travis johnson

I got an email today from Wilco saying that I could download the studio version of “The Thanks I Get” by simply putting the new album, Sky Blue Sky, in my computer. I popped the disc and and sure enough I was able to download the song. So simple.

And on another music related note, Cam wrote me today saying that he had found Ryan Adams’ new album online. The mp3s are on the Lost Highway website. As it turns out, it was only a few songs from Easy Tiger, but the gem below was included. I’m not exactly sure what a “halloween head” is, but Ryan makes a pretty good song out of it:

[mp3]http://www.losthighwayrecords.com/e/ryanadams/songs/3.mp3[/mp3]

2 Comments » Categories: Music

Today a co-worker pointed me towards Yahoo! Search’s Open Shortcuts and I instantly became a fan. With Open Shortcuts you setup shortcuts for other (longer) URLs. For example, I created my first shortcut with the keyword ’sb’ and it redirects me to http://www.swap-bot.com/. Now I can type ‘!sb’ into Yahoo! Search and instantly be redirected to Swap-bot. The part that makes Open Shortcuts so useful is that I switched my Firefox keyword search URL to ‘http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2&p=’ and now I can type ‘!sb’ in the URL field in Firefox and again be redirected to Swap-bot.

To change your keyword search URL in Firefox you need to type ‘about:config’ into the URL for Firefox and then filter to ‘keyword.URL’. Then double click on the URL that is currently set and paste the URL snippet from above.

You can set new shortcuts by typing ‘!set shortcut URL‘ (ex: !set eft http://www.eightfivethree.com).

The other really cool feature of Open Shortcuts is that you can include a search parameter by including ‘%s’ as the text placeholder. So, for example, I can create a shortcut to my del.icio.us account and allow for an optional tag search:

!set d http://del.icio.us/travisj/%s

Now, if I type ‘!d php’ I am taken to http://del.icio.us/travisj/php and if I just type ‘!d’ I am taken to my main del.icio.us page.

1 Comment » Categories: Internet

I was just reading through the Swap-bot forums and ran across this thread about little text hearts. Five pages of ♥!

2 Comments » Categories: Swap-bot

For fun tonight I decided to create a stripped down interface to my wordpress blog to allow for easier mobile posting. I’m using the MetaWeblog API to post and as a result can open up the interface to anyone that has a blog that supports the same API. If interested in blogging from your phone log into the simple web app at http://m.mechroboticon.com/ and enjoy.

No Comments » Categories: General

It might not come as a surprise, but Ryan Adams’ Easy Tiger is the next album release that I am looking forward to. Below is the latest list of songs that made the album and links to any of the songs I could find that have already been performed live.

01 Goodnight Rose
02 Two
03 Everybody Knows
04 Halloweenhead
05 Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.
06 Tears of Gold
07 The Sun Also Sets
08 Off Broadway (download shn)
09 Pearls on a String
10 Rip Off
11 Two Hearts
12 Three Girls
13 I Taught Myself How to Grow Old

No Comments » Categories: Music

[mp3]http://www.eightfivethree.com/wp-content/BluesRunTheGame.mp3[/mp3]

Eric posted Nick Drake’s cover of Jackson Frank’s Blues Run The Game the other day and it reminded me of one of my favorite Adam Duritz (of Counting Crows) covers. This version was recorded in 2002 at the Shim Sham Club.

Comments Off Categories: Music

After upgrading to Wordpress 2.2 yesterday, I decided I needed to write my first widget. Since I also needed to start monetizing this blog (I’ve been leaving big bucks on the table for years!), I created a Direct Media Exchange Ad Tags widget. It’s not the most elegant widget - at this point you have to know your DMX section id and it doesn’t even support combo tags - but it gets the job done. If you have a Direct Media Exchange account and want to try out the plugin, go ahead and download it from the link below.

Direct Media Exchange Ad Tags Widget

To use the widget, you need to extract the plugin from the zip download and upload the plugin to your plugins directory. Then log in to your admin section and activate the plugin. You then need to click on Presentation and then the Widgets submenu. From there you can drag the DMX widget into Sidebar 1 or wherever else you want to put it.

I’ve noticed that the MyBlogLog widget and Direct Media Exchange tags do not play very nicely together. If the MyBlogLog widget is above the ad tag, then the ad doesn’t show. Just something to keep in mind.

Disclaimer: I made this plugin as some guy that just wanted to make it easier for the world to put ads on their site, not as an employee of Right Media or a contributor to Direct Media Exchange. Install at your own risk, I’ve only tested it about three times (anymore and our support team would probably suspect me of impression fraud).

2 Comments » Categories: General

I saw today that Wordpress 2.2 was released. I went ahead and upgraded (in about 1 minute) and instantly noticed some changes to my sidebar. Version 2.2 somehow enables widgets across all themes or something. I’m not sure how they did it, but it is very cool.

1 Comment » Categories: Wordpress

After work I stopped by Best Buy (sorry, I needed something else that the local record shop didn’t carry) and picked up Wilco’s new album, Sky Blue Sky. Rachel let me splurge and get the Special Deluxe Edition on one condition, that she didn’t have to see or hear the DVD. The previous Wilco DVDs have been great - I’ve probably watched I Am Trying To Break Your Heart at least ten times - and based on the first 15 minutes of this one, it’s going to be good too.

This record will probably be in constant rotation until Ryan Adams’ new disc comes out. I just read that the May 2007 Rolling Stone said:

We Love “Easy Tiger” Ryan’s stunning new record. Nothing has rivaled his classic debut, 2000’s uniformly gorgeous Heartbreaker…until now.

It’s a toss-up between Gold and Heartbreaker, but I love the early Ryan Adams stuff. I can’t wait until June 26th!

2 Comments » Categories: Music

….of a revolution will be in Eugene on June 18th. Rachel and I went to see them (and Counting Crows) in Chicago a few years ago at the University of Chicago. I wasn’t too familiar with their music at the time, but in the years since they have become one of my favorites. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it to this show and I don’t quite think McDonald Theatere suits them, but I’m sure they’ll put on a good performance.

If you miss them on Monday or just want to hear them again, they’ll be in Portland on Saturday. I will coincidentally be in Portland dropping Rachel off at the airport. I might just have to hang around for the show

3 Comments » Categories: Music