September 2008 Archives

If you've used Bank of America or Wachovia, you've probably had some experience with a service called Yodlee. It's basically a front-end that allows total management of all your assets and liabilities.

One of the fundamentals of personal finance is tracking your spending. This app allows you to categorize all your spending so you can know where your money is going. You can track your saving vs spending over time and see your total wealth.

The best part is that it aggregates all of your logins into one place. It will periodically grab data from all your banking or savings accounts and display in one easy to use interface. Yes, there are probably some security concerns with having all your data stored in one place. However, everything is encrypted with 128 bit SSL and runs through layers of firewalls. Here is a good article about the security for Yodlee: The Tao of Moneymaking

Yodlee (click register)

I've decided to start posting patterns that I've made on the Roland MC-909 so that others can use, modify, and re-make into other works. I'd be interested to see what you make, so please post in the comments.

To start using the patterns on your 909, simply download the pattern and save to your computer. You'll need either a USB cable or a SmartMedia memory card reader to transfer the files. I like using the USB cable because it's much easier to connect rather than messing with memory cards.

Card Pattern 88

The guys over at Microsoft Office Labs have some pretty cool things in development.

I'm liking the pptPlex project which allows you to make a powerpoint presentation out of one slide, which you can zoom into different pieces of for each subsequent slide. It makes things more intuitive and almost like a storyboard.

Speed Launch is a pretty cool tool that allows you to quickly access frequently used resources by creating shortcuts.

I still prefer Launchy, because it automatically indexes everything, so you simply start typing what you are looking for rather than having to remember windows+c shortcuts.

Keep an eye on these guys, some more cool things are bound to develop.

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As I talk to my friends that live outside of Minneapolos about the RNC, I'm learning that there was not much national coverage about the FBI raids of homes last week in St. Paul.

The FBI had apparently been working with Ramsey county police in order to plant informants and later raid houses as a preemptive strike. Here are a few articles about the craziness that ensued:

Crackdown Begins: Food Not Bombs House Among Saturday Raids Ahead of RNC [AlterNet]

Police raids enrage activists, alarm others [StarTribune]

Police search homes, seize contraband in advance of RNC [MPR]

I buy these noodles at the local asian market right down the street. A pack of six costs me about $6.

They're so easy to make, you simply boil some water, put it in the supplied bowl, and wait three minutes. It comes with small packets of seasoning, dried vegetables, oil, and even a little fork.

It's a little bit spicy, but just enough. I sometimes drop an egg in the boiling water to add something extra.

FF Tom Yum flavored Instant Noodles

Here are some things you can do to maintain your privacy and anonymity on the internet.

• Use Scroogle, a scraper that queries google for you without using cookies or recording your IP address and search terms: Install the Scroogle SSL option for your Firefox search bar
  
  
• Don't use Google's new browser: Chrome
  
  
• Surf anonymously with JonDo, a proxy for your browser
  
  
• Tor is also another anonymous proxy service
  
  
• Use JonDo in combination with FoxyProxy to manage which URLs go through proxies
  
  
• Install Poxy on your own webserver for a web-based proxy
  
  
• Use Cookie Monster to manage cookies from websites (Firefox plugin)
  
  
• Encrypt emails with FireGPG
  
  
• If you use Gmail, enable SSL encryption by going to settings and enable 'always use https' at the bottom
  

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• EFF: We're concerned about Google's Omnibox
• Privacy: What should Google do?

In Google's quest to catalog and index all the world's information, what you do online is not and will no longer be a private matter. 

• Google took a huge step forward to see what users are doing online when it released its new web browser Chrome. The omnibox feature auto suggests searches and urls as you type. Lifehacker suggests to disable the feature to circumvent peering eyes. Ina Fried says that anything you type, even before you hit enter, could be logged by IP address on Google's servers.
  
  
• Google is also launching their own satellite branded with their own logo, soon to be orbiting earth. It will have the capability to gather photos of the earth down to 41 cm. The satellite and all information gathered will be exclusively theirs. Conquer the internet, then conquer space.
  
  
• The new version of Picasa is said to have facial recognition capabilities. Tag people like you do in Facebook, and it will learn to recognize those in the future. Dave Jeyes questions Google's privacy policy.
  
  
• With the acquisition of Doubleclick, Google is also using cookies to track surfing habits across various websites, without consent.
  
  
• And not to mention all your web searches and content of your gmail accounts are already indexed and stored on servers. How safe is that data?
  

The all knowing, all seeing eye wants to index, categorize, and know everything about you so that you click on those ads and spend more money. Maybe it does make finding information easier, but at what cost? Let's all put on our tin-foil hats.

I've heard of MGMT in the past but never really sat down to listen to one of their albums. Earlier this week I was exposed to the awesomeness that is MGMT.

These two guys have such a different sound that it's hard to articulate without actually hearing it. They incorporate low-fi, psychedelic, synthesizer sounds that could be straight out of the 70's.

I've been in love with their sound and haven't been able to stop listening to Oracular Spectacular. Weekend Wars sounds like a 60's vietnam war song. Electric Feel blasts you into another space-age, retro-groove atmosphere.

But what I like is how they capture the struggles of today's youth. Check out the lyrics of Time to Pretend:

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredem and the freedom and the time spent alone.


It's hard to listen to this song while you sit in a cubicle at work. So many kids today struggle with this. Go to school, college, have fun, enjoy life, then you're thrusted into a 9-5 M-F schedule. But alas, what else are you going to do?

 

I first saw the Bugger at the Frikki Tikki Boat party last march in Miami. After experiencing his set then, I was expecting a full-on minimal set with repetitive, driving bass lines and tech style grooves. But last Friday night he blew me away.

The Bugger came on about 10 minutes past 1am at the newly re-designed Spybar in downtown Chicago. The crystal clear sound system accurately reproduced the soulful sounds Steve thrusted upon our ears.

His performance broke down musical boundaries and seamlessly entertwined the deep soul of minimal with theatrical layers of story telling sounds. Each new song he displayed was a fantastically represented expression of feeling. What got me was that I was expecting plain and simple minimal that you have to groove to. But the Bugger's music incorporated that and so much more.

His minimal and tech style was apparent in the base layers, creating the foundation to build upon. However, this music had soul. He built upon the minimal bass-lines with industrious, melodic progressions to capture the mood and inject fantastic feelings into your heart.

The Bugger has elevated himself to one of my favorite DJ's out there right now. Right along the likes of Desyn, Steve Bug knows how to give a performance and a great show. See him if you can!

The bug has bitten. And what a fantastic bite it was!
 

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• Steve Bug