Understanding why Apple bought LALA.com</h1> <article> <h1>Understanding why Apple bought LALA.com</h1> <p>Kevin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:25:27 +0000</p> <p style="clear: both">I generally don’t read all the Apple rumor prognostications, so you may file this under the “incredibly obvious/already stated” file if you like.</p> <p style="clear: both">Last night I was in a Frank Sinatra mood. So I played Sinatra on my AppleTV whilst enjoying family game night. After the kids went to bed, Frank sang “One for My Baby” and I wanted to share my favorite version (Sinatra at the Sands) on Facebook. I searched on Google on found the version on LALA.com. I had heard about lala a while back but hadn’t explored it at all. </p> <p style="clear: both">I decided to try it out. Lala.com scans your hard drive (or the specific folders you choose) for music you own. It then matches those songs to songs it has licenses to online. This process can take a while depending on your library. I have a mid-sized library, about 4,000 songs, and it took about 10 hours. When it was done, I logged back into lala.com and lo and behold it had essentially recreated my itunes online, playlists included. Now it doesn’t have all the songs I had, it ended up about 65% of the songs. I’m sure that aspect will take care of itself over time.</p> <p style="clear: both">Now if Apple actually launches a Tablet device, it may not have enough hard drive space to house all of my media. Further, with all of ipods/iphones/computers my family of five has, I don’t want every device to have to house all the songs we own. But if my songs are housed on lala, or whatever Apple rebrands this as, and if the Tablet has either wifi or better yet, a Kindle-like built in EVDO, I can access my playlists wherever I want, on my tablet. </p> <p style="clear: both"><a href="http://kevinfarner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/All_songs_-_Listen_free_on_Lala.png" class="image-link"></a>With the amount of music, TV, movies combined with the number of devices people own, the idea of having a storage online versus a ‘home server’ makes a lot of sense. This would make my AppleTV more compelling as well because the size limitations of the device will matter less.</p> <p style="clear: both"> <p><br class="final-break" style="clear: both" /></p> </article> <article> <h1>Review: The Annotated Turing</h1> <p>Kevin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:32:17 +0000</p> <p style="clear: both">I finally finished reading <a href="http://www.theannotatedturing.com/" target="_blank">The Annotated Turing</a>. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. The Annotated Turing’s focus is on explaining Turing’s famous 36 page work which many consider to be the beginning of computing. I would have been hopelessly lost here without the annotations, and even then, I didn’t let myself get hung up on the math or I’d still be reading. It’s the <em>theory </em>that Turing was positing that I found compelling and the author, Charles Petzold explains the theory nicely.</p> <p style="clear: both">But what I really loved about the book was the first section of the book that essentially introduces number theory to the reader. Mr. Petzold should be a teacher. The story of math is an intriguing one, and in the author’s hands, not only are the actors compelling, but the math itself is as well.</p> <p style="clear: both">Every generation tends to over-emphasize the change going on as the ‘greatest ever’, but in reading this book, I had a greater appreciation for the amazing changes in math in the first half of hte 20th century.</p> <p style="clear: both">If you are interested in Turing, computing, or looking for a great primer on math history and number theory, I strongly recommend this book.</p> <p style="clear: both"> <p style="clear: both">UPDATE: thanks to a @lwcavallucci on twitter who asked a very common sense question (that I failed to supply an answer for in my post). The question is on age appropriateness. My first answer is that is has more to do with interest than age, but think I can go deeper than that.</p> <p style="clear: both">1. For the actual math done in Turing’s paper, there is a high degree of difficulty and it was way over my head. That said, this did not stop me from enjoying the book or understand the theory behind the math, and the whole point of the book is to annotate the paper.</p> <p style="clear: both">2. For the other elements of the book, i.e. number theory, history of math especially around the turn of the 19th to 20th century, I would say a middle schooler who enjoys math will like the book. (Editorial: I find number theory fascinating and I it is puzzling to me why the American style of teaching math puts that off for so long, when for many students, math would be far more interesting if they could take this earlier in life, and not associate Math purely with “arithmetic.”)</p> <p style="clear: both"> <p style="clear: both"></p> <p><br class="final-break" style="clear: both" /></p> </article> <article> <h1>Enjoy the now</h1> <p>Kevin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:36:09 +0000</p> <p style="clear: both">I am a huge fan of the cartoons of <a href="http://www.gapingvoid.com" target="_blank">gapingvoid.com</a>; I even bought one of his larger posters. But today I saw one of his latest cartoons, and it has vaulted to the top of my list. Enjoy your holidays, enjoy your now. </p> <p style="clear: both"><a href="http://kevinfarner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/live_in_the_now-full.jpg" class="image-link"></a></p> <p><br class="final-break" style="clear: both" /></p> </article> <article> <h1>World Usability Day: The Story of David</h1> <p>Kevin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:11:12 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://www.worldusabilityday.org/en/the-story-david-a-life-changed-wud-brian-sullivan">http://www.worldusabilityday.org/en/the-story-david-a-life-changed-wud-brian-sullivan</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://wudmn2009.posterous.com/world-usability-day-the-story-of-david">WUDMN2009</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Google PowerMeter’s first device partner</h1> <p>Kevin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:05:06 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-powermeters-first-device-partner.html">http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-powermeters-first-device-partner.html</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://wudmn2009.posterous.com/google-powermeters-first-device-partner-0">WUDMN2009</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Forget Silicon, This Teenager’s Solar Panel Uses Human Hair as a Conductor</h1> <p>Kevin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:09:18 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5355137/forget-silicon-this-teenagers-solar-panel-uses-human-hair-as-a-conductor">http://gizmodo.com/5355137/forget-silicon-this-teenagers-solar-panel-uses-human-hair-as-a-conductor</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://wudmn2009.posterous.com/forget-silicon-this-teenagers-solar-panel-use-1">WUDMN2009</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>My Menu Bar</h1> <p>Kevin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:58:37 +0000</p> <div>I always learn something when others bloggers post their menu bar icons and what they are so in the interest of sharing I thought I would do the same.</div> <div>From left to right:</div> <div> </div> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.skitch.com/">Skitch</a> - my favorite screenshot tool, dead simple and dead useful</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://growl.info/">Growl</a> - now that Growlmail no longer crashes with Safari 4, I’m using all of Growl again. I love that all my messages across apps show up in one spot via growl, and the level of control I have over them.</div> <p /> <div>Growltunes – growl plug-in for itunes</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/">SizeUp</a> - Just found this one this week, I forget where. But I love it. Using shortcuts, this tool allows me to place apps in quadrants or halves of either screen (I have a monitor and laptop screen). MUCH MUCH better than constantly resizing my apps.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.getdropbox.com/">Dropbox</a> - great tool for backing up specific documents of folders in the cloud. Great for uploading a document or folder and sharing with others, especially useful for documents that are too big for certain corporate email restrictions.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://typeit4me.en.softonic.com/mac">typeit4me</a> - Another favorite. I use this in two ways. I have a mental block for some words that I just cannot remember how to spell, opportunity and canceled are two that come to mind; or there are words that I mistype because of the keyboard layout and how fast I type. So I plug in the wrong spelling into typeit4me and the proper spelling so that when I mistype it auto-corrects without me having to go back and do it. I use it for even two-letter words (if I am going to fast I often type if backwards) and if I fail to capitalize the letter “I” when it is by itself it does it for me. I also have created shortcut words. Rather than have to type out my street address I just type m-y-s-t for ‘my street’ (without the hypens) and it plugs in my street address. I love this application!</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://hazel.en.softonic.com/mac">Hazel</a> - found this via Merlin Mann. Great little tool to move files around automatically. I drop a lot of files to my desktop. Hazel looks to see if I haven’t opened the file in a week and if so moves the file away.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.amnestywidgets.com/Singles.html">Amnesty</a> - takes widgets from the dashboard and allows you to have them on your desktop. I have certain widgets that I like up more often and don’t like having to go to dashboard.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://choosyosx.com/">choosy</a> - a tool for selecting providing a choice for multiple browsers and setting up advanced rules. I may want links from tweetie to open in firefox, links in mail to open in safari, or want the option to choose which browser. </div> <p /> <div><a href="http://drikin.com/spiritedaway/">spirited away</a> - makes applications that you are using ‘disappear’. You can set this up for all applications, or exclude certain applications if you choose.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://evernote.com/about/what_is_en/tour/mac.php">evernote</a> - I’m not 100% on the evernote bandwagon as far as using it a lot. But when I need to drop a note in somewhere that I can find easily, I use this service. As a sidenote, I really like the iphone app for this and appreciate the synchronization between the two.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/">caffeine</a> - another dead simple service. Rather than adjusting all your settings for a screensaver, sleep, and dimming of your laptop, caffeine temporarily turns the laptop into always on, no screensaver, no sleep mode. You click on the cup of coffee, when it is filled, caffeine is on, when it is empty it is off.</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/timemachine/">time machine</a> - I dumped a liter of water on my keyboard and had to get new internal organs for my laptop. I had everything backed up via time machine. When the Apple person asked me if I backed up my computer and I said ‘yes’ he looked ecstatic. When I got my laptop back in a couple days and restored via time machine, and it was perfectly restored, I was even more ecstatic.</div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://kevinfarner.posterous.com/my-menu-bar">kevinfarner’s posterous</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Great example of visual help</h1> <p>Kevin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:17:57 +0000</p> <p>My favorite broadcasters on FM Radio are Bob and Brian from Milwaukee. I grew up listening to these guys and really missed them when I moved. I was on the station’s website and saw they had an iphone app. <br />What caught my attention was the way in which they provided help to add the app from Itunes. <p /> - They provided the Step 1, Step 2, always a good thing <p /> - They provided a screenshot of the itunes screen <p /> - But what I loved most was the call-out. They didn’t just say “search for xxx in the upper right”, they zoomed in on the search box, showed what to type and showed the result you want to select. <p /> I think with the screen-grabbing tools out there, there will and should be more of this type of help. Makes it very difficult to make a mistake and more importantly, gives the user confidence in what he is trying to do. <p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/kevinfarner/TaOKojaHCnfmECSuADqHr2rY74HhlJpiZeoVMQDyD3aHJISqLYFhjreTHrFn/102.9_THE_HOG_-_Everything_Tha.png'></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://kevinfarner.posterous.com/great-example-of-visual-help">kevinfarner’s posterous</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Posting to Posterous</h1> <p>Kevin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:10:28 +0000</p> <p>Trying out posterous and seeing if it updates twitter and my blog <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://kevinfarner.posterous.com/posting-to-posterous-9">kevinfarner’s posterous</a> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Creating good will at the airport</h1> <p>Kevin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:49:45 +0000</p> <p style="clear: both">I could write a blog a day for the rest of the year with bad airport stories, as could anyone who travels more then twice a year. </p> <p style="clear: both"><a href="http://kevinfarner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/photo.jpg" class="image-link"></a>But today I want to go to a happy place and bring up a trend I’ve seen at 3 or 4 airports over the summer. Samsung is sponsoring ‘utility posts’ at many airline gates, with about six outlets in a small space. </p> <p style="clear: both">This is brilliant. I get a chance to sit in an actual chair rather than against a wall. And Samsung gets a great place to advertise, as well as the good will of someone whose cell phone battery is about to die. </p> <p style="clear: both">Now if they could double the amount of these posts, and give free wifi at all airports…</p> <p><br class="final-break" style="clear: both" /></p> </article> </main></body></html>