Dman's posterous

TajTunes saved Mother's Day

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Once again, TajTunes is a big hit!

We're in a recession, so I got my mom a very special (and affordable) gift - a singing telgram from TajTunes in India.  These guys are great...

It's pretty cheap, it's fun, and they even send you the recording when it's done.  Listen to the recording above - click the play button.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

SugarSync launches FREE plans! Get yours today!

We just launched a new FREE 2GB plan.  Sign up today!

We're really excited - this should make it easier for people to sign up and kick the tires.  Check out the video we put together for the launch of the new plan:

Our service has been doing really well - but one complaint was that people wanted an easier way of trying it out.  Prior to this, users could sign up for a 45-day trial only.  Now, users can sign up for an ongoing, Free 2GB account with no expiration date!

Now my friends can finally see what I've been working on for the past few months...  SugarSync is pretty amazing - you should try it out and let me know what you think...  You can learn more at:

www.sugarsync.com

BTW - we now have native apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile devices.

Advice: practice on other people's kids

We hosted Marcelo, Elisa, and baby Pablo Marcelo from Italy this past week.  It was great taking care of the baby. He had a great time, although he was quite angry he couldn't stay in San Francisco longer...

We generally try to practice on other people's kids - when we have our own, we'll have made all of our mistakes on other kids :-)

Marcelo & Elisa hosted us when we were in Rome, so we finally got the chance to return the favor.

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Nephew Isaac in SF

My nephew Isaac (2.5 years old) came to visit us in San Francisco.  We kept him really busy - we spent the day at Alta Plaza and the California Academy of Science Museum.  He ran around all day and finally crashed hard - with Monica (I guess she played hard, too).  He's a lot of fun - too bad he lives in LA...

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Kanye found a hammer; now everything is a nail

I'm a Kanye West fan.  Actually, I *was* until his latest album, 808's and Heartbreak.  Why have a I lost interest?  Because Kanye West found a new hammer and now everything looks like a nail.

I can boil it down to two words: "Auto-tune".  From Wikipedia (referencing Kanye's new album):

"The album relies heavily on the voice audio processor technology of Auto-Tune. "We were working on the remixes for Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" and Young Jeezy's "Put On" and he fell in love with the Auto-Tune," Dean explained.  Towards this end, West enlisted T-Pain for coaching on how to properly utilize Auto-Tune. West himself openly stated that he loves using Auto-Tune and is dismayed that the term has been commonly associated with being "wack." He considers the technology "the funnest thing to use" and compared the situation to when he was a child and thought the color pink was cool until someone told him "it was gay." He went on to state how the views of society can rob people of their confidence and self-esteem. He later went on to state that he enjoyed the electronic feel produced by Auto-Tune and sought out to juxtapose the mechanical sounds with the traditional sounds of taiko drums and choir monks."

It is sooo annoying!  I'm sure you know the effect - it does that wierd techno warbling of voice.  Again, from wikipedia:

"Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies that uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise inaccuracies and mistakes and has allowed many artists to produce more precisely tuned recordings.  In addition being used to subtly change pitch, with some settings it can be used as an effect to deliberately distort the human voice."

I think Cher was the first artist to really promote this effect on her song Believe.  I didn't mind at that time - mainly because I don't listen to Cher.  But I understand how an aging (read: senior citizen) pop star needs to reach out for that new shiny toy that might extend her career.

But Kanye?  Come on...  Kanye isn't using it to auto-correct a bad voice; he's just using it because some other rapper used it, who copied some other rapper, who copied Cher.  It's the perfect way to turn a great song into a mediocre song.  Here's an example of Kanye (over)using it:

Almost every single song on his new album is using this effect. I'm hoping this is a fad like Krispy Kreme doughnuts - maybe it will be gone within a year.  Until that time, I'll pass on Kanye, Cher, Lil Wayne, and Young Jeezy.  I'm starting to sound like some cranky old guy that remembers the good ol' days...  But really, not everything is a nail.