Angelo Carosio's Portfolio » technology

Delicious Library fuels collector’s OCD

Angelo Carosio — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:41:08 +0000

Delicious Library is a collector's dream. The software lets you keep track of all the stuff (records, cd's, books, etc) that you own in a fun, easy-to-use interface.

Everyone likes to collect something. Whether it be CD’s, vinyl, DVD’s, books, baseball cards, Pokémon cards, or stamps, the need to collect seems ingrained in the human psyche. For those of us who have it a little stronger than most, Delicious Company has recently released a piece of software that will do nothing but fuel that desire.

Delicious Library 2 is a library management utility which lets users keep track of everything they own, but it’s best suited for managing collections of media. The program’s effortless interface lets you scan in items using your Mac’s built in webcam as a barcode reader, but also has a way to manually add things for those of you who are without the iSight. The software connects to a database with thousands of items containing information like cover art, artists, producers, resale value, and much much more.

In addition, Delicious Library interacts with your Mac’s address book in order to manage loans of items to your friends and family. “Have you ever loaned a book or DVD or $200 DeWalt Cordless Driver to a friend, and forgotten which friend?” the Delicious Library Website reads. “With Delicious Library you just drag any item onto any friend from your Address Book, and it’ll remember the loan for you — and even put an entry in iCal reminding you when it’s due.”

There seems to be little that this powerhouse app CAN’T do. It can tell you the current going price for your original Dark Side of the Moon vinyl, tell you who produced the poppy masterpieces on the first Spice Girls CD, and will even manage non-media items like gadgets and toys. When you’re done importing everything you own into the program, it will even generate a website for you, so everyone in the world can browse through your collection of old Queen records (by the way, that link goes to my personal vinyl collection, if anyone is interested.)

So go, fellow collectors, and manage your libraries of stuff with great ease using Delicious Library 2. There is a free trial available at the Delicious Library website, and the full version costs $40.

Memo to Apple: Smaller is not always better

Angelo Carosio — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:55:31 +0000

Apple introduced a new model of iPod Shuffle on Wednesday

It’s the way of technology that over time gadgets will become smaller. The first iPod was a hunky beast of a device, too big for most people’s pockets. The iPod mini became the iPod nano generations 1, 2, and 3 while getting smaller every time, and the pregnancy test / tampon-esque first gen iPod shuffle became the button sized second generation. Apple’s designers have been at it again, and the result is a device that’s going to be harder for its users to keep track of than a lighter.

The previous generation iPod shuffle was already small enough. As an added bonus, the space that Apple sacrificed for this new model means that the device no longer has any buttons. No buttons on the device itself, nowhere, nada. Instead, they boast that the earbuds that come with the shuffle have the necessary controls on them, and that one of those controls makes a computerized voice speak the currently playing song title and artist to you.

Wait, what?

The iPod has returned to the long-form factor. At least it doesn't look like a tampon anymore.

I don’t know about you guys, but the stock earbuds that come with iPods have gotten almost zero time in my ears. The things are tinny, lack any sufficient amount of bass, and are generally uncomfortable and prone to falling out at the slightest hint of pressure on the cord. Apple is now saying that, at least for now, these earbuds are the only way people can enjoy music on the new iPod shuffle? Give me a break.In addition, despite Apple generally doing a good job with text-to-speech, I’m sure quite a few musical artists have names that this thing isn’t going to be able to pronounce correctly. Björk, MSTRKRFT, and Röyksopp come to mind as a few artists that text-to-speech would butcher, and song titles like “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur” by Sigur Ros even I don’t know how to pronounce. Hearing Fred or a comparable Apple-branded voice attempt to say those titles would probably make the band die a little bit inside.

I’ll give Apple some credit here: it’s a pretty impressive feat to cram a 4gb MP3 player and text-to-speech software into such a small package, but the question really comes down to this: is it necessary? I wasn’t hearing anyone complaining that the previous iPod shuffle was too big–in fact the opposite was true, and people usually said that it was too small to keep track of easily.

Gadget blog Gizmodo seems to agree on this one, and has also added that Apple let them know that they will be selling an adapter that lets you use third-party headphones with the device. Great, I’ll add it to my list of $20 Apple dongles that let me do 1 thing that I should have been able to do in the first place.

Memo to Apple: form is not more important than functionality. Your customers appreciate the aesthetics of your devices, but when you start sacrificing serious features like basic controls just so you can shave a couple square centimeters off of your device, it’s taking things a little bit too far.

Facebook dropping the ball

Angelo Carosio — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:24:44 +0000

One of the many recent Facebook problems.

Has this page been a common sight for anyone else recently? You’re definitely not alone if it has. Facebook users have been experiencing various problems with the much-beloved social networking website, and the issues seem to be affecting every user on the site. SU students and other blogs are reporting being locked out of their account due to “site maintenance,” bugs where links on the site just aren’t clickable, problems with Facebook Chat, and general slow speeds.

“Facebook is turning into MySpace,” junior Sociology major Steve Allen said. “It’s slow, buggy, and I can’t get on my account ever.”

The Mashable blog talked about the problems with Facebook Chat, recalling times when messages didn’t go through, buddies randomly sign off when they are actually still on, and also times when chat is just 100% down and inaccessable.

“All of these make the chatting experience quite painful,” Stan Schroeder wrote.

Speculation has linked these problems to increase load due to Facebook’s popularity, problems with the “new” version of the site, and just general bugs, but the general public will still be in the dark until we hear something from Zuckerberg & Co about what is actually going on.

If Facebook wants to stay the social networking king, it needs to shape up on some of these problems. The user base Facebook caters to is known for having a short attention span when it comes to computer problems, and if they keep up, people will abandon Facebook for something new as fast as they abandoned MySpace for Facebook.