Though it has been out for a little over a week, I think Mozilla’s new plugin, Ubiquity, might be taking backseat to the press generated by Google’s new browser and javascript engine. It takes some of the ease of use concepts demonstrated by Inman’s Shortwave and launches it a step further by making the plethora of Web 2.0 apps functional beyond the 1-on-1 browser scenario.

I highly suggest checking it out or at the minimum just watching the videos with Mozilla techs demonstrating their baby. It may tag on a little bit of work and a bit of learning the plugin to get started, but it does an amazing job of connecting the dots between web services. I have yet to dive into it completely though, beyond watching the videos, installing it, then showing everyone in the office.

That said, go forth and play for the future of the Web is coming - Ubiquity blog entry. I also suggest poking around and seeing what else Mozilla is working on in terms of expanding their browser and enhancing how users interact with the web.

I’m not one to normally post tracks, nor do I ever feel compelled to, but after hearing this track yesterday, it was just too good to not share with everyone. The track is called Ambient Room by a Canadian group called DVAS. In a nutshell, it reminds me of a summer flashback when house was still cool. And by cool, I meant enjoyable. It nearly has all the makings to be a Ibizia anthem for this summer, but it’s unlikely it will reach that status. As an added bonus, I’ve included the SymbolOne remix, which dirties it up a bit and gives it a little more French flavour. In a nutshell, the track is amazing and kind of reminds me of an Axwell side project.

Download Ambient Room | Download Ambient Room (SymbolOne Remix)

A big thing for the past few years has been to simplify UI messaging as much as possible as to not cause any unnecessary confusion for users. It’s a great idea without a doubt, and for a lot of users, it makes using software a lot more comfortable. There are two places where it goes wrong though: error messaging and advanced tasks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not campaigning for the return of cryptic developer error messages by any means. It would be nice however to have the option be taken to the log files in OSX/Vista without having to dig around manually. That’s an entirely different story though.

This entire post was prompted by a well-needed upgrade to this blog’s platform - Wordpress. I was still running 2.1 from last year and had noticed several RPC attacks (both failures and success — thankfully nothing too horrible happened). It was fairly smooth, other than the fact that the new dashboard didn’t work due to a plug-in conflict. No big deal, right? Wrong. The upgrade process somehow failed to migrate my existing categories. Between minor releases within a major release, one would assume that the database structure had not changed by that much, but apparently it had.

Though messaging should always be as comfortable and as plain as possible, it’s important to at least notify the user of what is going on or what is about to happen when they are about to perform an action that in any way ambiguous. In the cases that involve touching user or customer data, there should always be definite notification and prompting, especially when potential failure scenarios are known.

The real moral of the story here is that the navigation of this site is temporarily disabled until I take the time to fix was destroyed. The good news is that Wordpress now supports tags by default.

I would like to think that I have always had a few things up my sleeve - even when it doesn’t always seem that way, even to myself. It has taken more than a year off from the web to really understand the importance and relevance of the Internet in modern life. When I say this, I mean understand how to rely on it less.

I have started tumbling until I come up with a solution for my domains. If anyone has any bright ideas, I’m quite open to suggestions.

Oh and if you see Summer… tell her Seattle wants her to hang around.

As I mentioned in the last post, a few weeks ago I had the honour of being the DJ at a friend’s art show for several hours, carefully making sure to build the mood from ambient tracks to a full-on dance night once it was just friends wanting to not go home quite yet.

A few days later a good friend, Jesse Kanda, started putting together a few downloadable mixes of his own. This gave me courage and invigorated me with the motivation to sit down and record a mix of my own for everyone’s listening pleasure. I spent a good portion of last summer recording a wide range of mixes, but was never satisfied with anything enough to release it to the public.

Without further over-analyzation of dance music trends, I give you my most recent mix, packed full of house treasures and even a little bit of odds and ends that everyone can get into. Read on for a full track listing.

Download “To Call For Hands From Above” House Mix »

Call me a perfectionist. Call me crazy. Call me whatever you will, but for whatever reason, in a handful of hours, I was wholly inspired and came up with a set that not included a few new tracks that I love, but also quite a few classics that will always be near to my heart. A lot of the material is based around what I came to love last summer and completely avoids the new trend in electro/funky house that seems to be based entirely around the sound of D. Ramirez’s remix of Bodyrox’s “Yeah Yeah,” that stormed the clubs during last year’s dance season.

1. Electronic Battle Weapon 9 - The Chemical Brothers
2. Keep Hope Alive (Original Mix) - The Crystal Method
3. North American Scum (Chris Menace Remix) - LCD Soundsystem
4. Stand Back (Young Punx Remix) - Linus Loves
5. The Funk Phenomenon 2006 (Slice and Case Remix) - Armand Van Helden
6. Same Man - Till West & DJ Delicious
7. At Night (Kid Creme Mix) - Shakedown
8. When We Were Young (The Lindbergh Palace Dub) - The Killers
9. Alive - Daft Punk
10. In Your Arms (Linus Loves Remix) - Milo
11. Superfreak (Fonzenelli Remix) - Beatfreakz
12. Dare (Dave Aude Club Mix) - Gorillaz
13. Lola’s Theme (Club Mix) - Shapeshifters
14. Heartbeats (Rex The Dog Remix) - The Knife

“The Twilight”

Easily one of my favourite photos that I have ever taken, The Twilight embodies most of everything that I love about the western coast and is the inspiration that pushes me further. It’s good stuff I tell you.

I have kicked the habit of all the things I do when I am nervous. This of course, is entirely not true. However, the release date for the upcoming Motion City Soundtrack album came out today and it sounds like July 17th is going to be a record-buying day. I think it is safe to say that they will be the last new-punk band I will ever be buying records of, now that Brand New has shed their early skin.

In less-important news, Chuck, I received your email and no worries, I will send you a proper response eventually.

Somewhere in there as well, there was a Valentine Day’s Mix Tape that never was properly published to the public and remained a treat for some friends. You can pick it up here until someone yells at me about it. It features some great tracks by the BRMC, Joy Division, Love and Rockets, Roy Orbinson, and Tubeway Army, to name a few. And of course, like any worthwhile, yet bitter love story, it ends on a note of promise.

1. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Love Burns
2. Taking Back Sunday - Cute Without The “E” (Cut From The Team)
3. Tubeway Army - I Nearly Married A Human 2
4. The Dandy Warhols - One Saved Message (Phone Call)
5. The North Atlantic - Scientist Girl
6. Scanners - Low Life
7. Brand New - The Boy Who Block His Own Shot (Acoustic)
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts (Acoustic)
9. Clint Mansell - Stay With Me
10. Love And Rockets - No New Tale To Tell
11. Joy Division - A Means To An End
12. Spoon - Wanted To Be Your
13. Grant Lee Buffalo - Mockingbirds
14. My Bloody Valentine - When You Sleep
15. Roy Orbinson - Love Hurts
16. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Anenome
17. Nine Inch Nails - Leaving Hope
18. Mellowdrone - My First Love Song
19. Bloc Party - Atonement

The Seattle Library

Shot downtown seconds before rainfall, I believe a caught a cold during this shoot. I am still working on whether or not it was worth it. The official title is “Drugs. And Books. But mostly just Drugs.” after a conversation with the muse behind this photo.

“Pioneer’s Transparent Radiation”

Prompted by the fear of leaving Seattle and not having shot much of anything downtown, this shot required some sneaking to the top of a building in order to get high enough above the nearby buildings. This is centered around Pioneer Square, looking south towards the stadiums, train station, and Vulcan.