Author: Steven Garrity

Christmas music that doesn’t suck

by Steven Garrity

I hate Christmas (music). I had intented to put together an Acts of Volition Radio session of Christmas music that doesn’t suck, but I could only turn up a few songs and didn’t quite have time.

So, for those with the means to find the music on their own, here is a quick list of Christmas music that doesn’t suck:

  • The First Noel by The Crash Test Dummies
    This comes from an entire disc of Christmas songs. Though I have only heard this one track, there is a possiblity that the other tracks also do not suck.

  • Christmastime by the Smashing Pumkins
    This song, from the A Very Special Christmas compilation from 1997, is one of the only modern Christmas songs I’ve heard that captures that elusive “Christmas carol” sound, yet manages to not suck.

I’m told there is also a good Barenaked Ladies / Sarah McLachlan Christmas single from a year or two ago – but I am unable to confirm it’s suck/doesn’t-suck status. Also, Jon Hicks points to The Darkest Night of the Year by Over the Rhine. It too doesn’t suck.

Hope your Christmas doesn’t suck. Look for a new session of Acts of Volition Radio in the days after Christmas.

 

Calling all Hipsters: Help me find a Strawberry song

by Steven Garrity

I’m looking for a copy of the song I Miss My Mom from the album Brokenheart Audio by the band Strawberry.

Update: I’ve got it.

The local record stores don’t have any copies. I can order it from No Records – but I’d like to get a copy of that song right away so I can release the next session of Acts of Volition radio.

If anyone has a copy (I know it must be all over the basements of Charlottetown), please contact me. If someone can get me a rip of that song, I promise I will buy order the disc (to preserve my indie karma).

 

YALoTRR: Yet Another Lord of the Rings Review

by Steven Garrity

The last thing the world needs now is another post about the Lord of the Rings movies (what is it that the world needs now, exactly?). However, if you’ll kindly bear with me, I do have a quick comment to get out of the way.

About half-way through the The Return of the King, the third and final movie in the series, I strange feeling came over me. While watching Frodo and Sam trek through Mordor, and Merry and Pippin fight hopeless battles, I could myself thinking: “It seems so long ago that Frodo and Sam where back at the Shire…”

I had a strangly real sense of time and history – which is what made the Tolkien books so great. I think the one-movie-a-year for three years delivery helped contribute to the epic sense that a great time had past, but still – I felt I was looking back on the long lives of fictional characters.

That is as good a compliment as I could ever pay to a director. Well done.

 

xPad: Take Note

by Steven Garrity

xPad iconI wrote a while back here on Acts of Volition about software for taking notes, and how I wished I didn’t have to save my files all of the time (why aren’t they always saved?). As a result of the current state of software I end up having to save a bunch of notepad files when I have to reboot.

Our fine readership pointed out a slew of good suggestions (my favourite of which was to just have a permanent scratch.txt file that I can add to and save). Still, I felt the real problem hadn’t been solved. Until now. Oh, and only if you have a Mac.

Fine weblogger, Garrett Murray, of ManiacalRage.net, has created a new note-taking application for Mac OS X called xPad. It is small, fast, simple, and elegant. There is no “Save” function, because your text is aways saved. There is good multiple document handling, and the application makes nice use of native OS X controls and functionality.

I don’t use a mac as my primary computer, but I’m fortunate to have a CRT-iMac on the side of my desk for testing. Thanks to xPad, the iMac has become the machine I turn to when I need to take quick notes (especially phone messages).

xPad is only $10, there is a free demo to download, and I recommended it.

Oh, and for extra cool – my name is in the About screen!

 

Luna Blue Theme (v0.2) for Mozilla Thunderbird Update

by Steven Garrity

Update: Luna Blue Theme (v0.3) for Mozilla Thunderbird is now available.

I’ve prepared an update for the Luna Blue theme for Mozilla Thunderbird. This update will work with (and only with) the latest Thunderbird 0.4 release. If you haven’t updated to 0.4 yet, it’s worth it.

Zip Icon Download/Install Luna Blue (v0.2) for Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4

lunabluethunderbird_0_2.jar – 637Kb RAR File

Here are the changes and updates to the theme:

  • Added small toolbar icons to primary toolbar and compose toolbar
  • Fixed visual glitch with double shadow on status bar
  • Added contact list icon
  • Cleaned up some old icons that were no longer used
  • Lightened disabled toolbar icons (to 80% opacity)
  • New window layout icons in the General Options window
  • Minor updates to some of the box styles and borders in the main mail window (tree view, mail pane, and preview pane) [Note: this isn’t finished and has a few rough edged – however, I wanted to get a working release out for 0.4 ASAP]
  • New throbber – dropped the Windows logo throbber, which we should probably never have used, and added a new throbber based on Garrett LeSage’s excellent BlueCurve theme from Fedora linux (which is now my primary operating system).
  • Some new IMAP, Newsgroup icons, and secure icons that were missed in the first release (a few are still missing)
  • Cleaned up group headers in address book details
  • New Copy, Cut, and Paste icons in Message Compose toolbar
  • Update for new separate attachment inditactor in inbox pane (nice new touch in 0.4)
  • Icon for new Mark toolbar button

I’m not planning on going too much farthur with this theme as I’m more interested in working on refining the default theme rather than a niche (however large) theme.