Coldplay's Viva la Vida and the Goobi Music Awards!

Coldplay's new album "Viva la Vida or Death and all his friends" is out! And it is awesome!

I was afraid that I might not like this one cause there was a lot of talk this one having 'a new sound' with Chris Martin taking to more of a bass voice than his regular falceto tone. But boy does this one deliver. Each track is refined and polished, with some amazing tones. And he does a little bit of falceto as well!

I have just got the album and can't really say which tracks are the better off the lot. All I can say this is the best early birthday present ever! 

And with that, I will now announce the Goobimama Music Awards 2008, or in short, 'the goobies'.

The Goobimama Music Awards 2008.

Let me take this opportunity (What opportunity? It is my blog after all!), to announce the winners of the Goobimama’s Music Awards. There will be a direct torrent/mediafire link to download some of these tracks (look for the linked ones). Winners will be given the prestigeous “Goobi” award.

Best Album of 2008
Nominees:
Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
Alter Bridge - Blackbird 
Dashboard Confessional - Shade of Poison Trees
Collective Soul - Afterwords
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. 
Radiohead - In Rainbows 

And the winner is...
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace!
Coming on heavy on a little heavy on their first single, “the pretender”, one who likes soft music might steer away from this album. But don’t! There’s some really awesome tracks in here. The rest of the tracks are much more mellow than ‘the pretender’. Hot favourites: Home, Statues, Long road to ruin, Summer’s End.

Track of the Year
Nominees:
Alter Bridge - Before Tomorrow Comes 
Foo Fighters - Home
Lifehouse - From where you are 
John Mayer - Say 
Radiohead - House of Cards
Dashboard Confessional - Shade of Poison Trees

And the winner is...
Alter Bridge - Before Tomorrow Comes (Blackbird)
Their latest album is a real stunner. Almost all the tracks are unique and awesome. This album should have won the best album award, but due to some stupid criteria it didn’t make it. Before tomorrow comes is something out of this world. I’ve been listening to this track almost everyday since I got it and still haven’t tired of it. Best track for riding, a ringtone, and playing loud.

Best New artist
Now while this technically doesn’t mean the artist has to be ‘new’. Just that I have discovered them this year.
Band of Horses
The Flashbulb 
James Morrison
Nitin Sawhney
Bob Dylan

The Winner is....
The Flashbulb for Soundtrack to a Vacant Life.
This guy offered his music on torrents for free and created quite a racket. So I downloaded the album just to see what the fuss was about. A really cool instrumental album which varies from soft sounds to hard grunge riffs, all in a seamless flow of sounds. Must listen to the entire album.


Lifetime acheivement award for a track
Alter Bridge - Before Tomorrow Comes
Snow Patrol - Run 
Moby - Porcelain
Coldplay - Speed of sound
Green Day - Time of your life (Good riddance) 
Jimmy Eat World - 23 
Travis - Driftwood 
U2 - Original of the Species

And the winner is...
Alter Bridge - Before Tomorrow Comes. This track is just too awesome. I’m usually more inclined towards Coldplay, but this one just stands out among the rest. Of course, the nominations are all really awesome tracks as well.

All time greatest Artist

Coldplay
Alter Bridge
Travis
Snow Patrol
Foo Fighters
Lifehouse
Oasis

Coldplay! By a clear margin! I’ve been listening to all three of their albums over and over again for so many years now yet I don’t tire of Chris Martin’s amazing vocals and Johny Buckland’s super cool guitar licks. That sound is just out of this world. I salute you, Coldplay.

Notable mentions
Pentagram - Voice 
Goldspot - Friday
Glen Hansard - Falling Slowly (OST - Once)
Eddie Vedder - Hard Sun’ 
Dream Out Loud - Its raining now 
Poets of the fall - Carnival of Rust
The Verve Pipe - Colorful

An obvious difference between Mac and Windows applications.

It is common knowledge that Apple pays close attention to design of their hardware as well as software. Mac OS X Leopard is by far a better designed OS than Vista ever will be. Apple’s iLife suite has no competition and the Mac desktops and laptops are the best designed in the world. And don’t mistake design to be ‘eye candy’.

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” Jobs told the Times. “That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Now here’s the thing. The third party applications for the Mac also kick the shit out of their Windows counterparts in design and functionality. Developers of Mac applications generally pay a lot of attention to the design and aesthetics of the application. Whereas in the Windows world, it is features features features.

Let’s take a look at some of the best apps in Windows and their mac counterparts. You be the judge. Mind you, I have not scourged the net finding the ugliest Windows apps and placed them against the pretty ones. I have tried my best to find the ‘best windows apps’ and compared them to what I feel are the best mac equivalents. Also, be sure to visit the respective websites. Mac app developers websites are 10 times cooler than their ugly cousins.

FTP

Windows: SmartFTP
All that I’ve said is clear in this example. Just look at that Windows app. It is so ugly! You can’t figure out where to login, where your files are, what the server is doing. Just blocks of areas placed together.



Mac: Flow
The difference is obvious! On starting up, you are presented with a login screen. Very pleasing colours are used. Everything is clear.

Once logged in, the application interface is so clean. This is the way an FTP app should be. You know where you are, you know what each file is. You press Spacebar and it instantly Quicklook’s that file. And look at this gorgeous transfers view!



The guys at ExtendMac software actually added this to Flow’s homepage:
User Interface: We have an obsession with pixels. As a side effect, every pixel in Flow is simply lickable. Go ahead, lick away. Just be sure to clean the screen afterwards.

HTML/CSS Editor

Windows: CoffeeCup HTML
I tried hard to find good apps for Windows, but this one seems to be the most recommended one. I’m pretty sure there has to be something better than this. Look at those countless number of buttons! What do they mean? Is this what ‘features’ means?


Mac: Coda
This is the best application out there. Hands down. Winner of last year’s Apple Design Awards for Best Mac application, this one is a stunner. The design is so streamlined, you can just work with you documents. Plus, its got some killer features I've not seen on any other application. Those little stickies are shortcuts to your sites. Just hit one and it takes you back to your work, with all the documents previously opened. The day I used Coda I completely stopped using my previous app, Dreamweaver.




Windows: UltraEdit: Here’s one extra for kickers. What the hell are these guys thinking!

Torrent client

Windows: uTorrent
On Windows, this one is the king. I use it myself for downloading purposes. In all respects, it is a very good torrent client and the design is not too bad. Ugly, but functional to say the least.


Mac: Transmission
Suddenly you realise how cluttered uTorrent actually is. Transmission automatically resizes the window to fit your torrents, has a clean interface, and adds your download speed badge on the dock icon! You need more details? Hit the inspector. Need it when its there, not needed when its not. And I have no ‘functionality’ issues with Transmission. It has got all the features I need. And mind you, Transmission is an Open Source app.

Image Something Tool.

Mac: Picturesque
There is no Windows counterpart for this one. This is a batch image resizer, and can add all kinds of smoking hot effects to your images with just a few clicks.

Here are some more Mac apps that just kick ass:
iBank. Winner of Apple Design Awards 2007. Wow! Banking never looked so good.
NetNewsFire
Times RSS reader
Screenflow

So what do you think? Convinced yet? Or did I somehow miss out on a well designed Windows app?

A fresh day. A new look. Thank you for your support.

Again, a tester post. No one's supposed to be looking at this anyways.

Shh...

This blog template is actually going to be implemented on the main blog. If you stumbled upon this by accident, don't mention it to anyone. Think of it like as if you stumbled upon Steve Jobs' drawing room and found the designs of the latest and greatest iPhone V3. It's thaat big.

Take care now. Okay now that it is sort of done, what you think of it? You think it's ready to be published? Sound off in the comments!

This blog is non functional.

If anyone is judging my commitment to blogging by this blog, please don't. I started this blog for the sole reason of getting a license key to one software which I got.

Something else

Not to be read and thought about.

Tersers

I need to fill up the sidebar with archives. So these unrelated posts.