piece of shep

In case you haven’t noticed, Last.fm has received a makeover. The new site looks fantastic compared to the old one. It probably has to be one of the best site redesigns by a popular website that I’ve ever seen. The best part about the redesign is the user profile page. If you look at mine, you can see how clean the new design looks. I love how it has thumbnails of the artists (or album covers) next to the recently played songs. The images for the artists in the user’s library are excellent as well.

Notice how nice and clean they look. They charts are now ajax-ified and are quite nice. The color scheme of the site is much easier on the eyes. They managed to create a new site that totally changes the look but still feels familiar. It goes to show you can have a complete redesign without losing your identity. Overall, it is a really successful redesign. Maybe MySpace and Facebook should take note. Much props to the design team at Last.fm.

I’ve been really frustrated with my Windows Vista box. When I first got the machine, last summer, I loved Vista. Now, with each day, I tend to loathe it more and more. This is due to many frustrations I have with it.

Things seem to freeze all the time. Whether it’s Internet Explorer (yes, I use it to check the compatibility of websites I work on), Windows Explorer, Windows Sidebar, or pretty much anything else. I don’t run a lot of programs at once and have 2gb of RAM (which Windows while idling uses about 44% of) and these things still freeze.

Things just don’t work. Windows Media Center is a piece of crap and can’t play DVDs without freezing or taking forever to load. I went to burn a cd this morning using Nero and clicked “Burn” forgetting to put in the cd. No problem, Nero notified me and I put in the blank disc. What’s that? Windows decided to drop the drive altogether? Nice. So then I had to reboot the machine so it would pick up drive. All to burn the cd.

Another factor weighs in on my continuing hatred for Vista. My MacBook. While I do find some faults with OSX, for the most part, it’s a good OS. It’s fast on my MacBook, there’s good software, and the look and feel is great. And I never run into any of the problems I run into on Windows. My next desktop computer is going to be a Mac. Too bad that won’t be for a while.

I could install Linux on it, which I do have Ubuntu installed via Wubi, but I don’t want to have to do a lot of work to get something to just work. I don’t want to go around the bend to get my ATI card to work to it’s full potential all while sacrificing other aspects of an environment I like (If I want to use the ATI drivers for desktop effects I can’t play games or have a screensaver because the screen flickers while doing those things). Too bad OSX won’t work on PC hardware (without mass amounts of hackery).

Kansas City, Missouri’s Tech N9ne recently came out with a new album entitled Killer. With each new album Tech reaches more and more people and gets closer and closer to the mainstream. This album is the closest he has ever been. He is selling out shows all across the United States, hooking up with major rap stars, and even has had his video for Bout ta Bubble, from his last album, on MTV. His new album debuted at number 12 on the charts, a very respectable debut for someone who is independent in every sense of the word. He has not had any promotion on TV or radio for this album. All the promotion has been in interviews in magazines and his amazing performances at shows.

Tech N9ne is definitely rewriting the books on being an independent rap superstar. You need no look any further than Killer for proof. Ice Cube, Paul Wall, and Scarface are a few of the bigger names that appear on the two-disc album. You can even tell that Tech is reaching for the mainstream with his selection of beats on the album. It’s not his best album, but has several great songs in the 32 track set. The best song on the album, in my opinion, is a song in which Tech does what he does best. It’s a song in which Tech takes us on a trip into his psyche and let’s us into his deepest emotions. This song is about how he wishes he could cry just once. Everything would be better if he could cry and the tears could wash away all the bad things in his life. It’s a pretty deep song and it’s not every day you hear a rapper talk about crying, let alone wishing they could cry. Have a listen and purchase the album.

Yesterday I had my wisdom teeth removed.  The procedure went by really quick and I didn’t feel much pain. They hooked up the IV of wonderful drugs and about 15 seconds later I began to get dizzy then I fell asleep.  I woke up a couple times in the 35 minutes I was out and felt them doing things in my mouth and it hurt a little, but by the time they were done and I woke up that pain was just a distant memory.  My jaw and gums are still sore today but it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be.  The vicodin they prescribed makes me extremely sleepy.  I’d say the worst part so far has been how swollen my face has been and how thirsty I have been.  I hope the rest of my recovery goes just as well as the past day has and really hope I don’t get dry sockets.

In other news, I’m glad I didn’t camp out for an iPhone.  The ATT store that I would have camped out at only had 20 to sell on release day.  I went to the store today and they ordered me one.  It is supposed to be in in 7-10 days.  We’ll see how that holds up, but at least I should be getting one soon.  I’m excited about that.