Four Island

Well, at least not at the time of writing this post. Which is about 10:30am EST. And I'm not really insulting iOS 4, I just think it's been a bit overhyped and some new revelations have really diminished it's wonder for me.

First, I want to start by writing about the horrific time I had trying to upgrade to the firmware that I thought came out already. I know, I should have read more into it, but I was excited for some of the new anticipated features. Anyway, this story needs a bit of an introduction. I have been an iPod user for about three years now and although I remain apathetic towards Apple, I do have one huge complaint: there is no version of iTunes available for Linux.

While this is a major inconvenience for me, I have been able to survive for a while. While I had my second iPod, a yellow Chromatic which I loved (rest in peace), I had to restart the computer and endure Windows Vista's mind-numbing slowness if I wanted to add a single song to my iPod, which is why I generally added songs in batch, which grew pretty annoying because I would then have to wait to be able to listen to a song (I'm obsessed with play counts, please help me). Anyway, I finally became sick of this and tried some Linux media players that have claimed to be able to sync with iPods.

Rhythmbox made me sick. It really did. I just did not like it at all, and half the time I listened to a song, it wouldn't scrobble to Last.fm (again, I'm obsessed, keel me). Next, I tried Banshee which I eventually fell in love with. It was smooth, sleek and worked very well. However, I don't know if I ever managed to sync my iPod with it because my iPod died right around then. It was very odd, the buttons just stopped working while the rest of the iPod clearly worked because shaking it skipped to a random song.

Anyway, I eventually got an iPod touch two weeks ago and while I do love it, I needed to find somewhere to sync it. Banshee wouldn't work for two reasons: it had no iPod touch/iPhone support (even for music) and I wanted to be able to have apps. Eventually, I realized that a virtual machine would probably work perfectly and so I downloaded VirtualBox and set up an installation of Windows XP in it. It was all fine and dandy until I installed iTunes and it crashed every time I tried to open it. What?!?! It turns out that versions of iTunes 9.0.3 and up do not work in VirtualBox. There was a workaround, though, install iTunes 9.0.2 instead, and I did and it worked perfectly. And for the last two weeks, I've been running 9.0.2 and syncing with my iPod touch peacefully (except for one incident in which I accidentally updated iTunes and had to downgrade again and re-import all of my music, but that was before I got my iPod touch).

My problem was probably the deceitful early release of iTunes 9.2. I immediately assumed that it meant that iOS 4 was out as well, because, well, it made sense! Anyway, I stupidly tried to update my copy of iTunes and what do you know, it starts crashing. So I had to spend an hour downgrading, re-importing and then re-syncing because of course, iTunes didn't recognize my iPod after I reinstalled it. And I have 600+ songs, so that took quite a while. Anyway, when that was finally done, I restarted to my Windows partition and planned to use the iTunes there not to sync, but just to update. Lo and behold, iOS 4 WASN'T OUT YET. I think I started talking to the computer at that point "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 3.1.3 IS THE CURRENT UPDATE? I THINK YOU'RE WRONG. YOU ARE WRONG. I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG."

Anyway, that's my story about trying to upgrade to a not-yet-available firmware, now let's talk about how iOS 4's new feature lineup may be a bit misleading. Let's start with the big one: MULTITASKING. Probably the most anticipated feature of iOS 4 is the ability to run more than one app at once, a feature which most other mobile devices have had as a stable since forever.

Well, let's get something straight here: it's not really multitasking. Apple introduced seven new features that make it seem like more than app is running at a time, but they're really not.

1. First, background music. Apps can choose to keep playing audio once you've switched to another app, something that the iPod app has had forever. This allows you to do something like play a song on Pandora while doing something else: Pandora isn't really still open when you switch to another app, it's audio is just still playing.
2. Second, background VoIP. For most people, that means Skype. This one I find a bit confusing because it's fairly specific, but basically it means that you can continue a VoIP call even when in another application.
3. Third, background location, which I'm not even sure I understand, so I'm going to skip that one. Read about it yourself.
4. Fourth, push notifications, which allow popup notifications to be sent to your iPod while doing other things. Don't be fooled, however, this has been out since iPhone OS 3.
5. Fifth, local notifications, which are basically push notifications that don't rely on Apple's servers. I don't really understand this one either, but dun kill me, I have more to rant about.
6. Sixth, task finishing, which allows a task that you have started in an app, such as uploading a photo to Flickr, to even while you aren't in that app. Really, that app isn't open anymore, it's just offloaded a task to a background process. This one scares me a bit because you never know if an app has task finishing enabled or not and you could potentiality cancel an task you didn't mean to by switching apps, thinking that it'll still continue working.
7. Finally, the most deceitful of them all, fast app switching, which allows apps to save where they are when you close them so that they start right back where they were when you open them again. Really, when you close the app, it is closed and nothing else is being done, unless something was offloaded to task finishing, it's just that when you open the app again, it remembers where it was.

All of this put together really isn't multitasking, it's just a facsimile that looks a bit like multitasking on the outside. While this is probably good enough for most people, there is one more rather huge catch when it comes to iOS 4 multitasking:

Applications have to have multitasking features enabled.

When we all upgrade to iOS 4 in a few hours when it gets released (my bet is noon PST, which is 3pm here), not every app is suddenly going to have these seven multitasking-like features. Developers have to add these features to their apps using new APIs and then re-submit them to the App Store. So unless the author of your favorite app is reasonable and committed, you ain't gettin' multitasking. In fact, I've already heard that not only is the new Facebook app hideous, the developers have neglected to update it for iOS 4. How do you like dem apples? Not that much, thanks.

Anyway, hopefully iOS 4 will come out later today and I will get it and hopefully multitasking won't be as horrible as it sounds. And I'll write another post about the things I do like about it. Yeah, right. No, seriously. :P

Another week is over, another poll for me to write about. It seems that we're quite in the majority here, with iPod touch lovers :P. iOS 4 comes out in two days! YAY! Anyway, here are the results:

Do you have an iPod touch? YES AND IT'S AWESOME - 8 vote(s)! No is sad - 3 vote(s)! I have an iPhone! It's the same thing- gets shot by Starla - 0 vote(s)! Indifferent, which really doesn't make sense here - 1 vote(s)!

Just a notice for peoples, this Thursday, I'm going away for about a month so please forgive me if updates come late or if I gasp forget to post one week. I'm going to try to write all of my posts in advance so that I'm not rushing because I will be fairly busy. I'll be back, though! :P

In other news, Pillowcase Season 3 ended today. A moment of silence. :P No, it had a great run and is actually the longest season of Pillowcase so far. I hope you enjoyed it! And that is what this week's poll is about! :P

Anyway, time for caption'd!

Lauren Is Really Quite A Bad Influence And I Think It's Time We Sued Her

Unrequited Love

Hopefully, I'll have a few more posts to post this week (I neglected my RANDOM ENGLISH RANT last week! :P) as a few interesting things have happened recently and don't worry! I won't completely vanish while I'm gone! :P

Oh my goodness! So, yesterday, it was my birthday, and I was sitting around feeling sad and stuff and then I logged on to my diary to write a depressing post or something and I saw "UPGRADE TO WORDPRESS 3.0". Ignoring that run-on sentence, WORDPRESS 3.0 IS OUT!!!! On my birthday! Yes, yesterday was my birthday, everyone hug me. But, seriously, this was like a present or something. :P

So, I upgraded my diary to Wordpress 3.0 (which wasn't too difficult, just a standard Wordpress upgrade) and immediately noticed a difference in the administration panel. "What? Everything's gray now! What happened to my color scheme?" Well, as I just figured out, you can easily change your admin panel color scheme back to blue if you like by going to "Your Profile". In fact, I'm not sure I ever set my diary's admin panel to blue, so I may just be insane! lol O_O

Anyway, one of the more exciting things I was waiting for in Wordpress 3.0 was the unveiling of the new default theme, Twenty Ten! And is it a looker! whistles :P It is actually quite a pretty theme, with a nice header image (which you can change; there are some pretty presets there! Or you can upload one :P) and a nice sidebar (for once, the calendar widget looks GOOD :D). My only problem with the theme is that the text of the posts is a bit big, but I'm sure that I can change that by tweaking the stylesheet. :)

Do you know what is exciting? Apparently, you can now set your admin login/password DURING installation. How fancy! I can't wait to set up another Wordpress blog (which I seem to do all the time because I have no life) and not have to create a new user! :P Speaking of cool new features that I haven't used yet, have you heard? Wordpress MU and Wordpress have merged! Omg! Now you can host thousands of Wordpress blogs from one single Wordpress installation! How choclatey! :P I don't see how I'm possibly going to abuse that anytime soon! :P

Isn't this fun? There are many other new things that you can play with in Wordpress 3.0, SO GO CHECK THEM OUT :P. Anyway, Wordpress 3.0 is quite fun and I can't wait to see the various ways that I'm going to abuse all of the new power it holds by creating some god-awful Frankenwebsite. The last one tried to eat my children! Well, if I had any children. Imma... Imma post this now, okay? :P

I love it so when the Yes option and the No option get the same number of votes, because then I gain nothing from the poll! :P Anyway, here are the results:

Do my random English rants make you want to shoot me? Because.... there's more. :P OH GOD machine gun - 4 vote(s)! I love you anyway! hugs - 4 vote(s)! Another option - 1 vote(s)! Indifferent - 0 vote(s)!

I want to point out that while this week's poll may look random, it isn't. Guess what. I GOT AN IPOD TOUCH!!!! :D I love it dearly, and I want to see who else has one. So there. It doesn't infringe on my annual goal. :P Also, despite the name of the post, last week's poll wasn't random. :P

Gah, I seem to have neglected to post frequently this week again! I'm trying! :P I'm collecting ideas and stuff, but I've just been VERY lazy recently. It's quite annoying. Anyway, it's time for Caption'd!

Drugs And Fauns

Stranger Danger

Okay, so, um, hopefully I'll post more frequently this week. And hopefully you won't all stab me for continuing to post random English rants. Because, like last week's poll said, there's more. :P

HEY KIDS, IT'S ME AGAIN!!!! I'm feeling very English-angsty and I have that urge to throw stuff again, so it's time for another RANDOM ENGLISH RANT! Today's topic is LONELY ADVERBS. THOSE LONELY, MISUNDERSTOOD ADVERBS. (Why do I keep misspelling lonely as lovely? Well, adverbs are quite awesome. So they're LOVELY YET LONELY ADVERBS. We can work that into the script. It's okay, subconscious, I'm on your side.)

Nothing gets my "I THINK I'M GOING TO LAUNCH NUCLEAR WAR ON A FIVE YEAR OLD" up like "I didn't do that good on that quiz." NO, YOU DIDN'T DO "GOOD" ON THAT ENGLISH GRAMMAR QUIZ, JOHNNY. YOU FAILED IT. YOU WILL NOW BE DEPORTED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

Grammar lesson, kids. An ADVERB is a descriptive word, usually ending in a telltale "ly", that modifies verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. An ADJECTIVE, like "good", is a descriptive word used to modify nouns and pronouns. Now, let's look at that statement above again, shall we?

"I didn't do (verb) that good (adjective) on that quiz." What is modifying what? If you're an idiot, you may say that "good" is modifying "quiz", in which case the sentence would translate to "I didn't do that good quiz." Are you copulating with that quiz or talking to it? No, good tries to modify "do", or more specifically, how you did on that quiz. But adjectives can't modify verbs, can they?

NO THEY CAN'T.

Here comes my best friend, "well". Why? Because Samara Morgan lives there. No, really, because it's an adverb! Adverbs are lovely. (My subconscious is happy.) It's actually rather sad. Adverbs are far more important (in my opinion) than adjectives, yet they're often shifted off to the side when it comes to parts of speech. Adjectives get their names in headlines (FAT MAN FALLS OFF STEEP CLIFF ONTO IMPORTANT BUSINESSMAN) while adverbs have to be content with living in obituaries (Melinda Jones died peacefully in her sleep, though a chainsaw-wielding madman was just about to sneakily sneak into her room and murderously cut her head off.) Adverbs are great. Just embrace them.

Anyway, using adverbs, that sentence turns into "I didn't do that well on that quiz." HORRAY. I AM VERY HAPPY THAT YOU DIDN'T DO WELL ON THAT TEST BECAUSE IT IS FAR BETTER THAN NOT DOING GOOD ON THAT TEST. Seriously, you could use that as a double entendre because "good" can be used as a noun too, sometimes. "Johnny did good on his test? How, did he recycle it or something?" Loffle. (AHH THUNDER)

This is one of my most commonly heard transgressions in the English language. PEOPLE, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO ADD AN "LY" TO THE END OF YOUR WORDS? "I ran so fast the other day!" Okay, all of my examples so far have been irregular, but you get the point.

Oh god, I'm going to end up as an English teacher. And some kid is going to come in and complain that he did bad on his Math test and I'll throw a textbook at him. And I may possibly have to go to court for it, but if any of that happens, it'll happen on Four Island, which I am the sovereign leader of and have already created a law that allows abuse on the grounds of incorrect grammar. Except if I accidentally does it. That then does count not at all.

Though I sort of just lost all of my English teacher cred by starting a sentence with a conjunction. Oh well.

Wow, varied! And I found this very interesting. Ointment. What? Sorry, WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Do you like it when I post more often? Yes! Everything is good! - 4 vote(s)! Randomness makes me feel ill. Post less, but more. - 3 vote(s)! I dunno. - 1 vote(s)! Indifferent - 0 vote(s)!

No, lol, I was listening to Frou Frou but really, I am very interested in that last week I posted so often and then I put up this poll and didn't post at all :P. Other than the random English rant that I'm afraid scared everyone away from the site :P. No, I know you people are busy, it's okay, just bring cookies when you come back, right? :)

On that particular attractive note, it's time for Caption'd! I think I'm going to post two today instead of one and see how it goes, okay? :)

Prophecy

Mind Reader

Yay! Anyway, hopefully I'll post more frequently this week and... yay! :D

Hey, look everybody! It's time for a Random English Rant! This is a segment in which I see something happen OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and then go a bit insane. THERE I GO AGAIN! ... ... ... ... AGAIN!!!!

Anyway, today's topic is on the fact that....

PREFORM. IS NOT. A WORD.

Well, it is, but it doesn't mean what you think.

Preform is commonly used by people who don't know better as a synonym of perform. In fact, it's probably a typo, but the users of said typo often don't know that it's incorrect. Le gaspez! I myself used to be frequently guilty of this horrible transgression. :P

To perform something is to bring something about. To preform something is to, as it sounds like, form something beforehand. I have never, ever, ever, ever, EVER heard the word "preform" used normally in context. :P So, don't use it! I PERFORMED THE ACT OF MURDERING EVERYONE WHO SAYS PREFORM. I PREFORMED A SWORD SO THAT I WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO DO THE MURDERING WITH WHEN IT CAME TO THAT.

Sound easy? It is. Or it isn't. That really depends on your IQ. :P

Okay, I probably sound really rude now, so I'm going to leave before I get lynched. And remember, kids! Performing a play is good (as long as you get good reviews), but preforming a play (before you can get those silly copyright use approvals) can get you chased down Main Street by a torch-wielding mob! And we all know which one of those is better for the colon, don't we?

You people were quite split over this! :P In fact, I loved how half of you were extremely blunt! YAY :P

What was your favorite part of Randomlog, while it existed? Pink Panther - 0 vote(s)! Caption'd - 5 vote(s)! Random stuff - 0 vote(s)! Umm.... nothing - 5 vote(s)!

It seems like the only thing there worth retaining was Caption'd, which is coming up soon, so horray! Also, I didn't include My Life Is Happy in that poll, so I'm not quite sure if you like that, but anyway, yay for stuff!

Also, I'd like to mention something: OMG! Last week, I POSTED EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE WEEK! This is the first time I've do so all year! In fact, it's probably the first time I've done it since January 2009 :P. Horray! I am going to attempt to keep posting continuously because it's quite fun! Yay!

Anyway, for the the weekly Caption'd:

Hemorrhoids

I'm thinking of possibly posting two Caption'ds a week on Saturday rather than just one, if you think only one a week is too little. What do you think? Comment! :P

Wow, this certainly has been a posty week! I'm going to bring this lovely week to a close with another musical review! The last one was rather fun to do and there's this new album I've been listening to that I've just been itching to force everyone to listen to.

Can you guess who it is? Interestingly enough, the hint is the OTHER suggestion from Blogging About (last time was Haunted by Poe, which has to do with House Of Leaves). That's right, Imogen Heap. But, not really. Sort of. I'm reviewing the album Details by Frou-Frou!

Frou-Frou is a musical duo consisting of Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth. They only released one album (between Imogen Heap's first and second solo albums) called Details, way back in 2002. What I find odd, however, is that my Imogen Heap-fangirlness hadn't pushed me into listening to this album sooner. Quite odd. I actually knew a bit of their work, too: they covered the song "Holding Out For A Hero" by Bonnie Tyler (which was placed on the Shrek 2 Soundtrack), which I liked before I even knew who Imogen Heap was, and I started listening to "Psychobabble" off this album at some point last year, but for some reason neglected to listen to the rest of the album.

I think the reason for this is that when I thought of Frou-Frou, the song "Let Go" came into my head. Which is odd, considering that I only the first line of the chorus: "So let go, so let go". For some reason, that line really annoyed me any it probably put me off listening to the album. I finally listened to it, though, a few weeks ago and was so very happy I did. It was like Imogen Heap releasing a new album because, really, this IS her. And it is awesome.

So, like last time, I'm going to make a list of all of the tracks on the album and rate them one at a time. However, this time I'm not going to try to "interpret" them, like I did last time, seeing how badly I failed at that. :P Anyway, here we go!

1. Let Go - As stated earlier, I used to really despise this song. I really don't know why. Perhaps it was because I only knew the first line of the chorus. Anyway, once I started listening to the entire thing, it quickly became one of my favorite songs on the album. The entire thing is rather mysterious and exciting and the last two lines of the chorus (It's so amazing here. It's alright / 'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown) are sure to bounce around in your head for days. 5 stars
2. Breathe In - Another favorite of mine, this song, unlike Let Go, is rather bubbly and effervescent. The chorus is amazing, easy to remember and will, like the "da dayum dun dey" hook that sneaks in towards the end, keep you singing this song for a while. 5 stars
3. It's Good To Be In Love - This song enters with a foot-tapping beat similar to "Get You Off" by Fefe Dobson. Next enters Immi with some beautiful lyrics, which get even better during the pre-chorus and chorus, where the vibrant background comes to a crescendo. The song comes to an end with some vocals, some well-played instruments and a classic fade-out. A great song. 4 stars
4. Must Be Dreaming - An (appropriately) surreal song with verses that give a sense of running out of time, but an abrupt change of direction when it comes to the choruses, which are undoubtedly upbeat and high. Amazing song. 5 stars
5. Psychobabble - As stated earlier, this is the first song I heard off of this album after it was suggested to me by Pandora some time late last year. Because of this, I've heard it quite a lot and, as a result, am sadly quite tired of it. However, with it's dark themes and engaging music, I can't deny that it's a good song. 3 stars
6. Only Got One - A chirpy song about living your life. Shoot, I "interpreted" it. Anyway, an okay song with a repetitive chorus which really engages you at the second verse onward with the supporting beat and the hook "Liiiiife!" 3 stars
7. Shh - A somewhat dark song with jumpy, upbeat verses and opposingly mysterious, yet beautiful, choruses that draw you into the song with their amazing music and equally amazing vocals (Don't make a sound / shh, listen). This song is also similar to "Wild" by Poe in that about half of it is song, and the other half is instrumental with effervescent vocals thrown in. My favorite song on the album. 5 stars
8. Hear Me Out - A moderately slow song that picks up at with it's singable chorus. I say "moderately slow" as if it were an insult, but I rather like the occasional slow song. 4 stars
9. Maddening Shroud - A very upbeat song that relies less on Immi's electonica music style than the rest of the album. The song is saved, however, by the addictingly singable lyrics. 4 stars
10. Flicks - A very electronic song, in contrast with the previous song, that is instead hurt by the fact that I really don't know what's going on in it. 2 stars
11. The Dumbing Down Of Love - Frou-Frou closes the album with a slow, quiet song backed with a piano rather than synthesizers and beats. While not quite my style, the song is quite beautiful and the chorus does have a quality to it that I find quite good. 2 stars

Yay! That was fun! Anyway, if we average the scores together, Details by Frou-Frou rates 3.8 of 5 stars! Wow, that's the exact same score I gave to Haunted by Poe last time. Interesting.

Anyway, Details by Frou-Frou is an amazing and I really recommend to everywhere, especially those who share my taste in music (you know, the OMG IMOGEN HEAP taste :P). I hope you've gained something from this article! Yay! Bye! :D

Yesterday's post on stupid spammers inspired me, for some reason, to do something I've been wanting to do for a very long time: clean out my Gmail inbox. I've had Gmail for about a year and a half now and I've accumulated nearly 2000 emails in my inbox. It just doesn't look good. It doesn't look good at all.

I remember reading a while ago (though my Google searches turn up nothing now) that a good Gmail strategy is to get everything out of your inbox. Like a traditional Inbox at an office, your email inbox is a place where new and action-requiring emails live. Once they've been dealt with, they shouldn't be there anymore.

I didn't simply want to Archive everything, though. Wouldn't it still be unorganized, but rather, just out of the way? Isn't that like cleaning your room by shoving all of your dirty clothes under the bed so that they're out of sight, but not quite out of mind? So, instead, I decided that I'd create a few labels ("Friends", "Four Island", "Facebook"...) and then, working back from the oldest part of my inbox, label emails under all the appropriate labels. Then, I simply archived my entire inbox. There goes my garbage! However, unlike the garbage under your bed, my email was sorted and I could simply click on "Friends" to see emails from my friends instead of having to search through "All Mail".

This was good. So, I've formed a new policy for email checking. Here we go:

1. First of all, and this is fairly specific, but if you use the Google Mail Checker Plus extension for Chrome or any other similar program that not only checks your inbox for new email every once in a while, but also shows you what the new email is, disable it. If you don't want to disable it, at least configure it so that it doesn't show you new email. Make it send you to gmail.com instead. The best way to organize your email is to make sure that you are fully focused on the task, rather than simply waving your hand at something that pops up.
2. Second, create labels for yourself. If you have specific types of email that you get regularly, like emails from your friends or emails from annoying social networking sites, create labels for them. If possible, also create filters that can automatically assign new incoming email to one of your labels. However, if you do this, don't make the filter tell these incoming emails to skip the inbox. You still want all new email in your inbox, ready for you to deal with them.
3. When you have new email, go to your inbox and click the email at the bottom. You should work through your email one at a time to ensure, once again, that you aren't distracted.
4. Read the email. Does it fit under one of your labels? If so, label it. Is it garbage/spam? Mark it as so. Does it require a reply or other further action? If it requires a reply, try writing it right then. If that's not possible, or if the email requires further action, then simply move on to your next email. If you are done with the email, though, Archive it. This will move it out of the inbox and out of your way.

If you follow these steps, not only will your Gmail inbox be deliciously clean, but you will know that the items in your inbox actually require something to be done to them. Isn't that great? I hope you've enjoyed this little mini-howto as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Really, I haven't written one of these for a long time! :P