My computers

Seeing as everyone in the world is doing it.

  • brick (Toshiba laptop that is my main Linux machine – Ubuntu 8.04.1)
  • kallisti (G5 iMac that runs all my music-related things – OS X 10.5.5)
  • eeepc (new toy that goes everywhere with me – Mandriva 2008.1)
  • impulse (G4 iBook running Ubuntu 8.04.1 – lives in the kitchen)

I also have some inactive desktop machines that I don’t find I need to use these days:

  • Cerberus (old IBM web server – running Ubuntu 7.04 I think)
  • Baptist (very old Dell optiplex I’m half way through setting up as a router)
  • Scorpio (my old desktop from a couple of years ago. Now used to test things that might break my laptop)

Steph also has three machines; a desktop and a laptop running Windows XP and a server running Fedora 8.

Too many computers? There is no such thing. And it’s not like we have more than 3 or 4 on at a time.

Review : Atlantis, Oh Our Saviour by The Rest

I downloaded this album because I liked the front cover. It reminded me of “Funeral” by The Arcade Fire, and I thought that as The Rest were also Canadian they might be operating in the same sort of area. Reviews of this album have even likened it to The Arcade Fire, but also to U2 and other fairly large and commercial bands.

“Atlantis, Oh Our Saviour” sounds a little like quite a few bands I like, but also does a good job of sounding exactly like it should. There are quiet parts, loud parts, and screamed-into-the-microphone parts (sometimes within the same song). There is rock, orchestral pop, electronica, and a strong sense that this is the start of something beautiful.

I feel the same way I felt when I first heard The Fleet Foxes, The Arcade Fire or (if you can remember that far back) Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”. I can’t pick out favourite tracks because you just have to listen to it all and see if you have room for it in your life.

“Atlantis, Oh Our Saviour” can be downloaded for free from Jamendo.

One album a month for how long?

British singer/songwriter Sean Wright has been releasing one full album a month for the past year and a half. A couple of weeks ago I started to dip into these, and have so far downloaded about 30 songs, all of which I like to a greater or lesser degree.

It makes me wonder how much longer he’ll keep doing this, and whether he will ever run out of songs. I also wonder how many of these albums will make it onto Jamendo, because Last.fm is really best suited to individual tracks.

Briefly

Kouki deleted all their albums from Jamendo, which is slightly annoying as I’d only got about half way through downloading them.

I must have listened to about 24 hours worth of new music this week, and as I’m off work on Monday I might even get a chance to review some of it.

Review : 13 Segundos de Caida Libre by Icarus Crash

Icarus Crash are a melodic hard rock group from Malaga in Spain. They sing in Spanish, with a few English phrases thrown in on occasion (I think).

As I’m not really a fan of the genre, I didn’t expect to like this as much as I do. It sounds like a more compact and more melodic The Mars Volta, but also has a great deal of crossover potential, and I think that this would be a bit hit in rock clubs as it has the sort of energy that will drag people up to dance even if they don’t normally like to. My favourite track is “Ro”, but there isn’t a bad track on it really, and the whole listening experience is really enjoyable, which was a nice surprise.

The whole album can be streamed or downloaded for free from Jamendo.

Google Chrome

I installed Google Chrome on my windows PC at work today). So far I think it’s ok, not anywhere near as useful as Firefox, but certainly has some interesting ideas. The buzz surrounding it suggests that we are likely to see a lot more of it in the next year or so, so watch this space.

What amuses me most though, is that by lunchtime over half our office were using Chrome. I think we’re just all early adopters at heart.

Review : Window Sills by The Wind Whistles

I was going to wait to review this until Sunday, but as I’ve listened to it a fair few times over the last 24 hours I thought it was worth sharing.

Window Sills by The Wind Whistles – They think they sound like the Violent Femmes and the Lemonheads. Other people compare them with The Decemberists and the Moldy Peaches. I’d agree with all the above and add the White Stripes and the Fiery Furnaces to the mix.

The music has a traditional edge, but deals with modern (yet universal) subjects. Both singers can sing, and it sounds like they would be amazing in a live setting (anywhere from a concert hall to a camp fire).

I think I’ve just found my “walking to work” record for the next few days.

Using Ubiquity as a Twitter client

I’ve been experimenting with Mozilla’s new (very much still in development) Ubiquity tool, which does a lot of what Quicksilver and Gnome-do can do, but is also expandable to an almost unlimited degree.

I was going to write a tutorial on how to use Ubiquity to post to Twitter, but it’s really as simple as starting Ubiquity and typing one line as seen below:

twitter Type your status here

Hit enter, and your post appears on Twitter. It’s really that simple.