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!

Netflix 'Watch Now' on XP on VMware Fusion on Mac OS X

I'm SOOOO close to being able to use Netflix's on-demand 'Watch Now' feature. Just one leeetle problem is standing in my way - DRM.

I've got VMware Fusion running WinXP SP2/IE7 on Mac OS X 10.4. I've installed the Netflix viewer software, and I can get as far as the movie player web page with the red Netflix opening screen and bandwidth check.

Then this lovely message comes up: "Instant watching message: Continue to your video by clicking the Play button when it appears below." But the Play button is greyed out, and it never ungreys.


The first time I tried this, there was an error message about a license, but instead of bothering to grab a screenshot, I just rebooted XP. That error message hasn't come back again.

Aha, I am not the only person who has run into this problem. This digg comment suggests updating Windows Media Player. Fair enough, I've still got WMP 9, and in fact previously told Windows Update to stop offering me WMP 11.

And.... success!!!!

Of course if I'd just RTFM'd I would've seen that WMP 11 is required. But where's the fun in that?

How to win at computer security

Stop caring about keeping the client secure.

When it comes to security PCs, Rouland’s advice is radical: Give up.

“In the next generation,” he says, “we will all do business with infected end points,” he says.

He was asked to repeat what he said, just to be sure. So he did: “Our strategy is we have to figure out how you do business with an infected computer. How do you secure a transaction with an infected machine? Whoever figures out how to do that first will win.”

He's right.

But... wha???? Howdoyadodat?

That'll be the trick.

Also in the same series:

“The thing about MPACK,” says James, “this is the start of the whole thing.” By this he seems to mean that Golden Age of Internet Crime, that dawning era. “They’re starting to think like architects instead of engineers.” MPACK brings together the best iFrames, the best exploits and some state-of-the-art malware into a single package all of which is being improved constantly, and sold with a focus on customer service. In marketing parlance, it’s not a product, it’s a solution.

It's not pretty out there, folks.

Asked and Answered

Yeah, I think Vista is the new WinME.

Of course, I've only been running Vista for the past two years and two months (since Beta 1 in August '05) so what do I know.

Windows Vista: the new WinME?

I'm just asking.

Joe Henry is back!

Joe Henry has a new album out, Civilians. I've been liking it a lot. "Our Song" is a great track from it, starts out spotting Willy Mays in a Home Depot. Genuinely moving.

For some of Joe's older stuff, I love the albums Fuse and Short Man's Room. (You may have heard these in heavy rotation on my cd changer at Mac or on Madison.) "Monkey" and "Angels" are the first two songs from Fuse. He took his music sound in a totally different direction on this disc from where it'd been on his earlier records.

Short Man's Room is much more alt-country sounding; "Good Fortune" and "King's Highway" sound like The Jayhawks circa Hollywood Town Hall or Blue Earth. And they lyrics of the title track - well, the guy knows how to write.

More Joe factoids: he's been busy producing like a madman, and he's quite an excellent producer - see his Wikipedia entry for a partial discography (including Aimee Mann, Allan Touissant and Elvis Costello, and Loudon Wainwright III).

And his sister-in-law's surname is Ciccone. Yeah, she's even recorded one of his songs.

Click to listen on Rhapsody....

1. Our Song - Joe Henry
2. Monkey - Joe Henry
3. Angels - Joe Henry
4. Good Fortune - Joe Henry
5. Short Man's Room - Joe Henry
6. King's Highway - Joe Henry
7. Don't Tell Me - Madonna
8. Two Angels - The Jayhawks

Iraq 2009

Around March 2009, don't be surprised if this is going on:

One sensed too that Iraq will in fact be issue No. 1 to be faced by the next president, whoever he or she is. That individual, in January 2009, will likely be faced by mischief makers of all stripes throughout the capital, with a question that is an artificial construct. "Did he see the mission through?" Or "Did he lose Iraq?" The latter would be most unjust, because we never had Iraq. We haven't found it, in spite of our best efforts, because the people of Iraq never found it. And it was their nation to find. This seemed clearer than ever this week, which was part of the reason for the sighing.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Searching Rhapsody from your web browser's search box

You can add Rhapsody to the search box in your web browser's toolbar.
(Yeah, I know, this isn't anything you couldn't figure out for yourself just by following directions.)

Adding Rhapsody search to Firefox:
1. Click this link.
2. Click on the link for the Rhapsody plugin (not the link that says Rhapsody.com).

Adding Rhapsody search to Internet Explorer 7:

1. Copy this URL http://www.rhapsody.com/-search?query=TEST&searchtype=RhapArtist
2. Go to the web page for "adding search providers to IE7"
3. Paste the URL into the Create Your Own box
4. Type Rhapsody into the next field.
5. Click Install.