Mobile music sync for Android

I've blogged before about MediaMonkey and it's a great windows mp3 desktop player appliccation; however i've only really recently gotten the full benefit out of how good it was for syncing music to your mobile with my purchase of the Motorola Droid.

My old htc didn't have the ability to allow direct storage access to the memory card so i had to pull out the sd card and insert into a reader, with the motorola droid all i need to do is connect the usb then on the device itself mount the memory card (it's a one touch process).

After that all i need to do on Media Monkey is click "tools" then click "sync device" and thats it, takes about 30 seconds per gb of music.

As you can see from the screenshot you have a ton of functionality for syncing both mobile specific and non mobile specific playlists.

My personal playlists that i choose to sync to my handset are:
- "1 hour of my 5 star favorites" that were played last (eg i have about 100 cd's that are rated as 5 star favorites and it tracks when i last listened to them, it then selects the oldest listened to cd and syncs it automatically, if i listen to it on my mobile before i sync next it then swaps it out, if i haven't listened to it then it stays.
-"Last 50 played" this one is basically it tracks the last 50 songs i listened to on my pc and syncs these across, eg. Lets say i was in a White Stripes mood today then it will sync this across as i might want to listen to it again when i walk the dog tonight.
-"Mobile Sync" lastly this is the MobileSync playlist, basically any song or cd or artist i right click my mouse on and click add to mobile sync it then syncs these across.

Pretty simple and works great.

At the moment i use Meridian to play the tracks on my Droid, it's ok but could be better. Though software development on Android is such a moving target by the time you read this I'll probably be using something else.


Cheers,
Dean

So are you going to be watching the superbowl?

Giddyup - see you online at http://www.livefootballchat.com/ on Sunday the 7th of Feb.

The Third and The Seventh

I am mute, i am speechless - there are no words to describe this masterpiece of work.

"The Third and The Seventh" is a piece of work that has the ability to restore your faith in humanity and that there is deeper meaning to the soul.

I cant do it justice, please read the article below AFTER you watch it but understand in advance that every pixel and every image (even the audio soundtrack) that you are going to see over the next 12 minutes is entirely computer generated, and was created by one single person who took a year off work to create this masterpiece.

Please watch this entire video in fullscreen (the little white arrows button in the bottom right) but apart from that set your imagination free and just experience.


The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

More details on the how and why in this article http://www.the-area.com/inhouse/bts/publications_by_alex_roman though feel free to skip it and just go and watch the video again.

I have no idea what else Alex/Jorge or whatever he wants to call himself is working on but this is a true piece of art worthy of display alongside da vinci, van gough or salvador dali.

Have a great weekend everyone.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. I came across this at http://www.epicfu.com/ so massive hat tip to them for this.

Hillary Clinton demands a free internet

So Hillary Clinton spent an hour demanding a free and open internet for all citizens of the world, obviously aimed at the Chinese/Google debacle. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1705667530?bctid=62730021001

But i wonder if this is going to change how the USA enforces its own policies on not only its citizens but also other countries who do not follow the laws 'as the USA see it'.

Does Hillary Clinton also propose that the USA should stop blocking Antigua online gambling and accept the WTO ruling of 2007.
http://blog.collins.net.pr/2007/04/wto-rules-usa-gambling-ban-illegal.html
http://blog.collins.net.pr/2008/02/online-gambling-deals-between-us-and.html

Will the USA finally accept other countries can make their own sovereign laws and the USA doesnt "own the internet".

I doubt it - i guess it's only another example of the usa telling those third world asians to follow the usa "way of white life" or else.


Cheers,
Dean

Boxee decides paying for content is a good thing

lol almost choked on my coffee this morning when i read this article

http://www.centernetworks.com/boxee-payments-platform


My comments below;

lol, not going to happen.

Basically content providers are going to shun Boxee and no-one is going to license content via them.
If they wanted to play footsies with content providers they shouldn't have crapped all over Hulu for the last year and ignoring their requests.
They should have followed the Neulion model if this was their long term 'money making' goal.
Alternatively they need to invest in CDN's if they want to go the brighthouse/akimbo model (Not sure Union Squares pockets are going to be that deep).



Cheers,
Dean

$165 reward to find chinese porn

http://www.pcworld.com/article/187219/web_surfers_paid_to_search_for_pornography_in_china.html


Sounds like a job for a "flesh auto-detection script" and an "Amazon Turk script" to confirm results once the auto-detection is found.

If you dont know what amazon turk is, it's a set of tools where you can pay people as little as 1c to do various menial online task, eg, display 4 photos on the monitor and ask them to tick which ones are porn - the cool thing about amazon turk is the whole process of payment, testing and cross testing users answers is built into the amazon turk platform.

Basically there has to be an arbitrage possibility here between costs out and $165 per find.

What do you think?


Cheers,
Dean

FourSquare 1 Year

Wow amazing how "prevalent" the whole "Check In" concept has become in only one year. I wonder what people will be "Chatting" about in one year from now :)


Cheers,
Dean

NY Times charging

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/new_york_times_set_to_mimic_ws.html#comments


So what do you think? Will it go the way of Times Select into oblivion never to be heard of again or will it prove it's worth with a smaller readership the way the WSJ does?

Or have people moved on and it's no longer relevant and "Giant Toad" has summed it up correctly?


The NYT is already charging what their content is worth. . . nothing!

By giantoad on 01/17/2010 at 5:23pm


Cheers,
Dean

Virtual Gifts

hmmm interesting.... they charge for clothing your avatar - http://www.forbes.com/global/2010/0118/japan-rich-list-10-green-google-networking-early-riser.html

Real money through a virtual maslow's hierarchy of needs.



Cheers,
Dean

Ban/Unban users in a cruel nefarious way.

Wicked cackle of a laugh as my developer shows me how we setup the ban/unban function for all of the Live Chat Concepts sites - basically we can ban a user with a single command line - the cool part is the user doesn't know they are banned....they can type as much as they want - they are the only one who can see it, to everyone else they are a ghost and nothing they do shows up.


This is a much better way than blocking the user from loggin in who can just turn around and open up a new user account - they could be typing for days before they work out something is wrong.

BJ - you're a legend.