Archive for May, 2008
Pandora – a new style of radio.

Ever wanted create your own radio station with the music you wanted. Pandora gives you a way to do that, in a way.  I went to Pandora, and started a new radio station.  I wanted to hear songs that matched a certain style, I was in the mood at the time for “Cinderella”  (you remember the 80’s rock band), next thing I know Ozzy, Rat, AC/DC is streaming through my speakers. 

To take it one step further, there is this mac software called PandoraJam.   It brings Pandora native to your system, what I mean is, you now have keyboard shortcuts to pause, skip, play, etc.  Another cool feature PandoraJam dubs, is recording, it will record the songs to iTunes, complete with cover art and tags, you lose on quality vs buying.  But it’s not meant to replace purchasing a song, it’s supposed to be a “internet radio station” on the go.  (Cost $15USD)  Or for a free substitute you can use PandoraBoy. 

Here are some screenshots… (note the audio quality, not at all fit for a work out recording)

 

vmware fusion…

I’m running the latest beta of Vmware Fusion v2.   So far Im very impressed with it.  As expected from vmware, everything works.   Currently on my Mac Book Pro I have 4 machines running at the same time, (XP off at time of SS)

  • 1 windows XP
  • 3 SuSE Linux 64bit  
Impressive. Yes.  I’m currently running a full compile of a DB cluster server called Cybercluster on one of the machines, and my mac book pro is completely useable.  I have Adele blasting out of iTunes, mail.app, safari, ichat, 6 terminals, and all my background apps, no delays or slow down at all.   (It might have helped that I took my Mac to starbucks this morning and did some work from there.  I swear SB and apple have a deal that espresso charges your laptops!)
So go get your copy of vmware fusion at vmware’s website. Hey, the beta is free. 

 

Jailbreak…

When I said the word Jailbreak to a few of my non-tech friends they thought I was talking about a TV show or a movie.   Little did they know I was talking about my iPhone.   I decided the other day to Jailbreak it and am pleasantly surprised with it.  

Now rewind, I had a Blackberry before this, and was very very impressed with the blackberry and the features it offers, it’s a very stable message machine. There are a lot of third party apps that you can install on it and the little features really keep you hooked.  Ok, now fast forward to present, I have put my Blackberry down for an iPhone, yes I got pulled into getting an iPhone.  Now after a few weeks, I wanted to jot my feelings down before v2 comes out. 

Pros-  

  • The mail app on the iPhone is second to none.  Very good for apple. They killed the BB when it comes to email. 
  • Web browsing on the iPhone is incredible. Safari is just incredible. 
  • The camera is great.  Just fine for on the go snaps. 
  • the iPod is awesome
  • photo browser ROCKS!
  • wifi is awesome

Cons: 

  • SMS sucks on the iPhone, how apple got that wrong I don’t know.  Why do I hate it you ask? Sick back, this could get long:
  1. ATT/Apple can’t decide who a SMS is from if it’s sent from a computer, i.e. email -> sms,   since my servers use SMS to talk to me and notify me of changes, can’t group them or see the contacts or delete a lot of them if a server spikes and I get 15 SMS’s at one time..
  2. the “google” preview of an SMS is limited to 2 lines, in mail you can change your preview to your desired length, not true in SMS.  
  3. SMS tones are very very limited. Hello apple, I use my iPhone to wake me up when a server goes down, don’t ring a bell once!
  4. SMS is limited in features, what happened to MMS, I own one of the most multi-media savy phones, and I can’t even send a picture via SMS.  We won’t talk about video (the complete lack of). 
  • Lack of application support. You can’t do anything but play music, read email, and surf the web/photos.
Now enter Jailbreak…  the title of this entry. 
I used ziphone to Jailbreak my phone.  AMAZING!  This is what the iphone should be like.  Quit dragging your feet apple. I can now manage my server with ssh and terminal.  A side note, I think Apple should work on the next terminal.app off of mobileterm, since the new mac has a multitouch pad, we could fly with term! :-)    
iphone term