Remembering 9/11 with a picture of our visit to ground zero two years ago.

I’ve had three iPods. Technically I have had four, but I am not counting my iPhone.

The first one was a two gig nano. I put a few must-always-have-with-me records onto it and then would swap other stuff on and off every few days depending on my mood.

My second iPod was a 30 gig video. I loaded it up to nearly full very quickly (as in the first time I plugged it in) but left a little room to add new music as it came into my hands.

The third one was a surprise Christmas present given to me by Santa Jen. An 80 gig classic. I’ve had it for close to two years now and it is nearly full. I basically throw anything I happen to have in mp3 format onto it.

That’s not what I’m really thinking about right now though. I’m thinking about the new iTunes 9.0 and what it calls Genius Mixes. Genius debuted in the last major iTunes release. (or was it two releases ago?) To use it you would select a song and it would sift through your files and it’s database and create a short (20 songs was the default) playlist of songs that, based on it’s algorithm, were complementary to the song you chose.

Genius Mixes are similar, although it doesn’t require any user input. When you turn it on it creates 12 mixes based on your library. It gives a title based on genres, for example my library at work is currently playing a mix called Alternative Mix. It also tells you a few of the artists included. When you click on one of these mixes it will start playing relevant music. I haven’t tested long enough yet, but I think it’s supposed to keep playing until you tell it to stop. Kind of a nice feature if you like randomizing your library but want the randomization to be a little restricted.

Which brings us to the point. I set this functionality up all by my lonesome on my iPod Video about 2 years ago. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to listen to when I get into the car for my loooong commutes to and from work. Other times I want the music to pick itself for me. In other words, I just pick the shuffle all function and either listen to it for the whole drive, or listen to it until something really grabs me. For instance, yesterday morning I started with the shuffle all and about 4 songs in it played something by Mary Lou Lord that just hit the spot for me. I then switched to my Mary Lou Lord playlist and listened to that for the rest of the ride. The day before that I did the same thing but settled on Dada.

Sometimes though the random selections would piss me off. Say for instance that I feel like being a folkie but can’t decide on who to listen to. Then say I go to the shuffle all and it plays me a string of jazz cats all in a row. That really doesn’t help me. I could sort the library by genre and then shuffle that. That could work, but what if I’m in the mood for something broader than that? Say folkies and/or 80’s rock bands from Boston? Shuffling by genre doesn’t work for that.

What did I do? I set up playlists for shuffle use only. Lots of them. 60’s rock. 70’s rock. 70’s prog rock. 90’s rock. 90’s rock bands from Boston. Jazz. Jazz guitarists. Jazz sax players recorded prior to 1960. Lots of stuff like that.

Essentially I created Genius Mixes. You’re welcome iTunes 9.0. Call me Rob the Innovator.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the longest, boring-est, most pointless, useless post on this entire blog.

Your welcome.

Jen just got home from an open house at the kid’s school.

Both kids are awesome.

Like there was ever any doubt.

Way to go guys!

Apple held a media event today. It focused on music. iPods and iTunes mostly.

There is a new iPhone OS update available today. OS 3.1. Hopefully it fixes the bugs that have bugged me. Specifically, the keyboard is REALLY SLOW on some apps. Also, the SMS and Email routines have a tendency to spin into landscape mode while I am holding the iPhone upright and not moving. That annoys me.

One of the big rumors was there would be a new iPod touch released that has a camera. Close but no cigar. It’s the new nano that comes with a camera. A video camera no less. Also a built in mic, speaker, and FM receiver. Nice, but I can’t imagine the average consumer would pick a nano over a touch given the touch can run app store programs and (in a wi-fi environment) is basically a pocket computer.

The new version of iTunes appears to be focused more on the iTunes store. By the sound of it everything there is changing. (at least the look and feel is) Movies will now come with all of the DVD extras. (for an extra fee?) Buy full albums (LP mode) will now come with extras such as artwork and lyrics and stuff. I like that upgrade very much, thank you. Also, for networks running iTunes on multiple machines, you can now drag songs from one shared iTunes into another and it will copy the files onto the second machine. That. Is. AWESOME!. I have been waiting for that since… ohhhh… day one.

There was one glaring omission in the Apple “Rock & Roll” event: The Beatles. It was rumored that The Beatles catalog would finally be available for purchase in the iTunes store. Nope, not this time. There was even supposed to be an interview with Yoko Ono published online last night that quoted her as saying today was the day. The article was immediately and (if it actually existed) somewhat alarmingly squashed and erased from the ether. Given the events of today I would suggest that the whole thing was a hoax. I know that’s a leap of logic on my part.

The only other thing that is drool worthy for me personally is that the new iPod Classic has a 160 gig capacity (I own an 80 gig classic that is about 98% full and never leaves my side) and the price has been reduced to about $240 or so. I’m too lazy to look up the actual price, but it’s close to that. It’s about $20 cheaper than the 120 gig Classics were selling for when you went to bed last night. I think that might be something to save up for as an upgrade. I am a storage capacity whore who cannot get enough memory. I always need more.

So today is the day that The Beatles Rock Band comes out as well as (finally!!!!!!) the remastered versions of the entire Beatles catalog. The stereo versions are being sold as a boxed set. I will save up for that and get it one of these days. I have everything the band has published, and I have mountains of stuff that they… ummm… haven’t published. There is nothing new in these remasters for me other than the (hopefully, please please please) cleaner sound. I am going the audiophile root here and only interested in getting the CDs. Had the new remasters been released on iTunes I would not have even considered buying them there. I want the full resolution this time, thanks. As for Rock Band… I’m saving up for that one too.

So today is a big day for Apple fans and for Beatles fans. I hope you enjoy all the neat stuff as much as I am positive I will.

Happy 09/09/09.

as in…

number nine?
number nine?
number nine?

Is the Devil Dog Italian?

Just another loser.

What a great weekend we just had. Labor Day weekend was wonderful this year. On Friday night Jen and I went out to eat and then went home and had a wonderful night flaking while watching movies on-demand. Saturday we slept late and flaked while watching DVDs and then we went to the Feast of the Three Saints in Lawrence and had fun being Italian (or pretending to be Italian in my case). Then we went home and flaked in front of a few more DVDs. On Sunday we spent the whole day (minus a trip to Manchester, NH for dinner) flaking in front of the tube. Monday we spent the whole day (minus a couple of hours working on learning C# for our development fun project) flaking in front of still another batch of DVDs.

In short we did almost nothing this weekend and we loved every second of it. We have seemingly been on the go pretty much constantly since the night I asked her to marry me. There have been very few times where we could just do nothing and enjoy it. Often the times we spent trying to do nothing were disrupted by thinking about things we would be doing once the doing nothing came to an end. Not this weekend though. This weekend we just stayed home together and enjoyed being together with nothing else hanging over our heads. It was pretty magical.

Now we’re back at work and it sucks. Yes, it royally sucks ass. I want to go home.

At least this week there is an Apple presentation scheduled for tomorrow. It coincides with the release of The Beatles Rock Band. We’re waiting for Christmas to pick that one up. At least that’s the plan. I imagine it’s at least possible that our wills will get weak and we’ll cave in and get it sooner… maybe.

Still, no matter what happens over the next four days it’s going to pale in comparison to this past three-day weekend. You might need some cheering up, so I suggest you watch this you tube video.

That’s all I have for now.

Good Day.

I love my Wife!

My advice to all who have Labor Day off is to do as little labor as humanly possible.

We’re in full watching-movies-on-the-couch mode.

Happy Labor Day!

Yesterday we went to the second day of the Feast of the Three Saints in Lawrence. It was me and the Mrs and her mother and step father. Jen and her mom lived in Lawrence years ago but never went to this festival. It was a first for all of us.

It was fun, but not quite as authentic an experience as we had hoped for. I think the Korean restaurant booth might have killed some of the Italian buzz for us. Still, we had a lot of fun wandering around the festival and Tripoli Bakery makes some damn good stuff.

Here are a few of the pictures I took…

My sweetie at the Robert Frost Fountain on the Lawrence Common.

I had exactly one goal for this festival. Gellato. Lots of it. Success!

My wife loves the gellato too.

My wife also loves shopping for hand bags.

The turtle races were awesome! This little guy was the winner.

This is the reason for the season. Outside of Holy Rosary Church.

Next to the church was a cool little archway.

Inside Holy Rosary.

We were supposed to go back for a copy of that cook book but we forgot to.

The headquarters for the festival?

Lots of fire crackers. We didn’t stay for the explosion though. Sorry about that.

The Italian flag flying alongside old glory.

Looooong lines for perfect ice cream.