I’ve been using an iPhone for about the past six months, and while there are somethings that I totally love about it…but it is not perfect, and I find that lots of applications are not nearly as useful as you would like them to be.

Recently Analog Apartment posted about a new iPhone app that uses discogs.com.  If you aren’t familiar with Analog Apartment it is a cross between Apartment Therapy and a techy audio file blog with a strong focus on vinyl.

The RECORDS iPhone App uses discogs.com to look up an album’s information quickly and efficently.  I don’t know if you are like me, but I’ve definitely tried to look things up on allmusic.com while at the record shop, and unless you are looking for reviews I’m pretty sure this application has what you need.

+’s:

The RECORDS app gives you a welth of information: Title, Artist, Record Label, Format, Country, Release Date, Genres, Styles, Notes (if applicable), and Track Listings.

Initially I was skeptical so I started off with something that was kind of obscure.  I typed in Cold Cave.  I wanted to see what info it would bring up.  I was slightly surprised when I get a whole bunch of results…it not only brought up the LPs, but also the CDs.   I chose Love Comes Close.  The results were pretty cool.  In the notes section on Love Comes Close (the LP on Heart Work) it said:

“Limited to 1,000 on black vinyl.”

At this point I was pretty impressed.  I’m interested in seeing what it says when the re-press comes available from Matador.

Next up I thought I would try something a little harder, and I punched in Gary War.  Just like Cold Cave I got a whole bunch of results (both searches brought up 7″s and eps).  I knew the pressing details of Horribles Parade, and thought that I would check it out.  The notes section on this one were equally impressive:

“Special edition with screen printed alternate cover art, a hand numbered insert, and an mp3 download code. Limited to 150 Copies.”

Almost every album I have looked up has cover art, and all relevant information. There are some problems though.

-’s

The information is pretty detailed, but  I have tried to stump it and I think that it runs into problems with re-presses.  For example when punching in Nobunny…I get one hit for Love Visions, and it says that it is a press of 200 copies…I know that this LP is currently in it’s 3rd press, but those were not mentioned.

Of course with the digestible format that discogs.com has created in this app it will fall short in some areas…for example if you are trying to figure out exactly what pressing of a Beatles album…the 20 or so listings for Abbey Road might be confusing, and in the end you might not be able to figure out exactly what you have in your hands when at the record shop.

Lastly…the search is sometimes case sensitive.  A little annoying, but something I can deal with.  This hasn’t happened every time, but when writing this review I had a problem searching Cold Cave until I used capital C’s on both words.

Overall:

Discogs.com is a community built database so the information will be getting better each day, and I really feel that it was a pretty good for the small prices of $1.99.  I highly recommend trying it out.  It might not have everything you need, but it has most of it…and it is a whole lot faster than trying to use the internet on your phone.  If you want the database to be better head on over to Discogs and join, and contribute to the information.

Links:

• Companion post with mp3s by Cold Cave and Gary War.
• Discogs
• RECORDS iPhone App
• more on Gary War here.
• more on No Bunny here.
• more on Cold Cave here.

I spent this mornings subway commute reading the most recent Wired Magazine.  This issue just happened to have a guest editor…the notorious J.J. Abrams (if your in the dark…this is the dude behind Lost).  While at first I was opposed to the layout of the issue finding it hard to maneuver… while pleasing to the eyes it is difficult in  general.  At the recommendation of klk I started to sift through it again, and specifically to read the article titled:  American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse.

I was completely unfamiliar with this until reading this article, but it is truly an amazing story.  I’m not going to go into all the details, because the full article is available on the internet, but I will give you a little back ground on the  Georgia Guidestones.

The Georgia Guidestones were unveiled March 22,1980, and was commissioned by a man going by the pseudonym Robert C. Christian, and a group of Americans who seek The Age of Reason. Robert C. Christian went through great lengths to keep his true identity a secret, and is not known til this day.  Only two men are know to have met him in person, and the project was financed by money sent from various banks all over the country.  The monument was built with specific Astronomical specifications, and weighs 240,000 pounds.    These commandments are carved into the stone in 8 languages:

• MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000 IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE
• GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY — IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY
• UNITE HUMANITY WITH A LIVING NEW LANGUAGE
• RULE PASSION — FAITH — TRADITION AND ALL THINGS WITH TEMPERED REASON
• PROTECT PEOPLE AND NATIONS WITH FAIR LAWS AND JUST COURTS
• LET ALL NATIONS RULE INTERNALLY RESOLVING EXTERNAL DISPUTES IN A WORLD COURT
• AVOID PETTY LAWS AND USELESS OFFICIALS
• BALANCE PERSONAL RIGHTS WITH SOCIAL DUTIES.
• PRIZE TRUTH — BEAUTY — LOVE — SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE INFINITE
• BE NOT A CANCER ON THE EARTH — LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE — LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE

If you are as interested as I am you can read the article Here.

I read this while listening to Brian Eno and Harold Budd’s Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (I would have liked to be listening to Ambient 4: On Land, but didn’t have it available).  This was a completely appropriate sound track.  I recommend you do the same while reading.

My vacation this summer will be in the South (I guess you can say my homeland), and although it is short (well not that short, but a large portion will be taken up by Merge XX) I would really love to visit this site.  If I had known of it’s existence I’m sure I would have already visited it by now, but it was built to withstand the apocalypse so I’m sure it will still be there when I get there.

Again the article is titled: American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse and was written by Randall Sullivan

Photo/image via Wired Magazine.

More info on the Georgia Guidestones here.

In a perfect world you would add music to your iTunes as you get it, and build a perfectly manicured iLibrary over time.  And when you first started using iTunes I bet this was the case.  But here I am trying to combine the iTunes libraries of two now defunct computers into one.

There are two options:

1. Add everything into iTunes, and then consolidate the iLibrary.

2. Or have iTunes copy every file as you add it, and organize it for you as you go.

I first tried scenario one.  This got me duplicate files that were on both of the old computers, and took me hours to weed out the doubles.  Once this was done I tried to consolidate.  Consolidation of a normal iTunes takes forever, but consolidation of a mega iTunes built over several years takes an eternity…only to end with iTunes freezing, and having to shutdown the computer.  And guess what?  When you try to restart the consolidation…it begins to copy the same files that it already copied.  While you don’t have duplicate files in the iTunes there are duplicate files on the hard drive.  This option clearly doesn’t work.

The second option is definitely a better choice, but not by much.  With the second option you have to add bits of your music Library at a time (I’m currently doing it by letter…which is roughly 1,500 to 2,000 songs at a time), and allow for it to copy the files into the iTunes Music File.  Again this takes forever…but it has yet to freeze on me.

You may ask: Why do you want iTunes to organize your music….and I’ll respond…after three computers and two external harddrives someone has to do it, and I sure as hell don’t want to.  I just wish it was a little easier.

So I’m finally getting on board with this Twitter thing.  I don’t fully understand, but it seems to be the future so I’m going with it.

Here is the great pumpkin twitter page!

If you want to…you should follow me.

I’m sure this will be even more useful once I have my iPony** next week.

**  iPony (i-pō’nē) n.

When I got the Nintendo Wii I was just like anyone…really excited. I waited in line outside the Nintendo store, and was lucky enough to get one.  This was roughly two years ago.  My excitement died off really quickly. The reality is that the Wii just didn’t have very many good games (Wii Sports and WarioWare were the exceptions).

But this past Holiday season changed all of that.  I got both Boom Blox and Mario Kart Wii.  Boom Blox is an amazing game…kinda like Jenga but on your TV, but when it comes down to it Mario Kart Wii might be the best game that Nintendo has to offer.

We have been playing Mario Kart pretty much nonstop, and to my dismay klk beats me almost every time (9 times out of 10). Our game play was interrupted last weekend when my Kart would no longer turn.  The Wii Mote buttons worked, and the pointer could point at the screen and I could select things, but my kart would not turn.

After some Google Searching I found out that the Wii Mote uses something called an Accelerometer.

The Accelerometer basically measure your turning of the Wii Mote by sensing the angle that you are holding it, and in the case of Mario Kart which direction your Kart turns.  As you can tell this is a pretty essential element of the game.

The Wii Mote cost roughly $40, and I was afraid that I was going to have to buy a new one.  But help came in the form of the internet.  Apparently the Accelerometer in my Wii Mote was stuck.  I  read that if you whack the Wii Mote buttons down on your palm that it will dislodge the Accelerometer.

So I tried it. After a couple whacks on my palm my Mario Kart was turning again!  I couldn’t believe that the fix could be something so simple and primitive.  I was afraid that I would break it more so, but in the end all the remote needed was some violence.

If this ever happens  you now know how to fix it.

In Nintendo news: they are looking at upgrading the Accelerometer with a newer, faster, more sensitive version.

Photo by anescient via flickr

After a year and a half of struggle I decided to scape the “perfectly good” Linksys Wireless Router, and I have to say, as far as the internet goes, this is the best think I have ever done.  When I say “perfectly good” I mean that nothing is wrong with it other than the fact that them machine itself is flawed.

The Linksys wrt54g is about the ugliest piece of technology that I have ever seen, and was nothing but problems. First it was hard to get it to work at all with Version DSL.  Then getting the bit torrent working both ways.  Then it’s extreme inconsistency, and constant resetting to get a viable wireless signal.  The combination of the Linksys and Version…just didn’t work at all once we moved to Brooklyn, and we ended up canceling our internet service.

We decided to switch to Time Warner, and on top of the Linksys being ugly and unreliable, it knocked out my internet connection completely within 10 minutes of it being hooked up and Time Warner had to come back to the house, it also would only allow one machine to connect to its network, as well as not allowing me to switch the information from the old network that was set up on Verizon even after resetting it.

klk was looking at the Apple website and saw the Airport Express, and it was only $99.  We decided to try it.

The Airport Express has a sleek design (what else would you expect from Apple), and is easy to use.  Plug it into the wall, hook up your internet cable, pop in the cd, and follow the instructions.  To set up a password protected network took just a quick look in the instructions to show you where to go…but then it was all easy steps. Overall this took approximately 5 minutes (where as I had struggled with the Linksys for hours the first time setting it up).

The nice part about the Airport Express (AE) is that it can not only be the originator of the wireless signal but it can also link your stereo, printer, and possibly even an external hard drive to the wireless network.  The AE can even be linked to a second AE to connect a stereo that is in another room to your network, and at the sametime make your wireless network stronger and larger.

I have only been using this configuration for about a week, but I have had minimal problems (just an choppy streaming video last night).  I’ll amend the post if the AE becomes a problem, but right now it is amazing.