Hey… one last post — and you knew it was coming, didn’t ya?

Yeah, you did— both the new EPs by Ben (Speed Graphic and Sunny 16) are great. I mean they’re super! And I’m excited! Can you tell I’m excited? I hope you are too.

Highlights of the two EPs:
1. In Between Days
2. There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You
3. Wandering
4. All U Can Eat
5. Rockstar

The rest are pretty good, too.

And watch for “Super D” coming sometime in November!

Well, got to go, friends!

I’m going to pee my pants I’m so excited. Or maybe I won’t. Boy, I sure hope I don’t. That would be awful.

Yep, these guys are probably right. Artists are still getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the iTunes music store. [see graphic below]

BUT I think that in the end, musicians will win. And we will win. And the Record Companies will lose… and they know it.

I realized this when I saw that good ole Ben Folds’ new method of music delivery skips the middleman. (He’s recording three EPs this fall with about 5 tracks per album, mixing the songs, and then delivering them to iTunes, with a small number of CDs given to some indie record stores and the rest for sale at his shows.)

Doing it this way, without involving the recording industry, he is taking home the share that would be the record company’s…

I mean, it just seems so simple, but for some reason I guess it will take some time for musicians who don’t quite trust a new system to start doing this… but once they do, whether it’s iTunes or some other online store - or a bunch of online stores, or whatever, it will be interesting to see how the record company reacts to being an eliminated middleman.

But then again, we might just crash the power grid and all of this talk involving this Internet “mumbo-jumbo” will be pointless. But that’s silly.

Perhaps you noticed the little gray box in the upper right corner of my screen.

What?? NO WINAMP?? Yes, yes, I know. Winamp and I go waaaayyy back. I absolutely love how I could perfectly integrate Winamp into anything I was doing. I had a constant playlist that was jumpin’, jivin’, and occasionally jabbing a whale.

So why was it so conspicuously missing from my desktop in that screenshot, while a not-so-sleek gray box with rounded corners took its place.

Yep, iTunes.

I was all over it the minute it was released. I knew it was coming for a long time… and then, one day, it was there in the news: “iTunes for Windows to be released this week” … and they weren’t even lying! It was released that week!

So whyTunes?

1. My iPod.
2. Quickest indexing of mp3s out there.
3. The iTunes Music Store is the only place I could get Ben Fold’s new EPs, Sunny 16 and Speed Graphic, outside of ordering the CDs from a few online indie record stores.

Yeah, it sucks that iTunes’ store is encrypted AAC. (Although the sound quality is noticably better than MP3s… AAC was developed by Dolby, I believe, as a portable high-quality sound file.)

You should definitely take that into account before purchasing any songs. You won’t be able to play them in Winamp without a plugin… and you will only be able to load them onto something like 6 computers. (This is easily hacked, of course, by just burning the files onto an audio CD and then ripping the track as MP3.)

But… for organizing and quick-access playing music, iTunes beats the living snot out of MusicCrash Crapbox.

Want iTunes? Get it here if you don’t already have it.

Nice Adam, I like it. Looks like you’ve taken advantage of a few plugins (HD monitors, clock, weather, ect) that I haven’t yet. So far i’ve simply modified the default Aston desktop, but have plans for that top toolbar once I get a minute to myself. I’m actually borrowing these minutes right here from my homework assignment. I have a feeling it’ll charge me interest
One gripe I had at first was the fact that the “desktop” wasn’t really your desktop. So…if you point a download to your desktop (as I frequently do), it won’t be on Aston’s desktop. My workaround was to simply put a “button” on the “desktop” that opened the desktop. Anyways, I’ll share a pic of my desktop once I get a couple more minutes. I could probably snag some from my shower time…

Did anyone follow Mesmer’s lead? I did. I’m a sheep. That’s why. Just tell me to do it, and I’m all over it like a moose on cabbage. Although… I actually like the look of XP. Well, I don’t know if I like it or if I’m very very used to it.

I started out getting some wild themes… but I didn’t like the way Word and Outlook looked because of it… two weirdly colored.

Anyway, after much tweaking this is what my desktop looks like. (And there will be lots more tweaking, I assure you.)

I’m curious what your desktop looks like now… for those of you who added Aston and tweaked it (probably just Dan and Steve). Show me!

(Click the picture for a larger image.)

I sure was. Yeah, you can give your OS a mild overhaul by rotating out your favorite desktop images, icons, startup screens (remember the WinBlows startup screen I made for 95?) and sounds, but that still leaves the most bothersome thing about windows…its shell. I can’t stand it. You’ve got a frickin’ huge screen (run to your local store if you don’t) and all you can manage to do with it is cram 500 shortcuts on it. Bleh. Usually to escape windows means to use a different OS - Linux, MacOS, … DOS. But just the other day I found a sweet item on the internet. It’s called Aston, and should be downloaded immediately, when you get the chance. It’s a windows desktop/shell replacement that consumes less resources than the default shell. It’s also fully customizable and allows the best organization of files and folders on the desktop that I’ve seen so far. I have not seen any conflicts with installed programs, since *basically* you’re still running windows. I dunno, I’m too excited about this to be coherent. Just check it out. And chuck your shell.

Now Clem, that is the kind of Snide remark I just can’t tolerate!

He loves the unknown, he loves the unknown…

No. Not Driver. You’re just making me angry even thinking about that game. I HATE that game. I HATE it. Video games are supposed to be enjoyable but challenging. Driver is just frustrating. I don’t want to hear that name spoken again in my home. I’m going to go unplug my cable modem now.

I just added Matrix:Reloaded to our DVD collection yesterday, taking advantage of a special discounted price from $23.00 to $22.50 and a free soda! Wheee! So there I was last night, watching the movie when the so-called “Burly Brawl” came to the screen. For some reason, watching that scene reminded me of watching Eric play Driver. Particularly the last level. With the impossible task of driving 26 miles (give or take a few) while evading 500×10^47 evil cars. The cars were black too. Kinda like agent smith. Without a british accent. Or pointy ears. I don’t remember if Eric ever beat that level. He beat the controller a bit, and practically ate the bean bag he was on….but the level? I don’t remember. Anyone else?