2008 was kind of a big year for me. I started this site, bought a house, bought a new car, got a girlfriend, and got involved in a upcoming project that is unannounced. I wanted to write a formal post about all that has gone on this year, and what I am planning for next year.

2008: Wrap Up

As I said earlier, 2008 was a big year for me. I started the year off pretty strong when I for the first time kept a New Year’s resolution. What was it, well it was to quit smoking. I smoked my last cigarette on New Years Eve, 2008. Quitting cold turkey was hard, but I am very glad I did it.

From then I decided it was time for a new car. My 2000 Nissan Maxima was approaching 100k miles and I wanted to sell it before it hit that mile stone. I ended up trading it in for a brand new straight of the truck 2008 Nissan Altima. So far, I love the card, it is a step down from the Maxima, but it get great gas mileage and handles like a race car. Having a car payment sucks, but you got to do what you got to do!

OS X Leopard is by far the best OS I have ever used. It has been flawless to me with no problems, until now. Apple recently released Mac OS X (10.5.6) update to all Leopard users. Being the Apple fan boy that I am, I ran the upgrade as soon as it showed up on my desktop. Boy was this a mistake! Mac OS X 10.5.6 is riddled with bugs and issues. MacFixIt.com has released a couple of post highlighting the many problems associated with this update. Mac users beware, DO NOT UPGRADE TO 10.5.6 JUST YET!

One particular problem has me very frustrated. When I launch the OS X Mail application, which I use religiously to keep my 15 email account in control, it crashes as the result of an attachment. Yes, doesn’t that sound strange? I can load Mail just fine, but the second I click on an email with an attachment, it freezes up and crashes. It can be a image, a PDF, a doc, … it doesn’t matter, just the loading of the attachment results in a application crash.

I will start by saying that I am a huge supporter of Pandora. When I heard about this Pandora like service being built into iTunes, I am stoked because Pandora is looking like it might go out of business. I was very hopeful that iTunes 8 would fill the void in my life that is going to be created when/if Pandora disappears.

I have been playing with iTunes 8 and the new Genius functionality, and I am not very impressed. I like the new viewing options available in iTunes 8, and the new visualizations are stunning, but iTunes Genius is a different story.

iTunes Genius goes through and analyzes your music collection when you first install iTunes 8. From there, it allows you to click the Genius button when you select a song, and it will auto create a playlist filling with a preset number of songs that iTunes believe are along the same style of music. Well, it doesn’t work. I am going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, that this service will improve once more people experiment with it, but for now, it is no good. Let me give you and example:

As you can see I created a iTunes Genius playlist based on the song I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry, and what is this, Disturbed showed up in the results? Those songs could not be more opposite.

What are your thoughts on iTunes 8 and the new Genius integration? Have you had any strange results appear when using the Genius playlist creator?

In early October, I will be attending the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session. This is a 2 day web development conference that is taking place here in Atlanta, GA. It is very rare that a major web conference be on the east coast and not be up in NYC. I very much enjoy web development conferences but with the high cost of travel, and the high price to registration at these events hinders my ability to attend. Well, you can bet I will be attending one that is here in my hometown.

The Webmaster Jam Session is an all around web developers conference. It covers web design, coding, SEO, and social networking. I plan to use this as an opportunity to network with some of the biggest names in the business. Registration for the 2008 sessions is limited to 240, so if you are interested, be sure to sign up soon. The price is $199 for a standard pass, and $399 for a platinum pass which includes some extra special sessions. If you are interested in registering use promo code “BLUEDOG” and save 20% of the standard prices.

I will be attending all day everyday, so if you are attending, be sure to let me know and we can meet up at the event.