Jared’s Blog

This is by far one of the most intuitive parts of Windows. Just drag and drop and it installs the font. It doesn’t care what type of font it is. It just puts it where it’s supposed to go. I just reformatted my hard drive today. I do this every 3-6 mo. because Windows likes to slow down over time. This has actually been scientifically proven I’ve heard. Well I’ve got many fonts I use for design projects. I just installed 1000 fonts from backup just by dragging and dropping. Amazing! Kind of reminds me of OS X.

This is from the blog of some woman who is dating an Apple developer. All I can keep saying is Yes! Yes! Yes! YES! I think this is the only girl who understands geeks/developers. Why can’t more girls be like this?

I date a geek and I thought I was the only one that had to face these sort of situations. If you’re a geek and you have a girlfriend let her in on the read. That’s what my bf did and after reading this, I was a lot more understandable about my bf and his need to be with the computer almost all waking hours that he isn’t with me.

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I’m writing to you from a new tool, Flock.

Podcasts are so cool. I never was a fan of talk radio, but then again I never knew of any tech-related talk radio shows on the air. Anyway, I started listening to a new podcast today called, Inside the Net. The hosts are Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte both of Call for Help.

Episode #2 of Inside the Net is about Flock, a new browser. Right now it’s only in pre-beta status (0.5 pre to be exact), but there’s still some cool stuff to check out. What makes Flock unique is it’s integrated features. It uses del.icio.us to store and publish bookmarks. Bookmarks are also taggable as on del.icio.us. You can blog from right inside the browser. It has Flickr support so you can publish your pictures straight to your Flickr account. Last but not least is the theme. It reminds me of Safari with the colors and style used and it looks great.

I had no trouble setting Flock up as far as the settings go. It’s essentially the same as Firefox 1.5. Of course the Flock-specific features were a little new to me so I had to spend some time playing with them. Hooking into my Wordpress powered blog was a little confusing. I had to choose the MovableType API even though I use Wordpress. I understand now that they use the same API, but it average Joe user isn’t going to understand that. All he knows is “I’ve got a Wordpress blog” if he knows even that much. Just a suggestion for the Flock developers. Beyond that I really can’t say since I don’t use Flickr or del.icio.us. Although if I find myself using Flock often, I’ll have to sign up for an account there.

Yes most know I am an iPod owner. First of all this is pure rant, so if you don’t feel like reading some rambling I’m doing because I’m mad at iTunes, just quit reading now.

iTunes is a great music player on a Mac. It runs really smooth and looks awesome. On Windows, it’s a different story. First of all the thing needs like 3 other services running at the same time. Thanks Apple; I need more shit running on my computer. This is mostly due to the fact that it’s built on top of some core components of Quicktime. Really, it basically can’t run without it. This is why the default download link for iTunes on Apple’s page links to a iTunes/Quicktime bundle. You have to hunt around for the stand alone installer, but I digress.

I would never use iTunes for a music player because it’s too bulky and takes up too much screen real estate. I’ll stick to QCD, thank you. It’s much more lightweight. I run into more problems with my iPod and iTunes though. The big one is album art not transfering or disappearing. It happens to just about everything I upload. Unless I add the songs and add album art with iTunes, it doesn’t transfer. I’ve got my folder.jpg file in the folder and I’ve got the jpg embedded in the ID3 tag when I add it. It always shows the art in iTunes, but I have to delete it and readd it using iTunes before it’ll show up. While I’m on that matter, why do I have to use iTunes to sync at all. Open up the hard drive so I can just drag and drop. It’s possible because that’s how a majority of the oppositition stays afloat. No special software.

Maybe my opinion will all change once OS X becomes available for x86 architechture. Come on, you know it’s going to happen soon.

Reminded of what a Minnesota winter should be, cold and snowy, I stood outside of the Triple Rock Social Club last night. A note on the wall read “Sold Out Show – Serious!” Thank you Relapse Records for the opportunity to go. The Bronx were supposed to make an appearance at this show, but dropped off about a week ago due to “unforeseen circumstances.” The show must go on. Horse the Band, Between the Buried and Me, and Dillinger Escape Plan did show up and the 150 people that came out to see them weren’t disappointed.

Horse the Band marched on stage first, or at least half of them did. With only the keyboardist, drummer, and guitarist on stage, the lead singer came out to notify the crowd that “Our bass player is in the bathroom!” If any band could get away with it, it’s Horse the Band. Finally, their bassist did make it out of the bathroom and to the stage. With that, they kicked into “Birdo.” The song got a huge reaction from the crowd and shouts of “Play Birdo again” could be heard. Throughout Horse’s set, I was intrigued by their keyboardist. It’s one thing to listen to their songs and say “Hey, that sounds like old Nintendo games.” When you see him play the stuff, you’ll swear he’s about to have a seizure. I was also surprised with the bassist. He may have had some untimely bathroom urges, but he can rattle off bass lines like nobody’s business. They flew through their set in 30 minutes which included classics like “Bunnies” and “Cutsman” the later of which received the most crowd involvement.

Grade: A- (for the bassist showing up late)

Seeing a band at your peak of interest in them is like new love. You are nervous, excited, but happy all at the same time. This is what I felt when Between the Buried and Me took the starge. I wasn’t fortunate enough to get a spot directly in front of Paul like I’d hoped, so I settled in just right of center stage. They wasted no time kicking into All Bodies which sounded amazing as the recorded version. The accuracy with which they play their material is incredible and that is no easy feat with this type of music. Their set was a mix of material from both Silent Circus and Alaska. Their set included “Selkies, Mordecai, Autodidact,” and others. The crowd was well engaged throughout their set. The only thing I could ask for was more music. I guess as an opening band you can’t always play as much as you’d like.

Grade: A

Last on the bill was Dillinger Escape Plan. I have to admit outright that I’m not really a fan of this band. I respect their right to make music though and for that I stuck around to check out their set. The first thing the crowd was subjected to was a video of some woman being hypnotized. It was done in silent movie style. I’m not sure if it has some connection to a song or if it was just meant to be kind of creepy, but it didn’t really have a place. It was cool to see the use of a computer/projector during the band’s set. This kind of technology is relatively easy to come by nowadays and really added to the performance. As I said, I’m not a fan so I couldn’t tell you what songs they played. I do know that the crowd was going off the more than it had for either of the two other bands. Lastly, I can’t go without commenting on their bassist’s look. This guy was straight out of 1965. He had the stache and mullet of a porn star.

Grade: B- (The bassist was too distracting)

Overall Score: B+