Top 5 Songs/Artists/Genres To Write Code To

The geekdom series continues with the top 5 things to listen to while coding. I know this seems like an obscure post, but there’s actually a lot of theory around it. You see, geeks (read “coders”) like me need time to “get in the zone.” In other words, we need time to drown out the outside world and get focused on what we have to do. I’m not trying to say we need special attention or job is particular hard (it isn’t)… it’s just the way it is with writing code… very similar to writing an essay or doing a very hard math problem. Sorry, I always digress. Back to the point. Here’s the list.

5. The Rockband Soundtrack (No link, search for them on The Pirate Bay)

Caught some of you off guard with this one. Yeah, it’s number 5. It’s good for the casual day of coding at work, when you’re just not quite sure what to put on iTunes/Rythmbox, but you need something. The nice variety of upbeat tones can get you to lunch, at least.

4. Norah Jones (Samples Link)

With a deadline quickly approaching (or in my usual situation, already passed), nothing can calm you down and keep you from over-stressing quite like Norah Jones. It’s also fairly ambient. You don’t feel compelled to listen to the lyrics and lose your focus like you would some other artists. Her soothing voice is just enough to get you through the hectic times. I won’t list examples — they’re all good.

3. Coldplay (Samples Link)

Hmmm, how do I classify this one? I think it could be best described as “power-coding” music. You don’t want something ambient, but you also don’t want something that’s going to make you rock out of your chair. Coldplay seems to strike a nice balance between the two. And of course, their music is weird, so it probably fits your personality pretty well. Check out “Clocks” (of course), “The Scientist,” and “Square One.”

2. Death Cab for Cutie (Samples Link)

My girlfriend will probably get very excited when she reads this one. But the truth is, it’s really good music to write code to. I’ve found on more than one occasion it gets me into the all-praised super-focused mode, when the best code is written. Just an all around great band and good music to type in the geekbox to. Check out “Passenger Seat” (so beautiful), “Translantacism,” and “Brothers on a Hotel Bed.”

1. Digitally Imported — Chillout Station (Website, Stream Link)

Number one by a long shot. Why? This station only augments the effects of the aforementioned super-focused mode. Get in the zone, turn this station on, and watch your fingers steamroll through a project. This particular music seems to be best accompanied by coffee, lava lamps, and complete darkness (minus the lava lamp glow of course). If you’re feeling rich, spring for the Premium subscription. The quality difference is noticeable even for casual listeners.

Of course, it depends entirely on your personal tastes and preferences. But if you’re lost or just looking for something different, these 5 are a good place to start.

That concludes this geekdom post. I’m going to run out of these eventually. But until then… I’m open for suggestions on other good music to code by.

Dark Window Themes? Yes Please.

Never underestimate how much nerd-fu I can bring to the table. The following post is packed full of nerdy goodness.

One of the things I really enjoy about Ubuntu (and most other distros) is the plethora of available themes for the gnome window manager. Being of great geekdom, nothing says “geek it out” like a nice, slick, dark theme. The combination of dark room + lava lamp + dark ubuntu theme + gedit = some good late night code writing sessions.

Anyway, I decided to give Windows Vista a shot this weekend, since the improvements listed in Service Pack 1 seemed promising. After successfully downloading and installing the service pack (a 2 hour adventure), I became stuck in a perma-reboot loop. I’ve since learned that it’s actually a Blue Screen of Death error, but Vista is set to reboot on blue screens by default. A novel idea. Instead of showing the user a tragic error most likely caused by shitty software design, let’s just reboot the machine and hope it goes away. Microsoft really loves the Plug ‘N Pray strategy. I really don’t know where Microsoft starting going wrong, but I do have an educated guess on what (or who) is driving them into the ground.

To make a long story short. It’s back to XP for windows tasks, and onto Ubuntu for the rest. I’ve made several attempts to go completely 100% Microshaft free in the past, but it’s going to take several attempts to get used to the differences. With Ubuntu 8.04 quickly approaching (and 8.10 right behind it), it can only get easier. A world of open-source excitement awaits!

Best of the Best for OS X

I’ve had some time to get used to using Mac OS X, both at work and at home. I’ve also had a great deal of exposure to a multitude of programs (mostly free) that are available on Mac. I’m going to have a geek moment here and highlight my top 5. Most of you already use a lot of these. But none of you use #1, which confuses me. Anyway, on to the show.

5. PandoraJam (Link) — Music player.

If you’re as much of a music lover as I am, you’ve probably already been introduced to pandora.com . Here you can input an artist that you like, and they will go out and find other artists and music that have similar musical qualities, and play the songs for you (did I mention, for free?). Anyway, PandoraJam is a magnificent mac-only interface for playing and recording… yeah, recording music from PandoraJam. The trial is free and never ends, and the only drawback is every now and then you have to click the “Demo” button again and start recording. But seriously, pay for it. This developer did a great job.

4. VLC (Link) — Media (everything) Player

Disclaimer: This isn’t a mac-only product. It’s actually completely cross platform compatible. But I do run it on OS X, and it’s completely wonderful. VLC is a video/music/media/whatever player. And when I say “whatever,” I really mean everything. I’ve never come across a media player so versatile. It has a ton of built in codecs and features that make it pretty much top of the line. Other things that make it good: It’s free, it’s light-weight, the interface is small and simple. Oh, and ever have a video where the audio and video was off? Yeah, it has settings to adjust that too.

3. Adium (Link) — Instant Messaging

iChat video is cool and all, but Adium is hands-down the best instant messaging program I’ve used, on any system, ever. With plug-ins galore, this program can pretty much look and do whatever you want it to. It has support for pretty much every chat client out there (except IRC, but who cares), and is so customizable. Did I mention you could customize it like crazy? Yeah. You should do that. It’s worth it.

2. TextMate (Link) — Text Editor

Okay, this is where I lose some of you. TextMate is a text editor. That’s it. …. WAIT! Actually it’s a lot more than a text editor. It uses these packages called “Bundles,” which there are hundreds of, to support programming and text manipulation. You can download a bundle for just about every programming language out there, and it ships with several dozen. I use this for pretty much all of my text editing. Okay, developer hat is coming back off for #1.

1. Quicksilver (Link, Download) — Perfection.

What is it? What would you like it to be? Okay, that’s what it is. Quicksilver can be summed up by the caption on it’s website: ” A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.” Personally, I use this program to quickly open programs, operate iTunes, write emails, add items to my to-do list for work, open web pages… I’ll stop there, but there are tons more. Basically, you assign a hotkey for quicksilver (I use Alt+space, it’s easy to hit), it pops open a window no matter where you are, you begin typing what you want to do (program name, artist, url, etc etc etc), and it will search it’s catalogue for applications and activities that match what you’re typing. It’s incredibly simple and easy to use, and there are plug-ins for pretty much everything (have you figured out that I like customization yet?). If you do download this, make sure you slowly work your way through the preferences and plug-ins list to get the perfect setup for you. Read the documentation linked in the title. It’s important. Don’t skip it or skim through it. Seriously.

So that’ s it. Some of those I know most of you will never use, nor do you really need to. But #1 is definitely worth checking out, even if it takes some time to setup just right for you (don’t skip it!). Anyway, have a nice weekend.

blogging=good

I recently read this article from Discovery news about blogging. They say that they have seen how people who blog and are involved in social networks feel more accepted and involved. Hmmm. I wonder why, no seriously though, I definitely agree that blogging is good for mental health, and as well as spiritual health. The article says that research shows people who blog are more confident that others can help them and feel more connected to a community. I think it also has to do with the fact that people feel like they are important. The web is huge and if people can still find and manage to help you, it makes you feel like you matter in the vast world.

Another thing I believe blogging does for people is that it allows people to vent their emotions or feelings as well as stuff they are going through in a constructive way. Instead of holding it in, people are connected and there to help.

The article states that social networking gets people to have more confidence in friendships in face-to-face as well as online. I have to agree, because sometimes when I am face-to-face with some of my friends, there are a lot of distractions that keep real conversations on the sidelines. Blogging helps to make things at least a little more intentional.

For me, I know that blogging has helped me to organize my thoughts and to understand more about what everyone in my life is going through. It helps me to look inside myself and really focus on what I am thinking and to make it in an archived format. I can look back at it whenever I want. I think many of the benefits from my blogging could have been achieved with a journal, but I just don’t do that. On the other hand, I feel like I belong to a community and I am not just talking to myself with my blog, as others can look at it and can discuss things, if not in the comments, then usually in person. I know I can discuss things better after I have already wrote down my thoughts. I know Brian spoke a little about what his thoughts were on blogs, I am curious to know how blogging has influenced the rest of you.

technology and consumerism

So today Apple released their new Macbook pro models and Macbooks. Normally I would not care so much, but if you know me, you probably already know that I just recently purchased a Macbook Pro only a few months ago.

The new models have faster processors, an LED backlit display, multi-touch touchpad, larger hard drives, and a better video card. The LED backlit displays mean better energy saving, higher contrast, and brighter overall. The multi-touch is kind of a gimmicky, with the ability to rotate pictures and swipe the touchpad to switch between Spaces. The processors are Intel’s newest and include a .2 Ghz update. This is not much but still an update nonetheless. The standard hard drive is now 200 Gb, compared to 160 only yesterday. The video cards have faster RAM (GDDR3 for those that care).

So, who cares, right? Well I just spent $1800 on my laptop in late November and already my model is the outdated one. The new models have many great features if I had only waited. I mean did I really need one that soon…. maybe. The thing is it just really sucks knowing that you can dish out that much money and still not be on the cutting edge for very long at all.

I think the most upsetting thing to me is the fact that even though is spent $1800 on a machine that before I can pay it off, it will already be outdated. This relates to Clyde’s post on debt, I think. We can never spend enough money. Technology is increasing faster than our wallets. It is never going to be good enough. This is the reason people spend so much money on leasing cars. They pay a monthly payment and never own the car and when the lease is up they immediately get a newer, shinier, better-smelling car. All the while never owning one or being free from the debt. I hope I never get trapped into this sort of thinking, well maybe I am already.

Recently I have been reading in Matthew, and this passage came to mind as I was typing this :

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. – Matthew 6:19-24

This has been on my heart alot lately. I think this summarizes the condition of consumerism and worldly possessions in our lives. I know that I am personally guilty of putting to much worth in worldly things. I think we all struggle with this. The only things that matter are the eternal things, the things that man can not destroy. Jesus says that he will provide, because the birds don’t starve, why would he let us. (Matthew 6:26).The fact is that the only thing we need is HIM.