6/27/2008
FilterMyRSS - Win a Free 2GB USB Drive
Want to win a free 2GB USB flash drive from the gadget blog GetUSB.info? All you have to do is find the FilterMyRSS logo somewhere in the crazy little mosaic image below.
Ready? Click on the mosaic image below. The site will open in a new window. Then hover over each little square in the mosaic until you'll see the FilterMyRSS logo (pictured above).
Once you find the FilterMyRSS logo, email GMO @ USB.info and describe where you found it on the map.
If there happens to be more than one entry, GetUSB.info will do a random draw to pick a winner. The goofy little contest will remain live for two weeks [until July 10th] before updating the image with location.
Good Luck!
Ready? Click on the mosaic image below. The site will open in a new window. Then hover over each little square in the mosaic until you'll see the FilterMyRSS logo (pictured above).
Once you find the FilterMyRSS logo, email GMO @ USB.info and describe where you found it on the map.
If there happens to be more than one entry, GetUSB.info will do a random draw to pick a winner. The goofy little contest will remain live for two weeks [until July 10th] before updating the image with location.
Good Luck!
Labels: contest
6/26/2008
iTunes - Over 5 Billion Served
According to an Apple press release, the company has sold over 5 billion songs via iTunes. Earlier this year, iTunes surpassed Wal-mart and became the #1 music retailer in the United States. Maybe they should just start saying "billions served," like McDonalds does.Obviously iTunes has been very successful selling music, but what about video? The press release also says that more than 50,000 movies are being rented or purchased each day at an average price of $6/title (~$300k per day), making it the most popular online movie outlet.
methodshop.com
6/24/2008
Political Online Ad Spending by Clinton and Obama Campaigns
While attending a Personal Democracy Forum panel titled "New Ways of Making (and Spending) Money Online," Kate Kaye from ClickZ News presented 2 charts showing online ad spending by U.S. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during their Democratic primary runoff.Based on FEC filings compiled by ClickZ News, Obama outspent Clinton 6:1 online. Obama also geotargeted his ads, especially in North Carolina, and helped voters find local polling places. As a result, Obama's campaign ads accumulated millions of online impressions and helped Obama secure North Carolina. Did the Clinton campaign underestimate the power of Internet advertising?
The Obama campaign spent $3 million dollars online between January and April 2008
In comparison, Hillary Clinton only spent $500k online between the end of 2007 and April 2008
Notice anything missing from these charts? Google is gobbling up all the advertising money and big name news sources like New York Times and MSNBC.com are completely missing.
Are ad buyers making a mistake? When it comes to political advertising, what's more valuable - cheap clicks or niche audiences?
BlogAds.com CEO, Henry Copeland, goes over his notes before participating the Personal Democracy Forum panel titled "New Ways of Making (and Spending) Money Online"
methodshop
Labels: advertising, events, tech news
Sci Fi Trion Game
Sci Fi Channel and video game publisher Trion World Networks are developing an entertainment franchise targeted for release in 2010 designed to "play" on both online and TV platforms. Think World of Warcraft meets Battlestar Galactica.The still unnamed show on Sci Fi channel and the multiplayer Trion World game will share the same fictional characters and setting, driving viewers back and forth between the platforms to satisfy their thirst for the mythology of the world. G4 claims the show/game will revolve around the Stargate franchise but exact details are still unknown.
It's an ambitious undertaking but one worth going after considering Blizzard's Warcraft has over 10 million online users and has inspired a feature film slated for release in 2009.
methodshop
Twitter Intergration into Modern Conference Technolgy
http://www.methodshop.com/2008/06/twitter-intergration-into-modern.shtmlI'm sitting in the Rose Hall at the Personal Democracy Fourm #PDF2008 right now at Lincoln Center and they've placed power ports throughout the main auditorium. They've also installed an almost spotless high speed WiFi Network.
Why? Almost every attendee at this conference is a blogger, reporter, or podcaster?
While the presence of power and WiFi makes life easier for bloggers, it also puts a lot more pressure on the speakers. Having a laptop in front of you while a boring speaker is on stage is a powerful distraction.
For example, Jonathan Zittrain just left the stage. He gave an amazing lecture based on his upcoming book "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It." When Zittrain was on stage, the quiet background noise of fingers typing disappeared.
But what happens when there's a bad speaker on stage? Just take a look around at the laptop screens. Blogging and word processing windows get minimized and people start checking their Facebook pages and email.
Twitter has also been fully integrated into the modern expo or conference. A few years ago, only hardcore techies were using Twitter at a conferences. But now you can Tweet using a variety or clients on your mobile phone or laptop. Conference organizers know this and several conferences like PDF have used Twitter scanning services like Sumerize.com and Twemes.com to take questions from remote attendees and even people sitting in the audience.
Just add a # symbol to your Twitter Tweet and Twemes will automatically add it to a separate page for an event. Here's the Twemes page for #pdf2008 if you want to check it out: http://twemes.com/pdf2008
methodshop
I'm sitting in the Rose Hall at the Personal Democracy Fourm #PDF2008 right now at Lincoln Center and they've placed power ports throughout the main auditorium. They've also installed an almost spotless high speed WiFi Network.Why? Almost every attendee at this conference is a blogger, reporter, or podcaster?
While the presence of power and WiFi makes life easier for bloggers, it also puts a lot more pressure on the speakers. Having a laptop in front of you while a boring speaker is on stage is a powerful distraction.
For example, Jonathan Zittrain just left the stage. He gave an amazing lecture based on his upcoming book "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It." When Zittrain was on stage, the quiet background noise of fingers typing disappeared.
But what happens when there's a bad speaker on stage? Just take a look around at the laptop screens. Blogging and word processing windows get minimized and people start checking their Facebook pages and email.
Twitter has also been fully integrated into the modern expo or conference. A few years ago, only hardcore techies were using Twitter at a conferences. But now you can Tweet using a variety or clients on your mobile phone or laptop. Conference organizers know this and several conferences like PDF have used Twitter scanning services like Sumerize.com and Twemes.com to take questions from remote attendees and even people sitting in the audience.
Just add a # symbol to your Twitter Tweet and Twemes will automatically add it to a separate page for an event. Here's the Twemes page for #pdf2008 if you want to check it out: http://twemes.com/pdf2008
methodshop
Labels: events, social networking, tech news
Meeting Meetup.com at #PDF2008
While attending the 2008 Personal Democracy Forum in New York City today, we got to spend some time with Gary from Meetup.com.Meetup.com is a networking portal that (based on what happened here yesterday John McCain will probably never use) helps organize face-to-face group meetings of people with common interests. The site is very easy to use. Users just enter their ZIP code and search for topic they want to meet about. The website then helps them find a group and arrange meeting times and places.
So who what kind of groups are on Meetup.com? The groups vary from Knitting clubs and Britpop fans (see image below) to Ron Paul supporters.
Why is Meetup.com here at the Personal Democracy Forum conference (#pdf2008)? Because local groups are powerful... especially in politics.
In 2004, the Howard Dean U.S. presidential campaign was able to quickly mobilize thousands of supporters using Meetup.com. More recently, former 2008 US Presidential hopeful Ron Paul was able to take advantage of Meetup's services. Ron Paul still has over 97k members on the site and over 1,500 global groups. Why? Once organized, groups can reorganize themselves, change leadership and even evolve their focus. For example, after Ron Paul's 2008 bid for President ended, his supporters transitioned into "Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty" and were able to continue promoting awareness around issues that the group members had in common.
When Meetup first launched in 2002, the site organizers first tried to arrange meetings of its members in unfamiliar venues and around topics people weren't entirely interested in meeting about. Since then, Meetup has stepped back and let their users take charge. Meetup just provides tools like iCal and RSS feeds, announcements and step-by-step tutorials for organizers.
So the next time you need to find a group of romance novel fans, iPhone software developers, hikers, poker players, Barack Obama supporters or even lesbians with breast cancer, just head on over to Meetup.com and use their online tools to take your life offline.
methodshop
Yahoo Auto Resignation Tool
Tired of working at Yahoo!? Ready to resign? Then head on over to http://yahoorezinr.com. The site is a helpful tongue-in-cheek way to help current Yahoo employees expedite their resignation with simple and easy to use pull-down menus.
If you are at work, then be careful with some of the pull down menus. They aren't exactly safe for work.
methodshop
If you are at work, then be careful with some of the pull down menus. They aren't exactly safe for work.
methodshop
6/23/2008
Grandma Got Game - AARP Launches Casual Game Portal for Seniors
That's right! Grandma's got game. Grandpa too!Earlier this month, the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) launched a new casual gaming portal on their website. The casual games are mostly variations of popular card and puzzle games like solitaire, poker, Hexxagon and Bejeweled. The most popular game on games.AARP.org right now is Mahjongg Toy Chest with over 12 million game plays.
The new AARP games were made by a company called Arkadium. Kenny Rosenblatt, CEO of Arkadium had this to say in a June 19th AARP press release:
"Casual games are not just for teenagers who like video games. A significant portion of online game players are actually over 30, and it’s making organizations like AARP realize the value of adding a Game Arena to their site to encourage engagement."
Why is the AARP getting into the casual gaming business? Three reasons:
- Video games are a great way to keep seniors mentally sharp and help them exercise their minds.
- A study cited by Sami Hassanyeh, Vice President of AARP Web Strategy and Operations in the above mentioned press release, shows that "boomers" spend about 100 minutes playing games online. The AARP needs to adapt and follow their audience as they evolve and become more online savvy.
- And while seniors are playing games online, the AARP can push marketing messages to them. For example, when I tried to play a game of AARP Skeeball this morning, I had to suffer through an assload of Nurisytem ads. Why Nurisytem? A lot of old people are overweight. According to the Canadian National Population Health Survey, 32% of seniors are considered overweight.
The only thing AARP is missing in their new game lounge is a full screen and large text mode for seniors with poor eyesight.
methodshop
6/18/2008
Microsoft IE Team Sends Firefox A Cake [pic]
Mozilla engineers shipped Firefox 3.0 this week to much praise and accolades from bloggers and tech columnists across the Interweb (except for some initial download issues). But Mozilla also got a strange congratulations gift from their main competitor in the web browser wars... Microsoft.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer development team sent their Firefox counterparts a congratulatory cake for their launch of Firefox 3. The cake was delivered in person by some Microsoft employees and Mozilla CEO, John Lilly, proudly took the cake around and displayed it for his staff before he let them devour the cake.
Mozilla employee Al Billings holds the IE cake.
Apparently this is becoming a tradition. Microsoft sent Mozilla a cake back in October 2006 to congratulate them on shipping Firefox 2.0.
You have to give Microsoft credit for having a good sense of humor about their eroding market share. Recent reports give Firefox ~40% of the web browser market. Not bad for an application that's only 3 years old.
You can download Firefox 3 here.
methodshop
Microsoft's Internet Explorer development team sent their Firefox counterparts a congratulatory cake for their launch of Firefox 3. The cake was delivered in person by some Microsoft employees and Mozilla CEO, John Lilly, proudly took the cake around and displayed it for his staff before he let them devour the cake.
Mozilla employee Al Billings holds the IE cake.
Apparently this is becoming a tradition. Microsoft sent Mozilla a cake back in October 2006 to congratulate them on shipping Firefox 2.0.
You have to give Microsoft credit for having a good sense of humor about their eroding market share. Recent reports give Firefox ~40% of the web browser market. Not bad for an application that's only 3 years old.
You can download Firefox 3 here.
methodshop
Bumper Stickers Linked to Road Rage
As you make plans to take some weekend road trips this sweaty summer, a number of obstacles and annoyances await the average driver. Whiny kids, expensive gas, and traffic to name a few. But the most dangerous obstacle you face might be aggressive drivers.You can probably subdue the kids with a portable DVD player and maybe OPEC will ramp up oil production to help lower gas costs. But how do you protect yourself from road rage?
According to a study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko, there's a simple trick to avoiding road rage incidents: Stay away from cars with bumper stickers.
That's right. Szlemko's study found a link between road rage and the amount of personalized items on people's vehicles... including bumper stickers.
Drivers with personalized "territorial markers" like bumper stickers, custom stereos and window decals are much more likely to express some form of road rage like tailgating, middle finger salutes, honking or even throwing an ax.
Does the nature or tone of the bumper stickers matter? Does someone with a "Save the Earth" sticker on their bumper make them nicer and less likely to want a confrontation? No. According to the study, it doesn't matter if you have peace or anarchy symbols on your car. Any form of personalized territorial markers on a vehicle means that the driver will be more likely to display road rage towards another driver. Drivers with road rage tend to think of public streets and highways as "my street" and "my lane."
"The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked," Szlemko said.
methodshop
Labels: offbeat
6/17/2008
Segway Sales Surge
Apparently the recent surge in gasoline prices has made many Americans rethink their transportation habits.According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, "sales at Segway Inc. have risen to an all-time high," and CEO Jim Norrod says "he expects sales this quarter to jump 50% from a year earlier, versus a 25% year-over-year increase in the first quarter."
Where are these new Segway sales coming from? Several Colleges and Universities including New York's Syracuse University and the University of Kansas are saving gas money by purchasing Segways for their campus police. And the next time you get a parking ticket in Aurora, Ill. (you were planning on getting a ticket there right?), it will probably be by a parking enforcement officer on a Segway.
And that leads us to this photo of Mathew Mitnitsky and his pizza delivery Segway. Matthew owns Nonni's Italian Eatery in Concord, N.H. To help cut back on both gasoline and insurance costs, he customized a Segway and added a pizza box tray.
So are Segways cool
methodshop
Labels: environment, tech news
Distracted Kid in Call of Duty 4 [video]
A player in the video game Call of Duty 4 apparently got a little distracted while playing a multiplayer deathmatch online. Unfortunately another player recorded the incident and posted it on YouTube. The clip has quickly become popular with gamers and even made the frontpage of Digg.com this morning.In the clip, a player named "ELGuerrer0" is seen closely examining a semi-nude wall poster while an opponent walks up behind him and shoots him in the back of the head with a shotgun.
If ELGuerrer0 is reading this... Dude, that's what single player is for.
methodshop
6/16/2008
Loopt Now Available For BlackBerry, iPhone 3G Coming Soon
Wish you knew where your friends and family were at all times? Have you heard of Loopt yet?
Loopt is a mobile phone application that enables users tospy on see the location of their friends on an interactive map (see image below). The application also allows you to message friends in your general area and setup automatic alerts to notify you when friends are nearby.
In the last few months, Loopt has published several BlackBerry versions of its software for all major American cellphone carriers including T-Mobile, AT&T, Alltel and Sprint. Loopt also demonstrated an Alpha version of their software for the 3G iPhone at the 2008 World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). You can sign up to be notified when the full iPhone version of Loopt is released here.
If you have a Jailbroken iPhone, then the function and features of Loopt might sound similar to Twinkle. Twinkle is a native Twitter client for the iPhone that pairs your GPS location with your Twitter posts. Twinkle also gives you the ability to add images to your Twitter Tweets.
But whether or not you use Loopt, Twinkle or Twitter.. it's not any fun unless all your friends are also using the service.
methodshop
Loopt is a mobile phone application that enables users to
In the last few months, Loopt has published several BlackBerry versions of its software for all major American cellphone carriers including T-Mobile, AT&T, Alltel and Sprint. Loopt also demonstrated an Alpha version of their software for the 3G iPhone at the 2008 World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). You can sign up to be notified when the full iPhone version of Loopt is released here.
If you have a Jailbroken iPhone, then the function and features of Loopt might sound similar to Twinkle. Twinkle is a native Twitter client for the iPhone that pairs your GPS location with your Twitter posts. Twinkle also gives you the ability to add images to your Twitter Tweets.
But whether or not you use Loopt, Twinkle or Twitter.. it's not any fun unless all your friends are also using the service.
methodshop
6/13/2008
Developers and Consumers Get Ready for Apple's iPhone App Store
A massive new online business is scheduled to launch on July 11: Apple's App Store - an online hub for third party iPhone and iPod Touch applications.Beginning later this month, developers will begin to upload apps to the store accessible by iPhone users or to a new section of the iTunes Store, sharing revenue from app sales with Apple in a 70/30 split. These apps will be in addition to the 1,700-odd apps already developed for the iPhone's Safari web browser.
One of the games people are looking forward to playing is Super Monkey Ball. Sega's Ethan Einhorn showed off Super Monkey Ball on stage at the WWDC. According to Einhorn, after 8 weeks of development, the developers have created 110 stages.
The new 3G, GPS-enabled iPhone should open up a world of possibilities for clever developers in the realms of gaming, entertainment and enterprise applications.
In related news, the AOL Radio app for the iPhone won for Best Entertainment Application at the 2008 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), providing users free access to over 350 online radio stations (including 150 local CBS radio stations) and more than 200 AOL Radio channels.
Other WWDC iPhone App winners:
Best iPhone Game:
Enigmo by Pangea Software
Best iPhone Social Networking App:
Twitterrific by the Icon Factory
Best iPhone Productivity App:
OmniFocus by the Omni Group
Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness App:
MIM from MIMVista
methodshop
6/11/2008
Was the 3G iPhone a Letdown
In case you've been living under a rock, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new 3G iPhone during his keynote speech at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week.The iPhone 3G announcement had the blogosphere buzzing with both excitement and disappointment the past few days. While many people are excited for the iPhone 3G, there are plenty of bloggers lamenting about missing features that they feel were unaddressed.
Here's a roundup of the most popular features that still remain on our collective "iPhone Wishlist":
- Physical keyboard - What the BlackBerry lacks in style and interface, it makes up for by having a physical keyboard. It's tough to type out a company memo on the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard.
- User-swappable battery - This complaint goes back to the first iPod.
- Copy-and-paste function - It's hard to believe that this "feature" was overlooked.
- Memory card slot - Many people use their iPhones as cameras. A card slot would be very useful.
- Bluetooth stereo audio - Most of the new 3G phones have this feature. Personally I'm tired of tangled headphone cables and ready to go wireless.
- MMS - MMS is the ability to send photos, video, and audio directly to other cellphones. Most modern phones added this feature years ago. Why was it left out of the new iPhone?
- Video recording - There are several applications for Jailbroken iPhones that use the still camera to record video. It would have been pretty easy for Apple to implement this feature. Again, not sure why they left it out.
- Video Chat - One of the most popular rumors about the new 3G iPhone, was it would have a built-in video chat feature that would allow you to video chat with other iPhones or even computers with webcams.
The last item on the list, the video chat rumor, was the thing that had most bloggers complaining. Many blogs (including MethodShop.com), were reporting on the rumor and many people were excited to conduct mobile phone video chats like Dick Tracy’s watch.
Were you hoping for more features?
methodshop
6/09/2008
iPhone 3G Announced
Apple CEO took the stage June 9th at WWDC 2008 and announced the new iPhone 3G. Jobs said that Apple has taken everything they've learned from the first iPhone and created the next generation of the iPhone... the iPhone 3G.
Here are some of the new features of the new iPhone 3G:
Here's a commercial for the new iPhone that Steve Jobs showed on stage:
The iPhone 3G will be available July 11th in 22 countries. Apple hopes to launch in 70 countries this year. The maximum price around the world is $199 USD. You can order an iPhone 3G at Apple.com starting July 11th.
methodshop
Here are some of the new features of the new iPhone 3G:- Thinner.
- Cheaper. An 8G iPhone 3G will sell for... $199. $299 for the 16GB. Right now, it's actually cheaper than the iPod Touch?!
- Wireless access to the new iPhone "App Store" full of applications and games specifically made to take advantage of the new iPhone's features. You can also access the App Store via iTunes.
- Plastic back cover.
- Solid metal buttons.
- Improved "Accelerometer" that rotates the screen content when you rotate the orientation of your iPhone.
- Multitouch display.
- Better camera.
- Normal headphone jack (you no longer need special headphones).
- Dramatically improved audio.
- Faster. The iPhone 3G is 2.8X faster than the old iPhone on AT&T's slow American EDGE network.
- Advanced GPS support. iPhone 3G uses signals from GPS satellites, Wi-Fi hot spots, and cellular towers to quickly get the most accurate location.
- Longer battery life. 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time now has 10 hours (as opposed to 5), 5 hours of 3G talk-time (most phones only have 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
- Enterprise email support.
- More colors. The new 3GF iPhone also comes in white.
Here's a commercial for the new iPhone that Steve Jobs showed on stage:
The iPhone 3G will be available July 11th in 22 countries. Apple hopes to launch in 70 countries this year. The maximum price around the world is $199 USD. You can order an iPhone 3G at Apple.com starting July 11th.
methodshop
SanDisk Drops TakeTV
SanDisk has officially killed its TakeTV project as well as its accompanying Fanfare video content portal. Chances are, this may be the first time you've even heard of TakeTV. Despite getting lots of attention at CES 2007, the product failed to gain any traction with consumers. TakeTV was only launched last October.TakeTV was a "bridge solution" designed to easily bring your downloaded video content from your computer to your television. CBS, Showtime, Jaman.com and TV Guide were among the content providers who participated in the device's trials.
TakeTV and its Fanfare service was an attempt by SanDisk to challenge Apple. But faced with competition from not only Apple, but Microsoft, Netflix's Roku, and an assload of other networked devices that offered more content and more convenience, the TakeTV never had a chance.
Besides the demo models at CES, the only TakeTV model I ever saw in person was a freebie SanDisk sent to my boss to check out. He asked me to load up his new TakeTV with videos but our library of content is all iTunes ready MP4s - which didn't work on the TakeTV. We never picked it the TakeTV again.
If you want to check out the TakeTV, Amazon.com is still selling them. The 4GB model costs $99 US. The 8GB is $149. You can probably expect those prices to go much lower in the coming weeks.
SanDisk stopped shipping the TakeTV and shutdown its Fanfare service on May 15th - sadly no one seemed to notice until today. To relive the memories, head on over to take.tv and Fanfare.com while you still can.
TakeTV RIP: October 22, 2007 - May 15, 2008
In related news, Apple is rumored to be announcing the new iPhone 3G this afternoon.
methodshop
Labels: tech news
6/04/2008
iPhone 3G and WWDC Announcement Predictions
There's no doubt that an iPhone update is imminent. But while nearly everyone has agreed on that, nobody knows anything definite about the specifics... except that the new iPhone will be compatible with the Microsoft Exchange email services. There's a link on the main Apple.com iPhone page where you can apply to be a beta tester.In regards to the iPhone, here's what we know today:
- Apple.com lists the iPhone as “Currently Unavailable.” Stock is so low that you can't buy it. Usually a good sign that a new model is coming out soon.
- Apple continues to make iPhone sales deals across the globe. Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Australia were all announced with the last few months.
- A 3G settings screen was found by hackers in the latest firmware update for the iPhone.
- The new iPhone will most likely be unveiled during Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) on June 9th.
- AT&T is prohibiting retail-store employees from taking vacations between June 15 and July 12, claiming that they’re expecting a “heavy selling period”. They implemented a similar policy last year for the iPhone launch.
- AT&T executives have said numerous times that all of their smartphones (the iPhone is one of the) will support 3G networking soon.
- The Apple Stores have been out of stock of the iPhone for weeks. And people are forming daily lines outside Apple stores that still have a few iPhones in stock.
And here are some rumors that MethodShop.com compiled about what Steve Jobs might announce at the WWDC on June 9th:
- Prediction/Rumor: The new 3G iPhone will be about 20% thinner.
- Prediction/Rumor: The new 3G iPhone will have built-in video chat that would allow you to video chat with other iPhones or even computers with webcams.
- Prediction/Rumor: The Apple TV is going to get an add-on USB camera that will turn the Apple TV into a video chat system (see item above). How would it work? A picture in picture effect would happen if you were watching a movie on your Apple TV when someone tried to “video call” you from an iPhone.
Prediction/Rumor: Just like the iPods, the new iPhone will come in several colors including black [pic] and white [pic]. Several colored iPhone photos have already surfaced on the Interweb. There's no doubt that black would be an extremely popular iPhone color.- Prediction/Rumor: The new iPhone will have built-in GPS (it's about time).
- Prediction/Rumor: Apple will also announce a new, wireless keyboard specifically for Apple TV, with multi touch capabilities. Basically it will be a super remote control.
methodshop
6/03/2008
Managing iTunes Duplicates
As your iTunes Library grows, you will probably lose track of exactly what music you have already imported and end up with duplicate songs in your iTunes Library. You might accidentally import a CD twice or add files from Limewire or BitTorrent. Or maybe a friend with a big Terabyte hard drive loaded you up with a lot of music recently.Here are a few tips and techniques on how to get rid of duplicate songs in your iTunes Library as well as some precautions you should take before deleting duplicate tracks.
Tutorial: Managing Duplicate Songs in Your iTunes Library
methodshop
Labels: itunes
6/02/2008
Converse to Release Kurt Cobain Sneakers
If you're a fan of the band Nirvana, get ready to throw up. Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, just approved a deal with Converse sneakers that will cash in on her late husbands legacy.Converse plans on making an entire line of sneakers that "pay tribute to" the grunge icon, who committed suicide in 1994.
The Cobain collection will come in multiple styles and feature scribbles and lyrics taken from his personal notebooks. Lyrics from popular Nirvana songs like "Come As You Are" are specifically mentioned.
"[Nirvana] are the renegades of sound, the league-changers, champions of underachievement, the paint drippers and those with flawless style," Scott Patt, Converse Global Footwear's creative director, touted in a Converse.com press release last Friday.Let's just hope any TV commercials for these sneakers don't feature a Nirvana remake titled "Smells Like Teen Sneakers."
As much as everyone hates Courtney Love (she's the Yoko Ono of grunge), she at least had the decency to turn down a tacky Doc Martin print ad that would have featured Kurt Cobain wearing modeling Doc Marten boots in heaven. [*vomit*]
Sneakers from The Converse Cobain Line will cost you between $50-$65 and your dignity. What's next? Kurt Cobain inspired urns?
In related news, Kurt Cobain's ashes were stolen from Love's home several hours after the Converse announcement. Seriously. We're not kidding. Here's a link to the news report.
methodshop
Labels: music
6/01/2008
Bob Dylan's 5 Best Albums
I was at my local bar the other night and someone asked me if I were ever to be stranded on a desert island and could only bring 5 Bob Dylan albums with me on my iPhone, which ones would I bring?I couldn't answer him right away, and not because I had already had a good buzz after drinking four bottles of Miller Lite (note: I'm a lightweight), I had to think about that for a while because I really love Bob Dylan. Wait, let me rephrase that, I REALLY LOVE BOB DYLAN! For anyone even remotely aware of American pop culture over the past 40 years, it would be tough to miss the direct impact and lasting influence of Dylan's songs. I needed time to get back in touch with ALL things B-O-B!
So after spending a WHOLE week revisiting all my Dylan albums in iTunes, I compiled these 5 as the very ones I'd like to have with me if I were stranded on a desert island. And with this list I hope I can introduce the genius of Dylan to people walking around now who've never heard of the guy, or have no awareness of him beyond simple name recognition.
So if I was stranded on a desert island and could only have 5 Bob Dylan albums on my iPhone, which ones would I bring? Here's my list...
Continue Reading>>>
methodshop
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At one point, the art of pumpkin carving went extreme... these are the photos..
Has a virus or hard
drive crash wiped out your entire music collection on your computer? No
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something to watch on your iPod or iPhone? Here's a tutorial that
explains how to use a program called Handbrake to rip DVD's
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