As everyone knows, Apple announced its foray into the magical, convoluted world of mobile communications devices on Tuesday during the MacWorld Expo Keynote speech.

Jason Kottke has a great round-up of iPhone observations, including commentary on the lack of tacticle feedback the iPhone will provide. It’s a great point, in my opinion, and something that should be addressed. My thinking is, however, that because the on screen keyboard will always be in the same place, we can expect our hands’ muscle memory to adapt to the lack of physical feedback. Like Mr. Kottke says, this interface is one that requires weeks, not hours or minutes, of regular usage in order to fully understand its effectiveness.

I look forward to June, but I think that the price may stop me from getting one right away. Here’s to hoping for a widescreen iPod with similar multi-touch technology not long after the release of the iPhone.

I got a new MacBook last week, and it is FAST. From start-up, to login, to opening apps, to using apps, it is blindingly, blisteringly fast. I’m very excited about my new purchase.

It’s a black, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook with 2 GB RAM and 120 GB HDD.

Here is a Flickr set of the unpacking photos.

Unfortunately, there’s an issue with the sound output when external speakers are plugged in. I posted on the discussion boards about my issue, but I don’t seem to have much of a response. I’m going to call Apple when I get back to school over the weekend and see what I can do about a replacement. I have a dead pixel on the screen, too, right out of the box, and that’s just plain old annoying. Other than that, this machine is great! I suppose I’ll have to start looking for a new use / home for my Powerbook G4 now.

See the 2006 Chik-Fil-A Bowl:

Half: 21-3, VT

Final: 24-31, GA

I first heard about TextMate quite some time ago from various Mac-related blogs. I was always intrigued by the fact that it received so much high praise, but I didn’t know if I wanted to spend ~$50 on a text editor.

Then, I started watching the TextMate screencasts that are provided on the website, and I was hooked. How could an application be so thorough? And I thought vim had a lot of keyboard usage.

As I became more and more intrigued by MacHeist, I thought that maybe TextMate would be included in the end-of-event bundle, so I held out from purchasing TextMate. The bundle was announced a few days ago, with some catches, namely that a target of $100,000 raised for charity had to be raised for the license for TextMate to be made available to bundle purchasers. More importantly, I didn’t particularly want any of the other apps in the MacHeist bundle: I have Delicious Library, I use NetNewsWire (and therefore have no interest in NewsFire), and I don’t particularly want or need the functionality of any of the other apps in the bundle. I, of course, read John Gruber’s analysis of the monetary happenings at MacHeist, and was a bit miffed.

I decided that I just wanted TextMate. I downloaded the 30-day trial, watched some more screencasts (including the one on blogging), and I am now writing this blog post in TextMate. I’m going to buy my license after this article is posted.

I was first introduced to The Blood Brothers almost two years ago. A friend from down the hall recommended …Burn Piano Island, Burn, and I instantly loved Johnny Whitney’s tortured screams and the ridiculously over-the-top nature of their music. Synthesizers and electric guitars, go!

I sought out Crimes soon after listening to Burn, and I loved it. It has earned a top ten album spot from me almost immediately. The Brothers’ pop-infused trash-can-bashing ridiculorock is so unqiue in today’s scene, and it stands out like a peacock with crooked feathers.

Young Machetes opens up with a murderously catchy hook, and then sets off a wall of noise that floods your ears relentlessly. Morgan Henderson’s heartbeat of a bassline rumbles throughout Set Fire To The Face On Fire, and continues on through the rest of the album. There is plenty of the facemelting hardcore instrumentalism that purists remember from Burn, but the boys have added just the right amount of the very same pop-from-hell that made Crimes that much better. Standout tracks include Spit Shine Your Black Clouds, where poppy synths and choral hooks fail to disguise a sad and disturbing story that spouts from Jordan Blilie’s and Whitney’s lips; Vital Beach, which is possibly heavier than anything from Burn or even the Blood Brothers’ earlier releases; and Street Wars / Exotic Foxholes, a dischordant anthem with an ambient outro that leaves you questioning the past five minutes’ happenings. From the decaying riffs of We Ride Skeletal Lightning to the chillingly truthful outro of Lift The Veil, Kiss The Tank (Death’s just death no matter how you dress it up! Oh oh oh, oh oh oh!); from Whitney’s uncomfortably out-of-place piano / vocal solo in the middle of Camouflage, Camouflage to the raging anti-war / anti-materialistic chorus of Huge Gold AK-47, and finally to the amazingly complex and disturbing closer, The Giant Swan, Machetes delivers what any red blooded Brother could expect from a new album.

Rating: 4.5/5

Last.fm developer Russ posted a neat image on his journal. This kind of visualization is so cool to look at, and reveals a lot about the service. It’s a 24 hour look at scrobbles from around the world. Great stuff, Russ.

I love the new UI of iTunes 7.0.

The new features can be found all over the internet, but I read most of the details at The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

One of the features that I noticed today is that the iTunes Store now provides three simultaneous downloads. Along with creating a Currently Downloading playlist in your Source List on the left side of the window, three items can be downloaded concurrently. It’s the little things, Apple.

UPDATE: Pandora has been redesigned and no longer offers an explicit mini player, so this bookmarklet no longer works as intended.

Continuing in the spirit of all things Pandora-related, I decided to make a Pandora mini-player pop-up bookmarklet in between classes today.

I just wrote a little Javascript function to open a window, wrapped it in a function, and threw it into a bookmark. There’s one little annoyance, however: the window opens in the background. I have no idea how to make windows open in the foreground, so if anyone knows how to make that happen, I’d be grateful if you could let me know.

Without further ado, I give you the Pandora Mini-Player Bookmarklet. Tested in Firefox 1.5.0.6, Mac OS X 10.4.7.

To use in Firefox:

• Drag the button below up to your Bookmarks Bar at the top of your Firefox window, below the Address Bar.
• Click the new bookmark to enjoy the Pandora Mini-Player at any time!

I just returned from an amazing Q&A; session with Pandora.com founder Tim Westergren. Over the course of an hour and half, Tim told the history of his company and what they are doing today, and answered numerous questions from the audience. The questions varied greatly, from dealing with Pandora’s business model to querying about the technical backend of the Music Genome Project.

The most interesting questions came from people who wanted to know about new features and the future of the service with respect to the end user. The two greatest features that were discussed were a notification system for when bands tour in your area, and feedback to the user on his or her stored tastes, both from listening habits and the thumbs up / thumbs down ratings that the user has given. Pandora already has a band-on-tour monitor, so I’m sure it will not be too hard to move that to a location-based tool. The more exciting feature, in my opinion, is the user feedback from the system itself.

To have feedback on the type of user that Pandora thinks you are, and, more importantly, the ability to tweak this opinion (I’m thinking adjustable sliders of certain prominent music genes, with respect to the interface) would be amazing. Not only would you get to specify bands and songs that you enjoy, but you would be able to easily tell Pandora what exactly it is about that band or song that you like.

In any case, it was a great presentation from Tim, and I gained a lot of insight to what it takes to see a startup company through good times and rough times.

One last thing: Tim mentioned to us that there will be a feature overhaul coming in about two weeks’ time. Be sure to look out for that!

After not posting all summer, I am trying to get some more posts written and posted as soon as possible. I am going to a presentation and Q&A; with Pandora.com founder Tim Westergren tonight; hopefully a post will follow.

I am taking 18 credit hours this semester, but so far I like all my classes, and the workload does not seem like it will become overbearing. More downtime equals more posting time, so be happy. Stay tuned for more posts in the near future…