Last.fm is getting close to relaunching their site and I was invited to participate in the beta program.  I think the new design has some great new features and I wanted to share it with you so you could get excited about it too.

Here’s the main page as it appears now:

The most important thing to notice is how cluttered it is.  Look at the proposed layout under beta:

Someone with a bit of artistic creativity has decided to create an illustrated view of all the big news of the year.  I like it so much, I can’t wait to see his work no Fall 2008 and so on.

Check it out, here.

It’s been a really long time since I last looked at Songbird. In fact, according to my blog, the last time I checked it out was version 0.2 back in October of 2006. The UI certainly has a bit more polish. I submitted some bug reports on their Bugzilla about Metadata problems with WMAs and problems with podcasts. Eventually, I just got frustrated and stopped using it. I updated to version 0.4 a while back, but it still seemed a bit unstable. With Rhythmbox and Amarok meeting my needs on Linux, and with me hating Windows Media Player so much, I’ve pretty much stopped listening to music on my Windows computer.

Moving up in Views Groups and thought I’d share them.

My wife’s aunt’s computer was always getting full of viruses.  I’d spend a few hours every time I came to visit removing the viruses and get the computer back to a working state.  Sounds like the perfect job for….. Linux!  All she does on her computer is email and watch videos - that’s it.  Plus, I can set everything to Vietnamese for her thanks to Linux’s great internationalization efforts.  Since I wanted a nice, worry-free desktop for her, I installed Ubuntu 8.04.

Second best xkcd this month!

The first word that comes to my head when I see this photo is heaviness. A huge heaviness that can’t be overcome. Even though it’s only 10 lbs, from the angle that I shot this, it seems to convey a strong sense of weight.

I played some Beyond the Sword this weekend.  First game was my first civ game in what has to be at least half a year.  I’ve just been busy with other hobbies/games.  This was the first time I was actually able to have a Corporation.  I built the Sushi and Cereal corporations.  Pretty interesting concept.  And I founded one or two cities in my neighbor civ and they opened branches all over their land.  (More money for me!)

I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned it on this blog, but I hate going to the movies. I’ve nearly given it up. The only exceptions are Pixar movies and the very few movies that I can’t wait until they come out on DVD to watch. So today I went to see WALL*E with my wife and slightly younger brother. It is, literally, the BEST Pixar movie ever created. The only reason I’m okay with the fact that they waited this long to come out with the movie is because it allowed them to get so awesome at creating movies that it looks beautiful!!!

You know who you are.  I just didn’t want to give identity theives more info.