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A Safe Way To Dispose Of Your eWaste – And Get A Tax Receipt Too!
My Preferred Canadian-Based ISP
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Sep
30
Come On Is Such A Joy…
Filed Under Ah Ha!, Fun, Very Very Cool, Views | 2 Comments
“Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey!” – so the song goes, from the Beatles’ White Album aka The Beatles.
Why do I mention this? I just spent last weekend getting to know this obscure band all over again. On 9-9-09 Apple (not Apple Inc.) released the entire Beatles music catalog remastered. Since this is the Technophile I can appreciate the technology that went into bringing this great music to even greater heights.
I’ve been listening to The Beatles since I was 12 years old. I bought every American album and when I found out about the ‘official’ British pressings I had to get them too (Yesterday is on Help! – what???). I’ve collected bootlegs, artifacts, gone to Beatle conventions, sat through all-day Beatle movies, concerts and interviews – yes, I was a Beatlemaniac. Their music influenced me in a big way and was responsible for my being in a band for 10 years. Now, I still love this band although I’m not as much a fan-atic as I was. However, with the release of these remasters those involved have given me and I’m sure many others a great gift: the incredible experience of actually listening to these songs that I’ve heard a thousand times for the first time again.
The clarity, the depth, the unexpected rhythms, subtle instrumentation – little things I hadn’t heard before – the earthy, woody, jangly fun of it all.
Stand Outs so far:
Ringo’s Kick Drum and Paul’s Bass – so much body – really beautiful, perhaps the most melodic bassist there ever has been.
Guitars sparkle and are also really earthy (Rubber Soul) – real instruments played by real people – what they’re supposed to sound like – like eating an organic radish or cucumber and remembering that’s what they taste like – juicy, spicy, fresh and exciting.
It’s the little things that stick out – a clap here, an echo there, tasty licks, crisp and warm. Vocals are intimate, close (eg. For No One) – and that French Horn!
Got To Get You Into My Life - kick ass and something is going in the left channel I’ve never heard – subtle left-overs from previous takes, shadow sounds and echoes.
The White Album - really kicks ass – done on 8-track at the time – it really benefits from this make-over.
A Hard Day’s Night – the opening guitar chime startled me it was so dramatic and unexpected (even though I’d heard it thousands of times).
Abbey Road – You Never Give Me Your Money – the buzz from the guitar notes hang beautifully, the ‘second side’ medley is majestic, revelatory (okay, this is getting out of hand), but seriously folks – I have never heard this album like I do now – is that a bongo I never heard in the left channel on Sun King?!
Paul’s bass dancing with Ringo’s drumming on She Came In Through The Bathroom Window – pure rocking joy – which is what this band was always about – fun, love, British-campy – not fancy – raw – mistakes and all.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
Apr
14
Looking Beyond The Superficial
Filed Under Ah Ha!, Fun, Views | Leave a Comment
This speaks for itself:
(Thank you to my friend Allan Sorenson for sharing this with me).
Nov
12
Guess Who’s a Mac…
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Truly change we can believe in! The Mac has finally arrived! Will an iPhone be next? Here are 50 other facts you may not have known about the President Elect:
• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
• He was known as “O’Bomber” at high school for his skill at basketball
• His name means “one who is blessed” in Swahili
• His favourite meal is wife Michelle’s shrimp linguini
• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
• He has read every Harry Potter book
• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can’t stand ice cream
• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
• He can speak Spanish
• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead
• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn’t
• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister’s fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived
• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
• He doesn’t drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
• His daughters’ ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
• His house in Chicago has four fire places
• Daughter Malia’s godmother is Jesse Jackson’s daughter Santita
• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
• He uses an Apple Mac laptop
• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
• He was given the code name “Renegade” by his Secret Service handlers
• He was nicknamed “Bar” by his late grandmother
• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
• His speciality as a cook is chilli
• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins”
• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
Aug
14
How to fit 40GB of music on an 8GB iPhone
Filed Under Ah Ha!, Fun, Recommendations, Tech News, Views, iPhone | Leave a Comment
Wow, my 50th post! To mark it I want to share with anyone who is interested this great application that will work on your Mac, PC or Linux machine as well as with your iPhone (but an iPhone is not needed). Have you ever wanted to share or have access to your iTunes music from another location – perhaps you’re traveling or you’re at a friend’s place and you would just love to play that new tune you bought or heard from your laptop, but the music is on your desktop at home. Or maybe you have your iPhone and are in the same situation. Or, perhaps, like a friend of mine once inquired: how can I fit 40GB of music on my 16GB iPhone?
The answer is a piece of software from SimplifyMedia and it has a companion offering for the iPhone on the APP store. Download the computer version from the first link and then navigate to the APP store on your iPhone or from within iTunes using this link to get it onto your device. The instructions are clear (a bit more complicated for our Windows brother and sisters). After you’ve created your username and password you will be able to view your iTunes library from your iPhone or other computer INCLUDING lyrics when available and information on the artist. If you love music you will love this great application. And the really good news is that it is free for the computer version and free for a limited time for the iPhone.
Jun
13
You just bought a new iMac or MacBook (Pro). You unpack it – it smells so new. It looks so beautiful. Those Apple people are so clever! You plug it in, press the power button. Nice chime (C-Chord actually). You choose your language. A cosmic movie plays welcoming you to your new computer in a plethora of the world’s languages. Yea! Now what?!
Apple portrays their computers as very easy to use – just plug it in and go. We all know, however, that as elegant as Apple’s operating system and applications are most people need help in navigating the many useful applications and services that come with every Mac. Making music, organizing pictures, editing movies, making DVD’s, syncing our machines, navigating OS X, backing up our data – so much to know. There are a lot of books out there – some are very graphic, some wordy, books for professionals and books for dummies.
As I get asked all the time about training I wanted to bring to people’s attention a series of training material I highly recommend. These are the Take Control series of eBooks. On offer are wonderful manuals on topics ranging from how to use .Mac (soon to be MobileMe), using a digital camera, backup practices, using Apple Mail, wireless networking 101, customizing Leopard, running Windows on your Mac, using Microsoft Office, iPod and iPhone manuals – just a ton of great information in an easy to use format and style. Please visit the website and check it out.
