortcut with your favourite tool, like FastScripts or Quicksilver.
Endless Groove Episode 2 continues in the idea of finding a nice, mellow relaxing groove and just letting it run its course. That’s not to say there aren’t moments that make you want to break out and dance, but this is music to work to. Or to drive to. This is a collection of music that I absolutely love, each track with a sprinkling of magic melody to keep things interesting. It also features one of the best tracks I’ve heard in years, the perfectly named The Magnificent by Lindstrøm. Killer.
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I spend a lot of time sitting at my computer (shocking, I know). Sometimes, I just want some nice, mellow house music that sets itself into a groove and rolls. Some of my sets have had this characteristic, but I decided to create a new imprint called “Endless Groove”, just for these sorts of mixes. It’s got a bunch of tech house and a bit of progressive, and every once in a while the set kicks it up a notch and you may find you head bobbing along and your feet tapping your chair. At least, if you’re anything like me…
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So it turns out that if you wait to too long between set releases, pretty much every one of your favourite artists releases a killer new track. I guess you could refer to this set as the Epic Mix.
16 Bit Lolitas make a couple of appearances with tracks from their magnificent new LP. DJBS favourites UNKLE, Jaytech and Way Out West all contribute in one way or another — I even found room for the new version of the all-time classic Shapeshifter’s track, Lola’s Theme (which made an appearance on one of my first ever mix sets, many years ago).
This will probably be the last set released under the “phoenix sessions” moniker for a while, as I intend to explore some new spaces in the near future. Stay tuned.
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When I first saw 280 North’s “280 Slides” application, I have to admit I was very impressed. They built a truly native-feeling (well, if you’re on a Mac) tool on the standard web platform. Not an easy feat, and clearly some big brains operating on the problem.
But the more I read about their toolkit (Objective-J), the more unsettled I felt. It’s the same feeling I get when I see tools like Flex. These are some seriously complicated development environments, meant to abstract away to the fundamental building blocks of the web.
When 280 North released their Objective-J toolkit a few days ago, called Cappuccino, I poured through their documentation and demos to get my head around what they had built. And it’s very impressive. But as a jQuery addict, I didn’t like their dismissal of it as at tool for making small adjustments to a web page. I feel that you can build a full-fledged web application in jQuery just as simply — or simpler — by embracing HTML/CSS as a layout engine, and JavaScript as a scripting language.
So I tackled re-implementing their FlickDemo application (several hundred lines of Objective-J) using jQuery and jQuery UI. It took about 3 hours to build, and ended up being about 45 lines of code (plus the frameworks, of course), and just under 200 lines of CSS declarations.
What I didn’t do: I didn’t bother hacking the CSS to work in Internet Explorer. It’s not that it couldn’t be done — jQuery supports it just fine — I’m just lazy. So you’ll need a modern WebKit or Gecko browser to see the demo. I also didn’t implement the drop shadows that Cappuccino uses on their images.
Also, the jQuery version doesn’t take over all you keyboard shortcuts, so you can still navigate around in your browser.
Download the source here: flickrDemo-jQuery.zip
Update: Due to popular demand, I’ve changed the behavior of the slider so the image size updates in realtime. Total change: one word.
Update 2: Alexander Simmerl was nice enough to provide an upgrade to the image loading, bulking up the code by a few lines but greatly improving the load animation. In the comments, dak contributed a 2-line CSS fix for the inline-block layout problems in FF2 and IE7, which I’ve also merged.
I think this is as far as I’ll take the demo. Ultimately, it’s not that compelling of an application (but it does make a good demo). To respond to some of the criticism I’ve read, my point was not to argue that jQuery was a drop-in replacement for Cappuccino. Clearly there’s a ton of nuances to the Cappuccino runtime that would need to be carefully reimplemented if we wanted a 100% identical demo. My point is that it’s quite simple to do web application development in jQuery, and something as heavy as Cappuccino is not the only option (and in many cases, probably not the best option). I see Cappuccino as a kind of AIR-in-reverse (native apps that run in a web browser!) and possibly an interesting technology path for coders that are already familiar with Cocoa but don’t have experience with the nuances of direct web development. One thing I’m sure of is HTML/CSS/JavaScript are not going anywhere… they may be complimented by frameworks like Cappuccino, but the core will remain.
A large chunk of this mix came together on a flight from Calgary to Montreal, early one morning a few weeks ago. It was a really nice way to spend the flight, and the presence of power adaptors on the seats really made my day. Flying the horrors of Continental or United lately has really blinded me to the perks the rest of the civilized world enjoys.
Only one comment this time about the set: Sultan and Ned Shepard have delivered one of the most mind-blowing breakdowns in recent memory in the form of “Jeopardy”. I’ve switched things around a bit here by combining the original’s techy progressions with 16-Bit Lolitas’ funkier remix, and it gives me chills. Enjoy.
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I’m not normally this prolific, but after the release of Strange Thoughts my buddy Kent and I had the following IM exchange:
Kent: Strange Thoughts was exceptional. I mean, really really terrific — I was literally transported to a new realm of musical understanding. One question though… when are you going to get back to making party music? Me: Umm… right now?
For some reason I don’t have a log of the exact conversation, but my memory of the exchange is very clear and I’m confident Kent used those exact words.
In any case, building a rocking, danceable party mix came effortlessly. There’s literally a TON of phenomenal new music out there right now, and it was a joy to build a set with it. I also wanted to get this out fast, hence the tiny turnaround after Strange Thoughts.
Session 003 hits all my favourite places — soft, epic progressive house and trance tracks like Williams’ “Love on a Real Train” and Jody Wisternoff’s incredible remix of “Miami Nice”. After the first half, things really start to take off in the form of some funky house courtesy of Ministry of Funk. Then we slide into some glitchy, dirty electro funk before polishing it off with Peter Martin’s classic “Perfect Wave”. Enjoy.
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