Where's the Love?

I like to rate stuff. Movies from Netflix, songs in iTunes, photos in iPhoto - they all allow ratings of 1 to 5 stars. I make use of these ratings in all of these apps. I started to wonder if I have similar distributions of love-like-hate across different types of media. So, of course I made a really geeky bar graph!

• First off, I don't have time in my life for hate. Music and photos that I hate get removed from my library. A movie has to be really bad for me to hate it. I only had 9 hated movies in Netflix out of over 500 ratings.


• I have nearly 6000 things rated between the 3 groups. Apple must love me for their genius database.


• Movies and music tend to collect in the Really Like. I think that makes sense.


• I take bad photos. Most of my library is stuff I took and I rate most of it at 3 stars. Photos have the lowest love percentage.


• I seem to love more movies as a percentage vs. music and photos.


• Less than 10% of my library is music that will gurantee that I dance, sing along, and nod my head when it comes on. That's unfortunate and probably why I spend so much money on music. Always on the hunt for a 5 star :)

2008 Albums of the Year

• Girl Talk - Feed the Animals [Amazon]
  


• Sasha - Invol2ver


• Sia - Some People Have Real Problems


• FM Belfast - How to Make Friends

I was especially struck with the fact that I didn't buy the physical disc of any of these. 3 of them came from the iTunes store and one came direct from the artist.

Also of note are the albums that didn't make my list. Evil Nine, Bloc Party, and Milosh all had new albums that I bought in 2008. I enjoy all of them, but none of them managed to crack my yearly favorites. Robyn's album is also great, but I have a hard time calling it a 2008 album. Much of the album has been available for years.

Past albums of the year:
[2007]
[2006]

MagSafe on a Desktop?

When the Apple LED Cinema Display was launched, I was immediately drawn to the multi-headed cord that supplied video, USB, and power. This was no iMac, but it was again attacking the number of cables you need to snake around your desk. A single power drop to the floor is fantastic...but only if you're using a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

I won't admit that the Mac mini is dead, and the number of rumors surrounding it suggest it is ready for an update (but we've heard that many times before). I'm wondering if Apple would release a new Mac mini with a MagSafe connector. Certainly the desktop computer is a different beast than a notebook. People shout "I wouldn't want my computer to shut off when I trip over the cable!". To those folks I say, why in the world are you tripping over your computer's power cable? Do you trip often? Do you drink a fair amount? Do you like to host double dutch tournaments with your power cords in the living room?

Personally, I'd me more than happy with a MagSafe connector on my desktop. I can't say I've ever tripped over the cord of my desktop, so I'll take the risk that it'll get yanked out at an inopportune time in exchange for fewer cables.

That leaves the cost argument. Folks in the market for a Mac mini aren't the target market of an LED Cinema Display. However, since that's the only display Apple makes, that would be a nice little carrot to get them to spend the cash.

Here's hoping for a new Mac mini in '09. Let's see what it brings. My mockup including the Mac nano is included here. If Apple really does this, I'd expect the cables out the back.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Just a fun idea for your kids or those with a kid's heart. Cookie cutter for the shape. Peanut butter works as glue for the ornaments.

Make one and post a link to the picture. You know you want to!

You Already Have That Information

Let's start the rant.

Earlier this week, we had the misfortune of a dead battery in our Toyota van. How it got that way is a whole other rant. For whatever reason, we were unable to jump it (I still don't know what I did wrong). Roadside assistance to the rescue! We had such a service as part of purchasing the vehicle. Here's where the mess started.

Getting someone on the phone was no problem. It was the conversation topics that were the problem. 95% of the conversation was spent gathering information they already have. They wanted our name and address. Sure, no problem, you need to identify me. I can handle that. We then spent over 5 minutes convincing them that our address really does exist, and has for nearly 4 years. You can blame the map companies for this one, but we'll get to that.

Here are some other things they needed to know:

• What kind of vehicle we had


• The type of drivetrain the vehicle has


• The color of the vehicle

This irritates me, because this is all information they already have, and by asking me, and re-entering it, they can only make mistakes. They can't get any better data than they already should have. We bought the vehicle from Toyota. They know the make, model, drivetrain, and color of the vehicle they sold us. It was on the paperwork we signed. They know where we live, it was on the paperwork we signed, generated from data we gave them at the time of purchase. The service plan was purchased from Toyota and applied to the vehicle that we purchased so the plan is linked to the vehicle that is linked to us and our address.

I don't care if you farm out the service contract to another company. Give them the information you already have. I don't care if map services don't think our street exists. How about you trigger an "are you sure" to their databases when you process a customer that seems to live on a street that doesn't exist. Perhaps the map guys would even pay you for the heads up!

All I want to hear is "Sir, we show you have a '33 Foobar AWD with purple poka-dots". I'll, say yes, and let them know that I added lime green racing stripes which they'll add to their information store.

Computers are good at this stuff folks. It isn't hard. Companies can save themselves money and time getting their ducks in a row, and the side effect is they wow me with their great service.

Maybe GM and Chrysler can apply some of my tax dollars towards service. One way of making a desirable car is making one with exceptional service behind it and you don't have to be a luxury brand to accomplish that.

CRbus Update

Public transit in Cedar Rapids had a bit of a shakeup this year. With all-time record flooding in the city, our Ground Transportation center was damaged, as well as many of the neighborhoods that the buses blaze through (and some of the buses themselves).

The city has made the best of what they have. This includes a new hub at Parking Lot 44, south of the regular GTC. It also includes some new stops, less frequent buses, but also later running buses.

My iPhone optimized Cedar Rapids bus schedule, CRbus, is now up to date with the schedules posted on August 22nd. Sorry for the delay. I wasn't riding the bus much in the last few months, so it wasn't a priority for me. [CRbus was launched here]

Let me know if you find any errors in the data. The city doesn't provide the data in an easily consumable format, so there's a lot of hand editing involved.

Simple Lists

Keeping a list of things to do is something most everyone does. I certainly do. Crossing something off those lists is one of the most satisfying things I encounter in a day. Traditionally, I keep these lists on scraps of paper and consolidate to a larger, heavy (to signify importance), piece of paper every so often. This works, but it certainly has disadvantages.

• Tough to share it with others or between home and work


• Tough to save large archives, unless you want a box of scrap paper


• Can't search it


• Easy to lose

I've tried to take my todo list digital many, many times. Microsoft Outlook tasks, Microsoft Project, Google Notebook, _todo.txt in the root. These are all as capable as paper, but they all had drawbacks that never let them stick. I always went back to paper and pen.

Over Thanksgiving, I took some vacation. I've found that I enjoy my vacation far more when I have a nice list of things to do, (and get them done). Otherwise I find myself watching the Today show until mid-morning, doing nothing of real value all day, and next thing I know, the family is walking in the front door.

So one of my todos for my last vacation was to check out the software that I got in the last MacHeist bundle (listing here) that I never got around to trying. One of those apps happened to be TaskPaper.

I went in pessimistic, expecting to be deleting the app after a day or so. After a few minutes of checking it out, I decided to give it a go for the week with my vacation todo list. By day 2 I was hooked. The digital todo list was finally a reality for me.

I love the simplicity of the app. I love the tagging and tag based filtering. I love that it still feels satisfying to cross off a task. I love the amazingly simple data format rules that let the app style the data appropriately.

TaskPaper seems to have a good buddy in TodoPaper. TodoPaper has essentially the same design, but for Windows systems. I'm now using TodoPaper at work and TaskPaper at home. I'd love to see them add a way to sync them.

TaskPaper recently bumped to 2.0 and got even better. The interface got even cleaner and they added a great query language (not @done is a favorite).

The only real holdback on these apps is the price. $30 for each seems a touch much to me but I'd still buy it at that price. I'm very happy to have gotten my TaskPaper license in MacHeist and work bought the TodoPaper license. Free trials are available, as well as discount codes every now and then. Be sure to check the site blogs and the TaskPaper screencast for a discount.

Jacks-o-2008

A bit late on the post, but since I've posted them in previous years, I thought I'd get that going again.

Mine was the ghost, and no, I did not intend for it to look like Pac-man or the logo for Ghostly International.

:set tings

This post is half googlecache, half hoping someone will find it useful.

I'm a die hard vi user. So hardcore that years ago, I started a project to replace Windows explorer with something that could be controlled with vi keys. Imagine blazing through your filesystem with j and k and then renaming a file with vi commands. I'm starting to drool again. I mothballed that project long ago.

Anyway, I have some settings for vi that I'm used to and I like to take them with me to whatever machine I touch. Here is what you'll find in my .exrc, .vimrc, or lemmy.rc (depending on the platform).


set shiftwidth=4
set autoindent
set ruler
set showmode
set wrapscan
set warn
set showmatch
set tabstop=4
ab teh the
ab fo of
map ,, o^[k
map g ^i/* ^[ ^[A */^[j
map f ^i^[j
map ,da :r!date


If I'm on OS X, warn, showmode, and wrapscan are on by default. Remember that Leopard uses Vim, so put your settings in ~/.vimrc.

To me, a tab is 4 wide, not 8. Feel free to start a religious war with me if you'd like to.

Some of my favorites are the mappings I have near the end. Hitting to add a blank line is a must have. The auto-comment-this-line shortcuts are nice too.

I know some of the readers of this blog are vi users. What do your settings look like?

Forced Receipt

Uhh, you're doing it wrong.

Baby Toy on a Pole

I can't believe I haven't run across this sooner, what with all of the complaining (err, suggesting) I do on the color blind topic. It seems that some traffic signals in Canada do use shapes, in addition to color. I love it.

Photo credit of user Sprocket from Wikipedia

The Cheapest Thing at Amazon

I don't pay for shipping at Amazon. Ever since they started offering Super Saver Shipping, I make sure that I never spend less than $25. This used to be very easy for me. I kept a wish list 5 pages long. Most of it was full of music, movies, and books that I wanted. When an order went in, I'd go pluck something from the wish list to get me over $25.

This worked great until recently. Most of my music now comes from iTunes, Beatport, and the Amazon MP3 store. I'm not buying many physical CDs. I've all but stopped buying DVDs. Between my existing collection and Netflix, I have way more movies than time. Books are similar. I have no less than 10 I need to finish and I've promised myself no new books until I do.

I recently put in an order for some rechargeable batteries (Sanyo Eneloop
if you care). The total was $24.99. Nice. Now I have to spend a penny to get free shipping. Nothing on the wish list was suitable. I went on a short search to find the cheapest thing on Amazon that I could buy and still have a use for. I ended up getting a set of Cat Crinkle Balls for one dollar and 62 cents.

So, I'm curious. How do you get your cart over $25 to get free shipping? Do you have any low cost items you toss in? What's the lowest price item you've seen at Amazon?



One warning about the Crinkle Balls link. It seems a pet supply store rather than Amazon currently has the lowest sale price, so make sure you are selecting Amazon if you try to buy this. Otherwise you will spend $7.99 to ship your dollar cat balls!

5 of the Now

• Evil Nine - All the Cash [Amazon]
  
  I wasn't full bore into "They Live" when it came out. That's changing recently. El-P absolutely smashes it on this one.


• Kid Cudi - Day 'n' Nite [Amazon]
  
  I don't tend to rank my 5otns. It isn't a contest for the best track. It's what I'm feeling and listening to at the moment. That said, this is #1 for me right now. It has infiltrated my brain. I have dreams about playing the beat on Bloom. I'm sick.


• FM Belfast - Underwear [Amazon]
  They say that all of this great music comes out of Iceland because there's nothing better to do (I don't buy it, seems like a wonderful place to live and I'd like to visit some day). Well now we get the great music that celebrates the fact that there's nothing to do there! Rock on.


• Alex Metric - In Your Machine (Treasure Fingers Remix) [Amazon]
  


• Get Shakes - Sister Self Doubt [Amazon]

iTunes and Amazon links included for your convenience and my music addiction!

Multiple Formats, Watched Once

I have a new feature to add to my wish list for iTunes Pro. Podcasts have overtaken TV for me. I watch them at home on my Mac and my Apple TV, and on the go on my iPhone. For those podcasts that support it, I like to watch the HD versions on my Apple TV. The iPhone doesn't care for that high of resolution, so I need to either not watch certain shows on it, or catch a duplicate feed, in a lower resolution.

Catching dual feeds burns more disk than necessary, but that's not why I hate it. I hate it because iTunes isn't smart enough to know that when I've watched the HD version, it should mark the other version as watched as well. iPhones aren't that big and it really hurts to have it sync'd full of stuff I've already watched.

Apple could hide all of this mess. I could just have a single entry for Diggnation and it could figure out the best version to show for the platform I'm using.

One day the iPhone will support HD, but unless flash capacity jumps dramatically in the near term, it will still be more cost efficient to sync a lower res version.

Simple Time

My wife bought me this alarm clock from Target earlier this year. It's designed by Michael Graves. She said she got it for me because it looked simple. She was right and I love it.

I love the large numbers that are easy to read. I love the backlit display that only comes on when you need it, which is nice since the unit runs on batteries. I love that there is no power cord. I love that the backlight stays on for 10 seconds or so from a single push. This allows it to be a quick night light too to help you rearrange your bedding.

I love that there are only 6 buttons and they don't require a bunch of weird hold sequences. Alarm, clock, plus, minus, snooze, and on/off. Hold the alarm button to change the alarm. Hold the time button to...wait for it...change the time. Turn it on and you get clear indication the alarm is set. It's also small enough to take with you when you travel. I really love not having to worry that I didn't get the hotel alarm set right.

Best of all, it looks nice and it didn't cost much. A truly great product. I wish I could find more of them to buy for friends and family as gifts.

Goat Moon

5 of the Now

• DJ Zeph - Frogs
  Nod your head


• LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
  Eventually I'll work my way through their whole catalog as 5otn entries. I think this is the 5th time LCD Soundsystem has made the 5otn. In a parallel universe, I listen to this while drinking coffee outside my last bike messenger drop-off in New York city.


• Freeez - I.O.U.
  What's old is new again. It's so damn catchy. Garish elegance. Sometimes Y!


• Babe Ruth - The Mexican
  Let's take it back...


• MGMT - Kids (Soulwax Remix)
  Focused chaos. Amazing. Hundreds of shady places to download this one. Can't seem to find an official one.

Bonus - Dexy's Midnight Runner - Come on Eileen. I blame Girl Talk for this one. Believe it or not, I have this on vinyl from years and years ago. Girl Talk has planted it in my head, never to be heard the same again.

I'm Leaving iGoogle...wait not yet

The new iGoogle launched and I hate it. iGoogle is my homepage. I keep weather, stocks, mail, and feeds on there...mostly feeds. The new iGoogle destroyed it for me. The old one showed me post titles with a plus box to open up and read the item. This worked well. If I wanted, I could click-thru to the main site, but I rarely did. The new iGoogle chose to do away with the plus boxes and just give me the first two lines of the RSS items. This was terrible. It wasn't enough to read and it made the page an absolute mess of text that was impossible to read. Combine that with the worthless side bar links and I was ready to look for a replacement.

Well, I guess Google is feeling the heat. As of tonight, the plus boxes are back. I can collapse the side bar links and I'm mostly back to normal. I'll stay...for now.

As a temporary workaround, you can change your language preference to UK english and get the old design back. Who knows how long until they roll the new site to the UK version.

The software industry is excited about web apps because they can spin versions whenever they want. New features can launch when ready, not as part of a larger bundle. The problem with this is that it's usually a forced upgrade. With boxed software, I can choose to not have the Office ribbons, for example. With online software, beloved features are killed as the users scream in pain. Will web apps face a sustaining nightmare? Will customers demand old versions stick around forever?

iTunes 8 Helps You Clean

I would have thought otherwise, but I love genre tiles. How nice of iTunes 8 to ram those badly tagged tracks in my face. Are you like me, can you not stand 4 ways to say the exact same thing? Well iTunes helps you find those ID3 abominations so you can clean them right up.

BTW, the correct one of the 4 is "Hip Hop". I know this because Shadow says so.

Strictly Enforced

One of favorite signs to see along the road is the "strictly enforced"
sign. It usually contains some trumped up promise meant to make you
believe law enforcement personnel are strapped to every other tree,
two fisting radar guns that are pointed squarely at you. What makes it a
puzzler is that the signs rarely list the speed limit they are
strictly enforcing. 20 square feet of signage and they can't find
room for a measley "35"!