Even more Best of 2007 Rhapsody playlists

My friend Ryan is a major music buff, and every year he's put together his favorites as an Advent calendar, with a new song & review each day. 2007 version, 2005 version.

He also Rhapsodized our awesome local radio station's ( KEXP) best of list.

Paste Readers: more best albums of 2007

Inevitably, readers of Paste magazine wrote in to say "I can't believe you left ______ off your list of top albums of 2007!

Here's what they suggested:

Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight

Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior

The Go! Team - Proof Of Youth

Beirut - Flying Club Cup

Romantica - America

Shout Out Louds - Our Ill Wills

Rickie Lee Jones - The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard

John Doe - A Year In The Wilderness

I'm listening now, and I like what I hear!

Rhapsody Playlist: Paste Readers: more best albums of 2007

Unified Communications & work-life balance: a plea for 'off-duty' mode

Need a mode for mobile comms devices so that 'work stuff' doesn't bug you.
Email should arrive silently
phone calls from work contacts should go straight to voicemail (maybe with a 'press 1 if it's urgent and you really need to ring through')
IM status should be "off duty" (or "do not disturb" - but that kind of implies working really hard, doesn't it?)

Personal contacts, emails and IM's are allowed through though.

Saying "well, you can sset that up" - doesn't do any good for the vast majority of people who never even LOOK at the settings, much less change any of them. It needs to be a top-level, out of the box config.

Whoever delivers this functionality will be hailed as saviors, antidotes to the always-connected, always-interrupted life of the crackberry toters.

Testing 123

This is a test post.

The Zen of Using COTS

One of my rules of thumb for COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software is: use it the way the designers thought you would. That way you can cruise along the "happy path to success" instead of fighting the system and trying to use it in ways the designers didn't anticipate – encountering bugs and poor usability along the way.

You may have seen this idea writ large in ERP implementations as "adapt the business process to the system instead of vice versa". Think of this as the microscale version.

Or call it the Zen of using COTS.

Microsoft's "Vista Tips N Tricks" site ownz0r3d?

The Windows Vista Tps & Tricks site used to be a Microsoft site that had "tips and tricks for the non-technical user" faced with Windows Vista. (Archive.org has several captures of that content.)

But now, it shows... a biography of John "The Yank" Harrington ???



Hmm, looks like maybe someone snarfed up the domain registration away from MS?



Maybe this is one of those domain name registration renewals that the indicted MS embezzler claimed to have done but didn't....

Update: Google's cache of windowsvistatnt.com shows the bogus version, too.

The Bug!

Scoble is right - this is TOO cool!

Paste Magazine's 50 best albums of 2007

I made a Rhapsody playlist that has 47 of 50 best albums of 2007 as selected by Paste Magazine. (Update: the article is online now. Doh! The web version has the best 100 albums!)

I'd already been listening to these albums before the list came out:
Joe Henry: Civilians (my recent post about Joe)
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: 100 Days 100 Nights (thanks, Bach!)
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger
Wilco: Sky Blue Sky
White Stripes: Icky Thump
Bruce Springsteen: Magic

I'm particularly enjoying these bands from the list:
Justice
The National
Band of Horses

I think Melissa will like:
the everybodyfields
The Avett Brothers

I don't know why these albums are on the list:
Norah Jones
Amy Winehouse
These albums from the list aren't available on Rhapsody at the moment:
Battles: Mirrored (MySpace page)
Olof Arnalds: Vid Og Vid (online store with previews)
Radiohead: In Rainbows (You've heard about this, right?)

The new last.fm charts

Last.fm has updated its charts. Now with shiny flashiness! This is a test so I can decide whether I want to replace the old charts that've been living in my blog sidebar.

Now that's a reception!

Saudi King Abdullah visits London and is received by the Queen and British PM Gordon Brown. Her Majesty's band plays a most appropriate fanfare to welcome him. (Hint: it's one of Zeb's favorite songs.)

Hard to believe this is real, but it is!