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Magnatune has seen the future, and it is open
This is normally something I'd toss over into the sidebar, but I don't want you to miss the significance of what's happening with Magnatune, an internet-based music label. TechCrunch has a write-up about what they are doing, but here are some highlites: You can stream any full album you want for free. When you want to buy an album you can get it in nearly any format you want, even OGG and FLAC if that's your thing. These files are not DRM-ed, and your user license allows you to share those files with three people. In fact, they give you links to send them to so they can download it themselves. And if you ever lose your copy, you can download it again (unlike iTunes). It's pretty amazing really. Now if they would only start offering good music.
I wish CDbaby would move to this type of format rather than their deal with iTunes. While it's great for so many independent artists to be able to find retail space in a place like iTunes, I think a lot of musicians would want to sell their music in the Magnatune model if they had the chance.
Technorati Tags: music mp3 itunes magnatune cdbaby internet20 for 2005 (#8): Spoon - Gimmie Fiction
Every time a new Spoon record comes out, I can't imagine that it could possibly be more minimal than the last. Britt Daniels is the master of adding just enough instrumentation to his songs to get his point across. And those drums! Maybe it's because they aren't layered under 20 other levels of noise, but I don't think anyone else records their drums better than Spoon.
That was pretty tense back there
So I just upgraded the blog software to WordPress 2.0, and they certainly don't make it stress-free. From a technical standpoint it isn't anything that dramatic, but there are a lot of little steps that are easy to mess up. I can't imagine how non-techy people would do it. Of course, there probably aren't a whole lot of non-techy people hosting their own blog software either.
Update: Working with images is a nightmare! They'd better fix that right quick. Other than that everything seems ok. Nothing spectacular, and probably not worth the hassle of upgrading right now.
Technorati Tags: wordpress+2.0, blog, wp
20 for 2005 (#9): Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
At this point, all I can really say is that the hype was well deserved.
MP3 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - This Home on Ice
Technorati Tags: music mp3 clap your hands say yeah20 for 2005 (#10): Low - The Great Destroyer
For years I've wondered what Low would sound like if they dropped the "slow" from slowcore. Trust hinted at that possibility (much to a lot of peoples' dissatisfaction), and The Great Destroyer totally redefines the band not just as slow-hit wonders (sorry), but as a flat out solid rock and roll band. Don't get me wrong - I love love love Low's earlier work. But having it in context with this new louder faster material makes it that much stronger.
Performancing 1.01 + SpellBound = True Love
A few weeks ago when the Performancing extension for Firefox was released, I was impressed by the ease of setup and early feature set, but didn't start using it because I like the Technorati tag integration of my WordPress dashboard and there was no spell check like Ecto. Now with the release of version 1.01 and the SpellBound firefox extension, Performancing is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Instead of listing all the great reasons why this is so awesome, I'll just point you here.
Technorati Tags: performancing, firefox, technorati, blog, spellbound
It's never felt so good unsubscribing from an RSS feed
The feed in question is a personalized job search feed from Indeed (amusingly my current, soon to be former job is the first result for that search right now).
20 for 2005 (#11): Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
There are those who, no matter what Stephen Malkmus will ever do, will say that it's not as good as Slanted & Enchanted or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Those people are fools. Those people should also really like Face the Truth, as Malkmus returns from the 10 year bout of adulthood he's been suffering from. Full of fun melodies and quirky lyrics, this record feels like it's 1993 all over again.
MP3 Stephen Malkmus - Baby C'mon
Technorati Tags: music mp3 stephen+malkmus pavement20 for 2005 (#12): The Books - Lost and Safe
This is seriously one of the most underrated albums of the year. Lost and Safe may not feel as experimental or fresh as The Lemon of Pink or Thought for Food, but I think that may have to do more to our increasing familiarity with The Books' style of sampling and live instrumentation rather than a lack of innovation on their part. I think this is overall the most enjoyable of the three records, and while the sound isn't revolutionary this time out, they are still exploring new ideas and the record is incredibly enjoyable.
MP3 The Books - Be Good To Them Always
Technorati Tags: music mp3 the+booksAmazon SLC Library Lookup greasemonkey script
If you live in Salt Lake City, and you like the library, and you use Firefox, boy do I have a script for you! Amazon SLC Linky is a greasemonkey script for amazon.com that will query the SLC Library database and insert a link to the library's page for whatever book you are browsing on Amazon. Here is a screenshot of the script in action. You can see the link beneath the book title. If the book is currently checked out, it will tell you when it is due back.
To use this script, you need to install the greasemonkey extension for Firefox. Once that is installed, click here to install the AmazonSLCLinky script. You will see a button in the upper right hand corner of the page to install the script. After that, every time you browse a book page on Amazon an appropriate link will be inserted into the page for the SLC Library's page for that book.
Note: This script is largely based on Carrick Mundell's script for the Seattle Library. SLC uses a different database system than Seattle, so there may be a few bugs that need to be worked out. Be sure to let me know if you spot any.
Technorati Tags: amazon slc salt+lake+city library greasemonkey