Inspirational Technology

Hydra is freeware

Hmm, found on the Coding Monkeys site that Hydra is freeware. Well very cool. Wonder what else they have up their sleeve to be able to give this away.

Hydra

Hydra is a Rendezvous enabled text editor that allows you to collaboratively edit text files. It's fairly basic right now, but looks pretty cool. It's not clear to me how it's licensed though, a little troubling.

Clay Shirky explains why 3G's mindset is permanently wrong, and Wi-Fi is enough by being nearly enough

Clay Shirky explains why 3G's mindset is permanently wrong, and Wi-Fi is enough by being nearly enough: Shirky explains how the misguided logic of airphones, those expensive seatback calling devices, is also at work in third-generation (3G) cellular data network marketing and deployment demonstrated in the confusion by telecom strategists between ubiquity and utility.

This is a fascinating read. I've never considered 3G to be all that exciting. Clay provides an excellent model of why this is the case. I have 802.11 access and use it constantly. I control it and beyond the initial cost of buying the equipment it doesn't cost me anything. I tried wireless data access, briefly, it was expensive, slow, cumbersome to use and most of all crippled by the stupid constraints placed upon it by the cellular providers. It wasn't 3G, but the experience was enough to make me yawn anytime the idea of a data service provided by a cellular provider comes up. Too many limitations, too much metering and too many deals to bundle useless content. If 3G is anything like what I saw before, the cellular providers can just keep it. It's not worth it.

The war of art

A friend writes,

Thought you'd be interested in the online music distribution channels that're popping up to route around Big Media's disinclination to air anti-war songs. Artists are taking it directly to the people (listen to REM's "Last Straw" at http://www.remhq.com/finalStraw/finalstraw.html) and at least one new site has sprung up: http://www.protest-records.com, from Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore. Take that, Clear Channel.

I have no interest in talking about the war, but music is interesting. I'm downloading a few tracks from the protest records site now.

Why XML Doesn't Suck

Recently in this space I complained that
XML is too hard for
programmers.
That article got Slashdotted
and was subsequently read by over thirty thousand people; I got a
lot of feedback, quite a bit of it intelligent and thought-provoking.
This note will argue that XML doesn't suck, and discuss some of the issues
around the difficulties encountered by programmers.... [ongoing]

Another excellent bit of insight from Tim Bray.

My opinion. XML is awesome, and XML sucks. I also firmly believe it's the best path to lead us out of the proprietary system darkness. That is enough to keep me an XML believer. The potential here is huge, we just have to find our way to the light.

Microsoft Yukon

Yukon Features

I'm anything, but a fan of Microsoft. However, Yukon is worth watching closely. Especially due to its significance in regard to the upcoming WinFS file system in Windows Longhorn. Watch the XML support. Microsoft has the potential to do some very interesting things there if they don't screw it up. If they do what I think they're going to do it will be very cool and I might actually regret not being able to use their software. OK maybe not, it will still be Windows and Microsoft is still not to be trusted, but it has potential.

VentureBlog

A blog by Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Now that is something certainly worth reading.

Apple Support

Well I've been a bit out of touch lately as I'm up in Phoenix right now. I finally have access to internet connectivity, but email is still a problem so if you've sent me mail and I haven't replied, that's why. I'm staying at my parents temporarily and they use crappy MSN DSL which I guess tries to force all SMTP access through their servers. Ugh, anyway I normally use Cox SMTP servers and those of course block relaying from outside their network regardless. I may need to just setup my own.

Oh well, so how about this Apple support. I'm currently trying to get my brand new dual 1.25 Powermac fixed so that it doesn't freeze when I push the CPUs for more then a couple hours. They keep trying to blame software and today the guy in the Apple store told me you can't expect too much out of these machines, and then added "it's not like they're meant to do computations for Nasa". Ugh, yeah. Apple's selling to the UNIX crowd and well there's a little problem. Those of us in the UNIX crowd expect our machines to work, 100%, all the time no matter how hard we push the CPU. To say you should expect otherwise is very, very troubling to me. In fact if I wanted a machine that was unstable I could spend a lot less money and use something running Windows, or I could spend even less then that and go back to using Linux which never crashes the way that Powermac does.

Now I know this isn't really Apple's official line, but the people in these stores are supposed to be Mac experts and they simply can't be telling people this kind of thing.

Now I also understand what a friend was complaining about with Apple. He'd been having some problems with a Powermac too and wasn't too happy with what they were doing about it.

At this point I don't want to criticize them too hard, the support in the Apple store is good. I just carried the machine to the door, a guy came over and carried it to the back and then they just dove in and hooked it up to run tests with no questions about ownership or anything. That was nice, but I'm still troubled about Apple's ability to truly deliver a 100% solid professional computing experience. Seems there's still a bit of the old Mac OS legacy that needs to be shaken out of their employees. Here's a tip, no it isn't acceptable for the machine to freeze when placed under a heavy load and yes the machine should be perfectly capable of running calculations for Nasa. Just about any other Unix box can do it, Macs should be able to too. This kind of thing is even more frustrating because I know Macs are stable, my Powerbook is extremely solid. Well, OK, it did kernel panic one time, but so far that was an isolated occurrence.

They have the machine now and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully it will be a positive experience the rest of the way.

XML-RPC and OS X 10.2.5

Brent Simmons offers some thoughts on why he'll stick with his new XML-RPC code even if Apple fixes the bugs that prompted him to write the code in the first place. I'm glad to see he's sticking with his new code, it's good to have options especially when those options are released under the BSD license.

Frustrating Weekend

It turns out my new Powermac is not entirely healthy. It freezes after being used heavily for a couple hours. This is enormously frustrating and cost me the entire weekend as I tried to figure out what's wrong with it. My conclusion...it's broken. :-) Actually it seems it has variable speed fans in it, but those fans never seem to change speed so I think it's overheating. Overall, I'm not pleased at all. Reading the Apple boards reveals this is not an uncommon problem. I needed this machine to be perfect, and it's not. The fact that I don't have a car also makes it very difficult to get it fixed. I'll probably have to wait until I move back to Phoenix and can take it into the Apple store there. Did I say I'm really unhappy about this? Yeah, guess I did. I've actually accomplished zero real work since Thursday, yep not pleased at all.

I despise having to deal with tech support, hate it, hate it, hate it. I'm the type who will spend days trying to figure things out on my own to avoid having to talk to the stupid techs who just read a script. Argh, I'll call them tomorrow. I've never had to deal with Apple support, we'll see how it goes.

An interview with NoteTaker's Scott Love

AppleLinks writer John Martellaro has posted a Q&A interview with AquaMinds founder and NoteTaker braintrust Scott Love... [Mac Net Journal]

NoteTaker is pretty cool, I bought a copy as soon as it was released. It's nice to learn more about who's responsible for it.

Apple 20" Cinema Display

Well the new 20" Cinema Display arrived today, and it's best described as absolutely stunning, breathtaking, and just amazingly beautiful. I've always loved the display on my Powerbook, but next to this new Cinema Display the Powerbook display looks like a yellowed newspaper. Literally! The Cinema Display is just so much brighter with whiter whites, blacker blacks and generally stunning color. The only thing that could be better would be to have two of these things.

BTW, I was wrong about the VGA adapter that came with the Powermac, it was for the DVI port rather then the ADC port. So setting up my VGA monitor as a second display was trivial. Unfortunately, it's too ugly and takes up too much space to keep on my desk now.

As usual the out of box experience for the Cinema Display was outstandingly simple. Unpack, plug the one cable in, detect displays and you're off and running with dual displays, outstanding.

One thing I'd like to see improved is the positioning of the display. With the elegant solution on the iMac, the way the Cinema Displays work leaves a bit to be desired. I tend to sit low with my chair almost bottomed out on its height and the display leans back a little more then I would like. I can put something under the leg to tilt it, but it just seems wrong to spoil the elegance of it that way.

Initial Dual 1.25Ghz Powermac Impressions

I've only had the machine for a few hours, and haven't done anything real with it yet, but I'm impressed so far. I also haven't received the 20" Cinema Display so the machine is sitting in a temporary location with my old 19" Trinitron monitor. Anyway, it's fast, very fast.

I'm a little embarrased to say, but most of my time has been spent playing with Virtual PC. This is mainly because I'm just amazed that it can run Windows XP at a usable speed on a completely different platform. This is the first time I've ever seen an emulator that is actually useable running something so complex. Of course I don't really have anything that I want to run under Windows right now, I just ended up installing Mozilla and Phoenix to see how they ran. I also spent some time playing Diablo and it runs at a perfectly usable speed, I doubt it could handle Diablo II though. I have a Linux virtual PC installation that I'll copy over once my monitor arrives and I get around to hooking up the Cube again.

One thing that I really love about the Mac is how easy it is to setup a new machine. All I did was put my Powerbook in Firewire target disk mode and copy over my home directory. Once that was done I logged out and logged back in and everything except the developer tools were right where they were on my laptop. This is about 100 times easier then digging out all your installer CDs to setup a new windows machine. It also applies to any virtual PC virtual machines, just copy them over and start right where you left off. The developer tools are just reinstalled from the installer that was already on the drive. Total time involved less then an hour.

One funny thing was I had to actually look in the manual to figure out how to open the CD drive. Both my other Macs have slot loading drives, but on the Powermac you have to use the button on the keyboard. Turns out there was a sticker to that effect on the keyboard that came with it, unfortunately I was using the keyboard from my Cube and I forget there was an eject button on it.

One disappointment so far, the VGA adapter only fits on the ADC port. This means that when I get my ADC based display I won't be able to hook up my CRT as a second monitor without buying another adapter for the DVI interface. Not a huge deal since I kind of want to get rid of the CRT anyway, but still disappointing. Can't wait for the display to arrive tomorrow.

Do Macs get Jealous

My new Powermac arrived today, however, in what I can only consider a fit of Jealousy, my Cube started to freak out about 2 hours before it arrived. I tried talking to it, telling it that I still loved it, but nothing seemed to work. I was playing some MP3s for a friend and the cube crashed, on restart it simply would not remount the firewire drives. Disk utility could see the drives but mounting just silently failed. I was able to trace it down to somehow /var/run had gotten deleted. So far, attempts to restore it have been unsuccessful. The machine runs, but won't mount any media and has several other glitches because of this. I may need to reinstall it which is the first time this has ever been necessary on any of my Macs. It sucks, and is quite disappointing. The machine is currently slated to replace my fathers PC in the hope that he can have an easier time with it then we've had with Windows. I don't know, maybe I should buy it some new RAM or something to show it I still love it. Err, maybe I also need to find a new girlfriend too, yep think so.

Mac OS X Innovators Contest

O'Reilly is running an innovators contest for Mac OS X applications. I love it. This is what makes the Mac platform so exciting. Innovation is real here and people will pay attention if what you do is good. Hopefully I'll have something to enter in the second round in May.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b5

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b5 fixes some crashing bugs, partly fixes a bug regarding Movable Type categories, and moves commands from the View menu to the Window menu. (Commands that should have been in the Window menu to begin with, since they have to do with opening and hiding windows.)

Read the change notes for the full scoop. [inessential.com]

This is good, I was always perplexed by the existence of the View menu.

Webservices Switch

"Web services are like a super bus" The CapeScience guys do a switch. [Simon Fell]

Pretty funny, well it is if you're a geek.

Changing Gears

Well sometimes it's funny how your mind can play tricks on you and force you in directions you may not otherwise want to go in. A few days ago I ordered a new Mac. Why did I do this, well simply I love Mac OS X. Everyday I love it more, and all I want to do is create cool things for this operating system. I bought the Mac because I wanted to have another machine for Mac OS X development.

So what does this mean, well it means I'm committing. For the last year or so I've been saying I wanted to start a company to develop OS X software. Well damn it, that's what I'm going to do. I have several solid ideas now and I'm going to start working on one of them. I know what it is, but I'm not saying yet :-).

So I pulled out of school today and I'm moving back to Phoenix near the end of April. I seriously considered making this move in January, but at the time I couldn't finger a solid product.

There is so much untapped potential in the OS X platform. Risky? Hell yeah it is, but I'm a pretty good observer of trends and the combination of Mac OS X and Linux is squeezing Microsoft in ways they've never seen before. The Microsoft monopoly is going to be broken and when it does, innovation will finally return to software. I'm going to take this bet and hope I'm there when it happens.

Apple: Java 1.4.1 available

"This release incorporates over 60% more features than the previous release, 1.3.1." ... "Now Java applications are scriptable on Mac OS X, thanks to the new UI Scripting facility in AppleScript (currently in Beta). You can automate your Java applications, selecting menu items, pushing buttons and exchanging data. It's the perfect tool for testing and including Java applications in your workflow solutions." [AppleScript Info]

Excellent, it's about time.

My Music System

While wringing my hands over whether or not to buy a new Powermac I rearranged my apartment to solve the hum problem I was having with the audio out of my Cube. It turns out it was the poor quality cable I was using so I juggled things so that I could use the cables I still have from my old high-end audio system. This meant I switched from using a small Rotel integrated amp to my really old Yamaha MX800 power amp. The Yamaha is something I've been hauling around for about 15 years and was part of my first component stereo system. It's a pretty decent amp though the Linn and Musical Fidelity amps I used in my last system definitely sounded better. Anyway, activating the Yamaha and my old speaker cables also allowed me to activate the other remaining piece of my system that I still have, my Martin Logan Aerius i speakers. It just feels wrong to have these things setup in my crappy apartment and I may put them back in the box because of this, but man I'd forgotton how great these things sound.

This change has also made me completely dependent on the computer for all media since I don't have a preamp to use for switching sources. Surprisingly the CD drive in the Cube doesn't sound all that bad. Of course there's a huge difference between the CD and an MP3 made from the CD. There's simply no depth to MP3s, they don't sound terrible, but for serious listening the experience is definitely lacking. Well given that CDs don't have that great of depth either, maybe the MP3s are terrible, oh well MP3s are about convenience not fidelity.

With my new Powermac I also ordered two 80GB drives that I'm planning to run in a mirror configuration for some redundancy. I've been worrying about how to backup my MP3 collection since I started creating it and mirroring the drives is actually the cheapest way to do it now. My estimate is that it will take a little over 100MB to store my entire CD collection in MP3s so I'll have to add more space later, but it will be a very long time (if ever) before the whole collection is ripped. Of course I've also already downloaded nearly 7.5GB of MP3s from eMusic and that number will continue to grow in the future. Now that I'm actually spending money on MP3s rather then just ripping my CDs the need for some kind of duplication is pretty important. Previously I always had the physical CD for backup, now I'm getting a large amount of stuff that's just gone if the hard drive goes and eMusic were to shutdown. This is a big reason I've always disliked buying stuff that just exists in digital form. Now though, I'm seeing it's a hell of a lot easier to move a harddrive or two then it is to keep hauling around the 20 or so boxes of CDs I have.

Went Crazy

Well Apple did it to me again, the last thing in the world I need is a new computer, but I just couldn't resist. What did me in was the new 20" display, saw one in the Apple store and fell in love. I had budgeted to buy one more machine while in school and I figured it would be another laptop. Instead I decided I wanted to get back in the dual processor world and ordered a dual 1.25 GHZ Powermac and a 20" Cinema Display. It was a painful decision with all the rumors about IBM PowerPC 970s and such, but oh well. I really shouldn't have bought this thing, definitely feeling that buyers remorse right now. I'm sure I'll love it once it finally arrives. If not I'm going to be sick. :-) Now to survive the week until it arrives.

iMic Impressions

I received my iMic yesterday and it was trivial to hook it up to my cube. It definitely solved some of the problems I was having. I can now get acceptable output level and much better quality through headphones. It almost has enough power to drive my sennheiser headphones. It can get a basic listening level out of them, but there's no room to go beyond that. Can't blame it too much though, the Sennheisers are always tough to drive. Since I got rid of my highend audio gear, I normally use a cheap pair of Sony headphones anyway so it's not a big deal.

I also found out the hum I was getting from my stereo was the result of the long cable run more then anything else, so I still have that problem. The iMic does produce a better quality and higher level output overall though. I'll try a different cable configuration to see if I can cure the hum problem.

Roogle

Roogle [inessential.com]

Roogle is an RSS search engine that looks pretty cool. It doesn't index a lot of RSS feeds, but it's cool to see the concept being explored.

XinCJ - C++ Inteface to Xindice

Hauke von Bremen sent me a link to XinCJ which is his C++ interface to Xindice. Looks like he mirrored the XML:DB API into C++.

God Windows is Annoying

Tonight I installed Windows XP under Virtual PC and I'd forgotten how truly annoying it is. It's just dialog after dialog, do you want a passport, do you want to activate, do you want a tour of XP, blah, blah, blah. Jesus, shut up already. This is what I mean when I say windows gets in your way. Oh I also made the mistake of installing Kazaa and it just adds a whole bunch more to the mess and didn't listen to my statements about not putting anything on the desktop and not starting up automatically. It added two icons on the desktop and not only starts everytime it reboots, but also started a thing that wanted you to download some crap virus protection software. I've never used Kazaa before, and given this complete disrespect for my preferences I never will either. And we won't even discuss all the popups and popunders that IE of course won't filter. How do people put up with this complete disrespect for the user, it's horrible. I know a lot of this is fresh install crap, but still, Macs don't do this.

Camino (Chimera) 0.7

Looks like 0.7 of the browser formally known as Chimera (Camino) has been released.

Apple Office Suite

I've been looking around again for a word processor to use instead of Microsoft Word and in the process I decided to check out Appleworks. Man what a piece of garbage that thing is. It is oh so very Mac OS 9ish and given the fact it was one of the first apps ported to Mac OS X and has been there for close to two years, one thought just wouldn't leave my mind ... Apple has to be working on a new office suite. There can be no other explanation for why Appleworks has not had a major interface revision in all the time it's been out for OS X. I mean even mouse scroll wheels don't work in the thing. Anyway, this may just be wishful thinking, but I really hope they're working on something and that they truly take the opportunity to rethink the paradigm and improve things. The current state of the art here, is well, let's just say leaves a little to be desired. Apple's proven repeatedly that a simple application, with a smaller but more accessible feature set, can lead to an overall more powerful user experience. I just hope they do something similar in this space. Soon.

Anyway, I've been using Mariner Write for the last few papers I've had to write and given my simple requirements it does what I need pretty well. If something else better doesn't appear before my eval is up, I'll probably buy a copy.

iMic

Since I've been listening to so many MP3s, I've finally run out of patience with the poor quality audio out on the speakers that came with my Cube. When I moved, I expected to mainly be listening to MP3s and had been slowly ripping my CD collection for this reason. I figured, I really didn't want to unbox my CDs. Unfortunately, there was always a really annoying hum coming from the speakers and the levels just weren't good. So out of the boxes came the CDs. Now I'm hoping to remedy this with an iMic. I ordered one tonight, from reviews it seems like it does the job quite a bit better then connecting through the pro speakers. MP3s, even with the undeniably poor quality in comparison to CD, are just so convenient. Especially when you have a large collection of what can be considered archival material (i.e. pre-WWII blues).

BTW, I think CDs don't sound all that great either. I spent much time with CD, Vinyl and SACD sources and good quality vinyl on the Gyro SE table I used to have, killed CD everytime. I was extremely surprised by this, as I was definitely a member of the CD generation and had only owned one record when growing up. I went in with an open mind though, and I was sold almost instantly. Oh well, it's back to all digital sources now. My days as an audiophile are over, which isn't such a bad thing.

PerversionTracker

In the spirit of time wasting that I seem to be in this weekend. I usually don't pay much attention to sites like this, but PerversionTracker has become a regular read (helped by the fact they have an RSS feed).

As a Mac OS X user I've come to expect a certain level of quality from the software I use. This is one of my favorite aspects about the Macintosh community. It's not a market driven by heaps of features. Macintosh users expect quality and usability along with those features. That is not the case on platforms such as Windows and LInux where more and faster is all that seems to matter. PerversionTracker provides a nice check to remind us that not all Mac OS X software is created equal and that some must be singled out for ridicule to insure the pool overall remains of higher quality.

eMusic Country Blues

eMusic may not have much in the way of popular music, but damn the blues collection available is stunning. Well it is if you're one of the rare people who totally digs country blues recorded early in the 20th century. I'm one of those people and it's thrilling to have access to so much of this stuff. I've been an avid purchaser of country blues recordings, but there was always so much more that I wanted to hear. Once you start tracking this stuff there's always an interesting web of influences that is fun to follow.

eMusic is perfect for this stuff, even though they're only 128kb MP3s it doesn't matter one bit because so much of this stuff is of such poor sonic quality anyway. Anything recorded before 1940 or so is pulled from 78s, many of which were of extremely poor quality even when they were brand new (i.e. Charlie Patton). The music is what's important though and there is some truly great stuff available.

Charley Patton
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Tampa Red
Lonnie Johnson
Blind Blake
Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry
Ma Rainey
Blind Willie McTell
Mississipi John Hurt
Skip James

Also not quite as early, but by far one of my favorite blues artists Rev. Gary Davis. Been listening to this stuff a ton and it's incredible, in particular Blues and Ragtime.

Ugh, I had so many things I wanted to do this weekend, didn't get much done. Oh well, it was fun.

Krishna Das

Heh, heh I downloaded a disk from eMusic by Krishna Das. I had no idea what it was, it turns out it's Hare Krishna music, heh, heh. It's actually not that bad, except when they start singing Hare Krishna, Hare Hare Krishna, ugh. Looking at the song titles would have of course revealed this, oh well. Wouldn't recommend it, but taken simply as music it has some OK qualities.

Bluetooth remote control

Now this is cool, just wish I had a Bluetooth enabled phone so that I could use it for. Hmm, guess I'd need a Bluetooth adapter for the computer too, oh well. Anyway, it's about time Bluetooth actually started to be useful. My next phone (and Mac) will definitely have it.

Until recently, I never bothered to really use the addressbook feature on my current phone. Simply because I figured the next time I get a phone I'd just have to reenter all the data. Of course it turns out I've kept the same phone for about 4 years now so I finally started using the addressbook a little more. Just in time to start seriously thinking about replacing it, ugh. The fact that the display on it is having issues doesn't help any.

eMusic Picks

Here's some music picks for an early Sunday morning. Available through eMusic.

James Browne - Hot Pants - This is in my collection on vinyl so it's really great to finally have some James Brown in digital form. It grooves.

Ravi Shankar - Ragas - I'm a big fan of indian classical music and Ravi Shankar is one of the greatest in the genre. I have quite a bit of Ravi in my CD collection, but more never hurts. Just got done listening to Raga Bilashkani Todi, excellent.

Jimmy Smith - Organ Grinder Swing - And swing it does, the track Organ Grinder's Swing is easily one of my favorite jazz pieces and swings like nothing else. I have that track on a compilation CD and this album on vinyl so being able to listen to the whole thing is great. When I was buying vinyl a lot, Jimmy Smith was always one of my most sought artists. He's made a ton of albums.

The Hub - Trucker - This is a new find. It's avant-garde jazz along the line of John Zorn. I've only actually listened to one track off of this so far, but that track was killer. This kind of music can be tough to take for the uninitiated, but if you're a fan of John Zorn like I am then you'll love it.

50 Cent - Guess Who's Back - I recently developed a bit of a taste for Rap, don't know why, but suddenly I found myself listening to it more then anything else. Historically, along with country, it's been one of the few genres I've generally avoided. Well, now not only am I a big fan of people like Johnny Cash, but also a few rappers as well. 50 Cent has made that rapidly growing list. It's the result of my finally blowing out the last barrier in my musical taste, I can now listen to and enjoy just about any kind of music. I still struggle a little with contemporary country, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and work on it. I can at least finally admit that Johnny Cash is cool.

The Great Gospel Women - This is an incredible disk. I've actually purchased several CDs looking for more good gospel artists beyond Mahalia Jackson. None of them are anywhere near as good as this one. This has several Mahalia Jackson tracks which are of course great, but the rest are also incredible. I'm very familiar with Mahalia Jackson thanks to the excellent Columbia box sets, but many of the other singers are new to me. I just finished listening to Come Out the Corner by Marion Williams, stunning. I do actually have a Marion Williams recording on vinyl, but I don't know it I ever got a chance to listen to it, what a shame.

OK, that's enough for now. Hmm, maybe not ... Sonic Youth is playing now, I have a bunch of their CDs but I haven't listened to them in a long time. The song playing now is live and really has that haunting, kind of random sound that first drew me to the band about 10 years ago. Love it, so one more link. Sonic Youth - Texas, 1986: Live at the Continental Club. Now playing, Ghost Bitch.

Coming on the play list, Mahalia Jackson, Pavement, Scorn, Ravi Shankar, KRS-One, Metaphor, Margot Levart, The Damned, Terranova and "I'll Close My Eyes" by my man Jimmy Smith.

Odetta

Odetta is an artist that I've wanted to listen to for a long time, but never had the chance. Tonight I downloaded Odetta and the Blues from eMusic. Man, incredible. She has a lot of the qualities that make me love Mahalia Jackson so much, but on this album she's singing secular songs. I guess she does gospel too, hmm, yep this one has some gospel tracks on it. Cool, I'm not the least religious but I love gospel music.