Five Random Recommendations

I have been meaning to make a post about each of these things, but I never seem to get around to it. So, here are five recommendations that have absolutely nothing to do with one another:

1. Peel
If you read my review of the “Best Things to Happen to Music in 2006” you may remember my praise for a program called Songbird. As an mp3 blog aggregator, Peel kicks Songbird’s butt. Basically you plug in the url of the mp3 blogs you listen to and then you can play the mp3′s through Peel. It begs the question: how long until iTunes has this built in functionality? Download Peel while it is still free!

2. TextWrangler
I recently found the need to make changes to the .htaccess files on my server. To the 0.001% of you who may need to do this, I recommend TextWrangler because it allows you to open and save .htaccess files on a Mac. Since files with a “.” at the beginning of their name are invisible on a Mac, this is the best way I have found to work with them. It also lets you open and save files directly to your server.

3. Midlake
Midlake’s “Trials of Van Occupanther” is the cd that I have had on constant rotation for several weeks now. Rather than try to describe their sound, listen to this mp3 called Roscoe. Great stuff. I also saw the band in concert in Denver, but wasn’t as impressed. They got caught in a snow storm so they were playing without a sound check. It also seemed like they might have had a little too much alcohol or other substances before they got on stage. Still a decent live show, but the cd is what really knocked my socks off.

4. MediaTemple
I have left 1and1 and their cheap prices in search of a more reliable hosting company. So far so good, and I recommend MediaTemple for anyone looking for a web hosting company. The grid server strategy is an unique approach to the limitations that come with traditional shared hosting packages.

5. Audio Hijack
If you are on a Mac there is a great application called Audio Hijack that allows you to record any sound from any program on your computer. This comes in handy when you want to rip an mp3 from a streaming internet source or if you want to rip music off a dvd or video file. It isn’t free, but $16 is pretty cheap for what it does.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.