Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Ahhhh....The wonders of splicing and dicing.....

Stumbel.com = great procrastination

This weekend I decided to surf the web Stumble.com style. As I "stumbled" through my music, online games, web development, photography, and science topics, I came across what is now my new addiction: Pandora. Created by the Music Genome Project, this online music site allows users to created their own radio stations by finding their favorite artists or songs ranging from popular to obscure music. The amazing thing about this site is it looks for music similar to what you requested and you can give feedback on whether you like what it picked for you or not. Through your feedback, it begins to learn what to look for, and eventually becomes your favorite station! (at least it did to me) Once you become part of the Pandora community you can share your station with other users, or even find other stations with similar musical interests. I encourage everyone to check out the site: www.Pandora.com

Thursday, March 1, 2007

"Diamond Portal" and the Template Generation

I've noticed in order to make internet use and collaboration easier for the user, there needs to be templates available. So although this encourages more users, I think it limits the ability of an individual and their creativity. In my webhost site, they offer about 50 different templates as an option for your site. Besides the fact that they were not the most impressive designs, I didn't see the need to have this option. Most people who got to webhosts, from my understanding, have an idea on how to create a site all on their own. Templates can serve as an idea booster but shouldn't be used all the time.

A site I've noticed many musicians use is "diamond portal." This flash animated site, offers a number of templates, colors, and animation for a reasonable price. Although the colors are different, the buttons are in a different location, and some of the animation is different, they all are similar in style. It is not my intention to come off as some pompous jerk and insult anyone or any site that use templates. I use them too. I just feel that this template phenomena is starting to make everything look the same.