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Stuff I Choose Not To Live Without

// January 6th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // technology

Zach @ The Outsidr posted his list of products that he simply can’t live without earlier, and as any blogger with nothing to talk about is prone to do, I’m going to carry on his ‘meme’ with my own list. Yes, of course we *could* live without these things, if absolutely necessary, so I’ve renamed my list, ‘Stuff I Choose Not To Live Without.’

First up, frankly, is my phone. Specifically, the Nokia N95-3. Sure, I’ve also got the E71-2, N79 NAM, 5800 XpressMusic, N82, and LG KT610 on my desk right now, but none can really truly replace my tried-and-true pocket companion. The Nokia N95-3 gives me a great camera (both photos and videos), full email access, internet, Jaiku, and of course, phone calls/SMS. It’s like having my laptop in my pocket, and I *could* post to my various blogs from it. I refuse to go anywhere without it.

Next up, obviously, is my Dell XPS M1330. I’m an online journalist/blogger, so obviously my laptop is vital to my livlihood. The XPS M1330 is by no means a top-of-the-line machine, but it’s small(ish), light, and packs plenty of kick to write posts, edit photos and videos, and anything else I need to do.

Last.FM is the first service on this list. While I maintain a rather large collection of MP3s, Last.FM gives me a fresh set of tunes, instantly tailored specifically to ME. I can type in ‘Productivity’ and get great working music, or ‘Relaxing’ and get music to calm me down. I use Mobbler on my N95-3, too, so I can enjoy Last.FM on the go.

Partially to appease James Whatley, I have to add Spinvox to this list. Spinvox takes the voicemails that my family and others leave me, converts them to text, and delivers it as an SMS. I’m bad about screening phone calls, so this lets me instantly and visually determine if I need to call you back today or next week. It’s completely brilliant, and something that gets used nearly every day.

Firefox is another non-hardware item that I simply could not live without. 95% of my workload is done in Firefox, and the other 5% could be, probably, if I wanted. It’s my window to the world, and like my Dell XPS M1330, it’s crucial to my livlihood.

I’ve talked about them before, but my Bose earphones are another thing that I would go nuts without. Oftentimes, I have trouble concentrating on the task at hand, but if I toss these in with Last.FM set to ‘techno’, I can push the rest of the world out of my view and simply focus on writing. They’re wonderful.

That’s it. 6 things that I absolutely choose not to live without. Of course, I have a ton of other fun toys that I would *prefer* not to live without, such as my external monitor, Fujitsu P1610, Nokia N800, and others, but the fact is that they are not absolutely vital in my day-to-date live. What about you?

Last.FM Needs Context

// December 13th, 2008 // No Comments » // annoying

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of Last.FM. I’m a paying subscriber, and there are times when I’ll go 3-4 days in a row of not listening to any of my locally-stored music, in favor of the streaming goodness. However, Last.FM is missing one core ingredient that is really necessary for a solid experience – Context.

You’re wondering, what does context have to do with music? Plenty. First of all, let’s take, for example, Christmas Music. In my belief, it should only be listened to after Thanksgiving lunch, and only until New Years. The rest of the year, Christmas Music is 100% off limits, to preserve its ‘special-ness’. Last.FM doesn’t think so, as the other day, I got a Hootie and the Blowfish Christmas tune in my Counting Crows station.

Moreso, Context becomes uber-important when I want to listen to my ‘Recommended’ tracks, or other personal stations. For instance, since we’re currently in the Holiday season, Christmas Music is OK, and I listened to a Christmas tag station for several hours the other day. The next day, I went to my Recommended station, and got Christmas tunes. This makes sense now, but how is that station going to change in January, when Christmas music is no longer allowed?

Another perfect example of Context is the time of day that I listen to music. As somewhat of an insomniac, I often have trouble sleeping, and use music to give my brain something to focus on, other than the list of things I need to get done. It might be Enya, classical music, or nature sounds. If you checked my Last.FM profile, you’d see these types of music as a dominate trend, because they play overnight, all night long. Why can’t Last.FM realize that I’m playing this stuff at night, when I’m asleep, and remove it from consideration for my Recommended or Personal station?

There are plenty of other situations in which Context would be an important factor for Last.FM (or any similar music service), but it’s simply not factored in.

Last.FM Could Overturn Music Industry

// July 21st, 2008 // 10 Comments » // cool, Social Networks

This is an incredibly deep and broad statement, I know, but I’m nearly 70% convinced that with Last.FM, I could delete my entire music library (currently roughly 11,000+ tracks) and not miss a thing. Seriously. Against my better judgement of installing yet another music player on my computer, I recently downloaded the Last.FM player, a desktop client that accesses your Last.FM profile. You can check out the app yourself here.

There are no less than 10 different ways to access music through this player, all of which are driven by the ‘cloud’, i.e. streaming. The first is artist/tag radio. You simply type in an artist name or a tag, and Last.FM creates a custom station around that information. You can also check out what your friends are currently listening to, or have listened to in the past. There are a few other miscellaneous ‘stations’ based on information. While listening to anything, you can either Love, Ban, or Skip the track. Loving marks it into a special station, Banning removes it from coming back, and Skipping just says ‘meh’, basically.

So why is this so brilliant? Because I’ve been using Last.FM as my only music source for the past 4 days, and not missed a thing. I’ve found songs that I’ve never ever heard before, and I’ve  rediscovered old tracks that I forgot I loved. It’s awesome, and I’ve not missed a single one of the 11k songs that I have stored on my local machine, sucking down my HDD space.

This leaves me to wonder, ‘Why am I storing all this music?’ Of course there are a few misc. tracks and audio clips that I’d save regardless, but if I have a constant data connection on my phone, and my computer is of course always plugged in, the discovery aspect of Last.FM is worth far more than any amount of music. It’s even given me a reason (finally) to not pirate. Yes, that’s right. Because it’s actively feeding me new music, and more importantly, allowing me to choose what I listen to and provide feedback, Last.FM is essentially the near-perfect mixture of the discovery of FM radio and the convenience and personalization of locally stored music.

So, then, why haven’t I hit delete yet? Mainly, due to the lack of portability of this system. Sure, my phone has 3G nearly everywhere I go, but it also has a limited battery life, and serves more important functions than simply music. Also, there are several places where music is key, but connectivity simply isn’t an option. Airplanes, for instance. Subways. Out in the country (hey, I live in Texas) where there isn’t necessarily great cell coverage.

If you have a massive music collection, I would challenge you to try out Last.FM for a week and see if you miss loading up playlists and managing the massive amount of music. See how great it is to hear a song for the absolute first time again. It’s beautiful. And see if you’re tempted to go download a whole discography from your favorite torrent site still.

Last.FM Is Going To Kill The R.I.A.A.

// July 9th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // cool, Social Networks

I could not support this more, and will be signing up for the $5/mo basic subscription at Last.FM this evening. Why? Cause of this article over at TechCrunch. Not sure how I missed this, but Last.FM has setup a way for unsigned artists and bands to get paid when their music plays – by cutting out the middle man. You can read the full rundown here.

So, why is this such a big deal to me? Because I am a music pirate. I use the FM radio, Internet Radio, and other ways to listen to music that I haven’t paid a penny for. I’m also an active participant in the Internet, and I really hate seeing the things that the R.I.A.A. is doing. So, I’ve already stopped purchasing anything that contributes directly to the R.I.A.A., so that they have less resources to operate with, and I hope that you’ve done the same. By now taking part in Last.FM’s program as a music listener, I can continue to enjoy and discover new music while giving the R.I.A.A. the finger at the same time. Brilliant.