On this week’s episode of Encore we looked at the top ten albums from the past fifteen years. The goal was to pick our favorite ten albums that came out between 2001 and 2015. This was way harder than I expected it to be and I ended up cutting out albums I love, being surprised at what albums I knew had to make the cut, and you can hear my entire (strange) thought process on the episode. If you hit read more you can read the last 50 that made the cut.
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
One of the better features to emerge in iOS 9 is support for picture-in-picture mode on the iPad. But when you’re trying to surf the web while watching Netflix on your Mac, it’s not as easy to do – you often end up moving separate windows around on the screen, or switching back and forth between the playing video and other browser tabs.
A new floating browser app for Mac called Fluid solves this problem by offering a way to view your work alongside your media content from places like YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, Hulu and more.
As I’m writing this I have Plex running and playing The Social Network in the corner. Pretty great.
Most of my recommendations can be found in nice little categories: Albums, movies, tv shows, books, software, podcasts, blogs, and audio-equipment. Or, when I post one-off recommendations they’re all under the “recommendation” tag. However, this is kind of a “catch-all” post for a bunch of different things that I think are great but don’t really have a place to put them. It doesn’t make sense for them to all be separate posts, so instead it’s a giant long list of links! I’ve added some commentary in a few places as well. I have personally used and recommend all of the products on this list and I’ll try and keep it updated semi-regularly for when you’re looking to buy new toys or find a cool gift for that special someone.
Read More “Miscellaneous Recommendations”
One of the more frequent questions I’m asked is what software do I use for insert a task here. This post hopes to keep a running list of my favorite apps, programs, and tools that I use on a regular basis. I’ve tried to break up the list into helpful sections and linked out to the app store when appropriate. Everything listed here I personally use and recommend. I’ll try and update this post on a semi-regular basis.
There’s something about a cold beer and watching a good TV show that is the perfect end to a day. This is a running list of some of my favorite TV shows. This page is updated on a regular basis by pulling in TV shows I have rated an eight or above (out of ten, and very few shows are worthy of a ten).
You can follow me on Trak.tv for a running list of what I’ve been watching.
Read More “Favorite TV Shows”
Here is a running list of my “favorite” movies of all time. It’s by no means complete, but it’s a good starting point for a bunch of movies that I really like and enjoy. If you’re looking for something to watch and haven’t checked these out yet, well, I think it’s a damn good group of movies. This list is updated on a regular basis by pulling in movies I have rated an eight or above (out of ten, and very few movies are worthy of a ten).
You can also follow me on Letterboxd or Trakt for a running list and ratings of the movies I watch.
Read More “Favorite Movies”
Looking for some great music and not sure where to start? Here’s a list of some of my favorite albums of all time. Because this is a list that is updated every time I discover a new album I love, I’ve automated this page by pulling from Last.fm my most played albums of all time and combining it with a hand curated list of “favorite” albums.1
Read More “Favorite Albums”This is an automated system that includes my entire listening history, so there may be “problematic” artists on this list. This list will automatically update on a regular schedule.↩
Federico Viticci, reviewing Next for MacStories:
Next is on my Home screen on my iPhone and iPad. I use the app every day, and I log every expense (whether it’s cash or an expense from my bank account) as soon as I can. My perspective of my spending habits has considerably changed since I started using Next, and I’m making more informed decisions thanks to the overview that this app offers and its elegant design combined with astounding ease of use.
I’ve been using Mint for quite a while to get a good overview of my finances (#adulting), but recently I realized I had two main categories that I wanted to better break down for budgetary purposes: food and shopping. I wanted to have a weekly food budget, and a monthly shopping budget, and make sure I could keep track of just those two things with relative ease. Enter: Next.
I’ve been using this system for the last month and am really impressed by how much it does help me make purchasing decisions. Being able to quickly glance at my week of food spending keeps me from buying that extra 6-pack of beer after my weekly store run. I like the simplicity of this system because instead of having to remember a variety of categories within my budget, I can keep two numbers in my head: food per week, shopping per month.
While I still like (not love) Mint for being able to give me a bigger overview of everything in my financial world, Next is the first budget app I’ve actually felt some delight in using each day.
The new Apple TV interface, married with our own design touches, gives you the slickest navigation and search experience yet, showcasing all of your media in an elegant and intuitively organized way. Now, finding what you want is easier and more simple than ever before. And with Apple TV’s new top shelf, you can see your featured Plex content right on your Apple TV home screen.
I had tried Plex about six or so years ago and it didn’t seem for me. I liked the basic idea but this was before the wave of little pucks attached to TVs really took off and it was cumbersome to get it to work right. Instead, for the past few years, I’ve been using the old Apple TV with Home Sharing through iTunes. I used iFlicks 2 for adding metadata to any extra media I had in my collection, and, all-in-all it worked pretty well. However, recently I felt like I was spending more time managing and organizing the files while troubleshooting weird network issues (like stuff not showing up if the computer had been asleep too long). So, after hearing basically everyone gush about Plex over the past few weeks, and reading the reviews about the new native app for the new Apple TV (which I really love), I decided it was worth giving it another look.
I’m really glad I did.
2015 will go down as a memorable one for me. The music we got this year was fantastic and the memories it soundtracked will stay with me for a lifetime. As we move into the new year I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy year. I think what’s in front of us is always more exciting, and far scarier, than what’s in our past. I think the future’s bright. I think it’s exciting. Let’s not let it scare us.
Podcasts have become one of my favorite ways to pass the time. I’ve compiled a list of my favorites and these span a variety of fields and interests. I’ll keep this list updated on a regular basis. I think there’s an argument to be made that I’ve received a better education from subscribing to podcasts than I did in school.
Read More “Recommended Podcasts”
2014 ended up being one of my favorite years for music in a long while. It just seemed like every few weeks there was a new album to dive into and experience. There were times where it felt overwhelming, as if there was so much to listen to I felt ashamed I couldn’t give each album the time it deserved. But, here we are at the end of the year, and here we are tasked with trying to put numbers to the madness. I’ve done my best to put my favorite albums of the year in some kind of order … I hope you find as much to enjoy here as I have.
2013 saw my tastes drift from pop to punk to hip-hop and back again. What a great, and diverse, year for music.
Well, 2012 was an interesting year.
But now it’s come to a close and I have to figure out how to rank everything from the past year and get a list together. I’ve been procrastinating on this one for a while, but, alas – here we go …
Truth is that my first impressions aren’t going to do this album justice. It needs a full on review – but, that’s the kind of thing that needs a lot more time, especially if I’m going to actually write a review in a way I haven’t in years. But … that’s coming, in tr meantime – how about some first thoughts on the new Yellowcard album? I feel like I’m in a good position to talk about this band – having followed them virtually their entire careers.
Read More “First Impressions: Yellowcard – Southern Air”