Sunday, September 11, 2011

An Open Letter to Apple

Dear Apple and Hello to all of my readers,
                                                             The purpose of this open letter is to point out all of the resounding flaws with your company. I myself only have experience with one and that is the n00b programming of your iTunes client for Windows. I would think that a company as big as you, would be smart enought to PUT IN A FREAKIN' FAIL SAFE FOR EXTERNAL HDD's. We live in a big world where sometimes your computers hard drive just doesn't cut it. To remmedy that, a lot of people now store their music on external drives yet somehow you haven't caught up with this and instead will allow the software to FAIL if it doesn't want to read said external. I was the victim of this several weeks back and scoured the internet for a way to locate a solution. Unfortunatly, since the software wouldn't consolidate, my only option was to reimport 10,000 songs. Let me say that again "My only option was to REIMPORT 10,000 songs"! Okay, that I can live with. I can do that. What I can't live with, is that THEN iTunes said "I'll read the hard drive" so now I HAVE 20,000 SONGS IN MY LIBRARY! 20,000! Now maybe I'm the n00b but I would think that you guys would put in, i don't know, a way to AUTOMATICALLY REMOVE DUPLICATES! Not only that, but it decided to make all copies in on the same day so I can't sort by date to remove them, I lost every play list and ALL OF MY PLAY COUNTS! For the last two weeks I have been unable to sync my iPod Classic (6G) or my iPhone. At this point my only option short of manually deleteing all of these excess files is to REBUILD MY LIBRARY! Yes, I am happy for iCloud  and that I can reget my apps at the push of a button and re download all of those free singles of the week. My issues with the other 9750 songs that I either need to copy somehow from my ipod (another feature you guys don't have) or re aquire and import EVERYTHING! I know there is nothing you guys can do, and you won't fix the software for a few more years seeing as you just invented multitasking last year, but I thought you should know this is one Apple Product User you have enraged and possibly lost. Yes I have my iPhone and iPod and will keep it, but I need to give serious thought as to if I will EVER buy a new Apple product again.

Sincerely,
          Dan 

PS
   I bet if I had an Apple computer you guys would have a way to fix this in a heartbeat.

PPS
    To all of my readers, if Apple has EVER screwed you over in any way, shape, or form, please respond below in the form of a comment.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

SPOILERS - Alice Cooper - "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" Review

On Tuesday September 13th the 13th studio album by legendary rocker  Alice Cooper hits stores and I was fortunate enough to get my hands on an early copy. Sitting down listening to it I decided to sit down and do an honest review of it as I am listening to it. The best place to start is the very beginning with:



1. I am Made of You- The starting point for this album is actually a weak one. As soon as Alice opens his mouth to speak the first thing that gets to you is he used AUTO TUNE! Alice fucking Cooper used auto tune on one of his songs. Yes, he is Alice Cooper. Yes, he has earned the right to do WHATEVER he damn well pleases, but he's ALICE COOPER! He doesn't need to auto tune. I've heard this album in other early reviews that this album sounds like a piece from The Rolling Stones. I just want to say right now: MICK JAGGER DOESN'T AUTOTUNE! Let's see where this goes from here.

2. Caffeine- As we get into the second song on the album we are hit with a song about....well caffeine. It's actually a pretty up beat song that almost sounds like it should have been done by a younger band. The lyrics themselves are pretty OK but he treats caffeine as way too much of an addictive and lethal drug. Seeing as this is a concept album and a sequel to "Welcome to My Nightmare" I am willing to overlook any personal gripes with the song as I see where it fits in story wise as a way to keep the nightmares from returning. 

3. The Nightmare Returns- Finally the album is starting to get creepy. Everything on this song works, from the creepy piano music in the background to the way that Alice Cooper sings it. The piano runs the entire song and is eventually joined by a classic Cooper sounding metal piece that I assume is the transition to the nightmare. I actually could feel the hairs on my arms going up a tad so I can see this album is heading in the right direction yet.

4. A Runaway Train- Here we have another fast upbeat song. This one almost sounds like a mix between metal and country a little bit. Are there such things as heavy metal banjos cause it sure sounds like there's one in this. I'm getting an image in my head for this song and I will share it. I see Alice Cooper in a nightmare land running down a set of railroad tracks being chased by a giant train that resembles the one from the cover of Motorhead's album "Orgasmatron". (Anywhere I find to put what I see in my mind and help share my interpetation of the story I will). The song ends with the sounds of a train crashing...errie.

5. Last Man on Earth- OK this one starts with a style that almost sounds like "People Are Strange" by The Doors. It's a creepy sounding song though with a creepy, almost carnaval-like, feel to it. I'm starting to think if anything this album would make a great musical film, possibly a mix of live action and animation, because this song would look way to creepy as a live action piece. My favorite lie in this song is "I'm the last man on earth,
So tell me what it's worth.
Am I a beggar or a king?"

Oddly, this one ends with canned appluase. Is it meant to have been performed for those of the other world? 

6.  The Congregation- This one starts out a little slower which is a good thing. I'd say the pace on this one overall is definetly a bit slower than the others, though not by much. It really sounds like classic Alice Cooper though when you get down to it. So far the album has had it's ups and downs and while it's not 100% classic Alice Cooper it's about 90% classic Cooper.

7. I'll Bite Your Face Off- Here's one that sounds as close to classic Cooper as I've heard yet. This album is slowly falling into it's place and do  think that my final rating on this one will be  more favorable than my review I did on Twitter last night where I listened to 3 or 4 tracks and then ripped this piece a new one. The lyrics on this one are nicely dark, as the title would suggest and are delivered with a style that feels to me like "I'm Eighteen".

8. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever- Gothic disco, that's all I'm gonna say. That and I think I really like this one haha. Nice dark sounding vocalists in the back, 70's feel, dark lyrics, and Alice Cooper does it perfectly.

9. Ghouls Gone Wild- This one sounds like a slowed version of "Blitkrieg Bop" a bit. It's another one I'm liking though. The album is starting to pick up an overall older feel which is what I'd expect for this.

10. Something to Remember Me By- Here we go, nice slow mostly acoustic song, almost ballad like. This is another personal favorite for me. Alice Cooper is bringing the story together quite nicely and the songs are sounding more classic as they go.

11. When Hell Comes Home- This one is yet another classic yet powerful sounding piece. Dark and eerie  and of course scary.

12. What Baby Wants- At this point it's hard to nitpick these songs because they have finally gotten the pace and feel they need that's why my reviews of them are short and sweet.

13. I Gotta Get out of Here- This one starts with chiming bells and then picks up a nice end of story style feel completely like Alice Cooper's older work. The lyrics are great and the beat is nice.

14. The Underture- Normally I HATE instrumental rock music but this works great. Alice Cooper told his story and ends it with an almost orchestral sounding (yet completely rock) underture to rap it up.

Overall this actually turned out to be a pretty good album. I give it a four out of five and do want to see the live concert that goes with it if Mr. Cooper decides to go on a concert tour to support it. Post what you thought below. :D

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Technology - Are We Addicted

Hey all,
        Dan here with a new blog post. This is part one of three of a series of blog posts I am doing about technology. This one is on if we are addicted to tech or not. The next two will be the Pros and Cons of Tech and then a History of tech over the last 19 years just to show how it has changed.*

Do we, as a people, suffer from an addiction to technology. The answer is yes. It isn't as simple as an alcohol or drug addiction though. These things are easily identifiable and the proper course of action can be taken. With a tech addict though, it isn't that simple. For one, there are  many different types of tech you can be addicted too. For some, it is a general over all addiction (see Chris Pirillo of LockerGnome). Then there are your smartphone addicts. Just to clairfy, a smartphone addict isn't someone who texts their friends 24/7, a smartphone addict is someone who uses their phone everywhere from their communte, to their break, to the bathroom, and even when they should be sleeping. I will admit to being guilty of the later. When I should be asleep I am often kept up with thoughts and stress and that in turn leads to me going to my phone and visiting Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WrestleFuse (which recently overhauled and added in an iOS version of their site available at http://ios.wrestlefuse.com ), TMZ, Digg, Mashable, and a billion other sites and apps. Sometimes I get the feeling that charging my phone right next to my bed is not the best idea, but so be it, I am a happy smartphone addict. Then you have your video game addicts. These are the (usually) guys, who spend more hours killing people on "Black Ops" than they do at work, eating, bathing, and with their friends and family combined. After that you have the biggest category: computer addicts, which is a sub genre of General Tech Addiction (read: Geeks).  These are everything from your dedicated hackers to your programers and beyond. I'd like to think I am a little of all of these, not that I should be proud of that.

*My 19th birthday is on 11/5 so it will actually be an 18 and a half year look at tech :D