Freshly roasted since 2013
Notes on tech, music, and the indie web.
Rory Daniel Conrad was born at 3:25a today weighing in at 9lb 3oz and 21" long. Both he and Courtney are doing great. He’s got such a great demeanor much like Riley did when he was born. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers!
When Courney and I were first engaged we both agreed that we wouldn’t start a family until we turned 30. Two and a half years ago I turned 27 less than a month after our son Riley was born. Over these two and half years we’ve grown as a family in so many ways. We’ve sold our home, moved to a completely new city, sold our cars and donated most of our possessions to live a simpler life without a robust support system of friends and family like we had in Memphis. Courtney is able to stay at home with Riley and we make it work on half our previous income in a city that’s twice as expensive to live in. Every parent out there knows this but parenthood isn’t something you come into knowing how to do. You make choices and adjust as you go, constantly monitoring and considering everything. We’re really happy with the big choices we’ve made since Riley was born and not so happy with some smaller ones (but that’s for another day). At the end of 2015 we were ready to grow our family and in February we got the great news that we’re having a second child. Usually people share this on social media much sooner than I am but we chose not to. It’s been fun to tell people individually over the last few months. We’re having another boy and we can’t wait to meet him in November. The holidays are going to have a new blessing and a new chapter for us as a family. I can confidently say that we’re ready for it.
Oh, and Riley is ready to be a big brother!
When Tweetbot introduced the new Topics feature a few weeks back I didn’t see a use case for myself. Last week, that changed. I once wrote I’d be recommending music here and then went on to write a couple of reviews only to find that it takes a better understanding of music theory to properly convey what’s good about an album. I spent a lot of time waffling over getting the descriptions of the albums I was recommending just right. I wanted the words to convey the physical and emotional feel I would get from an album but I couldn’t articulate it to the degree I wanted in longer form.
Still wanting to recommend music and having a two hour commute via public transit five days a week I realized that I could use the new topics feature to keep an ongoing log of recommendations. I’m always looking for great albums that I can listen to straight through and aren’t comprised of a few worthwhile songs with a lot of filler. These are the albums that will make their way to the Halfway Home Twitter Collection. There are also tons of singles that will make their way into the collection. I’m also thinking of sharing podcast episodes that stand out on the commute. Since I’m an Apple Music subscriber, that’s where I’m linking to with these recommendations. I’ve also created an Apple Music playlist that you can subscribe to if you use the service. If this is the absolute worst use case of someone using Twitter to you, just mute #halfhome in your Twitter client of choice.
I’m a week in and the playlist is already over a hundred songs deep. I’m sure I’ll slow down eventually but I have a ton of music that I think is worth your time and I have a dedicated time to listen to what’s new and scope out great artists as new music is released. You can find links to access everything below. I hope you enjoy it!
Let me lay my “political” views out here for the first time by linking to this intimate piece by Albert McMurry. It presents a fear I can’t understand but can damn well prevent from growing. As a father, voter and community member I can do something. As a white male I have no excuse for apathy on the subject of racism. The simple fact that Donald Trump’s statements, demeanor and actions towards any race other than caucasian is fueled by hatred is exactly why he won’t get my vote.
via John Gruber
If you’re just getting started listening to podcasts or looking for more content from your favorite creators you need to check this out. Issue #1 just dropped and it’s just fantastic.
Courtney and I use our Zojirushi stainless steel mugs every day. I have the 16oz model with SlickSteel interior and use mine for coffee while she has the 20oz model with non-stick interior which she uses for water since we have a professional liquid spiller on duty 24/7. We LOVE these vessels as they keep our drinks hot for hours or cold for days and keep spilling to a minimum. The only complaint I have about the Zojirushi mugs can’t really be registered as a formal complaint as it all has to do with how I care for my mug (or the lack of care in this case). I tend to leave my empty or nearly empty mug in my bag or on the counter overnight during the week more often that I’d like to admit. Recently I noticed that my (artis-anal) coffee was sour and the inside of my mug was coffee stained and was no longer that beautiful polished chrome steel that I originally unpacked. I turned to the internet and found I wasn’t alone. While the image below is 10 stages beyond what the inside of my mug looked like, I was seeing similar staining as the bottom of the mug in this picture.
Source: Tested
“That’s dis-gusting”.
I know you’re thinking it and I couldn’t agree more. With that said there is the issue of how to clean these mugs when they get stained. I started to take a crack at it and found myself getting nowhere when I tried due to two factors.
After 30 minutes of dish soap, paper towels, elbow grease and scalding hot water I had barely made a dent in the overall staining and wanted to give up on trying. Then I realized I had a cleaner that no stain or dirt is immune to and that it just might be worth a shot to bring out the big guns. Yes, of course I’m referring to an extra strength Mr. Clean Magic Eraser! I gave it a dunk in scalding hot water and forged ahead full strength in my attempt to restore my beloved coffee mug as replacing it isn’t an option due to it’s unique branding.
After another 45 minutes of continual washing, rinsing and repeating I was able to get my mug back to full health and beauty. This worked like a charm and was a mere dollar worth of hardware[1].
As long as you follow up with a dish soap hand wash and multiple rinses you should be golden using this method if your mug has gotten stained from long term use. I’m no longer risking this possibility and am cleaning my mug nightly which takes a mere 60 seconds of my day to do. I’d recommend doing the same.
One of the first things I do after moving [1] is find a church. This typically leads to strife when it comes to worship. Before I join a church I want to be able to fall into the worship as that’s where I often am closest and most connected with God. More than that I want my church to take the craft of worship seriously and understand it’s importance in the culture of the world outside the church doors. I’ve been lucky to attend two different churches that do just that and have created two really great albums in doing so.
I can’t remember how long I’d been going to Highpoint Church when Live to Love was released. I know that it was early 2012 and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t long after I’d started visiting. No matter when it was, I was (and am) blown away by it. I’m proud to be friends with people who were able to craft something so original, intimate and distinctly Memphis in it’s texture. If you want to get a sense of the quality that Highpoint Church expects and continually builds upon this album is a great place to look.
Before moving to Chicago I had my eye on Soul City Church as the main contender for our new church home. I’d asked around at Highpoint and Soul City came up a few times. When I started looking online I found echoes of the same grounded love and culture embracing traits that I’ve come to expect from a church through my years at Highpoint. In my first visit I knew that I’d found a great fit for a new home church that’s literally at the other end of the block from my day job. Earlier this year Soul City Church released their first album of original music titled Only God. Where Live to Love is intimate, Only God is vast and has more of a sheen that leans more towards the aesthetic of Chvrches. My biggest complaint with Only God is that it has some consistency issues with the quality of two or three of the songs.
I’ve been blessed to find church homes that value the investment in their worship. Highpoint Church and Soul City Church are truly home for me and are producing music that’s worthy of your time. I can’t recommend these albums any higher.
Are you a fan of technology?
Do you like art?
Would you like to find others with similar interests?
Using the latest technology and today’s most important minds, Sandwich Video in partnership with The McGarblin Group and Ludlow Ventures bring you these answers and more on Computer Show. Be sure to stay tuned for more episodes soon[0].
[0] - As long as the investment in Intellivision pays off.
When Apple Music launched nearly three months ago there was only one option to move libraries and playlists from Spotify or rdio and it was cumbersome and time constrained at best. Now that we’re nearing the end of the three month trial I’ve needed to embark on migrating my wife’s music from Spotify over to Apple Music so we can cancel Spotify. Her Spotify music library is pretty small at about 1,000 songs spread across 5 playlists but manually migrating them was not what I was looking to spend my weekend doing. Last night I checked to see if there were any new solutions to automate this and was pleasantly surprised to find an app simply called Move to Apple Music.
Right off the bat I need to note that Move to Apple Music is only available for Mac. You’ll also need to ensure you’re running iTunes 12.2 or newer. If you meet the system requirements you’re all set. You can test the application out with one playlist and up to 15 songs to see how everything works. After that you’ll need to purchase a license for $5 that covers a maximum of two computer installs. The application walks you through the process of authenticating Spotify or rdio, hijacking iTunes and then presenting a list of the playlists from your Spotify or rdio account to select what you want to move. That bit about hijacking iTunes is the secret sauce of the application. You’re prompted to love a song that’s already in your iTunes library and MTAM (using a local proxy that it has running at this point) uses that traffic as the trigger to tap into Apple Music’s API and pull songs from the Spotify or rdio playlists you’ve marked to migrate, matches them with Apple Music’s database and adds those songs to your iCloud music library. I find the whole process very clever and surprisingly effective. The main downside is the speed of the process as there is a 30 second delay per song to avoid overloading Apple’s API and getting blacklisted. This equated to seven and a half hours for my wife’s initial 800 song migration and will likely take a few days for my 5,000 songs across playlists in Spotify. That still beats the weeks of work it would’ve taken to do this manually.
The playlist migration is the second (and much faster) part of Move to Apple Music. Once the music has migrated you’re given the option to export an XML file that can be imported to iTunes to create those playlists containing the songs that were matched. You’re also given an option to export a text document with the songs that weren’t matched in the process. In my case this included 25 of 800 songs for Courtney’s transfer and I was able to find about 10 these songs manually and add them to the Apple Music library.
Move to Apple Music is the simplest set-it-and-forget-it method to migrate Spotify or rdio libraries to Apple Music. While I focused on the technical details of how the application works I’m thoroughly impressed with its ease of use and reliability on first run. In less than 5 minutes you’ll be migrating your music with complete ease. At $5, it’s a steal and will save almost any switcher more than that in their time.
Courtney and I switched to Simple for our primary banking needs almost two years ago. Today’s announcement is another reason we haven’t looked back since. Simple is a bank that treats it’s customers like grown ups (and I’m a fan of these types of companies). They work to build lifelong relationships that enhance their customer’s ability to manage their money in a more responsible way using technology with a human touch. Removing the few (and minimal fees) that they previously had is just another action that proves those intentions.