Music in the Digital Age

The way I listen to music these days is a lot different than it was even a couple of years ago. The music industry has become more liberal with how they license out the use of their music and this has aided in the invention of some interesting music delivery services. Here are my music recommendations.

Streaming:

With ever increasing download speeds available through cable, dsl, and cellular networks, streaming music has become my favorite way to listen to music.

Pandora (Free, Extra features for $36/year)

Pandora is what I use when I want a "set it and forget it" listening experience. Using what they call the "Music Genome Project," Pandora creates a custom stations based on a song or artist you select. While listening to your custom radio station you can "Like," "Dislike," or skip a song. Over time Pandora remembers the traits that you like or don't like in a song and further customizes your station. 

For example, lately I have been listening to "Phoenix Radio," based on the French band Phoenix. At first it was an alright station that played pretty much all tolerable songs, many of which were unfamiliar. Over several days of liking and disliking songs it started playing songs that I listen to and love independent of Pandora, which is sometimes creepy in how accurate it is.

On the other hand if you like too many marginal songs your station can get really corrupted with songs you don't like. My "Passion Pit Radio" station started playing nonstop techno and remixes of the same 3 songs after I liked too many remixes of songs I liked. So be a bit careful with what you like on your station. 

With a little investment of loyalty Pandora can become an awesome personalized radio station that only plays songs that you like.

Website: www.pandora.com

Mobile apps: Available on Android, WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and iPhone

Grooveshark (Free on Desktop, $9/month for mobile app)

Grooveshark is my new favorite way to stream music, especially if I want to listen to anything in specific. They have a huge searchable database of music to choose from. You can create a playlist right in your browser of whatever songs or albums you would like to listen to. This is a great way to check out a new album by an artist you have liked in the past, or check out an artist or song that someone has recommended to you. It is also useful to listen to albums that I own, but don't have on my chrome OS laptop.

Website: www.grooveshark.com

Digital Downloads:

iTunes has been and probably will be the biggest player in the digital download space for a long time. Personally I am not a big fan. There are other places to download for cheaper and without DRM (digital rights management). My favorite is Amazon's digital download service.

Amazon.com

Amazon offers a huge selection of music for digital download, probably just about anything you could care to download. The $.99 al a carte downloads will be familiar to iTunes users but the way I like to but from amazon is through their monthly $5 deals. Every month a new selection of albums is available for $5. This is the best deal there is out their at the moment for legally downloading music. And there usually several enticing offerings at any given time.  Here are some of my favorites that are available right now for $5. Amazon offers a piece of software to download and import tracks from their website straight into iTunes. They also have smartphone apps available.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Over the summer I sold a bit of my nerdy past in the form of Magic the Gathering cards. Amongst the cards was one big ticket card known as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which for whatever reason was at the time selling for a minimum of $60 on ebay.com.

I undercut all the other sellers and my card quickly sold for $58 dollars. I was paid, I shipped the card, and then I soon got an email from my unsatisfied customer. Apparently the card did not meet his standards because of a crease in the corner. Behold the offending crease:

Unacceptable. But I suppose if I was paying $60 for a piece of cardstock I wouldn't want any creases in it either. And the buyer was nice enough. I refunded his money he returned the card in a more protective sleeve, and I promptly lost the card and moved to Utah.

But this is not the end of this epic tale. I found the card tucked into a letter holder above my computer when I came home for the holidays and decided to re-list it, this time specifying the crease and a no return policy. And the universe has worked in my favor because apparently Jace has appreciated and it was sold for $78 within 4 hours of being listed on ebay. So I guess this story worked out in my favor.

Bonus Story:

I went to the post office this morning to mail off the card. All the pens that were at one time chained to the counter to be used for addressing were gone (I guess some people were hard up for free pens). I didn't have one and I nice lady noticed my search for a pen and offered to let me use hers while we stood in line. I returned the pen, and then another man in line also returned a pen to her. So pretty much she was a super nice lady. 

A couple minutes later a postal worker became available to assist in our shipping needs. Which we were notified of by a fourth person in line who said "They SAID next!" Which was rude, but whatever. The nice lady took her package to the counter which had not been sealed and as far as I could tell she wanted to see how much it weighed before she shipped it so she could decide if she needed to take anything out.

The following will be written in the form of a play:

Characters-

Person in Line 1 : Nice woman, who seems to have plenty of pens, and a desire to maximize her shipping dollar

Person in Line 2: Me

Person in Line 3: Another penless person

Person in Line 4: Horrible Person

Postal Worker 

ACT I 

Person in Line 4: She SAID next!

Person in Line 1: Oh sorry. Rushes to available window with open package.

Person in Line 4: Some people. Why can't they get their stuff ready before they get here. My package is ready. Man, I can't believe some people...

Person in Line 1: In the distance, softly, ...Yes I would just like to see how much this weighs first...

Person in Line 4: To anyone who might care to listen, ...can you believe that?

Person in Line 3: Uncomfortably agrees quietly

Person in Line 4: Why didn't you jump in front of her? To person in line 2

Person in Line 2: Its okay I'm not really in a hurry. Timidly. 

Person in Line 4: Well I am. Time is money, thats what I say. Time is money. If a day that goes by without making a dollar is a day wasted, isn't that right old man? Slaps Person in Line 3 on the back, then realizes that he is not old. I mean ...middle... ...aged man. Young people don't know the value of work these days. I've worked every day of my life, whether it was shoveling crap or...

Postal Worker: Next!

Person in Line 2: Lets out a sigh of relief and proceeds to the shipping window while Person in Line 4 continues to rant. Probably about crap and/or the shoveling thereof.

ACT II Alternate Ending I

Person in Line 4:  ...Young people don't know the value of work these days...

Person in Line 2: I just made $80 this morning selling this piece of cardstock, what did you do?

Person in Line 4: Shuts up.

ACT III Alternate Ending II

Person in Line 4: ...Time is money. A day that goes by without making a dollar is a day wasted...

Person in Line 2: I would rather wait an extra thirty seconds than be a jerk to that nice lady for no reason.

Person in Line 4: Shuts up.

ACT IV Alternate Alternate Ending II (Alternate Ending III)

Person in Line 2: I would rather wait an extra thirty seconds than be a jerk to that nice lady for no reason.

Person in Line 4: Follows Person in Line 2 to his car and does something violent.

THE END

So as a consequence of fearing for my life and not thinking on my feet very quickly Act I was the only thing that actually happened... 

...But seriously, some people. Why can't they keep their thoughts to themselves. Or rant and rave on their own time. I mean seriously, I've gone my whole life not ranting and raving and being a jerk in the post office line. Geez...

Google Chrome OS Latop Cr-48 Review

When Google announced their pilot program for their Cr-48 Chrome OS pilot program I was excited to get involved. However when I filled out the online application my hopes were not high to be one of the 60,000 chosen to participate and receive the free laptop and test out Google's new cloud computing platform. Much to my surprise, a week later I was the proud owner of a new laptop courtesy of Google!

Hardware
On first look the Cr-48 looks reminiscent of a black macbook, although smaller and with less inputs/outputs. It has a chiclet style keyboard, and a ClickPad style trackpad. The whole body of the laptop is covered with a soft touch rubberized coating similar to the back of my Droid 2 which is really nice and doesn't attract fingerprints quite as bad as a glossy coating, although my greasy fingertips do show up on the back much more easily than on my previous Lenovo G555.

As you can see the trackpad is one big button, you can click anywhere on it. In order to right click, you click with two fingers, and to scroll you can slide two fingers across the trackpad. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the handle of it, it works pretty nicely. 

There are a couple anomalies with the keyboard, mainly the lack of function keys (ie. f1, f2, etc) and the replacement of the caps lock key for a search key, which opens a new tab and places your cursor in the omni bar. There is a setting within the OS that allows you to change it back to a capslock key, but so far I haven't had any need to use this feature. Overall I like the look and feel of the keyboard, it is big enough for comfortable typing and the keys all seem to be in the right place.

In terms of inputs/outputs, the Cr-48 is minimal to say the least. on the left side there is a lone VGA output, and on the right there is the power input, a single USB port, a headphone jack, and SD card reader. There is a webcam located at the top of the screen and a tiny hole for a microphone to the left of it.
 

It comes with a 58.4Wh battery that is surprisingly thin and lies flush with the bottom of the laptop, no unsightly bulges here. As you can see the battery's name is Mario.

Although Google has not officially published the technical specs of the Cr-48, Brad Caris of the ChromeOSsite forum, took apart his laptop and posted the following specs.

"Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66GHz 512K Cache

Tripod Motherboard MARIO – 6050A240910 – MB – A03

Hynix 2GB DDR3 1Rx8 PC3 – 10600S Ram

Intel CG82NM10 PCH

ITE IT8500E Flash ROM

SanDisk sdsa4dh-016G 16GB SATA SSD

Qualcomm Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

AzureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n PCI-E Half MiniCard

Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V2.1 EDR"

These specs are similar to most 10.1 inch netbooks out there and aren't really anything too exciting, except for the inclusion of the 16GB solid state hard drive, which is noticable in everyday use as I well discuss later on.

Software review coming in the near future....

I just created a blog!

This is my blog that I just created. I intend to post interesting things, although the things I post may turn out to be less than interesting. Nonetheless I shall post and you shall read, for that is the way these things work.