recommendations

Gutter Anthems – Enter The Haggis

If you have never heard of them before, Enter the Haggis is usually described as a celtic rock band, mainly because of the bagpipes, pan flute & fiddle. They have been featured on Regis & Kelly, Canada AM (video at the bottom), PBS and Breakfast with the Arts (A&E). Back in the early days, ETH made a name for themselves on the celtic/irish festival circuit for their modern/high energy interpretations of traditional celtic & irish songs, but on the past few albums they have been evolving tremendously, taking some exciting genre-bending risks along the way.

Now, i should mention their last album “Soapbox Heroes” – was probably my least favorite ETH album (sorry guys hehe). The production was slick, the musicianship was exemplary as usual and there were a few catchy tunes like new monthly flavour & one last drink, but something was just lacking for me overall. I do not feel this way about Gutter Anthems at all. I cannot stop listening to this album, check my last.fm profile for proof! This album is a very special musical creation and while i don’t usually talk about album reviews here, today i make an exception.

Here are some of my personal favorites:

Litter & the Leaves: a ridiculously catchy nod to Dropkick Murphy’s, Green Day & Freddy Mercury

Cameos: A great poppy folk song many will find reminiscent of Great Big Sea.

Death of Johnny Mooring: A hard rocker that tells the story of a Canadian fiddle great who was killed outside a bar one night in 1974. The vivid imagery in storytelling is prevalent on other tracks as well (check out “Noseworthy & Piercy”!).

DNA: One of the catchiest, radio friendly songs on the album. Love the REM/Goo Goo Dolls’ish guitar melodies.

Lights & Cars: Lush vocal harmonies, the ending reminds me of “They Stood up for Love” by Live. Check it out, i’m not crazy.

Murphy’s Ashes: Rush would be proud of this prog-rock instrumental accomplishment. As a musician myself i can tell you shuffle + hard rock is not an easy thing to pull off but when it works (as it does here) it’s awesome.

Suburban Plains: Fans of Paul Simon’s Graceland or world music should dig this tune, featuring some masterful drumming/percussion and African inspired guitar lines.

These are just my personal favorites, but every track is strong. I think that’s part of what makes this album so special. Like classic ‘rootsy’ albums that came before it such as “Crash” by Dave Matthews Band, Gutter Anthems is a melodic tour de force which i HIGHLY recommend everyone should check out.

You can listen to the whole album for free here. If you like what you hear, share their music with your friends, buy their stuff, go to their shows & be sure to follow them on Twitter / Facebook / Myspace & Youtube.

annoying / business / coding / ideas / recommendations — 1 Comment
5
Feb 09

My letter to Go Transit

For those not from the Toronto area, GO transit provides commuter train & bus services from the burbs to union station (downtown hub). Now, GO is waaaaaay behind technologically speaking, and is plagued by constant delays & technical difficulties. As a web developer, i was excited when i learned today that BART in San Francisco is now exposing it’s data to the community. It got me thinking, and a little bit angry though. Why aren’t our transit companies offering the same things? If they are i want to know when we can expect it.

So… i sent them an email with a few recommendations:

1. Create a http://code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specification.html for the trains, which would get the detailed station & scheduling information into Google Maps.

2. For each train station, come up with a way to track the # of mins until the next train arrives and publish/maintain this information as XML for the developer community on the GO website.

3. Publish/maintain the Go Transit train schedule as XML for the developer community.

4. Publish/maintain all service advisories in XML format for the developer community in realtime.

I doubt i will get a response, but i will update if i do.

February 17th, 2009: Update – i received a response from Metrolinx (who i also sent my inquiry too). Here is what they had to say:

Note that you have sent your comments to Metrolinx. We are a provincial agency created by the Government of Ontario in 2006 and are tasked with addressing the urgent need to improve and integrate transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). Our mission is to develop a state-of-the-art transportation system that moves people and goods efficiently, economically and in an environmentally sustainable way. In doing so we are working closely with all of the transit authorities in the GTHA. However we are not involved in their day-to-day operations.

The GO Transit website is administered by GO Transit and as such I have passed your inquiry on to their Public Relations department publicrelations@gotransit.com. If you wish you can send further comments on their website to this e-mail address.

Metrolinx continues to maintain a close relationship with GO Transit as reflected in “The Big Move”, our regional transportation plan for the GTHA. You can review and/or download “The Big Move” at: http://www.metrolinx.com/thebigmove/index.html .

Best Regards,
Jacquie

Jacquie Menezes
Senior Associate, Public Affairs and Media
Metrolinx (Greater Toronto Transportation Authority)
Jacquie.Menezes@metrolinx.com
416.874.5923
www.metrolinx.com

And the response from GO Transit directly:

Thanks for writing about the GO Transit Web site. I have forwarded your suggestions to our Web committee for review. In the meantime, thanks again for sending valuable feedback — we appreciate your ideas and links to other sites.

Allison Derin
Webmaster
GO Transit
mailto:webmaster@gotransit.com

Again, i will update as i receive updates. Follow me on Twitter and i will send a Tweet as/if it happens.

apple / cool / podcasts / recommendations — 2 Comments
21
Nov 08

10 Podcasts for a great commute

A mix of tech, news, politics & comedy.

GDGT Weekly – tech talk – [itunes]
Legendary Thread – MMORPG gaming – [itunes]
Macbreak Weekly – mac/iphone talk – [itunes]
Macworld Podcast – mac/iphone talk – [itunes]
Mahalo Daily – This Week in Youtube – comedy – [itunes]
Real Time with Bill Maher – liberal slanted comedy – [itunes]
Six Pixels of Seperation – marketing – [itunes]
This American Life – news – [itunes]
This Week in Tech – tech talk – [itunes]
The Young Turks – liberal slanted political talk show – [itunes]

I should add, my favorite podcasts are actually Diggnation & Totally Rad Show. However these ones my wife & I watch on TV at home each week.

cool / how to / ideas / productivity / recommendations / software — 2 Comments
18
Nov 08

How to use Evernote to monitor your SEO efforts

Website Grader is a really good tool to benchmark your site on some SEO best practices. I was just grading a client of mine this morning, thinking how it would be good to keep a history of their progress when it hit me.

What i do now is take a screenshot of the grade, using the Evernote screenshot feature and automatically it is dated so i can use Evernote to keep track of our progress (or lack thereof).

apple / cool / iphone / recommendations / software / tech — 1 Comment
30
Jul 08

My iPhone app top 10 list

I’ve had a few weeks to try out many of the apps on the iTunes store, and although it’s not even a month into the release of the 3G iPhone there is already some outstanding products available, many of which are free:

Google Maps (built in)
The best feature in maps is that you can search for anything. If i search for “Sushi” gmaps will search and drop pushpins on the map for any results matching your search criteria. You can drill down to results, get phone numbers, addresses and using the built in GPS get directions from your current location. This has already saved my ass on a couple of occasions!

Airme (free)
If you are a Flickr user, and love your meta data – this is the app for you. I actually bought mobileflickr for $2.99 before i found this one, but i’m going to use this instead. Airme will allow you to take photos, and then automatically upload them to your flickr site for you. Again, the magic comes from the GPS integration. Airme automatically tags your photo with your local weather (temp / sky conditions) and plots your photo on your flickr map.
Link

Google Reader / Google Talk (free)
These are actually web apps, but with all their ajaxy goodness they feel more like native apps. I spend about an hour each day commuting on a train to/from work and being able to access all my feeds in Google Reader is like having my own custom newspaper. I also like that alot of the features have been carried over from the desktop web app (i.e sharing / share with notes / stars). The implementation of Google Talk is really solid too, only problem i find with gTalk is that alot of people sign into their gmail and walk away from the computer but still show as ‘available’ – so it can be frustrating trying to connect with your contacts occasionally. Also, due to the limitations with the iPhone SDK & the fact these are web apps if you leave safari you will be logged out.
Link

Texas Hold’em (not free)
Really REALLY well done game. All the touch gestures feel right (double tap to check, tap drag & throw your cards to fold etc…). The graphic quality is probably one of the best i’ve seen so far. One cool little feature is if you tap your dealt cards, you will see a colored ‘hand strength’ meter. I’ve actually found this a handy tool for a beginner like myself…for example pocket 2’s a beginner would likely make the mistake to bet hard when in fact it’s a really weak hand. Other cool things: LAN multiplayer support, stats (keeps track of your best hands / win % etc) & it will save your games making it great for even burning 3 mins waiting in line at the grocery store. The only negative i have is that you can’t listen to your tunes while you’re playing, which you could do with the old ipod version.
Link

Remote (free)
There has been alot of buzz around this one. Right now i live in a 700 sq/ft condo, so i don’t have much use for it however this would be amazing for a house party or backyard BBQ. With Remote you can control iTunes or AppleTV over wifi from your iPhone. This way you don’t have to leave the party action to skip a track / pause etc…awesome.
Link

Facebook (Free)
The thing that is most impressive about the Facebook app is the attention to detail. There is alot of functionality crammed into this app but the beauty of the UI is they don’t expose it to you all at once & overwhelm you, it’s like peeling the layers off an onion. I continue to find cool things i didn’t realize it could do. It actually even supports Facebook chat, although i’m not sure if anybody really uses that, and it has the same limitations as Google Talk when you leave the app. Just a really solid translation of a web app -> iPhone.
Link

Truphone (free)
Apple does not allow apps which support VoIP over cellular data (edge/3G) however if you are on wifi you can using Truphone. I used this when i was in New York state for a friends wedding a few weeks ago to dodge roaming charges and it worked great. Just hop on free hotel wifi and you’re good to go. When you sign up they give you $4.00 to get you started. Rates are pretty decent @ about $0.06/min for landlines/mobiles in Canada/US. One nice thing is that for the person at the other end the call display still shows your iPhone #.
Link

Urbanspoon (free)
Merlin Mann called this app “almost useful” last week on Macbreak Weekly and i see where he’s coming from, but it’s probably one of the first apps i show people when i’m demo’ing the phones features cuz it’s just so damn cool. I am going to Hawaii for 2 weeks and am going to try it out while we’re there. Urbanspoon finds your location using the built in GPS, and then builds a slot machine style list of neighbourhoods, types of cuisine & cost level ($/$$/$$$/$$$$). You can lock certain dials on the slot machine, for example maybe you are certain you want Italian food, but don’t care what neighbourhood or cost. Then you simply shake the iphone (so silly, but so cool) and it will return a restaurant matching that criteria. You can then drill down and see ratings, address & phone number with links to Google Maps if you want to get yourself a table.
Link

Twinkle (free)
I used Twitteriffic when i first got my iphone as that is what i use on the desktop, but i found it started crashing alot so i tried Twinkle (which i used on my old jailbroken ipod touch). The selling feature of Twinkle is that it uses GPS to show you Tweeters who are nearby, which is surprisingly interesting even though they are complete strangers. Also supports picture tweets.
Link

apple / business / marketing / recommendations / word of mouth — No Comments
21
Jul 08

Word of mouth – how to get it?

Ever noticed how the mediocre products/services are usually the ones to offer rewards for word of mouth (“refer 5 friends and get a free ____ “). Yet when referring a truly amazing product to family/friends consumers are more than happy to do this sans incentives. The satisfaction from evangelizing is enough reward for them!

I’ve actually gotten to the point with my own consumer habits that when i hear/see an ad for product/service promotion it changes my image of the brand to one of desperation “if they had a product people actually want/need they wouldn’t need to be doing this – clearly something is wrong what they are offering”. Maybe that’s just me though?

Every day brands like Apple, Virgin Airlines and Google are doing some insanely powerful marketing regardless of their advertising. Word of mouth is king. So how do you get people ‘converting’ their friends / family / colleagues to your brand?

Easier said than done, but you need to build something and make it remarkable. Hint: must be remarkable to your customers.

apple / cool / pick of the week / recommendations / software / tech / travel — No Comments
11
Apr 08

Pick of the week: tripit.com

So let’s say your planning a family vacation. You’ve booked your rental car, your flights, your hotel and a bunch of activities. If you’re like me you probably haven’t had much fun keeping track of all this stuff. Once you get more than a few seperate confirmation emails for your bookings it becomes a bit annoying to manage. That’s where tripit.com comes in. I read about tripit last week on Techcrunch, and thought it sounded interesting enough that i should give it a try using my upcoming honeymoon to Hawaii.

Start by booking your travel online as you already do today, and all you need to do then is forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. It matches the email address with the one you used to register and basically takes all your confirmation emails, and automatically extracts the important information and presents it in a attractive,easy to use interface. As i’m writing this, tripit already has a pretty extensive list of travel sites that they support to which they are adding & improving constantly. A minute or so later, you’ll receive an email from tripit letting you know they have received your confirmation email and it is ready for you to view on the site.

It’s all in the details
As they say, it’s all in the details and this is where tripit clinched it for me. Tripit automatically provides directions between multiple destinations using Google Maps, local weather & travel guides for the area(s) you are visiting. The travel guides are pretty weak right now as that feature is still under construction but i think it should be more useful 6-12 months from now.

The other thing i love is the iphone / ipod touch interface they developed at http://m.tripit.com. I definitely will be bringing my ipod touch along for the trip so knowing that i can jump on wifi and have up to date access to my itinerary if needed is great piece of mind. You can also subscribe to your itinerary in Google Calendar or iCal on your mac.

Share your itinerary with family & friends
If you have family or friends that you want to make sure can reach you while you are travelling, you can share your itinerary with them and they can goto your tripit page and see where you are, or find the phone number of the hotel if they need to reach you. The only drawback i can mention right now is that we booked a couple of bed & breakfasts not using major travel portals, and tripit was unable to import those confirmation emails. Not really the end of the world anyways, because you can manually add those parts of your trip.

All in all, a great useful web app. I highly recommend you check out tripit for your next vacation or business trip!

apple / cool / pick of the week / recommendations / software — 3 Comments
4
Apr 08

Pick of the week: Jing Project

Inspired by one of my favorite podcasts, Macbreak Weekly, i’m going to try to post a new pick each Friday. This week my pick is a great piece of software called Jing Project. There are a tonne of video / image screencap software tools out there that i have tried – Skitch, iShowU, ScreenFlow, dockdrop – the list goes on. The problem is i have my screenshot app, and my screencast app which is somewhat cumbersome and sharing my content is a little tricky sometimes, particularly for video.

This is where Jing comes in. Jing solves the problem of being able to show people what you are seeing and/or doing on your computer very quickly. It’s insanely easy to use, on the mac you invoke Jing by pressing SHIFT+Apple+1 which brings up a cropping mask that you can move & size to the area of your screen you wish to capture. Then it’s just a matter of picking your format – image or video.

Jing can then automatically upload the content to a destination of your choice (i.e Flickr for images) and a nice little touch is it will even put the URL of your content on your clipboard so you don’t have to go find it yourself. Now you just share that link with co-workers / friends / family and the whole process can take seconds quite literally. Did i mention it’s free?

david schultz dot org(dot com was taken)