Our new web site design (and WordPress theme for this blog) launched on this snowy, icy Monday.
The observant may also notice a new section of the site that contains an early beta version of a new Mac application that we’ve been working on.
The scariest part of the redesign process was using Archive.org’s way back machine to look at the different incarnations the Third Coast site has had dating back to 2002. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Now if we only had a logo . . .
Third Coast
So, I’ve long suspected iTunes of being not truly random when put into any kind of shuffle especially Party Shuffle mode. This morning, though, something happened that I can’t believe.
To preface this, here’s a screen shot of the details of my iTunes library:
So, you can see with almost 30,000 songs and 87 days worth of music that chances of two even remotely related songs coming up next to each other should be relatively slim.
But, check this out shot from my iTunes Party Shuffle window:
The same song played twice in a row! Now granted, it’s a great song that should be played multiple times, but still. I guess the odds of the same song playing twice are about 1 in 29,029 (the same as any specific song playing right after the first Karen), but still very surprising.
In iTunes preferences under the Playback tab, there is an option for “Smart Shuffling” that supposedly reduces the chances of songs from the same artist or from the same album being played sequentially. I have that setting all the way to “less likely” but not only did we get the same album and the same artist, but the same song too.
The fact that I’ve just written this much about the occasion probably means that I spend a little too much time obsessing about my music collection (or maybe that I Party Shuffle a little too often).
Music, Tech
After 561.88 miles of running spread across 151 separate runs, the sensor in my Nike + iPod Sports Kit has bitten the dust. It gave me a warning before beginning my last run.
It didn’t say “I’m dead, don’t use me.” It just said, the sensor’s battery was very low and replace it soon.
Well, I didn’t replace it soon enough, because it didn’t even make it through that run. Is there any worse feeling of futility as finishing a good run and finding out that it will not become part of your Nike+ running log?
If it weren’t for the nagging pain behind my right kneecap, it would be like the run never happened.
Spring can’t get here soon enough; I hate the treadmill life.
Personal, Tech
I just can’t excited about the Amazon Kindle.
My gadget addiction really wants to, but I can’t convince myself. I think that the reason is the idea of buying a book and not getting . . . an actual book.
I was able to make the jump a lot easier when it came to music. For me, the “physical aspect” of music has been shrinking my entire life. I grew up in the vinyl age which is just about when music packaging peaked. From there it shrunk down to cassettes and finally CDs. Now 80% of the music that I buy is digitally and it doesn’t bother me at all. It somehow seems like a natural progression (unless you want to talk about music fidelity, but that’s a whole other conversation).
Unfortunately, I just mentally can’t get to that place with books. I’m not ready to give up the physical thing to throw in my backpack, to put on a bookshelf when I’m finished.
I’d be far more likely to already own a Kindle if Amazon offered something like “Buy the book, get the Kindle version for a $1.00″ or something like that.
Another difference is that with music is that I can create the physical CD if I ever need to. The same can’t be said for books. It’s not like the Kindle has a Print or even better Print & Bind button.
Of course the one thing that the Kindle can offer that buying books at Amazon can’t is the instant gratification factor. Those “get the book in less than a minute” tags when browsing books are might effective. For now though, at least there is Schulers when I need it now.
Tech
Career Cruising has purchased the Futures For Kids platform. Here’s the full release. Rock on!
Career Cruising
As many of you now know, our new office was broken into late night on December 26th. The intruder smashed the window of a 1st floor suite to gain entrance into the building and then smashed the window of our entrance from the hallway. Besides our office, he broke into 4 other ones as well.
Read more…
Personal
For the third time in 5 years, we will be moving into new offices again. Also for the third time, we will be staying in the same building. Those of you may remember back in the spring of 2006 when we moved into our current suite it was an “involuntary” move due to the building’s leasing agent leasing our then current suite to some mortgage company (who have since gone out of business, by the way) who needed the space.
So, we persevered and tried to exist in the office suite formally known as a hallway for a larger company. To make a long story short, it just wasn’t working. We needed more space. We needed better shaped space.
Here’s a recap of our history in 3680 44th St.
- Suite 100: April 2003 - May 2006
- Suite 145: May 2006 - November 2007
- Suite 275: December 2007 - ???
Next week as we prepare to move, we’re switching phone companies as well as ISPs, so it should be interesting. More as things progress.
Tech
Please click on the link above and visit Save Net Radio.
Internet radio is an amazing thing and should be allowed and encouraged to flourish, not mercilessly singled out to be destroyed.
Even better let your congressperson know!
Just in case you need to be convinced the Internet radio is about the only interesting thing happening in radio now, check out these two just to get a start:
Music
Craig will be giving a presentation entitled “ASP.net Development on a Mac” at this year’s Day of .Net.
It will be on May 19 at Davenport University.
Here is the description of the presentation from the program:
Not only is ASP.Net development on a Macintosh possible, but there are advantages that might make a Mac your new preferred development hardware. We’ll take a look at the latest in Mac-native SQL and development tools as well as several virtualization options that make developing .Net on a Mac possible and give you the ultimate in a cross-platform, cross-browser testing environment as well. Imagine being able to test on Mac OS, XP and Vista all from the same laptop, all at the same time.
Tech
A quick look at our last.fm profile shows you just how much we love The National. They are #1 on our list and the last time that I checked by quite a large margin. That is even despite the fact that they and Jeff Tweedy have the dubious distinction of being the only two acts to turn down GRIT’s interview requests when passing through Grand Rapids.
Nonetheless, today’s Audiofile song of the day is from their new CD. The song is called Fake Empire and it is amazing. It definintely doesn’t look like the new songs will do anything to change their position on our chart. It’s going to be tough waiting until May 22 when the new CD will be released.
Music