At the Kings of Leon concert
What? I can't hear you... :-)
We're at the Kings of Leon concert in San Francisco. Great show so far!
Sent from my iPhone.
We're at the Kings of Leon concert in San Francisco. Great show so far!
Sent from my iPhone.
TajTunes saved Mother's Day
Once again, TajTunes is a big hit!
We're in a recession, so I got my mom a very special (and affordable) gift - a singing telgram from TajTunes in India. These guys are great...
It's pretty cheap, it's fun, and they even send you the recording when it's done. Listen to the recording above - click the play button.
Happy Mother's Day Mom!
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SugarSync launches FREE plans! Get yours today!
We just launched a new FREE 2GB plan. Sign up today!
We're really excited - this should make it easier for people to sign up and kick the tires. Check out the video we put together for the launch of the new plan: Our service has been doing really well - but one complaint was that people wanted an easier way of trying it out. Prior to this, users could sign up for a 45-day trial only. Now, users can sign up for an ongoing, Free 2GB account with no expiration date! Now my friends can finally see what I've been working on for the past few months... SugarSync is pretty amazing - you should try it out and let me know what you think... You can learn more at:www.sugarsync.com BTW - we now have native apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile devices.Comments [1]
Advice: practice on other people's kids
We hosted Marcelo, Elisa, and baby Pablo Marcelo from Italy this past week. It was great taking care of the baby. He had a great time, although he was quite angry he couldn't stay in San Francisco longer...
We generally try to practice on other people's kids - when we have our own, we'll have made all of our mistakes on other kids :-)
Marcelo & Elisa hosted us when we were in Rome, so we finally got the chance to return the favor.
We generally try to practice on other people's kids - when we have our own, we'll have made all of our mistakes on other kids :-)
Marcelo & Elisa hosted us when we were in Rome, so we finally got the chance to return the favor.
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BBQ with Marco & Maria
The GSB reunion fun never stops... Marco and Maria hosted a big BBQ for everyone who was still around on Sunday.
I definitely need to find some of that Italian sausage... mmmmm....
I definitely need to find some of that Italian sausage... mmmmm....
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GSB Reunion Photos
Great weekend - finally caught up with a bunch of my buddies at our 10 year GSB reunion. We seem to be holding up well after 10 years :-)
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Nephew Isaac in SF
My nephew Isaac (2.5 years old) came to visit us in San Francisco. We kept him really busy - we spent the day at Alta Plaza and the California Academy of Science Museum. He ran around all day and finally crashed hard - with Monica (I guess she played hard, too). He's a lot of fun - too bad he lives in LA...
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Photo demo - for the guys at work
This is a simple demo for the guys at work - I want them to get hooked on Posterous!
Check out these sample photos... (not sure who these people are :-)
Check out these sample photos... (not sure who these people are :-)
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Kanye found a hammer; now everything is a nail
I'm a Kanye West fan. Actually, I *was* until his latest album, 808's and Heartbreak. Why have a I lost interest? Because Kanye West found a new hammer and now everything looks like a nail.
I can boil it down to two words: "Auto-tune". From Wikipedia (referencing Kanye's new album):
"The album relies heavily on the voice audio processor technology of Auto-Tune. "We were working on the remixes for Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" and Young Jeezy's "Put On" and he fell in love with the Auto-Tune," Dean explained. Towards this end, West enlisted T-Pain for coaching on how to properly utilize Auto-Tune. West himself openly stated that he loves using Auto-Tune and is dismayed that the term has been commonly associated with being "wack." He considers the technology "the funnest thing to use" and compared the situation to when he was a child and thought the color pink was cool until someone told him "it was gay." He went on to state how the views of society can rob people of their confidence and self-esteem. He later went on to state that he enjoyed the electronic feel produced by Auto-Tune and sought out to juxtapose the mechanical sounds with the traditional sounds of taiko drums and choir monks."
It is sooo annoying! I'm sure you know the effect - it does that wierd techno warbling of voice. Again, from wikipedia:
"Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies that uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise inaccuracies and mistakes and has allowed many artists to produce more precisely tuned recordings. In addition being used to subtly change pitch, with some settings it can be used as an effect to deliberately distort the human voice."
I think Cher was the first artist to really promote this effect on her song Believe. I didn't mind at that time - mainly because I don't listen to Cher. But I understand how an aging (read: senior citizen) pop star needs to reach out for that new shiny toy that might extend her career.
But Kanye? Come on... Kanye isn't using it to auto-correct a bad voice; he's just using it because some other rapper used it, who copied some other rapper, who copied Cher. It's the perfect way to turn a great song into a mediocre song. Here's an example of Kanye (over)using it:
Almost every single song on his new album is using this effect. I'm hoping this is a fad like Krispy Kreme doughnuts - maybe it will be gone within a year. Until that time, I'll pass on Kanye, Cher, Lil Wayne, and Youg Jeezy. I'm starting to sound like some cranky old guy that remembers the good ol' days... But really, not everything is a nail.
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The rise of VeeJay.tv
Recently, I've been working a number of side projects to stay current with technology trends. For one of the projects, I've been working with a developer (Jon Bardin) to create VeeJay.tv, a social media site which allows users to create music video sets which can be shared with others. It's something we're doing just for fun - it's not something we're trying to monetize.
The video content is pulled from three sources: Yahoo Music, MTV Music, and YouTube. The content is made available through open API's, which VeeJay.tv makes available to users in a single, consolidated interface. We even pull lyrics from another service when available. The service includes integration to Facebook, using Facebook Connect, which allows integrated registration and posting of content. Although the service was intended to be an experiment to give us more experience with mashups and Facebook integration, the service is growing without any work to promote it.
The project originated at Mashup Camp a couple of months ago. Jon and I wanted to do something fun that would also allow us to explore some newly released API's and also get some experience with Facebook integration. Originally, we started with Yahoo integration, and later we added MTV and YouTube. The aggregation across all three sources results in pretty wide coverage of artists and songs.
The site is still a bit rough and we need some visual design help, but it's working well. Last night, we threw a going-away party for a friend and we put the site to the test. I created a bunch of music video sets to play as background entertainment at the party. It was a big hit! Check it out in the photos - I hooked up my laptop to our TV (using a DVI to HDMI adapter) and also to our stereo. We all had fun watching/listening and it almost turned into Karaoke night with a few of the songs.
Check out the playlists that I made for the party (our friend Michelle is leaving San Francisco for Paris, so we made it an American-themed party):
Party Mix 1 - America theme
Party Mix 2 - Down home
Party Mix 3 - Good memories from the 80's
Party Mix 4 - Nineties were nice
Party Mix 5 - The other stuff
Party Mix 6 - The mellow stuff
Check it out and let us know what you think!
You can see VeeJay.tv playing on our TV in one of the photos....
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