Spotify

Snow Leopard

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It is interesting to note the varied experiences with Snow Leopard. For what it is worth my installation time was 43 minutes. A single disc and a couple of clicks affair – if I had a five year old to hand I could have left them to do it without any problems.

Space saved
Space saved

I regained nearly 23GB of disc space. Perhaps I should delete some of my accumulated junk and gain even more disc space. The original Leopard screenshot was named “Picture 59” (59! Perhaps I should delete some of my accu… ) but the shiny new one is called “Screen shot 2009-08-29 at 13.41.54”

Although most things seem to work fine I am constantly lost without FinderPop but I suppose the Turly fellow has some kind of an excuse and we can wait a while longer. Meanwhile I dragged my FinderPop Items folder into the Dock so at least some familiar stuff can be quickly found amongst all the clutter. Perhaps I should delete some of my accu…

To make 1Password version 2 work you need to drop Safari down to 32 bit mode from it’s Info pane:

32 Bit option
32 Bit option

But the Snow Leopard friendly version 3 is currently being tested and should be with us soon.

Another trusty assistant is Spell Catcher which does seem a little tetchy at the moment but I shall follow their advice and see if I can make it a little happier.

The swanky Services looks like it will be quite useful once it is configured for the individual’s needs.

Services menu
Services menu

I have not noticed any real problems so far. Even my creaky old PhotoShop 8 (the first CS version) seems to work fine. Things certainly seem snappier. Scrolling through a long list of stuff (Perhaps I should delete some of my accu… ) in a Finder window is notably smooth and fast. Spotify takes a long time to connect but I am not sure if that is a Snow Leopard thing or a Spotify thing.

I did do a full bootable backup of the old Leopard disc before the update so it will be interesting to go back after awhile with Snow Leopard and see just how different it feels.

Mobile Spotify

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A demo of Spotify on an Android mobile phone.

Perhaps once they finish that Spotify will start to iron out some of the glitches in their catalogue listings….

Only one of these tracks is listed correctly. There are no prizes for spotting it or identifying all the tracks 😉 But…. [W:Ravens], [W:Crows]…. Near enough 🙁

I would have reported the errors but Spotify have moved to a Get Satisfaction forum. Why would anyone think this was a good idea?

Waits to Buckley via Groucho

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Barry recently posted about the publication of the book about [W:Tom Waits] that he and Sharleena – these are not their real names 😉 had illustrated. This inspired me to see what Spotify had to offer in the Tom Waits section. Quite a lot apparently. There was a suitably eclectic selection featured in the Tom Waits’ Jukebox including a track from the [W:Lord Buckley] album A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat which Frank Zappa released on his [W:Straight Records] label. Thanks to the wonder of the Interweb we can enjoy Lord Buckley and [W:Groucho Marx] sparring together. Splendid.

Words of the day

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I have the [W:OED] Word Of The Day pop up in my RSS thingy. Yesterday’s word was, predictably, [W:Shrovetide] – c1425 Orolog. Sapient. vii. in Anglia X. 386/39 {Th}e sondaye In Quinquagesime, with {th}e tweyne dayes folowynge, {th}at is clepyd Schroftyde.

Todays, by contrast, is [W:Drum and bass] which dates back as far as – 1990 [W:The Face (magazine)] Nov. 53/2 ‘Dub Be Good To Me’..is Beats International‘s most characteristic creation. It’s drum and bass culture, the sound of downtempo Britain after midnight. 1997 S. BARROW & P. DALTON Reggae v. 204/1 But the first vocal record with a full dub version on its flip..is usually recognised as the [W:Little Roy] ‘Hard Fighter’ track on the [W:Lloyd Daley] Syndicate label, recorded in March 1971, with the splendid ‘Voo-doo’ as its strictly drum and bass counterpart from [W:The Hippy Boys].

The OED Rocks! But, alas, no Little Roy or Hippy Boys on Spotify yet. 🙁

The best word of the day has to be ricockulous, which describes something a degree or two worse than ridiculous but not quite as bad as ripenisulous. It was used by [W:Ben Goldacre] writing about the Facebook causes cancer nonsense on his Bad Science blog. Splendid.