A few days ago I posted about using Spanning Sync and Proximity to synchronize iCal, Google Calendar and my cell phone (a k790, although any phone supported by iSync should work).
It turns out there is a free alternative to Spanning Sync called GCALDaemon, which is a bit more work to get running but a decent alternative if you don’t want to pay for Spanning Sync.
comment (None yet)
There was a time when I could keep my entire schedule in my head. Years of university test times and due dates were dutifully tracked by my brain. In the intervening years, however, I seem to have killed most of my long and short term memory with booze — or maybe I’m just a whole lot busier.
In any case, I’ve been facing an increased sense of panic every time I try to book an appointment. What if I have a conflict? Krista keeps her entire life in the pages of a daily calendar, so I’ve attempted to follow suit, digital style.
This isn’t the first time I’ve tried, but every previous attempt failed for one reason or another:
comment (1 already)
I like to visit California — my sister lives in SF, the weather is always great, and there’s always a chance you’ll see someone famous. Our recent vacation along the Pacific Coast Highway was no exception. Just outside Santa Barbara, in a nice campsite across from El Capitano, I saw a celebrity.
The skateboarding dog from the iPhone commercials. On his skateboard. Slobbering heavily and clearly having the time of his life.
It was awesome.
comment (None yet)
One of my favourite ways to get introduced to new music, and to introduce others, is through a simple game called “revolving DJ”. It can be played at parties, in your office, or anywhere you can hook an iPod up to a set of speakers. The rules are simple: each participant plays a 3 song set in turn until the party ends and everyone goes home. By trying to choose music you think everyone else will enjoy, or is unfamiliar with, you pick up all kinds of new influences.
It was during a lazy Friday afternoon of Revolving DJ and beer than an idea was sparked in my head, regarding the iPhone and the lack of 3rd party native applications. It doesn’t take too many songs before you long for a method to effortlessly transfer tracks directly from one iPod to the next. A few moments later, someone will inevitably realize “hmmm, the Zune could actually do that“. Unfortunately, it’s implementation was so hopelessly crippled by the marketdroids and RIAA-fearing managers at Microsoft that the device was essentially stillborn.
Apple has also built an iPod with WiFi — it’s called the iPhone, and while most people are rightfully focusing on the new features of the device (phone, web browser, email client), it’s also considered one of the best iPods ever built (ignoring the anemic storage for now). The device runs a version of OS X, meaning the only preventing a mobile p2p application that can share music with friends or strangers is a smart programmer and a way to load the application onto the iPhone — conveniently left out. The Zune crippled it’s WiFi in firmware, but an open SDK on the iPhone would mean anyone could easily install such an app on their phone. Even better, if you didn’t already have the p2p app, you could easily jump on the web and download it the moment you needed it. It’s the viral-social, the dream application for music-heads everywhere, and Apple can’t stop it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is pretty much what they did by not shipping an SDK for the phone.
comment (None yet)
I suspect that for most fans of electronic music, there was a trigger song, band or album. It’s not like you hear this stuff on the radio — certainly not where I grew up in Calgary. College radio played hard-core techno on Friday nights, but to me it was (and remains) totally inaccessible.
My song was Orbital’s “Halcyon + On + On” from the Hackers soundtrack (at least, that’s where I heard it). I’d listened to a bit of other stuff, but that track blew my mind. I promptly went out and bought In Sides, and never looked back. Over the years, I collected every other Orbital album as well. Long before I dreamt of being a DJ, I imagined building new sounds out of “I Wish I Had a Duck”, from Snivilization. Layer upon layer of electro-squish and samples, Orbital created an imaginary world in the confines of that song.
Years later, I found myself searching for an opening track to complement Layo & Bushwacka!’s brilliant “Saudade”, and I reached for “I Wish I Had a Duck”. Orbital’s best work still resonates, and in a way this mix brings me full circle.
Sidenote: if you’re an Orbital fan, be sure to check out Paul Hartnoll’s solo album, “Ideal Condition”. Justifiably moving away from the core Orbital sound, he manages to find some brilliance in cinematic work and pop collaborations.
Tracklist:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:17:05 — 141.1MB)
comment (2 already)
One of my biggest frustrations with Vista, at least initially on my 2-year-old desktop, was the incessant disk thrashing. The computer sits in the corner of our living room (it’s a small condo, so it’s basically all living room…), and the hard drive is not exactly quiet while under load. Every night, after about five minutes of idle time, the disk would grind away endlessly for hours at a time. I have a ton of mp3s and videos, so I assumed that eventually Vista would index everything and it would settle down. It never did, so I went on an adventure of shutting down every possible service to see what was causing the disk thrashing.
Eventually, I found it. If you’re suffering this problem, change the frequency of index updates and it should settle down:
comment (4 already)
Well, after three months of disk thrashing and obscenely poor performance, I’m going back to XP on my desktop. Vista has some niceties, but on that machine (only 1GB of RAM) it was just too painfully slow to use, especially with two accounts logged in at the same time.
Windows Explorer keeps frustrating me as well. Switching directories takes 10-12 seconds while it refreshes it’s thumbnail cache, and the “smart” columns wants to treat every directory as if it were full of MP3s (thanks, but I really don’t need to see the Artist and Rating associated with my ZIP files).
The change, for me, is actually much bigger than that: I’ve quit my job, and joined a startup in the online money transfer arena. This is the project I’ve always wanted. A small, focused team of great people, and the chance to work on something I can truly call my own. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that good stuff. I’ll be the sole UI dude, designer and implementer of wondrous interfaces for the website and administration tool. To accomplish this, I’ve made the big switch — I bought a Mac. MacBook Pro, to be precise.
I’ll post more in the future about my experience with the Mac, but if my initial impressions hold, it’s everything I dreamed it could be, and certainly everything Vista is not.
Some shorties:
comment (None yet)
After I first installed Windows Vista, I attempted to use the default application (whenever possible) for activities which I usually installed some kind of helper app. For example, I initially toyed with Media Player instead of installing Winamp, and use the included photo manager instead of grabbing Photoshop Album.
In the process of installing my iPod software, I also decided to give iTunes a whirl. I have never actually used iTunes — it’s always been completely at odd with my expectations from music management software. The few times I played with it, it was baffling. I didn’t quite understand it’s legendary status as the most usable media player available. It was also huge. Read the rest of this post… »
comment (None yet)
It seems silly that it’s been so long since my last release, a problem that’s rectified by In Completion. My first set with the new Mixmeister Fusion software, it’s a lot closer to my live sound than the studio sound of previous mixes. The tone is mellow overall, but you’ll find a few barn burners stuffed in there as well. Enjoy.
Tracklist:
Podcast: Download (142.6MB)
comment (None yet)
Main Posts
Podcasts