Are you one of those people who are always looking for the best deal? Do you cut the coupons out of the Sunday morning paper? Do you try and haggle with anybody and everybody just on the off chance that they might break down and give you a deal? If so, then this application from Codedifferent is perfect for you. CompareMe is an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that is essentially a price comparison guide. You can take two measurements, prices, and discounts/premiums and compare the two. Basically, you have a small program that tells you what to buy. It also tells you how much you save (or how much more you spend) overall. Oh, and for those of you who forget basic math, it also converts units for you. Now, before you start thinking that I am a price-conscious American, I want you to dig a hole and bury that idea six feet under. I go through my money like there is a hole in my pocket, and I rarely am concerned about price-difference. Sure, I will check the per-ounce price, but I really don’t care that much. CompareMe is not made for people like me. No, it is made more for those who buy in bulk. Say you go out to the lumber yard and buy a pile of rocks, or a bundle of lumber. Those do not have a per-pound comparison so it is harder to judge. Plus, if some are on sale and others are not, it gets even tougher. Or say you went to Home Depot and were buying some nails; same scenario and issues apply. This is where CompareMe steps in and saves the day. The application is designed for exactly these sorts of situations, ones where it is hard to tell the price differentials. Plus, if stores offer price matching, you can use this application to show the actual prices per unit. CompareMe is an interesting application. Most that I review and try out happen to be either flashy or expansive. CompareMe is neither; it is a small application, with one screen, that performs only one function. There are no nifty graphics and no interesting menus. Nope, this application is pretty simple. Yet, in simplicity comes usefulness. An application that performs its one duty, and does it well, is hard to come by these days in the App Store. CompareMe does its job flawlessly, and that deserves commendation.
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February 12, 2009 - 10:57 pm
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Music
The murmurs first started around 6 months back, and then in December last year Tiesto seemed to let the cat out of the bag with an email to his fan database, but still there had been no official word from game developers Activision. Would the hotly anticipated DJ Hero title actually hit stores anytime soon? Yes, it would seem, with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick confirming in an interview with CNBC that the game will see the light of day later in 2009. “We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you actually can play competitively and spin discs and mix songs,” he remarked. There’s no release date slated just yet, although it’s reported that Tiesto has since squashed rumours that he was been involved with the game’s development.
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February 11, 2009 - 2:26 pm
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Music
This is the first in a three-part review covering Lightbox Photo™ Gallery Software from Lightbox Photo™. I have broken this down into three parts because of the scope of this system is pretty large and to try to work it down into a single review would do the product an injustice. In the first part I will cover an overview of the software and look at what it takes to install and setup of the Lightbox Photo™. Part two I will look at what the existing features of the product are, and in part three I will look at what new features have been added to the latest version of the software. So let's look at a general overview and setup of Lightbox Photo™ Gallery Software. Lightbox Photo™ is a software package that runs on a server and its main purpose is to assist you in creating your own photo sales site. There are three different versions of this product that can handle everything from the independent fine art photographer to someone who wants to set up their own stock photo library business. The system is very flexible in that it can be set up on your own server as well as on a server run by an independent hosting company. Lightbox Photo™ also has the ability to host it for you. The software is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows, and there are three versions that are available to you depending on your needs. The standard version is aimed at the freelance artist and will let you create galleries, add images, display your images, accept payment via PayPal, VeriSign, and WorldPay among other payment processors. The professional version is focused to the small studio, collectives, and freelancers by adding additional searching tools and the ability to have multiple administrators with different privileges, as well as additional methods for payment such as offline payment for invoicing, or allowing a customer to pay by methods other than credit card, and shipping options for physical products. The Enterprise version is geared to those who need to manage multiple artists, use credit systems, and offer subscriptions. If you want to set up your own stock agency, then this is the version you would want, but it also has a number of features that really just about anyone would like. These include the ability to sell sets of images and allowing users to buy frames or other product options.
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February 11, 2009 - 9:08 am
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Music
Valentine’s Day — you either love it or hate it. It makes sweethearts swoon and others want to stab fat cherubs with a bow and arrow. Between the chocolate hearts, the red roses and the teddy bears shoved in our faces, the holiday stirs up a cocktail of emotions: happiness, despair, jealousy, grief, sadness, desire … MTV News has all your mood swings covered. In honor of this beloved and dreaded holiday, we’re rolling out the Best Love Songs, Best Breakup Songs, Best Makeout Songs and Worst Love Songs in recent memory. It’s our Valentine’s Day gift to you, minus the dinner-and-a-movie part. So slip into something comfortable, and stay for a while. Love songs tend to get dusted off and put on display at weddings. And it’s hard to take any song seriously right after doing the chicken dance. Our favorite artists know what’s up: They express those deepest, darkest emotions without the help of cheesy lyrics or a soprano-saxophone player. Give it up to Justin, the Jonas Brothers and these other winged matchmakers for making us all a little weak in the knees. 10. Jonas Brothers - “Lovebug” This is about the only “lovebug” we ever want to catch. Let’s leave it at that … 9. Alicia Keys - “No One” In this soulful song, Alicia belts out her emotions so we don’t have to. 8. The Postal Service - “Such Great Heights” Despite never uttering those three magic words, this 2003 hit puts us on cloud nine. 7. Jason Mraz (featuring Colbie Caillat) - “Lucky” This duet is bound to make the wedding-day rounds. Still, the old-timey lyrics are cute. 6. Miley Cyrus - “7 Things” This isn’t a typo. This certainly isn’t a typical love song, considering that Miley sings about hating someone. But listen a little closer, and you’ll see the teen queen taps into the heart of a relationship — the bad that also comes with the good. 5. Beyoncé - “Crazy in Love” Ms. Sasha Fierce escorts us over the edge of love and back again in her 2003 smash single. Uh-oh! 4. Taylor Swift - “Love Story” With the sweet melody and fairy-tale references, this teen songstress gives us hope there will be a castle and a lover in a low-cut top in all our futures. Give in and “say yes” to Taylor’s catchy chorus. 3. Gym Class Heroes - “Cupid’s Chokehold” Travis McCoy joins forces with Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump to talk pancakes, secret handshakes and other shared moments with a string of girls. You gotta love a guy (and a song) with a sense of humor. 2. U2 - “With or Without You” After all these years, Bono still melts our hearts. This 1987 classic addresses the question: What the hell would I do without you? That never gets old. 1. Justin Timberlake - “My Love” With the help of Timbaland and T.I., Justin Timberlake nabs the top spot with his 2006 hit. JT redefines the concept of the love song, proving it can belong in both the club and next to a roaring fireplace.
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February 10, 2009 - 6:04 am
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Music
I am convinced that artists in the UK are in cahoots with each other to keep the art of the great pop album from their American counterparts. In the US, pop continues to be a four-letter word for the self-respecting audiophile, while bands like The Whip continue to make catchy, progressive, and most importantly, listenable pop albums on the other side of the Atlantic. Maybe if I lived in the UK, I’d actually listen to the radio again. You remember the radio, right? It’s the thing sitting on your nightstand that used to play good music. On The Whip’s soon to be released album, X Marks Destination, the boys in the band (Danny Saville, Lil Fee, Nathan Sudders and Bruce Carter) bounce through ten tracks (plus another four bonus remixes). It’s their amalgam of indie rock, electro, dance, and pop that make it an interesting listen. The tracks are worthy of the club, but could easily find a place on the iPod of the girl who listens to Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. In short, the album should appeal to a fairly large demographic, and yet, X Marks Destination doesn’t make any large compromises in style. For instance, most of the songs clock in around five minutes — an unfriendly length to the radio — and the opener, “Trash,” is well past six minutes. Refreshingly, the songs aren’t overproduced. Invention seems to take the place of good sense among many in the electronic music profession these days. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. The beats employed on X Marks Destination are fairly simple and allow for textured overlays of guitar and synthesizer. Only a couple of the tracks suffer from their simple arrangements. Specifically, “Sirens” sounds dated, a reject from a bygone era. It’s a small quibble that doesn’t really mar the overall effect of the album. The best surprises of the album, however, are the remixes nestled at its tail end. Normally remixes are simply filler and add little value to a “bonus tracks” album, but here, some even surpass the originals. “Trash (Crooker’s Remix)” is so much better than the original I’m seriously considering swapping the track order with its namesake. “Muzzle #1,” one of the weakest tracks on the album, benefits greatly from remix (though it’s still not a frontrunner on the album). The Whip may not be reinventing the disco ball, but X Marks Destination is a good pop record. So few can claim such a distinction this century. For that, at least, The Whip deserves your ears. In fact, after listening to the album, mail it to your most loathed, no-talent pop artist that is topping the charts these days and hope for the best. It couldn’t hurt. X Marks Destination will be released on March 3rd.
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February 9, 2009 - 7:41 am
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Music
I just finished reading an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by M. P. McQueen, which suggests that the bear market is creating a bull market for fraudsters. According to the numerous experts cited in the article, the reason for this is economic gloom and doom with a healthy dose of anxiety. This shouldn't be surprising because gloom, doom, and anxiety make effective social engineering tools that can be used to part people and businesses from their money. The article references phishing expeditions that lead to fake Web sites — which often spoof a financial institution or government entity — and entice people into giving up enough of their personal details to drain their financial resources. It also mentions that some of these sites leave behind malicious software on a person's machine, which steal all these details automatically. Also mentioned is the use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), caller-ID spoofing and cell phone technology to mount texting and vishing attacks. Vishing is merely another method of tricking people to give up personal and financial information via the telephone. In these attacks, the caller ID is spoofed to make it appear as if it is coming from a legitimate institution. Apparently telephone technology is being used to commit other types of crimes, too. Many of our 911 centers cannot identify spoofed calls coming from computers using VoIP technology. This has led to S.W.A.T. teams being tricked into deploying in full battle gear to residential neighborhoods when no emergency existed. Of course, businesses use the same technology to trick people who have caller ID into picking up their telephones. You can even buy a card to do this at will from any telephone right over the Web. It sometimes amazes me how much irresponsible technology there is out there, which is being sold legally. There are even Web sites, with disclaimers, that specialize in making this technology available to the general public. Of course, there are also complete DIY (do-it-yourself) phishing kits being sold over the Internet. Some of these even come with tech support. The phishing kits are illegal, but can be found for sale in chat rooms if you know where to look for them. Sadly, the truth is that these chat rooms aren't very hard to find. The fine line between legitimate enterprise and scams is often a little blurry. The WSJ article quotes a lot of experts, including Gartner, the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, who all seem to agree that scams are on the rise. An interesting phenomenon called out were small fraud charges being found on accounts. I guess taking small amounts, which might be mistaken for bank fees, is a good way to stay under the radar. A lot of people don't realize how many small fees are being charged to their account and it can be quite confusing at times. I guess the crooks are trying to make themselves look like bankers (speculation) and it's probably a good time for all of us to review our statements, carefully.
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February 9, 2009 - 7:26 am
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Music
It's rare to find a pop artist who can also write convincing lyrics in a sophomore album. So many new artists have managed to pull together amazing freshman releases — the contents of everything in their lives leading up to that point. But to be able to pull together a solid second album sometimes seems too difficult and quality falls to the wayside. Tough to cram a lifetime into a year or two, with so many other things screaming for attention - producers, concerts, press, fans… So to listen to Tyrone Wells' Remain and hear so many solid songs with thought- and emotion-provoking lyrics… it just doesn't happen often. Wells worked with a variety of artists, songwriters, and musicians to craft a set of twelve solid tracks. In the UK, he worked with Martin Terefe (who has worked with Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall, and James Morrison) and Iain Archer (UK artist and Snow Patrol songsmith). In the US, he worked with Tim Myers (former member of OneRepublic), David Hodges (former member of Evanescence), and Matt Scannell (Vertical Horizon). As a fan of Mraz, Tunstall, Snow Patrol, Evanescence, and Vertical Horizon — I have to say this is quite a pedigree of talent. In 2007, Universal Republic released his album Hold On, which was originally his first independent record (following Snapshot in 2003 and Close: Live at McClain's in 2005. Universal Republic saw the opportunity to release the album more widely as his first major label record. Songs from these albums have found their way into film and television soundtracks as well, so he's getting some great exposure. So far he's had tracks show up in One Tree Hill, Everyone's Hero, Rescue Me, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs and many others. I suspect that we'll hear many of the tracks from Remain in popular media as well. For me, what works for Wells on Remain is first and foremost the lyrics. And with those impressive lyrics, you then have his solid soulful voice that just lends each word credence. Add to that great arrangements utilizing acoustic and electric guitar, keyboards, and a well engineered pop feel, and you have a heck of a musical offering.
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February 8, 2009 - 12:21 pm
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Music
The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders. With millions of Internet users communicating through social network environments everyday, the bystander theory may not remain a valid theory for online social networking. Because people are joining these communities to make friends, these people are more inclined to come to the aid of a friend or distant contact if a personal emergency were discovered. The challenge we face online is how millions of nonprofessionally trained folks determine the validity of a “call for help,” and how do these users know if someone else has acted on a potentially serious “call for help.” We could have a “Digg” format where users responding to an apparent serious communication click a “helped” button, making visible their response to help someone. Does the Bystander Rule apply to Internet users? Is it time for the formalization (accountability) of “calls for help” on the Internet? Because the social networking communities are open to all people that have a computer and Internet connection, it serves as a vehicle for expressing an individual’s feelings on a regular and real-time basis. By allowing an online community member to interact with other members virtually, they can freely express thoughts and feelings they may not normally share when in a face-to-face situation offline. It’s like speaking with your psychologist or psychiatrist instead of a family member or friend. A possible approach, suggested by the American Psychologist, to negate the bystander effect is to pick a specific person in the crowd to ask for help rather than appealing to the larger group. For example, point directly to a specific bystander and give the person a specific task such as, “You in the red shirt, dial 911.” This clarifies the situation and places the responsibility directly on a specific person instead of allowing it to diffuse.
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February 7, 2009 - 3:35 am
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Music
Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold appears to be launching a side project, after a solo MySpace page was discovered by fans. The band, White Antelope, features Pecknold, and has posted two songs to stream on the page. One of the songs is folk standard ‘False Knight On The Road’, which will feature as a B-side on the upcoming Fleet Foxes single ‘Mykonos’, and on the re-release of their self-titled 2008 debut album. It was recorded solo by Pecknold. The band’s page, which can be found at MySpace.com/awhiteantelope, features little other information about the project, barring a description as “covers and assorted stuff, nothing serious”. He told Chocolate Bobka: “I used to post demos of songs on that page before the record came out. The ‘Guitar Duet’ thing dates from when we were recording the LP and the cover of ‘False Knight..’ I did about two weeks ago. I posted the first demo of ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ (when it was called ‘Stirring’, before the other ‘Stirring’) on there before. I might put that back up, it had different instrumentation and was kinda cool…. Right now I am alone in this house we’ve rented to record the next record in and tomorrow I’m going to record a cover of ‘Ridge Rider’, the Judee Sill song, for this compilation. Trying to write new stuff is hard right now for some reason. I want to do a record of really spare stuff for White Antelope so it may be recorded this year. I dunno if that is a good name though.”
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February 7, 2009 - 1:12 am
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Music
Every year the Grammy Awards come around and prove once again that I am listening to the wrong radio stations. The 2009 collection is no different. The 2009 Grammy Nominees CD includes an amazing cross-section of the radio waves, some of which I hadn't heard before listening to the CD. 2008 was a great year for pop, rock, and R&B artists across the board, and on February 8, 2009, we'll know who wins in the usual categories: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Coldplay's album and song "Viva La Vida" is up in multiple categories, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or group with Vocals. It's amazing how many times I've seen amateur renditions of this song on YouTube this year. Next we have Estelle with her song "American Boy" (featuring Kanye West) off her album Shine. "American Boy" is up for Song of the Year and faces some stiff competition in the category. After that we have Sara Bareilles "Love Song" released as a single in 2008, which is up for Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. "Love Song" has received a ton of play on my local radio stations, and I have to admit it's pretty catchy. I haven't checked out the rest of her album Little Voice, but hope to do so. Ne-Yo's album Year of the Gentleman is up for Album of the Year. You'll find the first track, "Closer" on the Nominees CD. And Ne-Yo is competing with Lil Wayne for Album of the Year. Lil Wayne's album Tha Carter III is represented on the CD by "Got Money", which also features T-Pain. One of my own favorite albums of the year, Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, is up for Album of the Year and Record of the Year. The song "Please Read the Letter" is on the CD, represents the album, and shows the fruit of this amazing duo. Radiohead, another great group with staying power, is up for Album of the Year with In Rainbows. "House of Cards" is here and proves that Radiohead still has what it takes to create amazing music. Lady Antebellum came on the country music scene last year and is up for Best New Artist. Their song "Love Don't Live Here" from their self-titled album was chosen to represent. The Jonas Brothers are also up for Best New Artist. Their song "Burnin' Up" is off their album A Little Bit Longer. This is a hugely popular group at my eldest daughter's elementary school. Jazmine Sullivan is another artist up for Best New Artist. Her album Fearless is represented with her song "Need U Bad."
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February 5, 2009 - 4:39 pm
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Music