The internet has a TON of places to listen to music online for free – some are legal, some are not.  I wanted to find a place online where I can stream audio from the internet and discover new music.  I was browsing the internet for that very thing, and that’s when I ran into Pandora Radio (www.pandora.com)

With Pandora, you can type an artist’s name or song title, and it will start playing music based on your search.  I like bands like Coldplay and Mute Math a lot, so I did a search for only “Mute Math.”  Pandora automatically searched its database, created a “Radio Station” based on my search, and begand to play a song by Mute Math, then, believe it or not, once the song ended it started playing Coldplay!  After that, it began to play more music by artists I did not know, and I begand to discover new music that I enjoy.

Pandora is free.  You don’t need an account to use it, but you do need an account for it to remember your taste.  You may sign up to Pandora for free.  The way it works is you give your name, e-mail, age, etc., do a search, and listen.  When listening to a song, you can choose whether you like the song or not by clicking a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ icon.  You can also get more information on the music you are hearing with one click; it is really that simple.

There are other places like Last.FM, AccuRadio, and Clear Channel Music, and even MySpace where you can find music as well, but I really like Pandora Radio because of it’s simplicity of use and effectiveness in finding new music that’s similar to my taste.

What website do you use to listen to music or find new music and why?  How do you discover new music?  I want to know your favorite websites to discover and listen to music!  Post your thoughts below or send me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com!  I would love to hear from you!

Take it easy,
David

It’s a company called Stardock.  These people have come up with possibly the most wonderful programs I have ever used.  Using their products, you can change virtually anything on your XP/Vista machine.  Allow me to show you a few that I thoroughly enjoy.

Firstly, CursorFX.  This Product comes in two versions, a demo and a full version.  The demo alone, however, lasts forever and comes with alot of features.  What this software does is allow you to create or download animated, 3D/2D, just-plain-awesome mouse cursors.  You can choose virtually an unlimited ammount of cursors, and with the full version, you can add effects and sounds to them for any action they perform such as clicking sounds and trail effects.  My personal favorite cursor is the Finger.  No not the middle one, the pointer one.  It is a 3D hand with it’s finger pointing outwardly; when you click, the finger moves down as if it were pushing a button; in place of an hourglass, the hand roll taps its fingers from pinky to pointer; when hovering over a link, the finger points upward and “taps” the link repeatedly.  That’s right, it’s 3D and animated!  There are many others like this, and if you are a graphic artist or have pictures you’d like to make as cursors, you can do it with CursorFX!

Second is ObjectDock – This unique little gadget has taken the place of the common taskbar.  It is a nice dock that has animated effects and beautiful icons for various items.  It’s something that is difficult to explain, so you should just go and visit Stardock and see for yourself what it can do.  It makes accessing programs alot easier AND has a great look and feel to it.

Next is ObjectDesktop – this comes with ALOT if you buy the full $70 version.  This is a great deal because ObjectDesktop comes with alot of separate programs and allows you to use each one to their full capacity.  Now, I don’t have all of these programs, so I’ll show you a few that really catch my eye and are fun to use.

1.  WindowBlinds – This program allows you to completely redo the look of nearly every aspect of Windows.  You can do this by downloading skins for free from WinCustomize.com OR by creating your own if you have the “Bundle” version which comes with SkinStudio.  You can change your taskbar, start menu, scrollbars, and much much more with this handy little program. 

2.  IconPackager – I really like this one.  The full version is only about $10 but there is a free shareware version available.  It allows you to replace hundreds of common icons with new, sleek, amazing icons.  Trust me, the icon packages you can download are amazing.  If you get the IconDeveloper program, you can even make your very own!

3.  ObjectBar – If you have Vista, you know about the sidebar it comes with, well why settle for just that one look?  Why can’t XP users have the same bar or an even cooler one?  Well they can now!  And why just have one when you can have 2, 3, 4, or a billion?!  That’s right, you can have your own custom bars where ever you want on your desktop, each with a beautiful, sleek design.

4.  LogonStudio – This is a FREE program, but it also comes with ObjectDesktop.  This allows you to customize your Windows Logon experience.  You can download skins for your logon screen at WinCustomize.Com, OR use the included editor and make your own!

ObjectDesktop has ALOT more to offer than just the above 4; each program comes with several skins/presets to choose from, but you can always visit www.wincustomize.com and download as many as you’d like.  And, if you buy the full versions, you can always create your own!

So why wait any longer?  Make your computer’s look and feel reflect YOU, get your custom cursors, icons, sounds, docks, logon screens, and more at www.stardock.com

What Do You Think?
What do you do to customize your OS?  Is there another set of programs like the ones Stardock has to offer for Mac Users as well?  Have you designed your own skins/cursors/icon packages and would like to share them with me?  I would love to hear from each and every one of you!  My e-mail is david@funkytower.com and I look forward to hearing from you!

Take it easy,
David Crandall

Well, she doesn’t, really.  This effect is all thanks to PhotoFunia, a website where you can implement your photo into some other pretty interesting photos.

Have you ever seen those pictures where someone puts someone’s face on, oh let’s say, a monkey?  Well usually you’d have to get some sort of software for that.  Well, not this time.

PhotoFunia has a nice variety of pictures to put your own photos on top of.  You can put your face on the monalisa, have your photo on a billboard or large city building, on a dollar bill, the cover of a magazine, in the hands of Paris Hilton….this list goes on and on.

The great thing is this:  It’s free and you don’t have to make an account!  All you really need to do is go to PhotoFunia.Com, choose an effect, upload a photo, and you’re pretty much done!  From there you can save it to your desktop or anywhere else on your hard drive, or you can have it hosted on ImageShack so you can embed it to your myspace, blog, or website!

Now the first time I used it, the app moved a little slow, but the second time, it worked great.  I think the first time, the website probably had alot of traffic or something.

At any rate, this is a fun, free, no-account-needed, web application that you can use to edit your photos in ways that can entertain your friends and family…or scare them away   Whatever the case, go to www.photofunia.com and you’ll be having fun in no time!

What Do You Think?
Do you know of any cool web applications that you’d like to share?  What are some photo’s you’ve created using PhotoFunia?  Got any questions?  Whatever you have to share with me, I wanna know about it.  Shoot me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com

Take it easy,
David Crandall

OE-CAKE! is demonstration software for 2D-based multi-physics simulation.
In a way similar to drawing images using paint software, users create objects and can see them move according to the laws of physics.
This software supports various physical materials with real life properties such as fluids, gases, rigid (hard) objects and elasticity (soft) objects as building blocks.
Users can combine these objects to create and play with more complex objects and mechanisms such as cars, gears and moving dolls. Users can also attach pictures and photos to objects and change their shape, break them apart, or melt them.  – OctaveEngine

Really, OECake is kind of a fun toy.  With it you can select properties like water, fire, etc, and set them on fire, pour them on a wall, and just do all sorts of things with it.  It’s kind of a “fluid simulator.”  It’s really hard to describe, so here’s a video I found on YouTube of someone using it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U8em-t6RKo

You can see them taking the different properties and drawing them as if they were using Paint, and then moving them around with their cursor.  One thing the video doesn’t show is if the machine you are using has an Accelerometer installed on it, like the MacBook, you can shake your machine and make the contents move around!  It’s truely interesting and fun! 

Here’s a list of the properties you can use:

1. Water
2. Wall
3. Rigid
4. Spring
5. Elastic
6. Brittle
7. Rigid Axis
8. Mochi
9. Rice
10. Powder
11. Gas
12. Viscous
13. Tensile
14. Dense
15. Light
16. Fuel
17. Fire
18. Heater
19. Cooler
20. Inflow
21. Outflow
22. Jet
23. Snow

Wow, that’s alot of properties you can use!  You can also import textures and backgrounds to mess with.  This seems odd, but this app actually makes Physics fun!  I can honestly see this app on the iPhone in the future, but we shall see.

Until then, if you’re like me and you enjoy fun little apps like this, go online to http://www.octaveengine.com/en_casual/oecake/ and get OECake!  Trust me, you could be sitting there for hours having fun with this thing.

What Do You Think?

Does OECake make physics fun or what?  Do you know of any cool apps that involve, or don’t involve, physics?  If you know of any cool apps, I want to know about it!  So send me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com

Take it easy,
David Crandall