#canadianmusicfind for March 30th
More for posterity then anything, but I am going to try to keep a record of all the artist mentioned in the [#canadianmusicfind](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=canadianmusicfind “canadianmusicfind – Twitter Search”) movement. So here is what yesterdays (Monday March 30th, 2009) tweeters turned up (most of which were me, but that should change over time):
* [Great Lake Swimmers](http://www.greatlakeswimmers.com/ “GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS – NEW ALBUM “LOST CHANNELS” Release Date Mar 31st, 2009″)
* [Ketch Harbour Wolves](http://www.ketchharbourwolves.ca/ “Ketch Harbour Wolves”)
* [Michael Buble](http://www.michaelbuble.com/ “Michael Buble”)
* [Danny Michel](http://www.dannymichel.com/newsite/welcome.html “welcome”)
* [Wintersleep](http://www.wintersleep.com/ “wintersleep”)
* [The Faunts](http://www.faunts.com/ “faunts.online | faunts.com”)
* [Hey Rosetta!](http://www.heyrosetta.com/ “Hey Rosetta!”)
* [Oscar Peterson](http://oscarpeterson.com/ “Oscar Peterson”)
* [K-OS](http://www.k-osmusic.com/ “. : K-OS : .”)
* [WideMouthMason](http://www.widemouthmason.com/ “iii Official Website of Wide Mouth Mason iii”)
* [Reid Jamieson](http://www.reidjamieson.com/ “Reid Jamieson – Official Web Site – Home Page”)
* [Johnny Hollow](http://www.johnnyhollowmusic.com/ “Johnny Hollow Music 2008″)
* [Zoe Keating](http://www.zoekeating.com/ “zoe keating: avant cello”)
* [Handsome Furs](http://www.handsomefurs.com/ “Handsome Furs”)
* [Downchild](http://www.downchild.com/ “DOWNCHILD”)
* [Roger Howse](http://www.rogerhowse.com/ “Welcome to RogerHowse.com”)
* [Blackie and the Rodeo Kings](http://www.rodeokings.com/ “:::Let’s Frolic AGAIN with Blackie and the Rodeo Kings!!!:::”)
* [Colin Linden](http://www.colinlinden.com/ “Colin Linden”)
[tags]Canadian music, canadianmusicfind[/tags]
The #canadianmusicfind Twitter Movement
I am passionate about music and I am passionate about Canada so it goes without saying that I am especially passionate about Canadian music. Well in light of last nights [Juno Awards](http://www.junoawards.ca/ “2009 JUNO Awards”) and my wife’s lack of familiarity with most of the names on the show, I thought perhaps it’s time to start a [Twitter](http://twitter.com/ “Twitter: What are you doing?”) movement, [#canadianmusicfind](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=canadianmusicfind “canadianmusicfind – Twitter Search”) to seek out some great Canadian music that perhaps are not as well known as they should be.
To participate is easy. All you need is a [Twitter](http://twitter.com/ “Twitter: What are you doing?”) account, the name of some awesome Canadian bands or musicians, a URL to more info about them and the tag “#canadianmusicfind”. In a 144 characters or less, tweet the name of the band, the link and the tag and others will be able find out more about the Canadian music you are currently enjoying.
[tags]Canadian music, canadianmusicfind[/tags]
The Perks of the Job
Ahh the perks of the job. I have been helping out Bill and Lana from [Wee Willy's](http://weewillys.com/ “Award Winning Grill Wizard shares Award Winning Barbecue Sauce and Our Family Favorite Recipe for comfort food online.”) for a few years now and every so often, to show their appreciation, the send me a nice little care package of their incredible spices and sauce. I am now a complete and total junkie for their stuff. There is not a meal cooked in this house that doesn’t get at least a splash of something from Wee Willy’s.
Thanks Bill and Lana, very much appreciated.
[tags]spices, cooking, perks, clients[/tags]
30 Minutes With DrawIt
Some apps you know are just put together well right from the start. They look right, they feel right, they are intuitive… Adobe hasn’t made such a product yet and my frustration of having to shell out hundreds of dollars every few years for a few minor upgrades to what is still complete rubbish has lead me to finally explore my horizons. My search lead me to [DrawIt](http://bohemiancoding.com/ “Bohemian Coding”) ($38) from Bohemian Coding about a month ago.
I had seen DrawIt in the past and was impressed then but my anger with Adobe had not fully matured yet. I wasn’t ready to leave Adobes shackles. By now I am more than ready to give something else a try. It took me a number of weeks before I had the time (and heart) to get my feet wet in a totally new drawing environment (other than Photoshop or Illustrator). I thought I was likely to spend days just getting my head around the way things were done. But that was not the case.
I made this concrete block in all of about 30 minutes, no joke! I mimicked the steps in one of there demo movies from memory (since the movies can’t be paused) and got some fairly convincing results in a half hour. Try that the with someone who’s never used Photoshop before… pftpftpft! Yeah right!
DrawIt just makes sense. It doesn’t focus so much on the tools as opposed to what you can do with each object or layer once it’s drawn. Every adjustment is non destructive and quickly undoable. Everything is fast, drop, drag, tweak, drop, drag, tweak… This truly is a designers application. Please [check it out](http://bohemiancoding.com/ “Bohemian Coding”).
[tags]DrawIt, Bohemian Coding[/tags]
FireFox CSS Hacks
Sometimes it’s not Internet Explorer, and sometimes it’s not FireFox… Sometimes it’s (*gasp*) Safari. I always develop for Safari and then fix everything else but sometimes, just *sometimes* you come across a situation where IE7, IE8 and FireFox 3 all render the same way. By law of averages, wouldn’t that mean that Safari has it wrong? Well let’s not jump to nasty conclusions, that doesn’t *prove* anything right?
Well regardless, I’m not about to start hacking for Safari (on moral grounds), so that leaves CSS hacking for IE7, IE8 and FireFox 3 (IE6 is just a given so were not going there). IE7 and IE8 are dealt with well enough using condition comments, <!–[if IE 7]> or <!–[if IE 8]> for example, but CSS hacks for FireFox are a different beast.
Some time ago I stumbled across [this guys trick](http://pornel.net/firefoxhack “CSS hack for Firefox 1.x/2.x only”) that goes something like this:
`#yourSelector, x:-moz-any-link {styles for Firefox 2.0 here}`
`#yourSelector, x:-moz-any-link, x:default {restore styles for Firefox 3.0 and newer}`
You can read more about it there, but in short, the :-moz-any-link is a private Gecko selector that other browser just ignore. Be warned though, it doesn’t validate so you’ll want to move it out to a javascript file or something if you are concerned about that sort of thing.
I don’t use this that often (only once before in fact), but it sure is handy to have in the toolbox sometimes.
[tags]firefox, css, hacks, ie6, ie7, ie8, internet explorer, safari, web design[/tags]
Good Times from the Studio Days
If you read [this page](http://adammerrifield.info/about/ “Adam Merrifield { the singular – it’s just about me}”) then you know that I play guitar. I still have some of the recordings we did over the years, but sadly I can’t find them all. This one popped up in my iTunes rotation this morning and got me remembering the fun we had during these sessions. There was a few nights we stayed in studio until 6 in the morning (before the days where wifes could call us on the cell phones). It didn’t make us sound any better but the sleep depravation convinced us we did. Give it a listen.
*Woman Just Leave Me Be* ©1999 Adam Merrifield
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[tags]music, recording, blues, studio, guitar[/tags]
LittleSnapper Touch Is Soon to Hit Realmac Lineup
[
](http://www.realmacsoftware.com/blog/index_files/littlesnapper_touch_iphone.php#unique-entry-id-35 “Realmac Software Blog – RapidWeaver News”)[This looks interesting](http://www.realmacsoftware.com/blog/index_files/littlesnapper_touch_iphone.php#unique-entry-id-35 “Realmac Software Blog – RapidWeaver News”), a companion iPhone application to [LittleSnapper](http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/ “LittleSnapper – Screen and Web Snapping for Mac OS X Leopard”) (desktop Mac app) and [QuickSnapper](http://www.quicksnapper.com/ “Welcome to QuickSnapper image hosting | QuickSnapper.com”) (web based snapshot sharing). It’s yet to be released but the new app, dubbed *LittleSnapper Touch* promises to allow the user to snap photos and webpages (or parts of them) and then post them to QuickSnapper.
Anyone familiar with QuickSnapper will be aware that you will, in turn, be able to pull down those snaps into the desktop version of LittleSnapper with a simple click of the “Send to LittleSnapper” button. It’s not clear yet whether there will be any syncing option that will negate this step. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Enabling Double Arrows in the Scroll Bar
Ohh, ohh, ohh, I can’t forget this one! This is one of those options you forgot you enabled with a utility like [Onyx](http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html “Titanium Software”). So when you go and do your clean install of OS X and realize that some things are just not the same as they were, it’s the the little things like having double arrows at the top and bottom (or left and right) of a scroll bar that you miss.
Having vowed to take matters into my own hands with this install and being acutely aware of every system hack I make, I am documenting everything I do (on this blog) and I am making sure it’s something I can control via the terminal. So, instead of using Onyx, here is the terminal hack for enabling double arrows in your scroll bars:
defaults write "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth
If you ever need to go back you just open the System Preferences (`/Applications/System Preferences.app`), click on appearance and choose one of the two defaults from “Place scroll arrows:”; “Together” or “At top and bottom”.
One of My Favorite Herbs
Know what this is? Only one of the finest herbs the planet! This is some cilantro (coriander) that I have been drying for a few weeks. I intend to crush it up into powder for the cupboard as well as mix some with some curry powder and olive oil for a ready-made curry paste with an aromatic punch.
This paste is great for for Tai Red Curry Soups. The cilantro counters the excessive sweetness that the coconut milk brings to the soup.
I don’t just dry my cilantro though. Some of gets used fresh (or course the best way), but because cilantro comes in such huge bunches I will often chop it up and store it in the fridge, packed in olive oil. This way it’s ready to be added by the spoonful to any dish and it’s almost as good as fresh.
Here is a tip for making the kids palettes a little more sophisticated; try adding a teaspoon of chopped cilantro to their Kraft Dinner. If their anything like my kids, they will love it.
Control your processors in Mac OS X 10.5
Remarkably after nearly one month I am still trying to tweak my system just so. I think this is one of the last things though, my processor preference pane. By default, the CPU controls in Mac OS X 10.5 and not enabled and in fact, can’t be enabled unless you have the developer tools installed.
I like to be able to turn off some of my processors when I am just doing day to day web design and theme development. It’s a good way to save some energy (it’s good to be green) and to be totally honest, coding in HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript and XML isn’t all that processor intensive. With the developer tool installed you can do this. There two things you can do, you can run the CPUPalette.app and/or you can install processor preference pane.
The CPUPalette.app can be found in `/Library/Application Support/HWPrefs/`. It’s a simple app that doesn’t allow much other than turning the processors on or off. If you click the little pill button in the top right-hand corner you can see a couple of basic preferences for window type, sampling rates and information display. It’s a quick and easy way to both monitor how your cores are being taxed and whether or not you can afford to shut a few of them down.
Your other option, if you you are already familiar with your processor usage, is to install the processor preference pane. Go to `/Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes` and find `Processor.prefPane`. Double click to install it. Once installed I highly suggest you click the “Show control in menu bar” for quick access. You’ll notice by installing the processor preference pane you get access to the CPUPalette.app without having to dig for it.