Polish Ska Stylin

Eastern Europe is getting interesting (media).

Polish trendy:
Skangur website

Skangur - Hej Kochanie HD from Przemek P. on Vimeo.

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iTunes sync pain

I spent a night trying to sync, clean, and organize my daughter's iTunes list so she could take her iPod Nano with her. Fortunately, it did yield some new approaches to using iTunes to manage my music for my players.

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Today's Essential Work and Play Tools

Well, it's that time :)

I'm tired of my sluggish PC and it's time to kill it. Often, folks will give me a litany of complaints with no real obvious problems meaning that their PC is cruddy. I've reloaded this one several times, run memory tests, checked the HD, and without really invasive time-consuming investigation I'm just abandoning it.

Before I blow it away, I've got to have an essential software list. This is different than my Essential Free Windows Software list.

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Good Magazine

I found Good Magazine while waiting on my daughter's lightening delayed plane to dock and let her off at the Birmingham (AL) Airport. Airport reading material usually reflects an odd coupling of mindless pop-culture dribble and cutting edge, thought provoking periodicals. I picked up this periodical because the cover caught my attention - an AK-47 sketch in black on an orange background with "GOOD" in big bold block letters at the top. I thought "yeah, that's a good design."

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Corkd and TV.WineLibrary.com, 3rd Wave of Internet Profit

People who know me have heard my commentary on the first internet market wave (of which I was a part), the second wave (which is happening right now), and the third market wave which is the profit wave. Dotcom businesses were launched in the 90s to gain users, and the valuation was based on the innate value of users and not revenues. This is why so many internet businesses were valued well in the stock market and failed to generate real profits.

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Starting Audible Weekly Again

I'm going to start my weekly again very shortly, and look for other more business-centric "podcasts" here shortly. I'll go with the podcast formula one of the most successful, cleanest shows online uses: checkout TWIT's podcast solution.

UPDATE: Hot Recorder, PowerGramo (which appears to do nothing), and a hand full of other recording options just don't work at all with a USB headset. It seems that I have to bring another computer (yes, and entire separate computer) into the game in oder to have any hope of recording the sessions. The USB headset (the Logitech headset suggested by Leo from TWIT) sounds great, but uses the outcast USB port, which apparently circumvents the soundcard, therefor escapes possible recording by anything looking to the soundcard. I'm not quite sure the headset can't be a source from which the on-PC software can record. I'm still sourcing that one out right now.

Posted in business | current events | media | tech jasonn's blog

100mbps Home Cable Internet

They've got it in Hong Kong, and it's available for the American market as well. It's just not likely going to be installed any time soon at any rural cable service provider. But, here's the skinny on a company dedicated to pushing an aged industry forward, at a cost as low as $300 per home.

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Do Only Fascists Dislike the Dixie Chicks?

Since The Dixie Chicks are a hick band from Texas, I find it somewhat amusing that their supporters flaunt their bigotry against rural and southern people. Rural folk produce the majority of America's food, a good bit of its manufacturing, and serve the lion's share of military enlistments. But, true anti-rural lefties never skip out on a good old fashioned redneck bashing. 'The Chicks' just offer another opportunity to jump in.

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Free Online Language Courses

Learning a new language is very difficult, and often requires linguistic and cultural submersion. An Annenberg learning project offers free online access to their submersion style language training program. Or, you can buy the DVDs for $700. No, you read that properly. You can a) buy the DVDs for $700 or b) watch the videos free.

BBC Languages offers "a bit at a time, in your own time."

Posted in culture | life | media jasonn's blog

Tired of Being Told What to Do

I like the idea of iTunes, that I can buy whatever I want and just get it. Today I had to "allow" my computer to use my iTunes account in order to access a song I purchase. It told me I had enabled 3 of 5 computers that would be allowed to access my music. My music? Obviously not! Apparently two of the times I installed iTunes on one of my computers counts as two of my allowed accesses. I just paid for this music, and I have to use a limited number of PC installations to access it? That's highly annoying. I could have paid them, downloaded the song, and then been refused access to it if the software determined that I'd already used my iTunes account too many times.

Posted in current events | economy | media jasonn's blog