avanderzwan

In my profession, web development and design, I have a lot of time to sit at a computer and listen to music. I listen to music in headphones for about 7-8 hours everyday… that is approximately 6 albums worth give or take a few. I go through a lot of music and I consider it one of my passions. However, over the last 5-6 months I have found it difficult to really get into any specific albums. Some of you know the love that I have for Cloud Cult and Frightened Rabbit, these artists have made loving music more difficult for me because the bar is now so high.

However, I have two new prospects and I will mention them here… Note: You can listen to the full albums at the end of the post, just sign up for a free lala.com account.

Number 1: Karen O and the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are OST
I don’t know if I have a thing for albums written for kids, or if it’s that I was the ‘Bull’ in the Grand Rapids Ballety Company’s performance of Where the Wild Things Are, or if it’s that Spike Jonze directed the new film, or even if it all stems to Arcade Fire doing their trailer… either way, this film has been getting me more and more excited. I recently picked up the Original Sound Track and have been unable to put it down. This album is fun, it is interesting, and really, it keeps me on the edge of my seat. I don’t know what ethos this film is going to be, but I believe it is going to be a dark and honest representation of what it is like to be a child, while still being playful and redemptive. This album really transcends this idea of love vs. struggle. I’m really enjoying it so far.

Number 2: The Mountain Goats – The Life Of The World To Come
Every track on this album is titled after a bible verse. I’m not entirely familiar with the intricacies of this album yet, but have given it some serious time and I would recommend it. John Darniel really hits on the serious side of what I am trying to do with my music writing.

Grand Rapids had Art Prize this week and so I ran around town with my camera. There was really low light with the night shots. I think the shutter was open for a full second for most of the portraits.

(click on the photos to view larger)

Self Portrait

The Station

David Schultz

Jason Murray

Central Station

Joel Stob

Okay. So ‘Browse’ has been rolled into something called ‘Column Browser’. If you want to get iTunes 9 to have the same pane layout as the old, default, ‘Browse’ option, you can. Here is what you are going to want to do:

1) Turn on Column Browser: View > Show Column Browser
2) Show Albums as well as artists: View > Column Browser > Albums
3) Show Genres as well as albums and artists: View > Column Browser > Genres
4) Setup Column Browser to show up above your song lists: View > Column Browser > On Top

This plugin is meant to expedite the basic process of making form fields empty or clear on focus and refill on blur, depending on a few specs… a watermark. The three different scenarios that I have built for are represented.

1. A normal form field watermark that empties on focus and refills on blur.
2. A value that is set by the server trumps anything that the plugin does. (Note: this way, if a user has to fill out the form again because one of the fields didn’t validate, the server can send values so that the user doesn’t have to refill the whole form)
3. There may be a time when you want to ignore the plugin and keep your label visible. Just add a ‘ignore’ class to your label and the plugin doesn’t touch it.

This solution focuses on accessibility as it does not remove the label, just moves it off the viewport. This way, if a user does not have Javascript, CSS, or uses a screen reader, they will still get normal labels.

View a demo
Download plugin (link to jQuery plugins)

Please let me know what you think about it, or if there is anything I should do to improve.