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I Bumrushed the Charts

Bwana — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:45:06 +0000

I love music.

I love the fact that we can express ourselves through song or instrument. What I don’t love is the capitalistic, money grubbing ways of the RIAA. I support independent music through my podcast, Bwana.org Radio, mainly by utilizing music at IODA Promonet. I feel these artists deserve compensation for their efforts just as much as the ones who made it big. So when I saw this effort called, Bumrush the Charts, I was immediately intrigued:

If you believe in the power of new media, on March 22nd, 2007, take 99 cents and 2 minutes of your time to join the revolution and make iTunes “Mine Again”. If you’re a content producer (blogger, podcaster, etc.), we’re asking you to join up with us and help spread the word to your audience. Nothing would prove the power of new media more than showing corporate media that not only can we exceed their reach and match their purchasing power, but that we can also do it AND make a positive difference in the world. If we can succeed with this small example, then there’s no telling what can do next.

What’s kosher is that 50% of the proceeds from the band will go towards scholarships around the country. Which ones, I don’t know, but I’m happy to support education. This is very cool. I’ve bumrushed the charts and bought “Mine Again”, if you believe in the cause, you should too.

Note: The album art on “Mine Again” is of adult nature and should be viewed with parental discretion.

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endo

Bwana — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 01:49:07 +0000

As soon as I profess my undying love for FeedLounge, Adriaan births an RSS aggregator called endo. What sets endo apart from what I’ve used in the past is the following:

Quicksilver like keyboard interaction – The way it works is that you start typing a RSS feed group name and it automatically moves to that group. Neat.
Smart groups – It’s not new, but it is definitely useful. It looks similiar to what PulpFiction does.
“Smart” downloading – endo includes a helper application called “endoBot” which handles enclosure downloads. It even supports bittorrent!!
Extensibility – (FeedLounge, are you listening?) “There are plugins to create del.icio.us, Flickr, and Technorati subscriptions. There is also a plugin that can run your own scripts. These scripts can be in AppleScript, Bash, Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby, and should generate feeds.” Adriaan included a nice perl script that gets the latest Boondocks comic.
Growl-like notification – On a per-feed basis, you can configure endo to notify you when a feed is updated. It’s a snazzy looking semi-transparent that pops up briefly and then fades away nicely.
Attention.XML support – This is by far my favoritest feature of endo. Attention.XML allows you to synchronize your feeds to a server. It synchronizes subscription lists, read status, group settings, and subscription settings. You can use your .Mac account for synchronization or use Adriaan’s server for free. This feature has got me on the fence on whether to drop FeedLounge. This is the primary reason why I use web based RSS aggregators over clients like this one. If I can find a way to utilize this feature to it’s fullest, I may have to say farewell to FeedLounge.

newsvine is live

Bwana — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 18:41:08 +0000

one of my favorite sources for news, newsvine, just came out of private beta and is now live. go check out my column over there and while you’re at it, register and join the community.

hdbeat joins the podcasting family

Bwana — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:09:59 +0000

one of my favorite sites that deal with high definition television, hdbeat, has finally started their own podcast. i’m having trouble subscribing to their rss url, but i can get by with just a direct download of their mp3 until it’s addressed. yet another podcast in my subscription list

feedlounge back..with a vengeance

Bwana — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 03:44:40 +0000

so today’s feedlounge downtime was painful but the outcome is definitely not. seems this super data conversion which was not planned to take as long, as increased speed of feedlounge tremendously. the application is snappy and responsive! my only complaint about feedlounge (other than the money requirement) has been addressed!

a day without feedlounge

Bwana — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:27:46 +0000

since feedlounge has undergone maintenance pretty much the entire day, i have been without my favorite feed reader. the old saying goes, “you never miss a good thing until it’s gone”. yeah well, i miss feedlounge..i refuse to go back to bloglines as it’ll be similiar to going back to black & white television. it’s just something you don’t do. what’s going on in tech news? i have no clue. what’s the top stories of today? i have no idea. why? because i heavily depend on my rss feeds for this information. i refuse to open 10 tabs to various news sites again! i’d rather stay ignorant! bah!

apple’s valentine

Bwana — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:55:33 +0000

just got this in my inbox. i’m sorry apple, but i already have a valentine. you seem to be pulling my heart strings, but this guy’s taken…

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

Today we announced that this week Apple will begin shipping the new 15.4-inch MacBook Pro featuring the Intel Core Duo processor, a built-in iSight, Front Row with Apple Remote and more. The reception of the MacBook Pro has been tremendous and we are working hard to ship as many units as fast as possible.

Better still, prior to shipment we’ve improved the entire MacBook Pro family with configurations starting at 1.83Ghz up to 2.16GHz. We have upgraded your MacBook Pro from a 1.83GHz processor to a 2.0GHz processor at no additional cost! We anticipate shipping your upgraded order by February 28, 2006.

To learn more about the most recent upgrades to the MacBook Pro family, please visit http://www.apple.com/macbookpro. You might be interested to know that Apple is offering an even faster processor – the 2.16GHz. This is a custom configured option and is available for an additional charge.

If you decide you’d like to make a change to your upgraded MacBook Pro order, we’re happy to help. You may reach us at at 1-800-676-2775, Mon-Fri 7 am-10 pm and 9 am-6 pm Sat-Sun (Central). Some change requests may extend your shipment date slightly. If we do not hear from you by February 18th, we will ship the MacBook Pro 2.0Ghz Intel Core Duo.

Our systems will reflect the change to your order by February 15. Please visit http://www.apple.com/orderstatus for the most up-to-date information on your upgraded order. A shipment notification, with tracking information, will be emailed to you as soon as your order is shipped.

Thank you very much for shopping at the Apple Store!

Sincerely,
The Apple Store Team

(yeaaahyuhh)

macbook pro speed-bump

Bwana — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:17:27 +0000

what a way to start my day. apple has announced that they have started shipping macbook pros (mine hasn’t shipped yet), but they also announced this little gem:

All models of the new MacBook Pro will ship with faster Intel Core Duo processors than previously announced, delivering even greater performance at no additional cost. The $2,499 model now includes a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, up from the previously announced 1.83 GHz, and will begin shipping this week. The $1,999 model now includes a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, up from the previously announced 1.67 GHz, and will begin shipping next week.

i am so pleasantly surprised by this. i’m getting a 2.0ghz core duo instead of a 1.83!!

in the words of lil jon, “YEEEAAAAHHYYUHHH”

sub with feedlounge bookmark

Bwana — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:58:07 +0000

so i’m still geeked about feedlounge. i replaced my “sub with bloglines” button with “sub with feedlounge”. i basically editted the source code and changed the bloglines url to the feedlounge one used with their button generator. it’s a little “stupid” right now as it can’t automagically check for rss urls on the page like the bloglines one did, but it was smart enough for a couple of sites i tried (seems to go with the default rss link). want it?

~~Sub with FeedLounge~~

~~drag the above link to your links bar~~

update: durrrr.. feedlounge has their own tools for this. hyuk!

feedlounge > bloglines

Bwana — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:26:02 +0000

i just found my new rss reader: feedlounge. i’ve been using feedlounge just today and i’m convinced, it rocks. $5 a month right now, but i don’t care, it’s worth investing a price of a value meal for something i use everyday for my daily reads. using web2.0 technologies (there’s that word again!), feedlounge does it right. goodbye blogines, feedlounge is my new reader of choice. look for detailed review on this via blog entry and podcast. loving it!

upsurge in pc vs mac debates

Bwana — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:15:41 +0000

have you all noticed the upsurge in pc vs mac debates on the web? usually around macworld, the debates are refueled since apple usually announces something new, but this year it’s a bit abnormal. i think i know why:

the line between macs and pcs is not so discrete anymore.

with the introduction of intel macintoshes, both pcs and macs have a more common architecture under the hood. what does this do? it causes the the pc (most pc and windows users) supporters to compare the new apple hardware to cheaper so-called “equivalent” hardware. on the other side, it causes active mac supporters (commonly referred to as “zealots”) to actively defend apple’s “quality package” which is usually the reason for investment. some have used the reasoning that a “computer is a computer” which means that both tools accomplish the same thing. basically along the lines of saying “a tool is just a tool”. from my experience, the more complex tools become, the greater the probability that they will NOT behave similarly.

i refuse to turn this into a pc vs mac debate but i will say this. people will use what they prefer and they will rationalize their choice until the cows come home. humans get accustomed to certain ways and usually changing these ways is not preferred. if you ever get into a pc vs mac argument, please consider that it’s possible that no matter what you say, it will not convince the other party that your computer is better for them. and that’s the truth.

arstechnica imac benchmarks

Bwana — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 16:27:41 +0000

arstechnica has done a nice review of the new intel imac. most notably, they have done some benchmark comparisons with the g5 imac and the dual g5 powermac. overall the new imac did very well and rosetta emulation numbers look promising. i was a bit surprised at the xbench graphics numbers while the threaded numbers were higher than expected. go check it out.

update: the benchmarks in this are goofy.� the systems he used to compare had crazy differences in memory.� the powermac dual g5 had 4.5GB of memory while the iMac G5 had 1GB of memory.� he left the intel iMac at 512MB memory!!!.� this just invalidates all comparisons on so many levels.� don’t even bother reading it.

best fark photoshops of 2005

Bwana — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:13:26 +0000

linky here.� great stuff.� some of my favorites are in there.� (warning!� long download time!)

best blonde joke ever

Bwana — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:10:09 +0000

this is got the be the best blonde joke i’ve ever heard!

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ces in full swing!

Bwana — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:20:43 +0000

ces has kicked off in las vegas and there are many electronics to drool over.� as you may or may not know, the techpodcasts network has two members on the floor and they are blogging and podcasting away.� the braytek podcast will be showcasing some of this content in tonight’s show!� stay tuned and make sure you give us a listen to get the inside scoop on what’s going on at ces.

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