thesixtyone – Pick of the Week

Posted on May 31, 2008 by mizidy

thesixtyone was a site that I had seen recommended a number of times, but each time I went to it, I didn't understand it. Finally after asking a friend who is a member what the deal was, I got it, and I got hooked. The short description is that it is a site that makes a game out of finding new music. With your account, you get points to bump songs. As your bumped songs become more popular, you get more points to bump other songs. You also get extra points for logging in each day and accomplishing goals like listening to 100 different songs.

Being a Web 2.0 site, of course there is the social aspect where you can keep track of how your friends are doing. It also has a wonderful interface which allows you to listen to a track and still browse around other parts of the site. The one drawback for some people is that it is primarily independent artists so you won't find any top 40 music out there. That being said, I have already found quite a few new artists that are good. You can find my profile at http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/mizidymizark if you sign up and want to make a quick friend.

Pick of the Week is my way of highlighting cool/new services and software on the web or the Mac. A few Windows applications might sneak in from time to time, but it will be rare. You can find an archive of services and software at http://www.marktopia.net/tag/potw/.

Open Feedback

Posted on May 27, 2008 by mizidy

As I mentioned in my 500th post, I am working on a new design. Before going too far though, I wanted to get some thoughts from the people that read the site. Right now I have a single post at a time on the site with links to the last 5 further down. Do people prefer having more posts on the front of the site, is one good or do you read the site through RSS so it doesn't matter? What about colors? I have a fondness for more natural blues, browns, greens, etc but would a cleaner (read: less color) design work better? Also, because the single post is at the top of the page, do the things like tags and other content get lost or forgotten for you? I am looking for constructive critism so feel free to post any and all suggestions. I realize this is my site, but I also want it to work for you, the reader.

iConcertCal – Pick of the Week

Posted on May 24, 2008 by mizidy

Of you iTunes users out there, I am sure many are familiar with the visualizations included with the product. If you like to watch crazy colors zoom around the screen, you will be disappointed with my pick. iConcertCal is technically a visualization for iTunes, but when loaded, it scans your music library for artists and produces a calendar of events coming up for them.

You set your start location and the radius for it to look at and it will then return shows those artists are performing at. It will also check for new albums and releases for the artists as well. If you are into music, I highly recommend checking it out. It works on both Mac and Windows iTunes and is free!

500 and counting

Posted on May 20, 2008 by mizidy

We have a milestone, this is the 500th post for My Tungsten Marktopia. I have spent the last couple of days trying to think of something meaningful or clever to write for it. I realized that those things didn't happen for about 75% of the previous 499 posts, so why start now.

I will reflect that this blog has gone through many changes technology and design-wise. It started as a Blogger site, then to Movable Type and finally to WordPress. Blogger lasted about 6 months, Movable Type about 6 as well, and WordPress has been going strong for about 4 years now. There was an experiment with Drupal for about 3 months in there, however it was not able to import from WordPress and I could not export from it either, so those have been washed from memory.

I don't have an exact list of the number of designs the site has gone through, but I would estimate around 30 or so. I like making designs and with some books I have read recently, a new one is in the works again. Every time I make a design, about 3/4 of the way through I start to get new ideas that I cannot implement, but I will say it again, I hope the new design will stick around for awhile.

So almost 5 years after I started, we are at 500. I hope it doesn't take another 5 to get to 1000, but who knows. For all of you that read this, thanks for your support!

Amazon MP3 – Pick of the Week

Posted on May 18, 2008 by mizidy

For the first Pick of the Week, I chose eMusic and I still recommend it for unique or indie music. However, for music you cannot find on there, I now use the Amazon MP3 service instead of iTunes. Going with the idea that I will want to do whatever I want with purchased music, Amazon MP3s are all DRM free at 256 quality. While iTunes has some music with this same feature set, knowing that I don't have to check before buying makes it very nice. Another nice feature of the Amazon MP3 is that because it is Amazon, it remembers my purchases and every album helps with recommending new music.

Not all is perfect with Amazon MP3, for example the entirely web based interface leaves something to be desired. You can preview tracks still, but the overall experience isn't quite as nice as iTunes. However, I am willing to trade off the quality of the experience for the better quality purchase. If you havn't taken a look at the Amazon MP3 service, I would recommend it.