3
1

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

The Music 2006 (tracks 50-11)

The first batch of top tracks of this year. As before, I waded through all of the tracks of the day for 2006 and added a few other songs into the mix. However, I then weeded out tracks that appeared in last year’s list – my rules, they can’t appear in consecutive years. Using a super-secret rating system plus just a gentle nudge up or down for one or two songs, here are the results:




50Sleater-KinneyPrisstina
49 Sleater-Kinney Far Away
48 Tori Amos Playboy Mommy
47 Tori Amos Icicle (Live)
46 Sarah Fimm Be Like Water
45 Feist When I Was a Young Girl
44 Joanna Newsom The Book Of Right-On
43 Zero 7 Home
 

Featuring the vocals of Tina Dico. More from her later.
42 Fortran 5 Heart On The Line
41 Redhead Walking On Blue Clouds (Original Mix)
40 Caroline Drove Me To The Wall
39 Goldfrapp Fly Me Away (C2 Remix 2)
 

Taken from Carl Craig’s suite of remixes of this song, this rejects most of the original, turning the song into a deep acid groove.

38 iiO Kiss You (Bailey Club Mix)
37 Charlotte Martin Stromata
36 Lunik Through Your Eyes
35 The Walkabouts Life: The Movie
34 Peaches Back It Up
33 Sleater-Kinney Entertain
32 Sleater-Kinney What’s Mine Is Yours
31 Susan Enan Bring On The Wonder
30 Tori Amos Liquid Diamonds (Live)
29 Tori Amos Bells For Her
28 Lunik Little Bit
 

"Little bit I love you / Little bit I hate you / Little bit I need you / Little bit I wish I never met you"
27 Frazier Chorus Sloppy Heart
26 Charlotte Martin Veins
 

The opening track to her 2005 EP of the same name, explores various facets of relationships. And I’m left wondering where the lyrics for this song came from. They’re confident and challenging.
25 Charlotte Martin Four Walls
24 The Knife We Share Our Mother’s Health
23 Goldfrapp Ride A White Horse (Ewan Pearson Disco Odyssey Part 1)
22 Kristin Hersh Flipside
21 Tori Amos Yes, Anastasia (Alternate Mix)
20 Goldfrapp Hairy Trees
19 In-Flight Safety Surround
18 Joanna Newsom Sawdust & Diamonds
17 Judge Jules & Katie Marne featuring Cara Dillon Ordinary Day (Karl G Remix)
16 Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton The Lottery
15 Janet Jackson All Nite (Don’t Stop)
 

A surprise entry in the list, only ‘cos I heard it late one night – and I’m more open to musical suggestion then. Taken from Damita Jo. All Nite (Don’t Stop) is astonishing because of what isn’t there, exploiting Janet’s coo-ing lyrics which support a basic looped groove. It’s all in the production of the vocals and the subtle use of a faded-in pad motif. What she actually sings is completely irrelevant.
14 The The Giant
13 Armin van Buuren Simple Things
12 Moloko Forever More
11 Tina Dico Nobody’s Man
No Comments | Permalink | Tracks of the Day | Music of 2006
3
1

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

PCR

That’s Power, Control and Responsibility. When I worked as a software manager I was always an advocate of giving people both responsibility and power, much to the surprise of those working with (and for) me. This reduces stress by allowing people to affect what they do and how they do it. However, this means not always running to Daddy when things go wrong; but Daddy will be around if he feels you need help.

Zed Shaw writes about another correlation: Control and Responsibility, a slightly subtle difference, that is:

By “control” I mean the authority to make decisions. The person in a situation making the decisions is the one in control, not the person doing the work.

and

By responsibility I mean the rewards or punishments for the outcomes.

Be sure to read the Strippers And Steaks story, which is eerily familiar to me, and may be familiar to you to – especially if you’ve ever been involved in software or systems development.

1 Comment | Permalink | The Others
3
0

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

Software Engineering in 2006

My reflection on 2005 included a little piece on software engineering – specifically our adoption of Ruby on Rails. 2006 did indeed result in us using Ruby on Rails for all of our new projects. It’s simply a better way of developing software. Anyhow, here are my views on 2006:

Ruby on Rails

We launched Contentbox, a Rails-based content management system, but never did get around to launching our new website with it. That’ll have to wait to sometime in 2007. But our marvellous spam filter software Junkbox was launched and is now being used by ourselves and a couple of clients.

There are some other products in development. All written in Ruby on Rails.

Using Frameworks

Prototype and Script.aculo.us both showed what could be done with Javascript, helping bring interactivity to web sites. Behaviour is mechanism which helps keeps HTML tidy. We always use these three tools to some extent when we develop a new website. We’re also working them into some of our older sites as appropriate.

The Yahoo UI Library (YUI) was a late arrival for us. It does provide an incredibly rich and comprehensive set of tools to quickly develop interactive web applications. But I think it’s a bit too high level for general adoption, or maybe I’m too familiar with Prototype and Script.aculo.us to consider switching. It’s also important to note that Rails integrates directly with Prototype (and thus Script.aculo.us). YUI requires a bit more work.

Ajax in Rails

I used to be afraid of Rails, but not any more. I used to be quite scared of Ajax too, but not any more. Ajax in Rails is very easy and it’s also easy to convert traditional interactions into Ajax equivalents. However, you need to make sure that Ajax is only used where appropriate.

Frameworks and Ajax in PHP

The Prototype and Script.aculo.us libraries have also made their way into our PHP work, and thus Ajax becomes a more realistic prospect for PHP applications. Some of the things we’re planning to develop early next year would have been impossible without Ajax. This allows us to be more creative when discussing requirements with clients, because Ajax moves web applications closer to desktop applications. (See Google Spreadsheet as an example.)

Support Tools

There are a number of software tools that have been a great help to us this year. First off was Xyle scope, the first usable Mac tool to enable detailed interrogation of CSS on a website. It was released in 2005, but this was the year we found it really useful.

Later in the year came version 2 of CSSEdit. A similar tool, but this one allows you to create and modify CSS code whilst seeing the changes live. I tend to use both tools and switch between them depending on my needs.

And then there was Firebug: a Firefox extension which, in it’s current version 1.0 beta is an extraordinarly powerful tool for web developers. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page – including Ajax requests and responses.

But best of all was Parallels Desktop. Software that runs on Intel-based Macs, allowing Microsoft Windows (and other operating systems) to run alongside Mac OS X simultaneously. We can now check websites for compatibility with Internet Explorer without needing another PC and without rebooting.

No Comments | Permalink | It's Our Business
2
8

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

The Close of the Year show

Now that this blog has been redesigned – more on that in a future post – there’s a new CSS book which looks like a keeper: Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design. So that’s going on my Amazon wishlist.

Matt Heusser writes about the problems of designing systems – modeling system effects is hard and everything gets harder according to the complexity and number of interactions that a system has. ISO 9000 and the CMM are necessarily prescriptive and work against the need for more flexible approaches to design. I recall the time when I read about some companies reaching CMM Level 5, but who seemed to be incapable of delivering working systems. However CMM does permit you to be flexible – agile, even – you just need to document, measure, correct and improve.

Some of these issues cropped up when I was designing air traffic control systems. Kathy Sierra suggests that demos shouldn’t look done. Trouble is, that without demos looking done, it’s rare that you’ll win large development contracts. This is part of the No!Spec issue.

People store personal information with Google Notebook, including passwords and social security numbers, then go and accidentally publish them.

Shelfari is another entry to the book tagging social network thing.

No Comments | Permalink | The Others
2
2

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

New Adobe Icons

Here’s something interesting: Adobe have revealed the new icons for their products. This colour wheel, published by Adobe’s John Nack shows them. The ones with the two letter acronyms are icons too. So there’s something like Dw for Dreamweaver, Fw for Fireworks etc.

Not too long ago, some people were complaining how icons were always round. Now we have a huge family of square icons, that are only differentiated by their two letters and gradual colour change.

These small differences make it impossible to identify and distinguish between applications quickly – which is a major aim of an icon. One has to now read each icon, and think, before concluding what application it represents.

1 Comment | Permalink | General Musings
1
9

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

The Kitchen as a Listening Post

Pooh! When I’m preparing my evening meal in my kitchen I sometimes listen to something from my iTunes library. More often than not I fall in love with the particular tracks I’m listening too, more than I usually do when I hear them in the correct context (i.e. outside of a kitchen).

Last week it was the turn of the first three tracks from Hello Saferide’s debut album: Nothing Like You (When You’re Gone), My Best Friend and If I Don’t Write This Song, Someone I Love Will Die. Then yesterday, although I was intending to listen to The Cardigans, I stumbled upon Rachel Goswell’s album Waves Are Universal.

And pooh! There’s another album I’ve gone and neglected since its release in June 2004.

Note to self: This Must Not Happen Again.

No Comments | Permalink | Music
1
9

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

Little Boxes

MediaGuardian is reporting that the BBC is to outsource its live Sunday morning religious television slot, currently filled by the slightly bizarre The Heaven and Earth Show. This programme is currently made by the BBC’s Manchester-based ‘religion and ethics’ department.

Which figures.

No Comments | Permalink | General Musings
1
9

D
e
c
e
m
b
e
r

2
0
0
6

Chz not Char

Note: In my version of the blogosphere, Char is Charlotte Martin and Chz (or Chaz) is Charlotte Hatherley. Let’s hope that The Charlottes don’t reform.

When I wrote my review of Charlotte Hatherley’s Grey Will Fade album, I reckoned that she didn’t need Ash. Sure enough in February 2006, she left Ash and is now a true solo artist and has her own record label (Little Sister Records) to prove it. Behave is the first single from her new album, The Deep Blue, and is out now on iTunes.

Even better, she has a website. Although I’m not to keen on the design – particularly in the outer reaches of the site – it does at least one thing correctly: blogs. I’ve ranted about bands needing decent websites far too frequently (okay, twice), and Charlotte’s has blog in which she and others post to – it’s actually the core of the website. One downside to this blog is that you need to register to view or post comments. But there’s a reason for registration: if you register, you can post blog entries too.

Now, isn’t that much better than MySpace?

No Comments | Permalink | General Musings | Music | Music of 2006
| Earlier

Grab the RSS feed, or have a wander through the archives

copyright ©2006 and so on, ninthspace.org, except quotations, lyrics and some images which are the rights of their respective holders