Week In Review: July 8

Thanks and welcome back to the Week In Review. I’m happy for the positive feedback on my first issue. Thanks everyone! This week, I try to keep it rolling.

iPhone Craziness

This week, the 3G version of the Apple iPhone is coming out. Some fanboys started making the lines hours, days before July 11, 8:00AM. It is a damn phone!

It is a bad ass phone, I have to admit. The “iPhone 2.0″, “iPhone 3G”, however you want to call this miniature Jesus, has some really attractive updates. Support of 3G network, Exchange, and some other shit that I don’t know or don’t care. This also launches the iPhone App Store. Apple opened up the doors for developers for them to develop some useful and useless but entertaining apps.

The ones that I was able to witness in use today were pretty cool. The iTunes remote was pretty kick ass. You can control your iTunes library. Super Donkey Monkey Balls is pretty cool, in combination with the iPhone. It feels like playing the game on the Nintendo Wii. The lightsaber app, was pretty cool, still you cannot find another nerd with it, maybe with version 2.0 of the app.

I have to say, that I hate and love Apple. Their first version of the phone was amazing, but everyone that has it, they know that it can do better. A year later, they do a few upgrades, and a big percentage of those early adopters are going to buy a new iPhone.

Yet, everyone knows that the iPhone can get better, put a camera on front, for example; but you know Apple knows that they can do better! They are aware of their audience, of their dedication and passion towards the brand, they know that the brand followers are going to upgrade their phone hardware, so they release little by little new features. That’s way they don’t make the replacement of the battery easy. Like the iPods, I can safely bet, the battery will die after 18 months. That way they make more profit! Brilliant! This pattern has been seen before with their MacBooks and iPods.

I may get an iPhone. I like the you can listen to music where you make phone calls kinda deal. At the end, is a phone, which may be the least thing you will use.

Music Of The Week

This week, it’s all young and upcoming Hip-Hop talents. If you didn’t knew about them already, now you will know who they are.
Blu

This dude can rap, and the beats he raps to are good. Check him out on Blu & Exile - Below the Heavens and C.R.A.C. Knuckles. If you like Outkast, you will like Blu.

Blu & Exile - Dancing In the Rain

The Cool Kids

The Cool Kids are just…literally Cool. Their beats have an old school feeling with a modern feel to it. Their lyrics are about random shit, but they are fun to listen. They have 2 EPs out, Totally Flossed Out and The Bake Sale, their full album When Fish Ride Bicycles is coming soon.

The Cool Kids - Stove Top Oven Fresh Baked Goods

Wale

Wale may be my favorite rapper right now. He understands the current state of the game. You can get all his mixtapes for free, and he clearly has talent. He is also on Mark Ronson’s good side, which is amazing when these 2 get together.

Wale - Please Listen


Wale - W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.

If you really enjoyed the music from this week, I highly recommend you to attend Rock The Bells. Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, Dead Prez, The Cool Kids, Wale and many others are going to be present. Check their schedule if its coming to your town.

Funny Of The Week

Brought to you by rumorsontheinternets

Powerthirst
Powerthirst 2
Gay Power Thirst

Favorite Links Of The Week

Michael Jordan’s 10 Secrets To Reaching The Top
Mac OS X Leopard Secrets - This will install on your System Preferences and will give you extra tweaks to your Leopard.
25 Clever Bar Pick Up Lines
Totem Destroyer

Video Of The Week

Improv Everywhere - Human Mirror

Girl of the Week

Keeley Hazell
Keeley Hazell

Hazell was born in London, England in 1986. A troubled student, she often times was ejected from class, most likely by female teachers. At 16 she left school to work as a hairdresser but the absolutely ridiculous level of hotness she possessed was brought to her attention by her co-workers, who told her to take a shot at modeling.

- Source

Oh my, oh my, I wish I was her future newborn child. Don’t know if she is funny, don’t know if she is smart, but I know this, seeing her pictures, makes me happy, and yes, those are natural boobs. In Europe, she is popular because of obvious reasons. There is a sex tape of her circling around the net.

Rapidfire Thoughts

  • So simple, yet so useful, but I love like some image lightboxes and in Facebook Photo galleries, the keyboard functions. You press left arrow, goes to the previous photo, you press right arrow, goes to the next photo. Too bad flickr does not have it.
  • To win friends and the confidence of people, you have to go to them, not wait for them to come to you.
  • It has been really hot at the office lately, I wish I could take my pants off.
  • Professional Sports Players have the best profession. They get paid millions to do something that they love. I get paid $3.25 an hour to do something that I love. I know that is something that not everyone can say.

Quote Of The Week

“Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.”

Week In Review: July 1

Welcome to the first edition of the Week In Review. Since I don’t like to deeply expand on a subject, but I like to talk about a lot of subjects, from now on (and hopefully in a consistent manner) I will do a Week In Review.

Facebook Applications are No Different Than MySpace’s Glitter

Yeah, I can hear what you are saying, MySpace sucks, Facebook rules, its applications are amazing. But when you give power to the user to customize their profile, hell breaks loose. The user experience goes to shit, and becomes unpleasant. The lack of control of how many applications a user can have on their profile is not strongly enforced. I just wanted to say hi to an old buddy, but I find 5 different walls, in which one should I leave my message?! DOES HE FUCKING NEED ALL THOSE WALLS?!!

I don’t totally blame him, I blame how easy and pretty the application do the job of spamming and encouraging its users to spread their application to all of its friends. I stopped installing application about 4 months ago, and I have received since then, approximately 100 invites to install applications, all of them which have been declined. They are no different than the Hot Girl On the webcam XXX spam that I get (outside of the possible boobies on the webcam one). It is tempting to click, but you know its no good.

And by the way, MySpace is doing a hard, but good job cleaning up its act. Redesigning its site, reducing incredibly the amount of spam received, and controling phishers. What I am saying is, once you give the user power to control, you will start seeing a lot of non-user friendly. And that was a rant!

Music Of The Week

Crookers

I have known about them for over 6 months, thanks to some music blogs that I follow. You should listen to their Essential Mix; a very solid mix, which without a doubt put them on the map.

Chemical Brothers - Salmon Dance (Crookers Remix)

A-Trak

Check out Running Man: Nike + Original Run. Loving this mix.

A-Trak feat. Lupe Fiasco - Mastered

Girl Talk

Feed The Animals is his latest mash-up release. Go get it here in a “pay what you want download” format. I highly recommend it, it is a fun album.

Girl Talk - Here’s The Thing

Funny Of The Week

Brought to you by rumorsontheinternets

The Website Is Down
The Web Dude vs The Sales Guy

Favorite Links Of The Week

Guide To Achieving Flow an Happiness in your work
Shoe Lacing Methods
10 things to do in Amsterdam besides smoking pot

Video Of The Week

Where The Hell Is Matt?
I hate you Matt, for being so cool.

Where The Hell Is Matt’s Girlfriend?
… Not so cool anymore…haha

Girl of the Week

Olivia Munn
Pure Hotness

Olivia Munn has, pretty much, all but conquered the small screen, co-hosting Attack of the Show!, and the big screen starring in Big Stan, as well as modeling for many magazines, including Playboy (Though she did keep her clothes on) and Men’s Health.
Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma, the daughter of Kim and Sam Munn, being of Chinese and Caucasian descent. When Munn was two years old, her mother married a man enlisted in the Air Force, and the family moved several times. However, Munn was mostly raised in Japan, in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo. -  [source]

It was hard to choose a girl for my first edition, it was because I didn’t remember Olivia! She is a 10 on my books. Gorgeous and funny. She is one of the reasons that I watch Attack Of The Show. I would happily marry her or a woman that looks that her that is funny.

Rapidfire Thoughts

  • Twitter has been very unstable lately damnit
  • Plurk is cool, but not as easy to use as Twitter.
  • I’m happy that our thoughts are not out loud. A lot of fucked up things come into thought at random times during the day.
  • Don’t go hungry to the supermarket, you will buy extra stuff… don’t go to the supermarket thirsty, you will only buy beverages (i did it this weekend)
  • New PS3 Software is available, now with trophies and you can read and message your friends while playing a game. sweet stuff
  • Awesome The Dark Knight Poster

Quote Of The Week

“You should send him a box with a turd inside of it.”

My comment after Chris Jennings told the story of his “friend” trying to scam him with $150 dollars.

So That Means I Don’t Need To Wear My Glasses

Zemanta Pixie

Guide To Discovering And Downloading New Music

I stole this image. Found it while searching 'chicks listening to music' on google images.

I love music, it makes me happy, it makes me work better, it inspires me. I enjoy listening to new music every day. Sometimes I know what I want, and many times, I don’t know what I want. So I start discovering new sounds, stuff that I haven’t listened before. I have thought that I am addicted to music, music is my drug, I always want more and something new every time. If you are reading this, it means that you are like me when it comes to music. This will guide you to places that you could find new music and possibly add to your list of favorite artists, without using software like Limewire or bittorrent networks.

Where to Start and Last Resorts ;)
iTunes Store - Access it through iTunes
Amazon MP3 Store (on a side note, why do amazon uses non-user friendly URLs?)
Rhapsody

News
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com
http://thedailyswarm.com
http://stereogum.com/
http://www.subterraneanblog.com/
http://www.mtv.com/music/charts/
http://www.mtvu.com/music/ahead_of_the_curve/
http://www.current.com/fix

Where To Discover
http://fairtilizer.com - You will need an invite to get in. I have a few, if you ask me nicely, I can give you one.
http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/
http://www.musicovery.com/
http://www.spiralfrog.com/
http://soundslikenow.org
http://mog.com/
http://music.myspace.com
http://muxtape.com - Create your own “Muxtape” or randomly click on any of the ‘muxtapes’ at the homepage, you never know what good treasure you might find. Check mine out, I will try to update frequently with different ‘ear food’.

On iTunes
1. Open iTunes
2. Click on Radio
3. Open the Eclectic Tab
My favorites from that list are:
Pig Radio
KCRW

Search Engines
http://hypem.com
http://beemp3.com/
http://g2p.org
http://elbo.ws/
http://skreemr.com/
http://www.musire.com/
http://www.albumhunt.com/
http://www.mp3gle.net/

On TV
I rarely watch TV, but here are three programs that I watch to discover new music.
MTV U
Subterranean - MTV2 - Sunday Nights at 1:00 AM
The Fix - Current TV - Tuesday Nights at 10:00 PM
MTV Hits - Watch out for the MTVU and Subterranean playlists.

Blogs
Here is a short list of blogs that I constantly keep an eye on.

http://palmsout.blogspot.com - electronic, mixes
http://missingtoof.com/ - electro, mixes
http://digitaleargasm.blogspot.com/ - electric, pop, mixes
http://www.discoworkout.com - electronic
http://caucasian-tabloid.blogspot.com/ - electronic
http://my.opera.com/Licorice%20Pizza/blog/ - eclectic, oldies
http://deekmedia.wordpress.com/ - eclectic
http://redthreat.wordpress.com - electro, mixes
http://musichole.blogspot.com/ - eclectic, bootlegs, mixes
http://blog.tracklistings.net/ - radio shows, mixes
http://mp3daily.blogspot.com/ - eclectic
http://www.nialler9.com/blog/ - indie, eclectic
http://www.brooklynradio.net/shows/ - eclectic, various
http://www.newmixes.com/ - radio shows, mixes
http://therapup.rawkus.com/ - hip-hop
http://findasoul4sale.blogspot.com/ - hip-hop

All of the sites above have RSS feeds. RSS is a very powerful instrument to get information from the sites to us, instead of us going to the site to find about. To keep an eye on new updates that any of the blogs that you like, use any RSS aggregator such as Netvibes, Use it, abuse it, stay informed and up-to-date with music, and share your tabs with the world.

More Info
The following link, I collected some information from them and used it to compile this list. You may find something else useful on them.
http://mashable.com/2007/09/20/music-news/#more-11067
http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_Download_Free_Music
http://blog.brokep.com/2007/10/27/what-to-use-instead-of-oink-waffleswaffleswaffles

  • Go to your favorite artist myspace. check out their top friends. Click on any of their “friends” and keep digging in.
  • Click on the blogrolls (the links on the sidebar). You never what treasures you may find.
  • On Google. Use this string artist name "rapidshare.com/files"|"megaupload.com/?d"|"badongo.com/file/"|"mediafire.com/?"|"http://www.zshare.net/audio/", replacing ‘artist name’ with the band or artist that you want to search.
  • Google Images - Search for album covers in this format (Artist Name - Album Name). The best results are Blogs posting the links to download the full albums. You might find more music of your interest.
  • http://www.music-alerts.com/ - You type the name of your favorite artists, and it will create a RSS feed from the artists you input and keep an eye for anything that is released from them.

Enjoy music, feed your ears, stimulate your senses with aural goodness! And that’s it. I will keep updating this post, whenever I find a good site, or any recommendations that I may get. Enjoy!