brentashley

I’m not usually too keen on stealth startups, but with Adam Michela being involved in this SixtySpots project, I’m expecting some really nice development work. Having done some extensive travel-related web development with VFM Interactive‘s rich media offerings, I’m interested in seeing how SixtySpots uses web collaboration and community technology to make the travel planning game more fun and fulfilling.

Brett Stimmerman is kicking some major Ajax butt with his Lace chat app.

The real magic in this particular implementation is that it degrades right down as far as browsers that don’t even run Javascript – you’re left having to manually refresh with the Say button, but it still works like a charm. Here’s a screenshot from the Lynx text browser:

Clare and I went to the Michael Buble concert tonight at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto.

Michael is a terriffic showman – fabulous voice, charismatic presence. He gave a great performance. Highly recommended.

His band was great too, in every respect except the drums (caveat: I’m a drummer of sorts). I’ve seen his band on DVD with another drummer and it was fantastically tight and crisp – working with the brass accents on the big band showcase tunes and swinging to set your foot tapping. I was really looking forward to hearing a really tight Jazz groove.

Unfortunately, they brought a blues shuffle drummer to a Jazz gig. That’s not to say he was bad. He shone brilliantly on shuffle hits “How Sweet It Is” and “This Thing Called Love” as well as any straight time stuff, but he swung like a sack of concrete – I never once felt the urge to tap my foot and that’s rare for me – and hardly a rimshot to be heard in support of the brass accents. Yes there were some good fills and standalone accents, but not a lot of accents coincidental to a running groove. Also, the kit was tuned and miked for rock/blues – you can’t play jazz standards how I expect to hear them without a recognisable crisp ride cymbal. I couldn’t hear the bell of the ride cymbal on the latin tunes either, even though he was using it. It’s too bad because it distracted me from the rest of the show.

I still recommend that you see the show. Unless you’re a pedantic wannabe Jazz drummer you’ll never notice, and Michael Buble’s remarkable talent is worth the price of entry.

I have to say that Greasemonkey is absolutely the coolest thing I’ve seen in years.

Today I used Platypus to build a Greasemonkey user script to remove the “Delete Blog” button from Movable Type‘s admin screen. It’s wayyyy too dangerous sitting right next to the configuration link, even with a confirmation.

This just in – RIAA sues thousands of bloggers. News at Eleven.

At the recent Ajax Summit, one of the links I pointed out to the group during the “where to go from here” portion of my presentation was to Michael Mahemoff’s post AJAX Patterns: Design Patterns for AJAX Usability.

Michael has since picked up his own ball and run with it, building a whole Wiki site dedicated to Ajax Patterns.

I just got the baton from Mike Papageorge

So, here goes:

Total volume of music files on my computer:

Yeah, bite me, RIAA – nice meme idea. I’m not falling for it.

The last CD I bought was:

“How ‘Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?”

jazz standards by Beverly Taft

Bought directly from the artist at a show. Boo hoo for the middleman.

Song playing right now:

“Record Body Count”

Rheostatics – Melville album

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

Jane Monheit – Honeysuckle Rose
Jimmy Smith – Blues for J
Nat King Cole – Route 66
Dave Brubeck – Take Five
Rob McConnell, Ed Bickert, Don Thompson – Sleepin’ Bee

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton:

Tim Aiello
Adam Marsh
Ian Marsman
Joey de Villa
Roland Tanglao

As an example of a cool Ajax app in action, I’ve reinstated the embedded Blogchat on my blog here. If I’m online, you’ll be able to chat with me when you visit my blog. You can detach the Blogchat into a separate window if you like.