FM disc jockeys once ruled the roost. (And shit, before that it was AM jockeys. Dating myself, I recall an FM station promotion that had contestants send in Polaroids of running over AM radios with your car to kill AM and help popularize the “new” FM!) Then, it was the VJs (Video Jockeys) that set the trend. And it wasn’t just MTV either: There were over the air stations, like Boston’s V66, that set the world on fire. Since then, many different influencers have had an impact on what music people listen to. While there has been scores of things that come and go in popularity, like satellite radio, computerized algorithms a la Pandora, blogs, magazines, websites and tons of other pundits that think they dictate musical tastes, one thing has remained constant: Recommendations from friends.

One thing that will never change when it comes to trusted musical recommendations are those that come from friends and valued sources. Such was the absolute explosion of Turntable.FM. It resonated because you could listen to the DJs (many of whom you knew) whose opinion you valued. However, the initial explosion of interest was tempered with the fact that the time/value proposition was becoming less and less valuable as the service become more popular and the “suggestions” were diluted.

What if you could cherry pick the best of the best? The one tune that your friends and people in your trusted circle were listening to right now? Well, you can. This is the idea of “This Is My Jam“.





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There was elation last year when the long anticipated Spotify music streaming service finally reached us from across the pond. We highlighted its features  & praised most aspects of it while pointing out a handful of items that needed improvement. The music streaming space became awfully competitive and crowded with several others all battling for a share of the burgeoning market. In order to unseat the market leader, competitors have had to step up their game. Happily, one such service has really hit a home run. So while I enthusiastically paid for Spotify’s premium service since its arrival, I have recently discontinued my paid account. After evaluating all major competitors including rdio & Slacker,  I’ve determined that MOG is leading the pack in the music streaming arena.

MOG, founded in 2005, has one simple goal: “To perfect your music listening experience.” Over the last several weeks of heavy use, I have found MOG to be the closest to this lofty goal for me of any of the major streaming services. Boasting a library of about 15 Million songs, MOG not only has a gorgeous interface in their apps & on the web, it also has superior sound quality and the easiest to use. Read on to learn more about this great service and some reasons that separate it from its rivals.

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It’s pretty easy to get excited about cool gadgets that can help bring music to your ears. We’ve highlighted dozens of such devices over the last several months. Some things, however, seem so mundane that despite good craftsmanship or design, it’s difficult to get excited about them. One such device is your household thermostat.

If you think that a thermostat can’t be completely revolutionary and totally re-imagine your expectations for what such a device should do, you’ve yet to check out Nest. After impatiently waiting a couple of months on the waiting list to purchase (imagine that! a waiting list for a thermostat!), I was finally able to buy one. Thanks to a mini-heat wave with temperatures pushing 90° last week followed by temperatures plunging into the 30°s, I’ve been able to use Nest for both heating and cooling over the last two weeks.

The Nest is a quantum leap above and beyond any thermostat you’ve likely ever used. Read on to learn more about this cool device.

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iFrogz, a company that many people may be familiar with as a seller of phones cases & earphones, has a relatively new speaker out called Boost. Unlike most of its mobile device, speaker cousins, the Boost does not need to be docked, does not connect over your network or WiFi, does not need to be paired with Bluetooth, you do not need any cables and there is absolutely no set-up whatsoever.

So how does it play? After a week of extensive research, the best I can come up with is Witchcraft.

One simply places their mobile phone or MP3 player right on the Boost, and the audio signal is picked up and transmitted through the speakers.

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Unroll.me is a handy new service that is currently in Beta which helps rid your inbox of clutter by letting you unsubscribe to emails. While there are already several ways of handling this task (filters, reporting spam, manually unsubscribing, etc), nothing handles the task as gracefully or quickly as Unroll.me. Additionally, a fantastic feature is the ability to choose which emails you do want to receive and have them arrive as a once-per-day digest.

Currently, the service works for GMail, Yahoo! Mail or AOL Mail with more providers planned for in the future. While there is currently a waiting list, read on for an instant invite.



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Cerberus for Android

There’s a ton of anti-theft apps available for Android devices. I have tried many of them and have been reasonably happy with being able to track my device if it is misplaced with previous apps. Additionally, being able to remotely turn on the ringer or sound an alarm are also nice features existing in many “find your phone” apps. However, none offer quite the full suite of abilities that Cerberus does. No Android user who wishes to protect their device should be without this fantastic app.

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I love how on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones, everything seems “clickable.” Looking at a picture you want to share? Long-press and share to twitter! Phone number embedded in an email that you want to dial? Tap to dial! Document that you want to share? Press to email. Everything is seemingly a tap or a swipe away.

Why can’t we have the same simplicity for desktops and laptops? There’s tons of single purpose solutions out there. For example, likely you may have a browser add-on that can look up dictionary definitions when selecting a word. Or perhaps you have a Google Voice extension that turns phone numbers into a click-to-dial link. Or maybe you even took my advice and used Dropbox Automator to re-size pictures or send books to your Kindle.

But what if there was a single solution that can completely change your workflow on PC and Mac and save you multiple steps of clicking, highlighting, and pasting? While there are lots of solutions that work exclusively in the browser, click.to is a solution that can “hyperlink” text, images, documents, videos and other files and send them to other applications effortlessly.

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I am constantly scouring the internet for beta tests and new products that might be the next best thing. Often, I sign up for something and completely forget about it until the invite arrives. Other times, I can’t hardly wait to get the welcome invite. Such is the case with Republic Wireless which I have been patiently waiting for since November. Republic Wireless completely changes the rules for mobile phone companies and offers some extraordinary features including:

• No termination fees
• No contracts
• No overages
• No plans to choose from
• No caps and no tiers
• $19/month for both calls AND data

Yes, you read that last figure correctly. About 1/10 of what you’d pay to AT&T or other major carriers & perhaps less than half of what you’d expect from the discount carriers like MetroPCS. Most importantly, the major issue that many people have with their carrier is no longer a consideration: contracts and termination fees. This week, we’ll take a quick look at Republic Wireless, and of course, the way that they are able to offer these extraordinarily cheap rates.

I love my Boxee. I haven’t yet “cut the cord” to the cable company, but I watch quite a bit of video through it on my large screen TV. In addition to all my local content, the plethora of available video sources is phenomenal. I especially love easily queuing up videos from my Twitter feed and watching all the best of them on a nice TV and sound system every few days. (Think Music videos and not cat videos). I have to say, for $175, Boxee serves up quite a bit of value: tons of processing power to serve up even the largest of BluRay video files in 1080p and ability to view virtually any format of video that you can throw at it.

Recently, when my Boxee remote went missing I went to download a remote app for the iPad so I could queue up a new movie I had been itching to watch. I accidentally downloaded not a remote app, but Boxee’s relatively new iPad app to stream video. What an awesome mistake!

Here’s a few killer things about it:

• You don’t even need a Boxee running to use it!
• Absolutely free
• Like Boxee itself, can handle virtually any video file
• Plays video instantly: No need to wait while videos convert
• Stunning quality!

Read on to learn a little more about this amazing way to push video to your iPad.

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I used to get bombarded with telemarketing calls and junk email. Using Google Voice as my primary number and taking advantage of their spam filters & National Do Not Call list, I rarely, if ever, get a telemarketing call these days. Likewise, with GMail’s automatic Spam filtering, and unsubscribing from senders that get through, it is also rare for me to get junk email anymore. BUT: what about all the paper junk sent through the mail? My mailbox is completely out of control. Pounds and pounds of junk mail every week. Ever try to get yourself removed from these junk mail senders? Not easy. Typically, you need to write a letter and mail it in.

What if you could use your smartphone and take one picture of unwanted catalogs, magazines, credit card offers, newspaper solicitations, phone books, etc. and magically stop getting this junk mail? You can!

PaperKarma is a free new app available for iPhone, Android, and even for the 27 of you using Windows Phone.

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DropBox is awesome. We told you some cool things you can do with it last year. One of my favorites was the uTorrent automation. Being able to automate tasks to make life easier is pretty compelling. For example, if you are away from home and stumble upon a killer Grateful Dead show from eTree that you want to fetch the torrent for, you simply download the torrent to a DropBox folder and it is waiting for you when you get home. No need to open your browser at home, no need to find the torrent again, no need to even open uTorrent: all automated.

Now imagine this same type of automation for scores of other services & how convenient that would make your life. This is exactly what Dropbox Automator from Wappwolf does for you.  With many convenient automations including document editing, picture editing & social sharing, DropBox Automator can drastically reduce the amount of apps that you need to use on a daily basis and make your life more productive.

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This week’s column has been replaced with a PSA:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you most likely don’t need any additional schooling on this issue. Hopefully you’ve already let your voice be heard to your congress members. Now is the time to really speak loudly if you believe in an internet as we know it today and not like China’s internet: censored & limited.  The  whole guilty before proven innocent thing really gets me the most. While it is nice that Reddit and Wikipedia are going dark tomorrow, imagine a Google outage?!!? Now THAT would rattle some cages for sure. Anyways, YOUR voice is important. Nothing scares a politician more than the prospect of losing re-election.

Reverse Robocall is a fantastic utility for quickly letting representatives know your opinion.

AmericanCencorship has links to write letters, lobby the State Department, and other helpful action links.

This Video on Vimeo is great at explaining this awful bill.

It is up to you! Take action!

Hope the first full week of 2012 has treated everyone well!

Over the course of 2011, and 2010 before that, you likely encountered many cool apps that needed permission from one of your accounts to fulfill its mission. If you are like many people, including me, the fine print is a nuisance and you click away granting permissions. Many you may still be using, but others’ services may be long since dormant and possibly even changed hands from a company you trust to one that may have ulterior motives.

mypermissions.org has a simple goal: Help you quickly jump to the permissions pages of some of the top websites to see who has access to your account. See some that you don’t recall, don’t need, or don’t want to have access to your account anymore? You can simply and easily revoke access.

The headline of the page asks, “Try guessing how many apps have permissions to access your private information..” So I did just that with both Google and Twitter.

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Happy New Year’s! Here’s to great tunes and great technology in 2012. There’s so many exciting things on the horizon, I think it is going to be an extraordinary year for both music and tech.

I’ve always been bummed that I have never been able to enjoy music with earbuds or in-ear earphones. Not quite sure why, but I have never been able to find a pair that is both comfortable enough to wear for any extended period AND that stay in until you want to remove them. Add to those two issues, quality that hasn’t really been inspiring. So for on-the-go listening or when need to be quiet inside but still want to rock hard, I’ve had to use over the ear headphones. The Sennheisers that I use have given me years of enjoyment but are not exactly easy to travel with (and I do a lot of travelling). You can imagine my joy when I finally found a pair that is not only affordable but also extremely comfortable, perfect fit, and noise-isolating.

This week I’ll check out Logitech’s Ultimate Ears 600 which I couldn’t be more impressed with.

[Logitech Ultimate Ears 600]

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One of the coolest things that I accidentally discovered in 2011 was the high-tech “sport” of GeoCaching. One of the funnest mistakes I ever made. While searching for a simple compass app for my mobile phone, I accidentally downloaded not just a compass, but an add-on for existing “GeoCaching” apps and was intrigued with what this was. I spent the next thirty minutes Googling around and reading about this activity and couldn’t wait for the morning to head out and try to find my first “cache”. So what the heck is GeoCaching, what are “caches”, and what does one need to enjoy this hobby? In the final Technology Tuesday of the year, we’ll take a look at this fantastic outdoors activity.

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