Nov 06

CNN Holograms are actually Tolograms

Semantics aside that was still very cool.

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Oct 31

Blinged Out Webcams

Swarovski-coated webcam: because everything should be shiny – Engadget

written by Daryl

Feb 23

Here's Wikipedia's list of every song featured in one of Apple's iPod commercials, including the date, artist and model. So, just in case you forgot to download one, here's your chance.

read more | digg story

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Feb 21

Playlist: @ Big D Radio – WOKI 91.4

Artist – Song – Album

  • The Killers – Bones – Sam's Town
  • Sean Lennon – Bathtub – Into the Sun

This song was rather fitting considering that I was taking a shower (standing in the bathtub) while it was playing

  • tobyMac – Ill-M-I – Welcome To Diverse City

TobyMac's new CD came out yesterday. I tried to snag it at Wal-Mart this morning on the way to work but they didn't have it. Wal-Mart used to be the place for buying new releases from Christian artists but no more. At least not the one that's near work. It's on the outer edge of the hood. They specialize in edited R&B/Hip-Hop and Latino music. Lots of Latino music.

  • The Click Five – Lies – Greetings From Imrie House
  • Madonna – Let It Will Be – Confessions On A Dance Floor
  • Sam Cooke – Cupid – The Man Who Invented Soul
  • Lupe Fiasco – Trials And Tribulations – Food And Liquor
  • india.arie – There's Hope – Testimony, Vol. 1: Life & Relationship
  • Stars – Elevator Love Letter – Heart
  • Wilco - Jesus, Etc. – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
  • Imogen Heap – The Walk – Speak For Yourself
  • Janet Jackson – Velvet Rope – Velvet Rope
  • Pigeon John – The Grand Ol' Waltz – Pigeon John Sings The Blues

This is refreshing. You don't hear many songs in popular music today with a 3/4 time signature. Most everything is in 4/4 time. I had flashbacks to beginner band in 8th grade and piano lessons when we first learned about counting time. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. 3 beats to a measure. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. My non-accelerator foot and fingers just naturally started tapping to the beat while driving. I couldn't help it. It was engrained in me through years of musical training.

  • Cake – No Phone – Pressure Chief
  • Hoobastank – Don't Tell Me – Every Man For Himself
  • Janet Jackson – janet – Where Are you Now

Very eclectic mix today. I made a tweak to my linked smart playlist system over the weekend. It's made for a vast improvement in the song selection on my radio playlists. That in turn is leading to more songs in the list that I want to hear and less skips. I've been using this system for about a year. It's really improved my ipod listening experience. Over that time I've come across a flaw in the system based upon how the logic is set up. The method of linking the playlists is designed to move new songs into the playlist automatically. The problem is when I skip a song it stays in the playlist instead of cycling out. So I'd end up with some new songs on the playlist each day (or every few days depending on how often I update) and a bunch of songs I didn't want to hear or didn't feel like hearing at that time languishing there for days or weeks. I got tired of skipping the same songs each day.

The advent of skip counts in iTunes 7.10was the answer to my problem. I added a toggle to my exclusion playlist to exclude any track skipped in the last 2 weeks. With that in place any track I skip today or whenever is banished to exclusion temporarily. That way I'm getting a larger group of fresh songs populated to the playlist each day when I sync. The system is more efficient at cycling in new songs to replace ones that have already been played or skipped that day now. That translates into a more enjoyable listening experience for me and less battery drain for Gordo Negro (a.k.a The Black Ninja) since I'm not having to skip every few songs.

written by Daryl \\ tags: ,

Nov 27

I love gadgets. The iPod is my current favorite. With this in mind I’m always looking for ways to improve my iPod experience. One of the things that has improved my experience greatly this year has been a better understanding of smart playlists. I wrote about this in a previous post. The link to the file I mentioned in that post no longer works so I have uploaded the file to my site. It can be found here. That outlines the current system I use to organize the music on my in my library.

Today I found another method that I thought was worth mentioning. They both do the same thing but use slightly different means of getting the end result. The bottom line is both methods use a system of interlinked smart playlists to organize the songs in your Itunes library.
I’m sticking with the system I’ve got right now. The more I rate songs and tweak what’s in my library the better the system works. Now that Apple has included skip tracking into iTunes 7.0 I can make my smart playlists even more precise.

written by Daryl \\ tags: ,