The Sealer did not come with much in the way of instructions, but I have been able to find a variety articles and videos with information about how to use the sealer and also how to take care of it. Here is a list the information I have found:

• 2017 NHC Demo of All American Can Sealer

• All-American 225 Personal Beer Can Sealer video by Wells Can Co from October 2016

• All American Master Can Sealer- Canning Homebrew enthusiast video from September 2017

• All American Can Sealer #1502 Inspection and Maintenance December 2011

  • Refers to these Operating Instructions for Senior Automatic Can Sealer with Fly Wheel by Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry

  • Suggests using AMSOIL Severe Gear 75w-110 Synthetic Oil for lubrication

• Checking and Adjusting Seam Specs via a motorized machine, but concept is the same

• Sources for Aluminum Cans

  • Bulk Aluminum 16oz Cans via Oktober Designs

  • Bulk Aluminum 12 oz Cans via Lion Brewing Solutions on eBay

Personally, I need to work on maintaining carbonation in my cans. I believe that my primary issue at this point is that my kegged, carbonated beer is not cold enough going in to the cans. Because of this, I am getting excessive foaming as I fill the cans via my Last Straw Bottle Filler and that foaming is causing me to lose carbonation. Next up, I am going to try filling cans with un-carbonated beer and priming sugar, and then let it carbonate in the cans, to see if this resolves the issue.

[Update - can-conditioning worked fine. Also, chilling the cans is helpful].

Once you graduate from the simplicity of working with a kit, start writing everything down if you want to have a hope of making the beer again.  It is also good to be able to refer back to this information to determine "what worked" for future recipes.

My wife and I learned this lesson a few times, but the most memorable one time was with a cider that we made in 2002 (or so).  The brewing process basically involved making a Canadian Ale kit as instructed, except we switched out a couple of gallons of cold water with cold cider in the brew bucket during primary.  We then pitched the dry yeast from the kit and added champagne yeast to the secondary.  I say "basically" because I have no idea how to make this again.  We were just playing with the recipe to see what was possible.  It never occurred to me that we would end up with something decent.  It turned out to be a good dry cider that we would love to be able to make again, but cannot replicate.

I am pretty sure that we used unpasteurized cider because we have subsequently tried to recreate this recipe with both pasteurized cider and cider-concentrate (that we had in the house and needed to use it for something).  The concentrate was particularly bad because it did not break down at all.  It just sunk to the bottom of the brew bucket and stayed there congealed.  The results were awful.  

These days, we have the BeerSmith2 software which allows you to play with a recipe for a bit before brewing it.  You can also look online and find pages like this one that tells you the Briess Crystal Malt flavor profiles.  But, this still does not tell you want the beer will tastes like.  The only way to do this is to make the beer, taste it and take notes.  This way you can find out what works and what you like so you have a chance to refine your recipes and improve on it the next time.  

One of our biggest homebrew issues during this period was waiting for the wort to cool.  We were using a twelve quart stock pot and the kits had us only brewing about two and a half gallons of wort to make five gallons of beer.  At the end of boil, we would take our brew pot and put it into a sink full of ice and cold water.  We would then drain the hot water from the sink a few times and add more ice and cold water as needed to get the pot (and wort) to cool down -- this could take an hour or two.  

Once the wort got below 100 degrees (Fahrenheit), we would put it in a brew bucket and mix in enough water bring the contents up to five gallons.  This would crash the temp down to under 75 degrees so we could pitch yeast.  We brewed a few batches this way and it just took forever to get the beer settled into primary fermentation.

After we had been brewing for about a year, a friend gave us a wort chiller for Christmas.  I was familiar with the concept of a wort chiller, but did not appreciate how much of a difference they make.  Also, the first time we went to use it, I discovered that we had the wrong type of faucet in our kitchen sink and had to find an adapters so that we could use the wort chiller.  

We got that sorted out and then made beer.  It turned out that both the concept of wort chiller and its operation are pretty simple.  You push cold water from a faucet to a drain via copper tubing that is coiled up and sitting in your wort.  The cold waters draws heat out of the wort and sends it down the drain.  The part of this process that I was missing was how quickly it works.  The wort chiller cooled down our wort from a boil to under 100 degrees in minutes.

Such a simple thing, but it made all the difference in the world with our brewing process.

This is an all grain IPA that I made recently.  It has Magnum hops for bittering, Mosaic for Aroma and dry-hopped with Equinox.  I brewed this for the first time in March.  Hops combination was great.  Planning on brewing this again in the next couple of weeks to make sure that I can replicate it.  

Rumbled Finch -- American IPA (14 B)
Est Original Gravity: 1.062 SG.  Est Final Gravity: 1.018 SG.  Est Alcohol by Vol: 5.8 %
Bitterness: 70.8 IBUs  Est Color: 10.2 SRM
Sparge Water: 3.39 gal  Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal.  Boil Size: 5.70 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 5.20 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 5.00 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Efficiency: 72.00 %.  Est Mash Efficiency: 72.0 %

Ingredients
Amt       Name                                                          # %              IBU
11 lbs      Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            91.7 %
 1 lbs      Crystal 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2                8.3 %
1.00 oz   Magnum [15.50 %] - Boil 60 min                             51.1 IBUs
0.50 oz   Magnum [15.50 %] - Boil 20 min                            15.5 IBUs
0.25 tsp  Irish Moss - Boil 10 mins
0.50 oz   Mosaic [11.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min                                4.2 IBUs
2.0 pkg   American Ale II / Wyeast #1272
2.00 oz   Equinox [13.60 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days                   0.0 IBUs

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.6 %
Calories: 199.7 kcal/12oz
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs
Mash PH: 5.20
Mash In Add 3.75gal of water at 168.2 F, Step Temp 156.0 F, Step Time 45 min
Sparge: Fly sparge with 3.50gal of 168.0 F water

Two weeks primary fermentation.  Dry-Hop with Equinox in the secondary for 1 to 2 weeks, then bottle.  

Also notable is that I tend to bottle beers because it makes it easier to give beer away.  Could probably keg this, but I have yet to try that.

Acknowledgements:

This Recipe created with BeerSmith2 software 

Creation of this beer inspired by the finch photo, which I found on grumpymagz.net 

When I wrote that in October 2008, I thought that I was downgrading my cable forever.  After I spoke with Comcast in 2008, I connected a computer to our TV and set it up so that we could watch shows online via Hulu and Netflix.  Both of these services were just getting started with their on-demand offerings.  

It turned out that the biggest issue with the downgraded cable tv concept was that we like to watch sports.  While the New England Patriots still show their games on broadcast television, the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Bruins games are mostly on NESN and that is only available on cable television.  Ultimately it was this lack of sports programing that drove me back to a full Comcast television package.  

We lasted just over two years with the downgraded cable tv package.  Then, in the winter of 2010/2011, we acquired a large flat screen television, called up Comcast, expanded our channel options and then proceeded to watch all of the games leading up to the Boston Bruins wining the Stanley Cup. By that point the baseball season had begun and I started watching Red Sox games again.  From there we just ended up keeping the full Comcast package...until last week, when I had the downgrade conversation with Comcast, again.  

The call was much easier this time and I only had to talk to one "retention specialist" to downgrade my television package.  The funny thing is that when I spoke to Comcast back in 2008, the conversation resulted in a savings of about $50/mo.  This time, the savings is closer to $130/mo (hello inflation).  Mind you, that is not exactly going back into my pocket.  I now have a Roku3 and an Apple TV, along with subscriptions to multiple content services, including:  Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Now, Amazon Prime, MLBtv and Sling TV.  Of these services, I have added MLBtv, HBO Now and Sling TV in the last week.

It depresses me that MLBtv will still only allow me to watch out-of-market games, but as I am an avid fan of fantasy baseball I do not mind watching non-Red Sox teams play the game.  Also, Sling TV has ESPN and ESPN2, so I get to watch the occasional Red Sox game via that service. 

At the end of the day, I prefer to support the companies that are working on innovation.  I am definitely still spending money for content each month, but I am no longer giving the majority of it to Comcast.  

When my wife and I first started brewing back 2002, we made Red Ale a few time via True Brew extract kits.  The beer was good enough at the time, but as we moved past working with kits and into all-grain we just did not get back to brewing another red ale.

I have looked at plenty of recipes online and created a few myself in the BeerSmith2 software, but we never seem to get down to making the beer.  (I only brewed one batch of beer last year, which is just sad.)  Along the way, I put together this red ale recipe that I called Irish Plover, but until now I never actually made the beer.  

I brewed this Irish Plover in the beginning of March 2015.  This is an all-grain homebrew recipe with Fuggles and Simcoe hops.  I was initially going to use Maris Otter for the base malt, but ended up going with US 2-Row.  As I am a bit rusty at brewing, I missed my original gravity (OG) target of 1.050. Mash efficiency target was 84.8%, but I only achieved 72.2%.  Issue was that I did not prep enough sparge water to wash the grains and that ended up costing me.  I had the same issue a year ago with my Fat Robin Barleywine.  When I this, I ended up adding about a pound of DME which brought the OG up to 1.057.  (Probably could have added a bit less DME...maybe about a half pound.)  

This beer had a very quick fermentation.  When I racked it to secondary in mid-March after only two weeks in primary.  The gravity was down to 1.016 so I waited a day for the solids to settle down a little and then bottled it.

Irish Plover -- Irish Red Ale (9 D)
Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.66 gal
Boil Time: 75 min
End of Boil Vol: 5.98 gal Final Bottling Vol: 4.60 gal Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Equipment: Pot and Cooler ( 10 Gal Mash Tun, 7 Gal Pot) - All Grain 
Efficiency: 72.20 %    Est Mash Efficiency: 84.8 % 

Amt      Name                                                Grain %               IBU 
7.5 lbs  Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)        73.2 %
1 lbs      Munich I -- 5-7L (6.0 SRM)                  9.8 %
4 oz     Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)                          2.4 %
4 oz     Roasted Barley (525.0 SRM)                 2.4 %
2 oz     Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)                 1.2 %
2 oz     Munich II -- 10L (10.0 SRM)                   1.2 %
1 lbs     DME Amber (Briess) (10.5 SRM)           9.8 % 
1 oz    Fuggles [4.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min                               14.8 IBUs
1/4 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)
1 oz     Simcoe [13.80 %] - Boil 5.0 min                                  8.3 IBUs 
2 pkg  American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml]

Est Original Gravity: 1.050 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 % Bitterness: 23.1 IBUs
Est Color: 17.5 SRM

Sparge Water: 5.12 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F

Measured Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.2 % Calories: 190.9 kcal/12oz

Total Grain Weight: 10 lbs 4.0 oz
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F    Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20  (Assumed by Software, not measured)

Mash Steps

Mash In

Add 11.56 qt of water at 165.9 F

154.0 F

45 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 5.12 gal water at 168.0 F
Created with BeerSmith 2

What follows here is my recipe for Fat Robin Barleywine.  This is my first barleywine and my first all-grain recipe that I designed from scratch using the Beer Smith 2 software.  I brewed this on January 19, 2014.  In late February 2014, I bottled this into some beautiful used 25oz swing-top bottles that I got used from Northampton Beer & Winemaking on King Street in Northampton, MA.  I also had labels made for this at Grogtag just because I liked that such a thing was possible.

This recipe includes 11.5oz of light DME because I was new to the concept of fly sparging and missed my target OG, so I  had to bring it up.  Also, I made a 1,000mL starter, with one vial of Bourbon Yeast (White Labs #WLP070), but would probably use two vials in the future or step up the one vial into a larger starter before using it.  

When I bottled this, it took a few month to carbonate properly.  I am assuming that this has something to do with the WLP070 Bourbon yeast.  Happily I bottled a couple of 12oz test bottle to check it along the way, so I did not have to waste too much of it.  

This barleywine had a great taste.  The WLP070 Bourbon Yeast adds a very distinctive smoked-malt taste that is hard to nail down.  I am down to my last 3 bottles and need to make another batch soon.     

Fat Robin Barleywine (v1.0)
English Barleywine (19 B)
Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Final Bottling Vol: 4.59 gal
Equipment: (10 gallon mash tun, 7 Gal pot) 
Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 87.4 % Taste Rating: 30.0

       Amt         Name                                                Grain %             IBUs

• 10 lbs     Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)     55.6 %
• 4 lbs      Pale Malt (2 Row) US (1.7 SRM)       22.3 %
• 2 lbs      Vienna Malt (4.0 SRM)                       11.1 %
• 1 lbs       Honey (1.0 SRM)                                 5.6 %
• 11.5 oz    Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)             4.0 %
• 4.0 oz    Roasted Barley (525.0 SRM)             1.4 %
• 1.00 oz   Citra Leaf [12.00 %] - Boil 45.0 min                    25.1 IBUs
• 1.00 oz   Willamette Pellet [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min            6.8 IBUs
• 2.00 oz  Citra Leaf [12.00 %] - (flameout)                          0.0 IBUs
• 1.00 tsp  Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)
• 1 pkg      Bourbon Yeast (White Labs #WLP070)

Est Original Gravity: 1.100 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.024 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.1 %
Bitterness: 31.9 IBUs  -- Est Color: 15.5 SRM
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Sparge Water: 4.24 gal -- Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Measured OG: 1.080 -- SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 8.5 % Calories: 274.0 kcal/12oz
Total Grain Weight: 17 lbs 15.5 oz -- Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20  (Estimated by software, I did not take a live reading)
Mash Steps

• Mash In
• Add 23.51 qt of water at 166.6 F
• 156.0 F -- 45 min
• Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.24 gal water at 168.0 F
• Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains
  (about 95% of the time).

Carbonation Used: Bottled with 4.00 oz Corn Sugar
Storage Temperature: 65.0 F

Notes

• 1.052 Gravity after Mash, before boil or honey add.

Yesterday, my wife and I were in the Weymouth area and decided to stop in to see what the Homebrew Emporium had to offer.  The shop is in kind of an odd location, consisting of a warehouse located in a predominantly residential neighborhood.  The warehouse itself is located right along the commuter rail tracks for the MBTA's Kingston Line.

The shop was far bigger than I expected it to be.  They had a great selection of equipment and a fantastic grain room.  They also had a diverse selection of bottles, including growlers that you can bottle into. Turns out that the shop itself has been open since January 2012. 

We went in to the shop just to see what they offered, not intending to purchase much, but ended up picking up a few items.  I mentioned that I would like to brew a partial-grain red ale and the folks working gave me a copy of their recipe for Paddy's Irish Red Ale.  We picked up the grains for the recipe and milled them, found the right hops, found some Wyeast Irish Ale liquid yeast, got some Irish Moss and two cans of golden light malt extract.  We also purchase a Banjo Cooker and a new Big Daddy Dial Thermometer.

I intend to go back to the Homebrew Emporium in Weymouth, MA in the near future and when I do I will be bringing a shopping list with me.

• 1 pound Briess Caramel 120L malt
• 12 ounces Briess Organic Roasted Barley malt
• 8 ounces Briess Organic Chocolate malt
• 1 pound Flaked Oats
• 5 pounds Northern Brewer Dark Malt Syrup
• 1.25 ounces UK Kent Goldings Hop Pellets
• 1 pound Lactose
• 1 teaspoon Irish Moss
• Wyeast 1318 London Ale III yeast

1. Mill the malted barley (I am buying it milled.)
2. Add the flaked oats to the malted barley and place the mixture into grain bag.
3. Steep the filled grain bag in 2 gallons of  150° F hot water for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the filled grain bag from the water
5. Add the Dark Malt Syrup
6. Bring to a boil
7. Add the Kent Goldings hops.  Return to boil.  Mixture will foam up.  Add and remove from heating until mixture stops foaming over.
8. After foaming stops, boil for 35 minutes
9. Add the lactose and Irish Moss.
10. Boil for 15 minutes
11. Remove from heat and place in an ice bath to cool. 
12. Decant into fermenter.
13. Cool to below 85° F. (A wort chiller is helpful here.)
14. Move the unfermented beer (wort) into your bew bucket and add 3+ gallons of cold water until the mixture of wort and water equals 5 gallons total.
15. Add yeast.
16. Wait 10 minutes and then give the top of the mixture a quick stir.
17. Seal brew bucket, add airlock and leave in 75 ° F area.
18. Wait three weeks and then move to second fermentation in different brew bucket.
19. Seal brew bucket and add airlock and leave in 75 ° F area.
20. Wait two weeks and then move to bottling bucket.
21. Add priming sugar and bottle.
22. Wait at least 3 weeks before drinking

• Mischel's Greenhouses, Ltd. catalog request
• Thompson & Morgan
• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog request
• Jackson and Perkins catalog request

Here is a list of my first round of seed catalogs.

(My second replacement iPod Nano arrived a few days later.  It was also a 6th generation, 8GB Nano.)

I started digging through the house and managed to unearth both Nanos.  My nano was the black 4GB model and my wife's was the white 2GB one.  I recharged the two units and then tried them out to see if they still worked.  iTunes could see the black one when I plugged it in, but the white one failed to load and remained non-responsive.  Not real sure why the white one would not load, but as there is a recall on the early Nanos it is possible that the problem is tied to the same battery issue that prompted the recall.

The first generation Nano looks like this:

Next, I went to the Apple iPod nano (1st generation) Replacement Program website and checked our Nano serial numbers (written on the Nano's shniy metal back in an impossibly small font) to see if these two units were eligible for the recall.  Happily I found that both Nanos were eligible and I put in my recall requests.

Apple sent me two emails with links that I could go to to see my Repair Status (well, recall status.) About a week later, I received two Fedex prepaid boxes to ship the Nanos back to Apple.  I peeled the outer shipping label off of each box and found my return receipt on the back of the label.  I carefully packaged up each of my Nanos into the foam cradle provided and dropped them off at a Fedex location for return shipping.  

I have been watching the repair status page for about a month and as of a couple of days ago, Apple reported that they had shipped a replacement for the black 4GB Nano.  Over the last couple of weeks, I have seen a couple of Nano articles on MacRumors talking about just what model the replacement unit will actually be.  Initially I was just expecting to get another first generation Nano, now I am not sure and looking forward to the possiblities of something newer.

The white 2GB Nano repair status is still listed as pending.

-----

Update: My first replacement Nano has arrived!

My friend listed off the different seed and plant catalogs that he receives and I took notes.  Later I looked them up to see who still mails out print catalogs in the United States.  This is what I found and signed up for:

• Burpee catalog request
• White Flower Farm catalog request
• Select Seeds catalog request (2012 catalogs list is closed)
• Blue Stone Perennials catalog request
• Johnny's Seeds catalog request
• eGardenersPlace catalog request
• Musser Forests catalog request (added to list of 1/23/2012)

eGardenersPlace was a great find.  It is a one-stop-shop for catalog requests.  From this one website, I signed up for catalogs from:

• Jung Quality Seeds
• McClure & Zimmerman
• Roots & Rhizomes
• Edmunds' Roses
• Totally Tomatoes
• R. H. Shumway's
• Vermont Bean and Seed Company (2012 catalogs list closed)

I appreciate that requesting print catalogs is not a "green" thing to do, but for flowers and seeds I just kind of like the catalogs.  I enjoy spending a couple of months slowly narrowing down my selections to the items that will fit into my yard's color scheme.  For the past few years I have tried to do this online, but I find that the experience is not as enjoyable.  I am opting to go back to print catalogs for now, while the option still exists.

1. Embed Tweet

Link to a service (well, javascript) that allows folks to post tweets in a webpage and have them look like this tweets actually do on Twitter:

EmbedTweet

2. What it means to be Irish

Great post from Niall Harbison of SimplyZesty.

What It Means to Be Irish (contains dead link as of March 2015)

 3. Curried Cauliflower

I need to try this curried cauliflower recipe.  She (@summertomato) has posted it a couple of times and I still have not tried cooking it.  

CurriedCauliflower

4. Okkervil River

This is a tweet that lead me to one hell of a good live show when I was in Austin, TX back in April 2011.  Okkervil River is a great band to see live.

Okkervil at Scoots

5. Great Photo of the Moon

I have to agree with the author of this tweet.  It is a great moon photo.

Moon Photo  (contains dead link as of March 2015)

6. Data Visulization via BackBlaze

Good visual on 10 Petabytes of space and what it compares to

10 Petabytes Visualized

I went to the Apple website to start looking into the newer models (I eventually decided to acquire a MacBook Air) and came across information on the Apple Recycling Program.  I wandered through the recycling wizard offered on the webpage and gave Apple the information about my iMac.  At the end of the wizard, the recycling program offered me a trade in value of a $132 via an Apple Store gift card.  I decided to accept the offer and provided my mailing address.  The Apple Recycling Program then passed me along to the PowerON company so that they could handle the process of acquiring my recycled computer.

The folks at PowerON sent me an email with a link to a custom webpage with the status of my order and then on June 7, 2011 they sent me a large, postage-paid box to ship them the iMac desktop.  The box contain a form-fit foam cushion, instructions for packing up the iMac and shipping instructions.  I dragged my heels for a couple of weeks, before packaging up the iMac and shipping it back to them on June 25, 2011 via a FedEx home drop-off counter at my local OfficeMax store.

Next came the part that I normally despise when it comes to “rebate” programs, the waiting.  During the waiting I experience a situation where an extraordinary period of time goes by, then I have to follow up with the rebate company and eventually figure out that there is some issue that results in my either never receiving the rebate or having to start the process over from scratch. 

This was NOT the case with PowerON.

PowerON had provided me with access to a status page, so I could follow along with the iMac's progress.  I could see that they received the iMac on July 1, 2011 (about a week after I sent it.)  PowerON then processed the iMac, audited it over the course of the next five days and then issued my rebate on July 7, 2011.  The iMac had to travel all the way across the US to get from my house in Massachusetts to the PowerON facility in Roseville, CA and still only 12 days elapsed before they had the rebate gift card in the mail to me.  When I got my new MacBook Air, I was able to use the gift card to acquire a nice protective case for the Air and a copy of VMWare Fusion 3.

PowerON far exceeded my expectations.  These folks did a fantastic job with the fulfillment of my order.  As a whole, I was very impressed with Apple Recycling Program and would recommend it to others looking to shed an older Mac.

A few years later, I had a DSL line and was starting to entertain the concept of upgrading to a broadband cable modem.  At about the same time iTunes came along offering to manage my existing audio files and shortly there after they added a store filled with download-able musical selections.  iTunes did not have all of the artists and titles out there, but they did have decent quality audio files.  I happily welcomed iTunes into my home.

As time went on, I found out that what iTunes lacked (and continues to lack) is good way to introduce me to new artists.  For help with new artists, I turned to Pandora.  About three years ago, I started out with their free service and then moved on to the Pandora One premium service and its $36/year cost (this is money well spent.)  These folks offer a good quality, portable product that allows me to listen to music via computer at work or home and on my iPhone while mobile.  I think so much of this service that I have, on occasion, gifted Pandora One to friends.  Pandora has helped expose me a number of artists that I might not have enjoyed otherwise, examples include: The Hold Steady, The Blakes, and Okkervil River.

Pandora has lead me to many purchases on iTunes.  I have ended up with some albums that I like and some that I did not like.  This is because Pandora’s greatest strength is also a weakness.  Pandora delivers plays random music basic on a initial music choice.  As Pandora delivers tracks, I can vote them thumbs up or down and Pandora then uses this information to make selections as to other tracks that I might enjoy.

Along the way Pandora has found tracks that I do enjoy, but on Pandora there is no real capacity to play more songs from the same album.  I can go to iTunes and preview the first 30 seconds or so (I think they recently upped this to a minute) of each track on an album, but this is really no way to listen to music and make a determination.  The only option has been to just buy the album and this does not always work out.

Recently I heard about a new service called Spotify and my initial reaction was a bit negative.  Why would I need that? I have iTunes and I have Pandora.  (Being a fan of all things technology, I still requested an invite.)

The Spotify invite arrive about 10 days ago.  I downloaded the iPhone app and activated my account via the invite.  Upon activating my account, I found that I could not download songs from Spotify to my iPhone app without signing up for one of their premium level accounts and giving them $5 or $10 a month.  I am not opposed to spending the money for a decent service, but fearing another Hulu Plus type beta experience, I chose not to use their service.

A few days later, I found out that my initial fears were unfounded.  Having heard so many positive things about Spotify, I decided to go back and take another look.  I downloaded their Windows client and spent a day listening to Spotify.  I was very impressed by what I found.  Spotify has a seriously impressive music selection consisting of multiple albums, if not entire catalogs, of just about every artists that I could think of.  They also have a social component that allows a person to see what there friends are listening to on Spotifiy.

Spotify is definitely the service that I have been looking for to round out my digital music needs. I have suggested to quite a few folks that they request a Spotify invite of their own.  I will continue to subscribe and listen to music on Pandora, but now I also have the ability to listen to more of a chosen artist’s work and reach out to iTunes to purchase individual albums on a less frequent basis.

During this time I have personally had many Windows-based computers as my primary home computer.  With the exception of my first PC (which was a used Digital Equipment Corp. 386sx16,) I have built all of these computers by purchasing the various components, assembling them together and then installing Windows.  Along the way I have had a variety of name brand, second-hand computers performing a variety of other household tasks but I never got myself a brand-new computer, until today. 

Today I went to the Apple store and came home with a 13" MacBook Air with a Core i5 processor and OS X Lion.  This is definitely not the first Mac that I have had, but it is the first new one and the first time that I my primary home computer has not been Windows-based. 

Now I just need to learn how to use it.

I used TweetLouder to scan my Pandora station.  Here are some of the artists the service found on Twitter:

Arcade Fire   @arcadefire
Arctic Monkeys   @ArcticMonkeys
Blues Traveler   @blues_traveler
Cary Brothers   @carybrothers
Counting Crows   @countingcrows
Echo & the Bunnymen   @OfficialEATB
G. Love   @glove
Gorillaz   @gorillazband
Jack Penate   @JackPenate
Matisyahu   @matisyahu
Morrissey   @itsmorrissey
Oasis   @oasis
PIXIES   @PIXIES
Radiohead   @radiohead
Rufus Wainwright   @rufuswainwright
The Airborne Toxic Event   @Airborne_Toxic
The Beautiful Girls   @TBGmusic
The Format   @theformat
The Hold Steady   @theholdsteady
The Walkmen   @TheWalkmen
Wyclef Jean   @wyclef

TweetLouder also allows you to search for individual bands on a one-by-one basis.  I looked up Buffalo Tom, which I know to be @buffalotomband, but did not find them listed.  I then looked up Okkervil River (@OkkervilRiver) and TweetLouder found them instantly.

End result is that SonicLiving is provide a nice, free service that I am happy to have found.

If you are a small business (doing anything but retail) with a iPhone, iPad or Android device you should have a Square account. When it comes time to collect on accounts it is far easier to do so when you can offer to take payment via a credit card.  The Square account will give you the ability to do this.

The Square account will allow you to accept credit card payments for a small fee of 2.75% per transaction with with no fixed cost.  This means that if you take only a handful of credit card payments a year, the only time that you will pay Square is when the 2.75% fee is applied to that payment that you are receving. 

Accepting credit cards via a traditional merchant account means an additional fixed month cost, plus equipment costs AND a transaction fee.  With Square, you only pay a transaction fee when you have a transaction.  With Square, the monthly costs and equipment costs are gone.  Only the transaction fee remains.

Once you sign up for an account, Square will send you a small card reader that plugs into the headphone jack of you mobile device.  To accept a credit card payment you just plug the reader into your mobile device, launch the Square application, swipe the credit card, type in the amount, and let the payer sign (with their finger on the touch screen.)  Square will even email the payer a receipt.