iPhonery: There's a lot of buzz surrounding the upcoming release of the iPhone 3G S.  It looks like ATT has sold all of its pre-order inventory.  A guy at the local Apple store told me today that they have sold a ton of pre-orders, and that next Friday will be a crazy day.  Apple has an excellent compilation of "how-tos" for the world's greatest phone.  That link is a mandatory bookmark for all iPhone users.  Postage is a neat-looking iPhone app that lets you create and email postcards, but then you have to print them to put them on the fridge.  Photogene looks promising, though I haven't tried it yet.

Sneaking in the Kid's Room:  Everyone knows that I have very mixed feelings about Facebook.  When I spend time there, I feel like I'm sneaking into the kids' rooms.  It is, however, the only way to interact with a lot of people who don't have a presence on the greater web.  What I'm trying to say is that, yes, when the opportunity presented itself, I capitulated to a vanity URL (facebook.com/newsome).

Wild Life Department:  Back in the early 70's, my mom and I saw a black squirrel in the woods by the road.  It was one of those things you never forget.

The End of the World as We Read It:  OmegaMom has a good run-down of some post-apocalyptic science fiction.  That's my favorite sub-genre.  I'm currently reading and enjoying the Pelbar Cycle books.  Here's a pretty good, but incomplete, reading list to get you started.

Sirius XM Deathwatch:  So now they are going to jack up the monthly rates even more?  Fat chance.  My Sirius XM connection is down to a single, stretched thread, thanks to the increasing costs, and the better options via Pandora and Slacker Radio.

Department of Sound:  30 Days Out has a good read on one of my favorite blues singers.  One of my favorite later Howlin' Wolf songs is this version of Little Red Roster off of The London Sessions.  Also, don't forget that I'm recommending a lot of great music at our sister site GoodSongs.Com (RSS feed).  Elsewhere, Cover Lay Down continues to rocket up my music reading list.

Apptic Blast:  Here are four great Windows clipboard alternatives.  And four alternative file copiers.  Finally, here are some good multitasking desktop apps.

I'm a Frayed Knot:  Everyone should know how to tie some basic knots.  Here's a wallet card.  Or for those hip like me, an Evernote card.  Speaking of wallets, here's a very interesting iPhone app to keep barcodes from all your affiliation cards.  I try to stay unaffiliated, but I have gathered a couple of grocery cards along the way.

One Sentence Movie Reviews:  I have recently watched (links to Netflix; 5-point scale):  Taken (4)- very good action flick, with great appeal for dads.  Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (3)- definite chick-flick characteristics, but I liked the music element and that both the main characters were really good kids (Kat Dennings is a lovely young lady; and I noticed when researching this post at IMDB, 22 years old today; happy birthday!).  Gran Torino (3)- overacting and the unnecessary verbalization of the obvious makes a great concept only a pretty good movie (nice ride, though).  The Dark Knight (3.5)- I avoided this one for a long time because of the Ledger over-hype, but it and he were both excellent, particularly until the last half-hour or so.  The Wrestler (4)- I loved it, Mickey Rourke was excellent and, seriously, could Marisa Tomei be any hotter without spontaneously combusting?  Slumdog Millionaire (incomplete)- I had really high expectations for this one, but I just couldn't get into it, and didn't finish it before my on-demand time limit expired.    

Blessings:  I am so glad the fracking digital conversion is over.  It was the most over-discussed, non-event since Y2K.  And, no, I really don't care if someone (or even 880,000 someones) ignored the deluge of public service notices and screen crawls and is somehow surprised that his ancient television not in any way suddenly quit working.  Technology helps those who help themselves, and all that.

Shaken, Not Stirred (but We Can All Realize Our Dreams):  I have reached Level 30 in Spymaster, which is as high as you can currently go.  As I noted the other day, it's a good start, but the game needs a lot more depth.  Follow me if you're a spy, and I will follow you back (as long as you have a legitimate, non-MLM, non-unintentionally-Deep Thoughts-like Twitter account).  I'd rather be spammed a thousand times on Twitter than see another absurd to the point of self-parody, uplifting, self-affirmation post.  And while I'm at it, do people really think blasting regurgitated quotes ads value?

I enjoy listening to great musicians talk about their craft.  Here's some interesting footage of Crosby, Stills & Nash.  Good stuff.

I've been a fairly consistent user of Pandora since I first read about it on December 30, 2005 (ain't it great the way your blog becomes your personal archive of thoughts, both good and bad?).  I have several Pandora stations, a couple of which are over three years old.  In that time, I have finely tuned my likes and dislikes and, generally speaking, the Pandora algorithm knows what I like.  And given that my music preferences are broad in some ways and narrow in others, that's no mean feat.

The thing that allowed Pandora to map my musical genome is the thing that distinguishes Pandora from much of its competition: the music genome.  Pandora figures out what you like, not based on the band or the song, but based on the content and structure of the song.  If you think about it, using a mathematical algorithm is a much more logical approach than trying to link together similar artists.  I like country influenced rock and roll, with acoustic sonority, major key tonality and steel guitar, among other characteristics.  Generally speaking, Pandora knows that I am much more likely to appreciate a similar song by an artist I've never heard than a wildly different song by a band I am familiar with.  The difference between the Stones' Loving Cup and Get Off My Cloud is greater than the difference between Exile on Main Street and some of the Deadstring Brothers records.

Another example:  while writing this post a great song by Hecla & Griper played on my alt. country station.  I know a lot of music, and I'd never heard of Hecla & Griper.  Note to the RIAA: thanks to this great online streaming station, I just bought a copy of Songs: Ohia.  So put that in yer pipe, and all that.  Wow, here's another great song by Luna, another new name.  If you like music, it's simply impossible not to dig Pandora.

Recently, Pandora began offering a premium subscription service, called Pandora One.  Among the benefits are no ads of any kind (something I'm definitely willing to pay for), a new desktop application (see the photo to the left), high quality 192Kbps streaming, and an extended interaction timeout (you can listen longer without clicking anything before the app times out).  All of that sounds very worth the $36 annual fee, and I have gladly subscribed.

But there is one significant drag.  Fast forwards.  Previously, you were allowed to fast forward (e.g., skip) only 12 songs a day.  With Pandora One, the daily limit is gone, but you are still limited to 6 skips an hour, per station.  Sure, you can "thumb down" a song and it won't play again, but I take my thumbing seriously, and I hate to taint it by using it as a de facto skip button.  Sometimes I'm just in the mood for another song, and I'd like to have unlimited (or at least a lot more) skips.

As I noted the other day, I have recently started using Slacker Radio, in addition to Pandora.  It has a lot to offer, and the interface, while not particularly Firefox friendly, is really good.  I like the way you can tinker with the new/old, hits/deep cuts, etc. settings.  Mostly, I like the fact that with the premium account ($48 a year) you can fast forward as much as you like.  If Slacker Radio allows unlimited skips, why doesn't Pandora?  Surely it's not about the $12 cost difference?  I'd pay at least twice that to add unlimited skipping to my Pandora stations.

At the end of the day, both services have a lot to offer.  I find myself listening to Pandora more, because I have been there longer and my Pandora stations are more mature.  While I continue to believe that Pandora's mathematical approach works better, unlimited skipping is clearly an advantage for Slacker Radio.

If I had to choose, it would be Pandora by a nose.  But fortunately I don't have to choose.

A two (or more) horse race is good for consumers, and these are both strong horses.

I used to love the Gillmor Gang, but I don't listen to it much anymore, because I have come full circle and once again think that too many of the core participants are intentionally non-inclusive.  I'm not talking about on the podcast; I'm talking about on the internet.  Too many of those guys treat the social networks as a stage where they can engage in dramatic dialog with one another, while the great audience watches in admiration.

And I have said over and over that Mike Arrington needs a lesson in personal brand maintenance.  Petulant jerk is not the image I'd go for.

And I have not and probably won't watch the rest of the latest Gillmor Gang podcast, so there may be things leading up to this brouhaha that I don't know about.

And, finally, I don't have and have no plans to get a Palm Pre.

Having said all that, unless there's a lot more to the story, Leo Laporte was a massive baby for throwing a gigantic temper tantrum just because Mike asked him if he paid for his Pre.  It's a fair and legitimate question.  A simple yes or no would have sufficed.

When I have been asked to preview phones and other mobile devices in the past, I have never been required to return them.  Generally, after the review period expires, you can keep the device, but you have to pay for a calling plan, etc. if you want to use it.  It's probably different for high profile devices like the iPhone and the Pre.  Maybe you do have to return it.  I don't know anything about some "wink and nod" deal where you get a letter requiring that you return it, with no one actually expecting that you will.  If that happens, it's even worse, in my opinion, than getting one completely free.  Once someone in that situation says he or she didn't get the device for free, it takes the issue from the realm of an omission to the realm of a lie.

Again, I know nothing about this practice, and I certainly know nothing of the terms under which Leo got his Pre.  I'll assume he got a review unit and always intended to and will return it.

In other words, I'm not examining Leo's integrity, because I don't really know him and have no personal basis to doubt it (or vouch for it).  What I am interested in is the epic meltdown he had on this podcast.

There is some evidence in the comments to the TechCrunch post that Mike may have been poking at Leo for some time.  I don't know if that's right or not, but it's certainly possible given the way Mike relates to most people.  But I'm pretty sure that no one forces Leo to do those podcasts.  And I'm pretty sure the fact that Mike can be a jerk is not a secret.

And, ignoring for a moment the source, it was a relevant question.  Not that Mike was necessarily looking out for truth and justice.

There is another question- about what Mike was worried about at the beginning: journalistic standards or that Leo got a free Pre and he didn't.  Questioning someone's integrity is serious business, which is probably what set Leo off.  But, again, a better response would have been "no, I didn't get it free.  What are you implying."  In all likelihood Mike would have hung himself with some tirade, while Leo sat back and watched.

But then again, what do I know.  I'm not smart enough to converse with these dudes.  I'm just in the audience, watching a couple of babies fight.

Can anyone spare a pacifier?

And maybe kill Google, Microsoft and Wolfram Alpha in the process.  OK, that was a joke, but since all tech blogs use absurd, over the top headlines in a juvenile effort to attract readers, I thought I'd give it a try.

Back to TweetDeck. . .

I've dabbled with TweetDeck for some time, using it periodically but always finding my way back to my home-grown Content Master.  The Twitter part of Content Master, of course, is the excellent TwitterGadget, which does a lot of really neat things that other Twitter apps have surprisingly not implemented.  TweetDeck comes about as close as any desktop app I have used.  With a few additions, I think TweetDeck could become my Twitter app of choice.

But make no mistake, for that to happen, this has to happen:

First, it absolutely must allow multiple columns of "All Friends," to allow users to better manage screen space.  The most important part of Twitter is the river of posts from the people you follow.  Having a single column to view this limits you to 6-10 posts on your screen.  That is far too few (sure, I could scroll down, but I'd rather allocate more screen space).  Users should be able to allocate multiple columns to the river, with new posts appearing in the first column and then moving to next column(s) before they rotate off your screen.  This is a must-have feature that should be implemented today.  Literally.

Second, how about a Google Reader implementation.  There's already a way to add your Facebook data to TweetDeck.  Give me a way to access my Google Reader information from within the application and I'd be hooked.  Something similar to, but more robust than, the Google Reader gadget would be a great start.  I'd be happy with Google Reader.  I'd be thrilled if other apps were also incorporated, like Delicious, Read It Later, Photobucket, Dropbox, etc.  In other words, make TweetDeck as good for publishing Twitter content as it is for reading it.

Third, once all that additional source data is available from within TweetDeck, allow articles to be dragged from the applicable column (i.e., the Google Reader column), into the Tweet message box.  Populate the message box with the title of the article you dropped in there, and populate the link box with the URL, which should then be automatically shortened.

Fourth, provide a way to export all, filtered portions or individual items from your TweetDeck to other services, via RSS feeds.  That would allow you to use TweetDeck as the publishing platform not only for Twitter, but also for other services.  If I could selectively embed some of the content I read and publish in TweetDeck to my blog or some other site, that would be very helpful.

Fifth, create a top row of tabs for different TweetDeck page layouts, content and implementations.  If I could have my Twitter stuff under one tab and my Google Reader and Facebook stuff under another one, that would give me the flexibility I seek.  iGoogle, My Yahoo and other apps already have tab or tab-like features, so this shouldn't be hard to add.

That should keep you busy for the rest of the day.  What are you waiting on?  Time's a wastin'.

Dave, Mike and I got together for The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #66 this week.  We talked about Dave's Evernote munging (Dave can make just about anything do just about anything), SuperDuper, Casper, Mike's work with the Environment Institute and my amazing and completely accidental bee photo.  I even had a chance to rant a little about VRM and the so-called semantic web.

We also talked about good company involvement in the social media stream (Topify, Comcast) and blown opportunities (Evernote, Blip.fm).

As always, we had lots of good discussion, debate and laughs.  Read more details here, or give us a listen by clicking here.  I'm the one with the funny accent.

If you're into tech, and particularly if you are a developer of a cool app or service that needs a little exposure, drop me a line (see the link in the left hand column) and we'll see about having you on a future show.  Trust me, it's a good time.

I don't live on Twitter, so Spymaster, the Twitter-based online spy game, didn't cross my radar until I got a DM from someone I follow inviting me to join her spy network.  I followed the link and discovered an apparently easy-to-come-by invitation to Spymaster's public beta.  It looked like a pretty well-designed site, so I decided to give it a try.

After signing up, you first decide what spy organization you want to work for.  I was hoping for CONTROL (Don Adams version), but it wasn't a choice.  So I picked the CIA, being an American and all.  Afterwards, you're a junior spy working for the Company.

In sum, the game then involves performing various spy tasks that, if you are successful, result in payment and an increase in experience points.  Pretty standard game fare.

As you accumulate money, you can buy weapons and defensive gear- body armor, etc.- for yourself and your spy ring, which consists of your spymasters (those of your Twitter followers who also play spymaster) and your regular spies (those of your followers who do not yet play the game).

As you accumulate experience points, you progress up the spy ladder.  I am currently a Level 11 spy.  As you move up the ladder, you can perform more difficult- and lucrative- spy tasks and buy better gear, thereby increasing your attack and defense numbers.

You can also assassinate rival spies, though your success or failure rate is tied to the overall strength of your spy ring in a way that is not easily discernable.  As a result I have, thus far, generally engaged only in retaliatory strikes and public service first strikes against those who link bomb Twitter by adding a bunch of Twitterfeed posts at one time.

If you are successfully "assassinated," you don't die.  You just lose money and perhaps other assets.  If the attempt fails, you get a portion of the assassin's money.  Thus far, I've made a little net money via unsuccessful assassination attempts against me, but not much.  I tend to see the assassination thing as an annoying distraction so far, which is odd since I assume the interactivity of assassinations is intended to be the focal point of the game.

As you accumulate more money, you can- for a price- deposit it in a Swiss bank account, so it won't be subject to loss via assassination.  You can also purchase "safe houses" in remote location to generate additional revenue.  So far, this has been the focal point of my game, with some success and a little uncertainty.  While risk and payment numbers are provided, it is not clear how that matrix works, and it is not clear how often safe house payments accrue.  In sum, there should be a lot more detail about some of the game play details.

But the purchase of safe houses keeps my account balance low, which is a disincentive for those who might seek to assassinate me.

There's been a bit of an uproar on Twitter over the game feature that allows players to increase their power by recruiting their Twitter followers to the game, via DMs, and the game setting which increases your payouts if you post certain game events to your Twitter feed.  Personally, I haven't been overwhelmed by DMs, so I don't have a problem with that feature.  I only post two major game events to my Twitter feed (level ups and assassination attempts), but I have seen a bit too much game related activity in my Twitter stream.  So while I wish people would keep their game-related posts to a minimum, I haven't un-followed anyone for posting game-related stuff.  Yet.

The big question, of course, is whether Spymaster is a brief diversion or something that will have the staying power to become a permanent part of the Twitter experience.  While it's clearly in beta at the moment, it needs more depth to have the permanence it seeks.  At present, there's a lot of clicking on tasks, waiting for your energy level to return, and clicking on more tasks.  Notwithstanding the "social" nature of the game, interaction with other players is limited and, as far as I can tell, interaction with those in your spy ring is non-existent.  On the plus side of the ledger, those of us with game playing pedigrees are conditioned to climb up the money/experience ladder and will probably do so, at least for a while.  And the web site is well designed and highly functional.

It's a good start, for sure.  But the final story won't be known until we see what else the developers have up their sleeves.  There's not enough depth now, but there could be later.

As far as the Twitter spam goes, I have not sent any recruiting DMs, because I am a vocal opponent of anything resembling spam.  Given the free for all (and, candidly, already heavily spam and quasi-spam infested) nature of Twitter, I don't consider the Spymaster-related communications spam.  But I can see how some people would.

For now, I'm mildly interested in Spymaster.  If you want to be in my spy ring, send me a DM and I'll send you a return invitation.  Let's go assassinate some geeks, shall we?

I wish I could tell you I intentionally took this amazing photo of a bee flying through Delaney's birthday party yesterday. . .

Bigger version here.  Flickr page here.

As I noted the other day, I need a new place to work my music jones.  Blip.fm is in the process of being murdered by the music industry and my tech pals don't want to be inundated with music here at Newsome.Org.  So what's a lover of the bayou to do?

Develop a new platform to share some great music, of course.  Welcome to GoodSongs.Com!

It's such a crazy, crazy feeling,
I get weak in the knees,
My poor old head is a reelin',
As I go deep into the funnel of love.

By combining the Tumblr page I mentioned the other day with a previously dormant top level domain I've owned for a decade or so, doing some template work and adding a nice java-based music player, I've come up with what I believe is the perfect music recommendation site.  If you're into alt. country, country rock, blues or just good music in general, you'll like GoodSongs.Com.  Give it a listen.  Subscribe to the feed.  Buy the great, off the beaten path music you'll hear there.  Tell your friends.  Send me your music so I can add it to the playlist.

They said, Do you remember when you saw her last,
I said, Her skin is cinnamon, her skin is cinnamon.

Note the music player at the bottom of the page.  It won't play the audio for the videos, but it will play all of the audio posts in a playlist fashion, with music player controls.

Click on that link to start the playlist

There will be quite a bit of integration between GoodSongs.Com and Newsome.Org, but the flow of music will be greater over there.  For years, I have received a steady flow of music via email and snail mail from artists looking for exposure here or on Rancho Radio, our popular alt. country radio station.  I plan to share a lot of that music at GoodSongs.Com, along with links to Amazon and other stores where you can buy this excellent music.  There are a lot of people making the kind of fantastic music that doesn't get played boring, ad-infested mainstream radio.  I plan to be an advocate for that music, but I need your help.

Let's play this one out, until it explodes,
Into a thousand tiny pieces,
What's the story universe,
You are melody in numbers.

Send me music.  Buy the music I feature.  Wear glasses if you need 'em.  And all that.

You know the bottle ain't to blame and I ain't trying to,
It don't make you do a thing it just lets you,
When I'm six feet underground, I'll need a drink or two,
And I'll sure miss you.

Just in case you need a little nudge to add GoodSongs.Com (full RSS Feed) to your reading list, here's a sampler.  Links to buy all this music are available at the GoodSongs.Com site.

Steve Pride and His Blood - Welcome to the Big Time
The Gosdin Brothers - There Must Be Someone I Can Turn To
The Buckets - Postmarked Virginia
The Figments - Feel the Fields
Drag the River - Indianapolis
Deadstring Brothers - 27 Hours
The Caution Children - I Know Better Now

You can meet me at ten thirty,
I won't be there I'll be gone,
We can talk like we are friends,
Going over it all again,
Talking about everything I am doing wrong.

Enjoy.  And tell your friends.

Brawl is All:  It's always a great day when you get a new episode of There Will Be Brawl.   If you haven't watched this excellent series, you have a treat in store.

Good Idea, Bad Idea Department:  I'd love a reliable pair of wireless headphones to use for our podcasts.  At first glance these look pretty appealing.  I use a set of Plantronics headphones every day at work and they are great.  But I agree with Kevin Tofel on the proprietary thing.  By using a proprietary wireless protocol instead of Bluetooth, they guaranteed that I will not buy them.  No one should support proprietary when there is a standard protocol that works.  I don't want no dang 'ol, dang ol' dangle. 

Burn the Monster:  Here's the only thing anyone should ever say about HootSuite:  Lose that bloody browser bar.  I will not click on any link posted by anyone who uses HootSuite.  We need to nip this stupid browser bar crap in the bud.  Honestly, I can't believe there isn't a massive public outcry over developers tossing this garbage on our screens.

In Other Monster News:  I dislike the RIAA as much as the next guy (and I am a musician who gets occasional royalty checks), but I don't think it's productive to assume they are going to be jerks until they act like jerks.  I may be proven wrong, but even the RIAA can't be stupid enough to tell school kids not to sing pop songs on YouTube.  Can they?

Good Luck with That:  On the rare occasions that he has interacted with me, Om Malik has always struck me as a good guy, so I hope this move of desperation works out for him.  But I don't think it will.  Blogs- even mega ones like his- simply can't produce enough unique content to make a pay wall work.  Maybe if we could all go back in time and prevent the news media from giving all their stuff away in the frantic but misguided internet land rush, the subscription model might work.  But we can't.  If I were going to map out the best hope for paid content, I'd take the Daring Fireball model and charge for full RSS feeds.  That probably wouldn't work either, but it more closely approximates the Pandora, Slacker Radio payment for convenience idea.  In other words, I'd never pay for "special" blog content, but I might pay for a more convenient way to access content.  If you want to see some brave and righteous spin, see James Kendrick's announcement.  Again, I hope it works, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Fixing What Ain't Broke Department:  I don't really know what Google Wave is or hopes to be.  What I do know is that it isn't going to "reinvent email" as the nerd herd is saying, because email doesn't need to be reinvented.  It works just fine the way it is, well, except for all the spam.  We need to fix the spam.

My Kingdom for an iPhone Version:  There is a Windows Mobile version of Live Writer!  I cannot adequately describe how ecstatic I would be if someone did a version of Windows Live Writer for the iPhone.  I would divide my life into the before and after.

Sookie, Sookie, Sookie:  Several people told me that I would love every single thing about True Blood.  It finally came out on iTunes, and I watched every single episode of Season 1 in four days.  They were right.  It's southern and gothic and scary and cool, with great acting, good music and Sookie.  It's up there with Millennium as my favorite show ever.  I am counting the days until June 14, when Season 2 starts.  Highly, highly recommended.

Comcast Sucks:  Period.  Lately, my Comcast broadband is out at least half the time.  It fades in and out like a bad headache.  Thank goodness for my ATT wireless broadband modem.  I will dump cable broadband at the first reasonable opportunity.

Fail in Waiting:  So a day late and several dollars short, Sirius XM is about to dump an iPhone app on the unsuspecting world.  And rumors are that they want to charge subscribers extra to use it.  That's the most disappointing news since the great Slingbox money-grab of 2009.  If Sirius XM charges subscribers extra to use the iPhone app, I hope it accelerates their death at the hands of Pandora, etc.  I don't think trying to squeeze every possible dollar from your declining subscriber base is the best way to deal with the car problem.

Department of Sound:  Twangville has a take on the excellent new Dexateens record.  HearYa has a take on the new Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys) video, in which he is joined by Hacienda.  This particular song doesn't do anything for me, but most of Dan's stuff is pretty good.  Hickory Wind has a piece on the Chris Gaffney tribute record.  Finally, Cover Lay Down, the newest music blog in my reading list, has some excellent Mary Lou Lord covers.

Photo Goodness:  Yahoo image search (which also indexes Flickr photos) now allows you to filter results by Creative Commons license.  That's a neat feature, but I wonder how many photos have been tagged with licenses.

Apptic Blast:  Among the interesting apps I've come across lately are TuneUp (cleans your music collection), Routine Timer (my family badly needs that board game timer), TimeLeft, the AAA iPhone app, Repper (makes designs from JPEGs) and Totally Free Burner (non-bloated disk burning).