Mighty Mouse goes wireless!

Well it’s about time. Last year Apple introduced Mighty Mouse, a 2 button mouse with a scroll wheel, which was a big deal since Apple mice have traditionally been single button based. Unfortunately, they forgot to remove the wires. Until yesterday only a wired version of Mighty Mouse existed, which was nothing short of a tragedy for me and my desk since wires lying around drive me insane. So I held out, and waiting…and waited…and waited… and finally Apple dropped a Bluetooth version of the Mighty Mouse, almost a full year later.

I can’t say it was really worth the wait though. The basic shape of the mouse is exactly the same. There’s no visible divider for the two buttons so it’s more like click and guess which button you pressed. Half the time I click, I end up right-clicking by accident. It’s not like I’m just too used to a single button since I use a mouse with 2 buttons at work every day. It’s that Apple really sucked on the design of this and provide no feedback to the user via touch on what button is being used.

And the scroll “wheel”?! C’mon. It’s a freakin’ ball. It’s way too small and way too sensitive even with the speed of it slowed down as far as it can go in the settings. I love Apple stuff and I’m sure they’ll fix the Mighty Mouse one day, but this is one device where they really didn’t come through.

So yeah, I’m still waiting for a ergonomic Apple keyboard and mouse and I’ll probably be waiting for a looooong time still. If anyone can pull off a stylish ergonomic set, it’d be tem.

Cork’d

Check out Cork'd, a new site for reviewing and organizing your favorite wines. I haven't had time to play with it yet, but anything coming from the work of Dan Cederholm and Dan Benjamin, two of my favorite developers. It's got the oh-so-friendly Web 2.0 look and feel that makes it easy to use. I'm not going to run down the features, but you can take a look at them straight from the horse's mouth at the post on Simplebits located here. I do love the idea of "drinking buddies" so you can see what your friends are drinking and liking (or not liking!).

Pearl Jam 2006 Tour Recordings

Just got an email from the Ten Club saying that the 2006 shows are going to be available for online purchase and download just as in 2003. The new item here is that they're offering the shows in MP3 and FLAC this time around. The sham of it is that they're charging $9.99 for the MP3 shows, but $14.99 for FLAC! What sort of bullshit is that?! I understand that the FLAC files are significantly larger, and will cause more bandwidth charges for downloads, but c'mon… $5 more?! $2 would suffice. Also, the 2003 shows were available immediately after the show, but the 2006 tour is going to be delayed possibly by a day or two after the show takes place once again to supposedly accomodate the FLAC recordings. Annoying, but at least they're finally offering lossless audio quality files rather than just MP3s. I guess it doesn't matter much to me cause I'd be converting the FLACs to 192 kbps MP3s anyways, but it's a nice gesture.

Brothers of a Feather

Before Beth and I went to actually see Chris and Rich Robinson perform at the Fillmore during their acoustic Brothers of a Feather tour, I read a review of an earlier show that started with something like "There are few moments that can be called magical in rock n' roll history" and the writer could not have been more correct. First off, we were seeing a show at the Fillmore in San Francisco, which has musical history written all over it to begin with. When we first got to the venue my first impression was that it really doesn't look like too much from the outside. It's a fairly nondiscreet building standing next to a Post Office (which is where we had to line up for the show). Once inside though, you can see the old, grandiose style furnishings and architecture which adds to that legendary feel.

Up at the top of the stairs the Fillmore hands out apples for free, for you know….eating… or smoking out of. There was also a guy handing out Brothers of a Feather pins that Beth managed to somehow miss. Damnit woman. We had gotten there early to try and get one of the very limited seats that Beth's brothers had mentioned the place had, but when we walked into the main floor area we were greeted with a large selection of 8 person tables covered in black tableclothes to choose from. We made our way up to the front since we were some of the first people in and found some great seats probably 50 feet back from the stage if not closer. The great spot would later be ruined by a 300 lb. man who would sit directly in front of Beth approximately 30 seconds before the show started. I then grabbed some posters (I think only 400 were made for the entire tour), some t-shirts and drinks for us and got back to the table.

The show was weird in how security was handled. There were tons of signs telling people to shut off their cell phones at the request of the artist. So during the show there'd be people smoking up right next to me, but security would come flying by to nearly kick out some chick who pulled out her cell phone with the tell-tale blue light shining. Pretty funny. So, on the show…

Good Friday Chris and Rich came out on stage with 2 guitars by each of them, a table with some water and beers between them, and a coatrack in the back. After each taking a seat, Chris pulled out a harmonica and they started into Good Friday. They're so creative. It was Friday. Cool song and it was ironic that Chris' voice cracked during the word "awkward."

Horsehead I've always loved this riff and thought it was one of the better tunes from By Your Side. It sounds especially cool with Rich playing it on the electric with no bass or drums. The lack of the backing vocals also lets Chris have a bigger part in the chorus.

Girl from the North Country This was in my top 3 songs of the night. Absolutely killer version of a gorgeous Bob Dylan song with Chris and Rich trading vocals. Chris went nuts on the last chorus, blowing the version from New York out of the water.

Wyoming and Me Beautiful song that the brothers brought back for this tour. Unfortunately on the (yet) unreleased The Band album that lets Chris shine.

Under a Mountain Pretty much the same as the Storytellers version, but still neat to hear this mainly electric song played on the acoustic.

Long Black Veil Chris picked up a guitar for this and sung it perfectly with killer backing vocals from Rich. Dave Matthews, please take a seat, cause this is how the song is supposed to be played.

Leave it Alone Rich takes lead vocals here on a song from his solo album. Thankfully, it's my favorite one. I'm getting into more and more, but this is still probably the best song on it. It's nice to hear Chris doing the backup parts on this and hopefully it will find its way to the full band shows.

Train Robbers Another of my top 3 of the night here since it's one of my favorites from Chris' solo albums. Really great to hear them pull out material from their solo albums.

Soul Singing I think Beth mentioned this was her favorite from the night. Chris literally looked ready to jump out of his seat during parts of this. You could just tell how much he loves this song. It's simple and the 10 minute jam adds a lot during the full band versions, but this quick version was full of energy.

Magic Rooster Blues This was a new song which we both really liked. It was more up-tempo than the others I've heard and both Chris and Rich seemed to enjoy playing it. Wish I remembered it more, but I need to go find an mp3 of this somewhere.

How Much For Your Wings? This is a song that I honestly never got into and actually skip over once in a while, but wow… it was one of the highlights tonight. The harmonies between Chris and Rich sounded dead on and Rich playing this by himself on the 12 string added a whole dimension to it. Absolutely perfect.

Beware of Darkness A George Harrison cover that Chris picked out. It sounded great and we both really loved the lyrics to this one. I'll have to look it up eventually, but it was a really cool cover choice.

Darling of the Underground Press Love the riffs on this one. It doesn't get much play on the full band tours, but either Chris or Rich must really like it cause it's been playing fairly regularly on this tour. Probably Rich cause it sounds like a fun song to play. So the story goes that you sold your soul for delusions of beauty and courage.

Cut from the Shadow The second new song of the night, but this one was more subdued and musical based than lyrically. Almost seemed like more a jam between the two from what I remember.

You're a Big Girl Now I honestly have no recollection of this song being played and it surprised me to read it on the setlist. Oh well. Sorry.

Nonfiction Very Storytellers-esque as well, but it works well as an acoustic song.

She Talks to Angels Of course, the ultimate acoustic song in their catalog. This seemed to be very long and it looks like both of them really enjoy playing it. I can't blame them since although it's overplayed and one of the few songs casual fans know, it's a beautiful song about a bunch of different girls. (According to Chris). They closed the set with this one.

Let It Be Gone Rich sang the vocals on this and although I never heard the song before I was singing along by the end. Really catchy, fun tune.

You Don't Miss Your Water I know Beth really loved this cover from the Chicago show last Fall and before the show started I had mentioned they'd be playing it at a few shows already this tour, so I know she was excited to hear it again. It's a very cool song and a great way to end the show. I was pleasantly surprised with this as the show closer.

It really was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I hate to call it my favorite since it was just an acoustic show, but it was such a unique atmosphere and setting that I'll never forget it. I think we both had huge, stupid smiles on our faces the entire show. I know I had to go the bathroom real bad, but I didn't bother getting up for anything because I was so enveloped in the show. It was worth every penny of the trip out there and I would totally do it again if I could.

Will Hoge at Park West

Last night myself, Beth and her friend made it to the Will Hoge show at Park West, which is an awesome little venue in Lincoln Park. We'd seen him there last summer to a somewhat disappointing crowd, but you could tell that he's doing something right since the place was definitely more crowded this time around. I've seen Mr. Hoge a number of times now and I think this may have been his best show yet. He really is one of the best entertainers I've seen in the music business with how he's always running around stage, falling over backwards singing or just stepping away from the microphone and belting out the song as loud as he can.

I don't have a copy of the full setlist right now, but I'll try to run over the highlights. The show started out with The Man Who Killed Love and Will just stepping up to the mic singing the chorus acapella followed by the entire band launching into the song. Very nice opener.

Somewhere along the way he brought out two gospel singers to help with some background vocals. There's something about gospel singers making classic rock n' roll sound magical. (See the Rolling Stones or The Black Crowes since it seems to work well for them.) I like it, Beth "loves it." He used the singers for a lot of the new album tunes which is expected since they're on the album, but also left them out there for a lot of others like Sweet Magdeline, King of Grey, and Someone Else's Baby. I don't think I've ever heard him play King of Grey before and the only two times I've seen him play Someone Else's Baby have been the last 2 at Park West. Both songs were great, but were unfortunately ruined by a fairly talkative crowd during the quiet parts.

Even if they talked through those songs I think most people paid attention to Woman Be Strong. I don't know why, but I feel like Will does a killer job of capturing the crowd's attention for this song, or at least mine. You can tell he puts every ounce of soul into singing this one. Although he didn't do it last night I can still picture him at the House of Blues last year flopping around and lying on stage singing. I missed half the song buying drinks, but Beth bought me this sweet that just says "Woman Be Strong."

Rock and Roll Star has been noticeably absent the last few shows I saw, but it was played last night and I'm not sure how he could leave that out of any set. It's easily one of his best songs. I love the whole tongue-in-cheek writing on that one. "Who cares if Mick Jagger was even in the Rolling Stones… besides, he didn't even get that far."

Lover Tonight was played to close the set and although I think it's a great song I think I'd prefer to hear Carousel if Will is going to sing a song with just himself and the keys. I did like how he finished by walking off the stage singing without a mic, eventually disappearing behind the curtain followed by his keyboardist walking off.

At this point it was about 5 to 11 and since it was an all-ages show it had to be over by 11 so that left time for about one more song. When they came back on for the encore Will had all the performers (there were 2 opening bands) come out for the finale. Then they proceeded to rock out a killer version of Rockin' In The Free World with the vocal parts alternating between some of the other singers and Will. I'd never seen or heard of him playing this so it was a total surprise. I loved it.

He's still one of the hardest working musicians in the business and really deserves more attention that he gets. I'm slowly turning people into fans, but I would suggest downloading some of his music if you can. Actually, you can download his entire new album for free at www.purevolume.com/WILLHOGE through the 24th I think. Check it out.

Here's an update with the final setlist:

1. The Man Who Killed Love
2. Secondhand Heart
3. Let Me Be Lonely
4. Pocket Full of Change
5. Love From a Scar
6. Somone Else's Baby
7. Sweet Magdeline
8. Woman Be Strong
9. Rock and Roll Star
10. Better off Now
11. King of Grey
12. Wait 'Til Your Daddy Gets Home
13. All Night Long
14. July Moon
15. Long Tall Sally
16. Lover Tonight
17. Rockin' In The Free World

Google Calendar

Google released their latest public beta today, creatively called Google Calendar. That’s where the boring part of it stops though. Google Calendar is one of the best Web 2.0 apps that I’ve seen anywhere because of its flexibility. You can create as many calendars as you’d like to cover everything from baseball games to summer plans. Here’s a quick rundown of the features I’ve come across:

Calendar Sharing: Say you create a calendar. Great. You can keep track of your life now hopefully, but what if you want to share it with someone? When you create a calendar you can specify certain Google users that will have access to your calendar. You can even give Person A permission to change your calendar and Person B only permission to read the calendar. If you really want you can also make your calendar public so anyone could read it. I’m not sure if I’d feel like comfortable with that, but being able to share calendars with certain people is awesome. I’ve already got a bunch of calendars going, like a Family Events one where I’ve given my mom, dad and sister all permission to view and change my calendar

Guest Invitations: This goes along with the calendar sharing to a certain degree. When I create an event on a calendar I can create a guest list to go along with it. If you include a person on the invitation list Google will send them an email notifiying them of the invitation and add it to their own calendar if they have one. This way you don’t need to share the calendar with them, but you can still share individual events with people. This works out great for me because of all the concerts I go to. It’s hard for me to remember who I told and didn’t tell, but this way I could easily notify everyone each time I add a new show to my calendar. You can even allow people that you’ve invited to send invitations to other people.

Add-In Calendars: Google Calendar also has the ability to make use calendars that have been previously created in various formats. You can easily add a holiday calendar for a variety of nations, and I suspect you could also add any iCal or XML formatted calendar which already exists. There are many of these that exist for TV shows or sporting events, so you essentially subscribe to that calendar and it’s automatically updated within your account. I haven’t verified that, but it sounds like from what I read that you’re able to.

Event Reminders: This isn’t really groundbreaking, but more of a standard among calendar applications, but it’s essential anyway. You can set reminders for events in any way that you want. The default is while you have Calendar open, but you can also have email notifications sent or even have text messages sent your phone. I find the latter extremely useful for birthdays because I can never keep track of those.

So there aren’t many problems, but I guess I’m picky and manage to find things that I dislike pretty quickly, so here’s a few:

iCal Sync: I use Apple’s iCal application to do my calendaring becasue it’s quicker than opening up a browser and going to Google’s site. You can subscribe to a Google calendar in iCal and view the contents or you could view an iCal calendar in Google, but you can’t edit them. I can’t make a change in iCal because the calendar is considered read-only. I’d love to see this changed to where I could edit the calendar in both places. iCal mainly, or in Google when I’m away from the Mac.

Safari Support: The fact that Safari is not a supported browser is kind of stunning. They managed to support Firefox and family (I’m currently using Camino to view my Google Calendar) and the bastardly Internet Explorer, but not Safari? What a kick in the junk! I’ve heard it doesn’t work in Opera either. It’s hard to believe they’d alienate that audience. I guess it’s not terrible since I’ve been toying with switching to Camino as my main browser lately and this makes the switch a little easier for me.

Overall, Google Calendar is a great application with a lot of potential. It will definitely make my life easier. If anyone signs up, let me know. I know everyone is graduating soon and you’ll be losing that @youruniversity.edu address, so make sure you sign up for a Gmail (Google) account sometime soon.

Below are some screenshots of a few features so you can take a look for yourself. They are of the main window, editing an event, quickly adding an event, and the calendars section.

So give it a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

del.icio.us

I’ve recently become fairly obsessed with del.icio.us in the last few weeks. I know it’s been around for a while now, so I’m way late to jump on the bandwagon, but it’s just so well done I had to share.

So what the hell is it? It plays on the whole social networking craze of the last few years on the internet, but does so with your bookmarks. I’ve always been terrible at organizing mine. I’ll bookmark a site, not bother naming it or putting it in a folder, and then when I actually need it, I have a hell of a time finding it.

Delicious alleviates this by letting you bookmark a site by adding tags to bookmarks. So say for instance I saved gap.com in my Delicious account. I would add tags like clothes, fashion, shopping to it. Now, I can go into my delicious account and find Gap.com under any of those tags. They’re sort of like the equivalent of folders, but an item isn’t constrained to one folder. Best of all, when you save a site, Delicious will suggest tags for you that other users have used for the same site, so when I have a brain fart, I can just click on keywords that other users have tagged the site with.

The nicest part of Delicious is that it’s web based. It’s accessible from anywhere, not just your browser on one computer. You can always log into your account from anywhere to get to a bookmark. Obviously, this is an extra step that well, sucks, but it’s nice if you’re somewhere other than your machine.

Unfortunately, I work across 4-5 computers on average and my bookmarks were different everywhere. Hell, I even use different browsers in most places. Luckily, there are plugins for both Firefox and Safari that will sync or at least import your delicious bookmarks into the browser itself. This way my browsers stay up to date with my bookmarks, and I stay organized. I guess I forgot to mention that when the bookmarks are imported into Firefox or Safari, folders are created and organized by all the tags you use. So, for my Gap.com example, I would now have three folders: clothes, shopping, and fashion. It may be redundant, but when looking for a site, you won’t always associate the same word to it.

The last part I love is the suggestion they have of making a tag called “wishlist”. Now, when you’re browsing you can save a bookmark and tag it with wishlist if it’s something you’d like at some point.

Then for Christmas, birthdays, etc, you can point someone to http://www.del.icio.us/tpacyk/wishlist or whatever your username is, and see all the stuff they’d like to get! It’s also nice to be able to keep track of that stuff yourself. The possibilities are really endless to what you can do with it, so I really encourage you to check it out if you get some time.

www.del.icio.us

Well…

I’ve taken down my own blog temporarily, but I’ve run across so much cool stuff lately that I wanted to write about it a bit here in case anyone’s interested.

www.confusedamused.com will soon become a web design, portfolio for myself rather than a personal blog. I’ve gone back and forth about a million times on how to mix the two, but I think in the end I really need to seperate the business from the random personal stuff. I’ll be moving the new blog to www.pacyk.com which is currently hosting a 1/2 finished design for a business from about a year ago. I’ll clean that out soon.

I’ve already got about 25% of a new design for the personal site sketched out in Photoshop that I really like, so whenever I finish the other 75% I’ll start actually building it. I’ve gone through about 15 design sketches that I’ve really liked….for about a week each, so we’ll see if this one holds up.

I know I broke the RSS feed of my own, but you can subscribe to this one temporarily if you’d like. I doubt I’ll have the new site up and running til the end of summer.