A New Breed?

As none of us know because you should be working hard enough to not have time to surf the web during the work week. Or for the folks who actually get paid to do this, take it from me; it is not as glorious as it sounds....well actually it is. Wait, where was I going with this?? Oh yeah! Itunes 8 was released today along with a slew of new ipod nanos and a slick new ipod touch.

Starting with Itunes 8, the big thing is Genius, which compares your music and attempts to make intelligent guesses on other groups you might like. This is basically the same service that Pandora and Last.fm use. In addition, they have introduced grid view which media player 11 had way back in 2005. Beyond all of this, I think Itunes is much faster, it syncs with my Iphone much quicker and easier and seems hands down a much more native app on the Macbook Pro.

Because I own an Iphone I could care less about the Ipod touch but the new 16gig colorful nanos do look very cool. They have a very curvy design and a Zune like accelerometer that allows you to control certain parts of it via shaking the nano or putting it sideways into landscape view (Zune only does landscape). They look very cool and the Nanos seem to be they direction Stevie is going these days. Unfortunatly, I still would rather have the big Classic, but with almost no update to the current Classic today, it looks like this could be the last iteration of the big ipod. Sniff...16gigs is 50 bones cheaper and very small....more then 16gigs needed with genius and smart playlists? What do you all think?

Props

Being in the business of...well business you find yourself in quite a few sticky situations. When it comes to web business we need as much help as possible. So to simplify things, and I did not really like it to tell you the truth, I have reverted the blog design back to something more "open" and recommend everyone to visit boagworld for an amazing podcast. They may be from the UK and but they know what they are talking about when it comes to the coding for the world wide web. And for my second recommendation: Smashing Magazine, another great publication for help on for all those late night coders. Peace.

Windohs!

Now, as most people do not know, the whole point of being anonymous is to never be found.  This is often a practice rarely employed on the world wide web and is a must at TKubed.  However, this post is going to key some people into the fact that: no I am not a marketer. 

For all the digg watchers out there, you probably witnessed that the new rubbish that is the windows commercials (Jerry Seinfield included) graced national television on the night of the 4th of the 8th.  It being a windows comercial, included a dinosaur heapen (steaming) amount of nonesense.  A quick synopsis of the entirety of the video includes Jerry trying to sell Bill on some shoes and how he should wear them in the shower.  To appeal to some minorities (none of which would be watching Sex in the City on TBS) they included a sentence in spanish and finished with a small green screen and the vista logo...no words included.  Oh and...by the way, eating technology, not a good thing Bill, I watched a dog once release a half eaten remote and I swore it looked like red tiberium (diagram for ungamer folk to the right) from the Command and Conquer games.  The video can be seen here but to save 1 minute 24 seconds check out the fine senator in perhaps the best sound clip for random insertion into one's life.

Are We Males a Little Tepid?

Being one myself I must admit that us 20 something males have a thing or two to learn about being proactive in our community and lives.  This might be so true that it has grabbed the attention of attention seeking whore newsweek.com (article).  The article itself is actually a long read which is uncharacteristic for this topic...aka it was written by a women.  Tony is a hard name to decipher but through some clever googling I think it actually is a male...which is a good thing.

Taking a few looks through the article we see some very key elements of why this article has reached the top of digg today.  

"In almost 400 interviews with mainly white, college-educated twentysomethings, he found that the lockstep march to manhood is often interrupted by a debauched and decadelong odyssey, in which youths buddy together in search of new ways to feel like men. Actually, it's more like all the old ways—drinking, smoking, kidding, carousing—turned up a notch in a world where adolescent demonstrations of manhood have replaced the real thing: responsibility. "

-BINGO.  These two sentences pretty much sum up a good amount of men who find this type of life a nessesity.  We all think that being more drunk then the next person or bragging about who they did last night is more manly than simply taking on the responsibilites of life.  This is of course not 100 percent of the 20 something population but it is growing daily.

"Meanwhile, saddled with an average of $20,000 in student debt and reared with a sense of entitlement that stops them from taking any old job, the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970"

-Aw yes, living with your parents because you are too proud to take a job that will pay the bills.  Sure, this survey is pointing at american youth which means that most of us are scared to do manual labor or simply get a little dirty but why should you be picky when you are 24...money is money and any skill learned at any job is valueable for the rest of your life, not to mention the stuff you learn from your co-workers.  I know I sometimes feel this, but I love to get dirty, let me pull wires through a crawl space, work for a landscaper on the weekends, be a valet when the job is available.  Our problem is that we hate to serve other people...it makes us feel all..human which is clearly wrong...right.

"If the domestic man does appear, the study finds, the guy who pants in Lamaze class rather than a stranger's bedroom is portrayed as freakish, fuddy-duddy and frequently religious: an uptight Boy Scout in a Peter Pan culture"

-Oh to true...and very well put.

"almost 20 percent of college guys said they would commit rape if they knew they wouldn't be caught"

-WTF Mates.  Although 20 percent is not tremendously high but anything over 0 percent in this catagory is simply wrong.

-Everyone should read the complete article.  It is not powerful enough to make someone change their mind about their attitudes but maybe just maybe, it will make you think...just a little.  Baby steps for the adolescent.

Blingtastic Experiences

Ok. so I might have missed a day but I made up for it with the double post two days ago so I am still on track for the 20 posts this month.  Anyway....CHROME!

Playing with the beta of Google's new browser has been, an absolute charm.  Running it under Vista Home Premium on my Macbook Pro was as easy as downloading and installing.  No fuss, no real google adware, and nothing really to get in the way of someone simply clicking yes through all the prompts.  So a big thumbs up for an easy beta install.

From there the experience only got better.  The layout of Chrome is astonishing with no extra information or bars to clog up the bottom, the left or the right side of the browser.  This lends itself to be safari - esk where they want you to have a complete and unhindered browsing experience.  If you look simply upward you are welcomed with a simple and elegant single bar that will process a .com address or search a word in google.  This process has been tried before with Firefox and Opera however, it was often times hard to discern if the browser was going to search or attempt to complete the url.  Chrome battles these issues with a simple "search google" preface before the word you typed.  This makes life both easy and quick when it comes to finding what you need.

When it comes to browsers the entire world is concerned with the amount of memory that one takes up.  Firefox used to be a huge memory sucker, IE...don't even get me started (Beta 8 I sorta like), Opera...no, and Safari...boring.  Chrome for the moment processes each seperate tab as another spot in memory which seems to speed up browsing and make the browser fairly stable for its beta itteration.  However, it does seem to take up more memory then trusty firefox but...for now atleast, it is a beta and should be a memory hog.  

This is a fairly simple run through of the browser but it must be said that the browser is itself, very simple.  However, this does not detract from a wonderful, clean and well thought out browser by the folks at Google.  With so many browsers populating the world most of the normal folks stick with trusty old IE but if Google can get its Chrome name out there then I think they have a good a chance of taking a large portion of the market.  Moreover, this will probably be the same browser we see on the Android setup later this year which will make the experience competetive for all us iphone safari users.  I say bring it, and bring it hard Google.  Complete that OS we all know you have in the works and grab that market share.  Shuttle PC, Google OS, Chrome, Lightened Simplicity.....utterly amazing.  

One last thing though....get this on the Mac port asap and I will browse with it every day.

Double Dipping

To the left of this post there used to be a picture of some rather inept folk, who probably went to college, attempting to write the word "school." Well this was old and is now changing to something that I think is awesome. These pictures will be just little snippets of what I think is worth actually spending my money on. Most often there will be a post to accompany but perhaps not. For example, that bike; I want it. If you are reading this and you would like to donate it please feel free to comment. Check it out at surlyville.com under the heading bikes - steamroller.

A Candide List

As anyone knows who might have at one time frequented this blog, I am not one to be consistent when it comes to blogging. In now way over the past two years since I have had this thing been fallen into more then single digits when it comes to numbers per month. Moreover, there have been numerous posts addressing this issue and ideas and explanations on how I am going to promptly fix it.

It is several months before new years but I am going to go forth and make a Labor Day (that is right it is capitalized due to the lack of imbibing that is characteristic with the day) resolution to have more then 20 blog posts, per month for the next 4 months. Lets see if I can do it folks, lets get throw the world of technology a bone and see if it is possible. If you want to submit anything feel free to via comments on the last post and I will address it immediately. Here is to the future all!