1) Make a new Pandora station from something you normally don’t listen to a lot or don’t have in your music library but still like. (If you’re not familiar with Pandora, it’s a huge catalog of metadata about music. Not just by artist, but by track. So, if you really like “Hotel California” you can create a station with similar tunes. Pandora is an outgrowth of the music genome project that aims to fully describe all music. Impressive goal, and they’re mostly spot on.) I just created a station based on Dave Matthews Band. I don’t have them in my library, and I generally like their sound. I won’t say all the music that has come up has been a five star rating, but it’s been mostly good stuff. You can also add to a station in order to broaden the selection.

2) Swap iPods with someone. This one doesn’t really work for me since I have an iPhone, but maybe have a friend fill up a Shuffle with some of their favorite tunes that you don’t currently have. This is a great way to expose yourself to new music and to learn more about your friend in the process. A related practice (that I won’t recommend for Brett since he’s married) is a podswap. If you’re on the subway or bus and there’s a cutie sitting nearby, swapping iPod jacks can be a great way to strike up conversation without having to say a lot and you can learn a lot more about someone by the music they listen to than by most anything else.

Hope these ideas help, Brett. And when you do find some new stuff that is totally awesome, I hope you’ll send a heads up my way.

With all due respect to Gruber, I don’t have much interest in bookmarking or archiving his blockquotes with minimal commentary. What I’m interested in is the post he’s linking to! Imagine my serendipity when using Fraser Speirs excellent Applescript for archiving the current NetNewsWire item to Yojimbo. The URL for Gruber’s linked items is not to Daring Fireball but to the item in question. So, the script archived the actual item that Gruber linked to and not his linked list post. Not that my opinion matters a hell of a lot, but perish the thought that Daring Fireball’s linked list style change.

Sidebar: The other side effect of getting used to Gruber’s linking style is that I find myself expecting that linking behavior from other sites and being confused when I’m taken to their site. Most notably among these is kottke.org.

Twitterific is a great little Twitter client for Mac OS X. The software is free if you don’t mind seeing an ad once an hour. They show up in the same space as the “tweets” and can be skipped or ignored very easily. If you don’t like the ads, you can register the software for $15. It’s a good deal all around.

Some idiot unhappy person, however, has posted a hack that strips out the ads. People who use this hack are stealing money from the Icon Factory: they didn’t pay for the software, and they’re not showing the ads.

In response, I just registered my copy two copies, one for me and one for my wife. They now have my our $15~$30.

The idiot gentleman who posted the hack is defending himself, as if he didn’t do anything wrong. Here’s how we (all Twitterific users, especially software developers) should respond:

• Register your copy of Twitterific for $15
• Post a note on the idiot’s site to let him know that, to prove him wrong, you’ve just registered your copy (here’s mine).
• Post something on your own weblog. Either point here, or reproduce something like these instructions.

Let’s see if we can drum up at least a few hundred registrations for them, to show our support. Turn the idiot’s bad behavior into something good for the Icon Factory.

Which brings me to the jackassiest comment of the day regarding Amazon MP3, from Jupiter Research analyst David Card to the Associated Press: “In and of itself, (Amazon MP3) isn’t enough to change any market share. They have to do a good job at building their store.”

Well, perhaps Amazon can find a book or something about how to build a successful high-volume online store.

It’s writing like this that makes me love John Gruber and Daring Fireball. Snarky when appropriate but always cogently argued and insightful – unless he’s posting about sports.

(Via Daring Fireball.)

What are expectations? “Mike, you’re a smart guy so I expected more out of you. Since you failed to meet expectations, you get no raise. Frankly, I’m surprised Bob can even wipe his own ass. That he comes to work most days with his pants facing forward exceeds expectations, so he gets a ten percent raise, and a little gold star.”

Mike is quickly becoming one of my absolute favorite bloggers. When he posts, I listen because he’s not just posting to post, you know? Top notch all the way.

[O]ne of the biggest obstacles in most people’s quest for freedom is their inability to imagine what they would do with all that extra time. Work fills a gaping void in most of our lives, a void into which we would rather not peer!

And the main reason that hole is so difficult to look into is because we have not figured out what we would fill it up with.

This is so true. The question that graces this post’s title isn’t just a headline. It’s a serious question that demands serious deliberation. Just for the sake of argument, what if you only worked four hours per week? What if more and more of us worked less and less? I think that without serious consideration of what we’d do with all that extra time, we’d merely think up new varieties of mischief and madness. I don’t think that’s what Tim is after at all.

When I initially pressed ⌘+2 to blog this, I intended to write a post that actually answered the question. But somehow, I managed to actually have a thought before dashing off a post full of platitudes and clichés about how I would do this or that with all that extra time. It turns out that I don’t really know what I would do with all that time. So, I won’t post my answer to that question until I actually figure it out.

Oranged.net has released version 5 of their freelance business management software Studiometry. In version 5, it looks like they have added a new coat of paint and that’s about it. Oh, and they raised the price again. iCal synching, which they promised me would be implemented in Studiometry 4.1 has yet to see a proper implementation.

Someone should tell the Oranged folks that for Studiometry to continue to be viable, it is going to have to be rewritten from the ground up in Cocoa. The more I see from these guys, the more I want to chalk up my $169.95 (It costs $209.95 now.) to a learning experience and wash my hands of this wretched app.

P.S. iRatchet, Billings, if you had more robust invoice numbering ability, I would buy your app in a heartbeat. Look at the capabilities in Studiometry; it can’t be hard if they managed to do it.

In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night.

My primary concern about mobile web is the opt policy. Will it be opt-out such that every time I get nagged by some store I have to click a button to say, “Leave me the hell alone” or will it be opt-in where I can click a button to say, “Show me what’s going on right now?” And finally, there better be a way to turn off said notifications. This is not optional.

I honestly see the potential for a huge backlash against the attention economy. The impending attention crisis is real and in many ways already here. Unless there are real ways to put the end user in control, the attention economy is not sustainable. I for one (And if you know me at all, this statement is going to sound incredible.) would eschew my digital lifestyle if it were to become an intrusion over which I have no control beyond a power button.

(Via Read/Write Web.)

I almost stopped reading Mike’s post. I enjoy his writing, but the length was off-putting. I stuck with it though, and this, the very last nine words of the post was the reward. Truth. Profound truth.

(Via motherfucker.)