I started out by (carefully) destroying the lamp with a screwdriver and small pry bar. I threw out the plastic junk and kept all the internal parts.

This is the wall-facing side of the lamp, showing how I reassembled the 'guts' of the old plastic lamp in the new wood structure. Only the on/off switch required soldering; I had to completely unsolder the switch to fit it through the hole in the wood. I used heat-shrinking plastic tubes to cover up the solder work. For the other wires, I used plastic connector caps to join them back up. I attached the components to the wood with screws and staples. It's hard to tell here, but I mounted the metal reflective shield from the old lamp to the wood surface behind the bulb. Last note: I had to cut all the wires when extracting them from the old lamp's plastic housing. The key thing to point out here is this: if you try something like this, be sure to mark the wires very carefully so you can remember how to reattach them.

And here's a wider view so you can see the effect of the light reflecting off the wall behind my main monitor.So that's it. The entire project took about five hours on a Sunday. I'm waiting for the glue to completely dry before applying a coat of polyurethane to the front. 

The most challenging part was figuring out the design: I wanted to create a very simple and functional lamp using only scrap wood left behind from other projects. Aside from my time, the project didn't cost a dime.

The tools I used to assemble the lamp included a miter saw (to cut all lengths and angles), a biscuit joiner (to join the two pine pieces and the feet to the base of the lamp), a drill (to create a hole for the on/off switch), a table saw (to cut a strip of oak for the top edge of the lamp), wood glue, and a sheet sander.  For the electrical work, I used a soldering gun and some heat-shrink tubing, wire connectors, a wire cutter/stripper, and a few screws and staples.

I think it looks better than the original. It certainly fits in better with my wooden desk than did the plastic lamp. I may have to go and break the other lamp now.

Spotify launched in the U.S., I signed up for a Premium account for $10 per month. Now that I’m nearing the two-month membership mark,  I’m familiar enough with the service to share some thoughts.  I should start by noting that I’m not the type of person who regularly signs up for paid services. I don’t even subscribe to a cable TV package.

So why do I think Spotify Premium is worth the price of admission?

First and foremost, access to millions upon millions of tracks. While my musical tastes tend toward the eclectic and obscure, I’ve been able to find most of what I was looking for.  Second, the Premium service allows me to stream all the content I can reasonably consume, without ads, on my Mac or on my iPhone. Third, Premium serves up higher-quality audio. Fourth, I can cache songs for offline listening,  useful for my daily train commute through farm country with spotty 3G service. And, finally, I can listen to most of my iTunes music on-the-go (provided I have a connection), as Spotify reads what I own and matches what it can with copies in the cloud.

Spotify is a different sort of service from that of Pandora or Last.fm. It’s better suited for people who know what they want, or at least are willing to take the time to explore. While there is an 'Artist Radio' function to stream similar artists, it’s not a well-promoted feature.  To be honest, I didn't even notice this feature for the first month and have never had the urge to use it. Instead, I tend to seek out a specific artist, then choose from a list of Spotify-suggested related artists. This often leads to uncharted territory and new artist discoveries. I like it because I feel that I am in direct control of the discovery process.  

Unfortunately, all  that I just described in the previous paragraph is available only on the desktop. The iPhone app is geared towards playing tracks already lined up in a playlist, with the exception of seeking out a specific artist, album, or track. In other words, I can search the Spotify database from the iPhone, but I have to know what I’m looking for. There is no ‘Artist Radio' streaming option and no ‘Related Artists’ category on the mobile app. That’s a shame.

As I mentioned earlier, Spotify allows syncing of tracks from iTunes. The promise is that this will mostly alleviate the need to fire up the other music platform. I’ve found this to be largely true. While the service only syncs non-DRM protected music from an iTunes library, that’s not that big of a deal. I can always search out those missing files from Spotify’s database, provided they’re available. 

I can also listen to most of my iTunes library on my iPhone or iPad without worrying about managing playlists due to limited storage space (provided I don’t overdo it with offline caching). Spotify automatically matches the tunes in my iTunes library with online versions in Spotify’s massive database. It’s seamless.

Unfortunately, a fair number of my more obscure tracks and albums aren’t available in Spotify’s database. If I want these tracks to be available, I have to choose to sync them locally for offline listening. I’ve also noticed that some of my iTunes tracks appear on my phone with little link symbols. I had to look up what this meant. It indicates that (for some reason) the version of the song that I own isn’t available to play in my country, so Spotify has substituted it for a playable version. 

I admit I am mystified as to why some material isn’t in the Spotify catalog, and why some tracks or albums are not available to U.S. customers. I'm sure it’s based on agreements that Spotify has worked out with labels, but it can be frustrating because it can be so ... random. For instance, when I first started the service I downloaded ‘De Stilj’ by the White Stripes. A day later, this album vanished from my playlist. That album is no longer available to stream in the U.S. However, all other White Stripes albums are available. In terms of explanation, all I get from Spotify is a notice that the tracks ‘are not currently available in the United States.’ I can only imagine the convoluted paperwork that Spotify legal is juggling to keep this service going, so this isn’t really a complaint. I'm impressed that they got it off the ground at all. I’m just a bit miffed that I can’t stream some albums and tracks that I’d like to hear. Oddly, I've even come across many cases where all but one or two songs on a given album are available to stream. What's so special about those songs? Arg!

Another example: The first disc of ‘Brewing Up With Billy Bragg,’ circa 1984, is available if you search for it via the Spotify desktop app. However, the second disc in this two-disc set is unavailable in the U.S. How odd. Worse, if I search for this album via the iPhone app, the album doesn't appear at all. And a minor annoyance: that Billy Bragg album shows up as published in 2006. I’m guessing that’s a re-release date. I’ve found this time and again with albums I’ve sought out. The years don't match up with actual release dates. I’ve also found that the same album often appears many times over in search results, but I can only listen to one of those albums in my country. I surmise that there are different licensed versions for different regions of the world.  It would be nice to have the option within Spotify’s preferences to hide the albums and tracks that I can’t stream. It’s the same thing to me as if those tracks and albums didn't exist at all, so I don't want to see them.

Functionally speaking, the desktop and mobile Spotify apps work quite well, with a few caveats regarding playlists. The main problem I’ve encountered is that the service doesn’t import smart playlists from iTunes, which is how nearly all of my nearly 8,000 files in iTunes are organized. The remedy for this, of course, is to make new playlists. It's a simple task to copy and paste the contents of a smart playlist into a 'dumb' playlist within iTunes, and then import that. But that's annoying. And speaking of smart playlists, Spotify absolutely needs some sort of intelligent playlist functionality to sort through and categorize Spotify music. Dumb playlists just don’t cut it.  

Here’s a round-up of what I’d like to see in future Spotify app releases:

• More social sharing options. Right now, it’s only Facebook. I have no urge to share anything with Facebook. Actually, I'm not sure I'm inclined to share my personal music library via any service, but I'm sure that many users would appreciate greater choice.
• Tooltips. The meaning of some of Spotify's color-coding and iconography isn't always obvious. Simple tooltips would help.
• It would be nice to have ‘Related Artists’ and ‘Artist Radio’ on the mobile app.
• I would appreciate the option to hide music that is not available for my country. I only want to see it if I can stream it.
• Smart playlists: the ability to import from iTunes, and to create within Spotify. Perhaps there may be patent/legal issues here to prevent some of this functionality, but surely Spotify could devise some sort of ‘intelligent’ playlist capability. It’s an all-you-can-eat music service, so we need better organization options.
• The user interface isn’t always intuitive. For instance, on the desktop app, you can’t get more information about an artist, or seek more albums/tracks from an artist, by selecting the artist name from within one of your playlists. You have to enter the name in the search box. When you do search for and select an artist, Spotify returns an interface with four tabs: an Overview, Biography, Related Artists, and Artist Radio. Maybe it's just me, but I didn’t even notice the tabs at first. Oddly, the main window (the artist ‘Overview’ tab) displays the beginning sentence or two of the artist biography and a short list of a few related artists. Since there's not much space here, only a fraction of the biography and related artists are visible, yet you can’t select one of these items to access the full bio or related artist entries. You just get to see a tiny fraction of the content. There isn't even an option to scroll through the rest of the content. The only way to access this content is to select one of the tabs. Check out the screenshot below to see what I mean. Why not link the short blurbs on the 'Overview' page to the sub-tabs for Biography and Related Artists?

The odd Spotify 'Overview' PaneMy overall experience? I love it. Prior to Spotify, I had hundreds of dollars of albums in my ‘Wish List’ basket in iTunes. Now I’m listening to all of those albums. Yes, I’m paying $120 dollars a year for the privilege, but I’m consuming far more music than I ever could afford to buy outright. My interest in discovering new artists is greater than it has been since I was in my 20s. Now when I learn of an interesting new artist or album, I don’t have to read second-hand reviews or settle for short previews. And I don’t have to add items to a ‘Wish List.’ I just cue it up and experience it for myself. If I don’t like it, I can just as easily remove it. It’s a liberating experience.

On the flip side, unlimited and instant access to millions of tracks means that it's easy to listen for one minute and then dump an album. Too easy. If I paid for an album, I would never do this. I'd listen to it over and over. I try to keep this habit with Spotify. Sure, I may still not like an album after a few listens. More often, though, I only begin to appreciate and enjoy an album after several weeks or months. Spotify's all-you-can-eat buffet can destroy this practiced patience if you let it.

At any rate, I'm enjoying the service. Still, I am trying to keep my tracks well organized should I someday wish to cancel my subscription. What if fees get too steep? What if label agreements break down and the catalog drastically shrinks in size? My strategy is to carefully cultivate what I really like through playlists and by ‘starring’ favorites. Should I need to leave and return to iTunes,  I’ll have a good idea of which artist albums and tracks I want to buy and which I can do without.

Of course, I hope that day won’t arrive anytime soon. I'd love to see Spotify-like models appear for other content. I would consider signing up for similar services for audiobook, digital magazines, and ebook subscriptions. Hhave you heard the rumor that Amazon.com may soon roll out ebook rentals?

CSS Lint. It's an open-source online tool to check for typos, bad practices, incorrect properties for rules, inefficiencies, and other potential problems in your code.

I pasted in the primary style sheet I use for my work website. CSS Lint returned one error and 173 warnings.  The error was a missing colon in one selector. As for the warnings, they could be grouped into the three main problem areas: using IDs in selectors, broken box models, and qualified headings.

It's an instructional and helpful tool, especially for lengthy style sheets that have been used and abused for years. While you may not need or want to take action on every warning, CSS Lint will help you write better code moving forward. Users are welcome to contribute new rules to the tool.

new iPad app launched this week by the British Library that provides access to scanned copies of original versions of 19th century books. This app is free for now with 1,000 titles, but will soon be a paid app offering more than 60,000 titles.

The stand-out feature of the new app is that it offers full scans of original versions. While you can't search or highlight text, take notes, or get word definitions, you do get to enjoy the real deal: aged paper, author notes in margins, embossed covers, engraved illustrations, and colored plates. I can almost smell it (I admit it, I love the smell of old books). Perusing through 'Woods and Lakes of Maine,' I was struck by how much context and texture is missing from straight-text digitized ebooks.

So this is an immersive way to explore old books on a modern device, but I have to admit that I've been spoiled by the interactivity of digital books à la Kindle and iBooks. The British Library app is almost like reading a real book, which is a great thing. But the lack of ability to draw on pages,  search text, highlight passages, or define words seems like a missed opportunity to harness the platform.

Since many of these texts have already been digitized, wouldn't it be fantastic to offer users the ability to switch (or overlay, or display side-by-side) a scanned original page in a book and its corresponding digitized text? Then we could have the best of both worlds. At a minimum, we need a way to take some notes and add multiple bookmarks. That said, this is a great app for the book junkie. It's free for now.

Acorn 3 last week (while it was still on sale) based on rave reviews from trusted sources. I used it to prep this image collage. I've been using Photoshop since the 1996, so this is a significant change.

Will it replace Photoshop? Maybe, someday. I'd like to be able to migrate away from Adobe, mainly because the software updates are expensive; I, a relative power user, really don't need many of Photoshop's capabilities; I find I need the other Adobe tools in the Creative Suite (web edition) less and less; I like supporting indie developers.

The problem is that my Photoshop workflow has evolved over many years. I can whip out images quite fast with the tool. Acorn appears to offer many of the tools I need (if not most, to be honest), but learning a new app and getting that speed back is going to take some time.

Learning to use Acorn efficiently feels akin to the time, years ago, when I learned to type in Dvorak instead over Qwerty. The above image would take me a minute to create in Photoshop. It took me 15 minutes in Acorn. But that's to be expected.

So far, it's doing the job well ... and it's fast, fast, fast. I also appreciate many of the little touches in Acorn that make it pleasant to use (e.g., when I add a guide, I'm shown the pixel measurement in a little bubble window as I scroll the guide into place). And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it supports all of my Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard shortcuts, which is something that I can't say for my version of Photoshop (CS3). So I'm sticking with it as my primary editor to see if I can make the switch. Even if it doesn't meet all my needs, I still have Photoshop CS3 to fall back on if I need more advanced features. My hope is that I won't need to upgrade to the newest CS version of Photoshop. Ever.

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Orvis for $15 (for iPhone, iPad, Android). It includes videos on casting; a great fly database (with useful info such as where and when to use a fly, how to fish it, descriptions, and images), knot-tying instructions (with animations, videos, and written instructions; with knots filed by name or categorized by knots for particular tasks), fishing reports for popular areas by state, podcasts, and a glossary. And you can also shop the Orvis online store, if you're so inclined. I was a bit hesitant to put my faith in a relatively expensive app from a retailer, but it's solid.

Before you write this app off as too costly, consider this: Orvis is now offering a $10 coupon for those who buy the app to use in their online and retail stores. And right now, they're offering a special promotion for 20 of their most popular flies for $9.95 with free shipping (limit one per household). After applying the coupon code (accounting for taxes), you can get this solid set of flies, nymphs, and streamers for .60 cents. It's a steal, even if you already have a lot of flies. And they accept PayPal. 

I'm sensitive to the fact that this may sound like I'm a pitch man for Orvis, but this really is a good deal. And the app is a handy reference and teaching aid.

Caveat: I shouldn't get too excited about this offer yet. I'm still awaiting my $10 coupon code. According to Orvis, I should receive it by e-mail within 48 hours. In the off-chance that the fly bundle deal expires before then, I'm not too concerned. I need some tippet and a few other odds and ends.

You could make the argument that Orvis should give the app away in hopes of selling their wares through mobile devices. For my part, I really don't think I'll be buying anything from Orvis via my iPhone. As I've said, I'm planning to use this app as a mobile reference and instructional tool. I hesitated before I hit the 'purchase' button in iTunes, but then I considered the fact that I've plunked down far more than $15 for various fly fishing books. I've never been inclined to bring books with me when I go fishing, but I always have my iPhone. And unlike a book, this app includes videos, animations, and podcasts. And Orvis says the app will continue to be updated.* 

As for price of admission, I think it's also worth noting that the audience for such a specialized app is sure to be small, so I don't think it's unreasonable to charge $15 to get access to all of this content at one's fingertips.  I'll update this post once (if) I successfully land the fly bundle.

* Orvis also says that they're going to deliver in-app purchase modules in the future. It'll be interesting to see how may free updates are delivered, compared to paid upgrades. Would I pay for new training modules? Maybe. It would certainly be a lot cheaper than attending a fly fishing class or school.

Wellcome Image Award. This small collection led me on a small tour-de-link this evening that began with the offerings of The Wellcome Library, turned to the ever-absorbing Tree of Life Web project, and ended with thoughts about IBM's Watson.

How did I get there? I'm not sure. I do know, though, that I found myself looking up the James Burke Knowledge Web somewhere along the way—a project that aims to serve as a counterpoint to specialized, stove-piped knowledge by connecting overlapping bits of history, technology, science, and culture. I used to read Burke's 'Connections' column in Scientific American and recall, long ago, watching episodes of the TV series. I've loosely followed Burke's web project for many years, hoping it would take off. Unfortunately, the site looks much the same now as it did when I last checked several years ago. I think it's long been surpassed (or, rather, bypassed) by other collaborative projects, namely Wikipedia.

Yet I don't think today's offerings on the Web come anywhere close to meeting the intent of the Burke project. The nearest example I can think of that emphasizes discovery across disciplines and through history is the Wikipedia Game, although it's only a shadow of the bigger idea. 

While searching for the rules of the Wikipedia Game, I inadvertently came across a reference to something altogether new to me, called The Game:

The objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which, according to the rules of The Game, must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win The Game; players can only attempt to avoid losing for as long as they possibly can.

Funny stuff. This obscurity reminded me of one of the first philosophy books I ever read: Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. It's an abstract book that I find myself revisiting over the years, as I've found that it means different things to me as I grow older. It's what you might call a long-term reading experience, in much the same way that Sun Tzu's Art of War isn't something you really read. The content is best sampled, sparingly.

Of course I had to look up the Carse book in Wikipedia, too. I was delighted to find a reference there to the Clock of the Long Now, which is a project to create a 10,000 year clock. This interesting idea comes from the Long Now Foundation—another site which I frequent—dedicated to long-term thinking. If there's one thing we humans need to do more often, it's surely long-term thinking. 

What do finite and infinite games have to do with long-term thought? I'll quote what seems to be the most-often quoted part of Carse's slim book (from the first chapter):

There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.

The Long Now is about playing the infinite game. What could help us become better players? At least one answer is to improve our ability to connect the dots between our history, technology, science, and culture.

I wound up my evening Web surf with a really interesting post about IBM's Watson performance on the Jeopardy! game show. Watson certainly put in an impressive performance, demonstrating how computing power is starting to make inroads into the realm of knowledge and language.  Certainly, it showed great promise at answering questions based on ambiguous, misleading, and subtle clues (with notable exceptions). Perhaps we should introduce Watson to the Wikipedia Game. Then we could see how it does at assembling Burke's Knowledge Web. I bet Watson could turn up some interesting connections.

 open public Beta of Adobe Audition for Mac. While Audition for Mac remains in Beta, anyone can download it for free to take it for a spin. It's worth a look if you're interested in advanced audio editing.

I'm planning to use it to produce the next episode of my podcast to see how it stacks up to Apple's Soundtrack Pro. In preliminary tests editing some audio files and piecing together a multitrack project, it seems to offer all of the tools and capabilities of the Apple audio editing program (at least for my needs).

I'm interested in Audition as an eventual replacement for Soundtrack Pro. As much as I like Soundtrack Pro, I don't like the fact that I can only get it as part of the Final Cut Studio suite. I don't really use the other Final Cut tools*, so I'm loathe to upgrade to the most-recent version of the Apple suite just to use the audio editing application. A bit of backstory: I own the first version of Final Cut Studio, which I purchased at a steep discount thanks to an Apple promotion for people who previously owned one of the stand-alone apps that make up the Suite.

This is not to say that I want to purchase the stand-alone version of Adobe Audition. That would likely cost more than the upgrade price for Final Cut Studio. Rather, I'm anticipating that I might pick it up as part of a suite when Adobe comes out with CS6, as I'm still using CS3. 

Here's the thing, though. Both Audition and Soundtrack Pro offer much more power than I really need.

However, these pro-level tools allow me to do things with audio that I just can't do with other tools. I've tried to make GarageBand work, but it's just too limited. I've tried Audacity, too, but it's just too hard to use when juggling six or seven tracks and scores of clips.  I keep going back to Soundtrack Pro. 

What I'd really love to see is an audio application from Apple that's akin to Final Cut Express. I want Soundtrack Express. It would offer less than Soundtrack Pro, but more than GarageBand. What do you say, Apple?

* I would gladly upgrade my copy of Final Cut Studio if the next version rolls in new capabilities to publish content for iOS devices.

IBM's Watson and the top two all-time Jeopardy! contestants. Tomorrow, the final episode will air. Since I don't have a television, I'm forced to see the results after-the-fact by browsing through news stories on the Internet.

Apparently, Watson won the round today. However, the machine missed the final question in what was seemingly an obvious answer. Therein lies the rub. What is obvious to the human brain is oblique to a machine dumbly crunching data, searching for patterns.

I wasn't very interested in this project until I watched the PBS NOVA episode, 'The Smartest Machine on Earth.' Watch it. What you'll see is how far the programmers behind this effort have come—by painstakingly tweaking and refining algorithms—in teaching a machine to rapidly interpret complex clues. The machine learns from its mistakes.

I could go on and on, speculating about what this portends for the future of Artificial Intelligence. But I won't. You can find that elsewhere. Suffice it to say that this is an impressive demonstration of where we are heading. I think Watson will win the contest.

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that this effort (and like-minded endeavors) will soon transform our lives. We're heading towards a revolution in computer-based analysis and diagnosis. Soon, computers will capably answer complex, layered questions with unmatched speed and accuracy. Machines will be able to sift through vast pools of data to match, say, our singular health symptoms with a short list of likely causes and potential treatments—taking into account all of the most-recently published literature on the planet. Can your doctor do that?

Once machines master answering complex questions, what's the next step? I suppose we'll have to start teaching machines how to ask questions.