iPhone Ocarina

SMule: Ocarina [Zeldarian] from SonicMule, Inc. on Vimeo.

Some company has come up with an 'instrument' for the iPhone, but with a twist: it lets you hear what other people are creating with the instrument.

It's only a matter of time before something like Splice ports to the iPhone in a broad-appeal sort of way.

Takin' yer salmon!

Found in my Flickr stream....a hornet/wasp/yellowjacket is flying away with a piece of....salmon.

How awesome is that?

Five things Comcast can do NOW to improve their service.

In no order of importance....

1. The only thing the electronic answering system should really need to know is what language you speak. After that, someone should be forwarded to a service agent that is trained/equipped to deal with *all* aspects of Comcast product support. (along these same lines, increase the pay of frontline support agents, as they REALLY are your brand experience.)
   
2. Drop the happy-smiley sales pitches and pleas for customers to look at your website, Comcast.net. We're calling because we want a human being. If there was something on your site I wanted (assuming my service is operating), I'd already be there looking. The very fact I'm on the phone means....I don't want your website.
3. Allow agents to individually (or by small group) track tickets and manage them through report/resolution, rather then letting the call queue randomly assign customers to support reps.
4. Require field crews to report location and service ETA's as often as possible, and update customers periodically with new information. Yes, this is *supposed* to be expensive..what other way can someone punish a company for poor service?!?
5. Be faster to offer services and/or refunds for service interruptions. The internet is a mature technology now, and it's importance is greater in many situations than working television feeds. Frustration could be eased with as little as a couple free months of HBO or something.

That is all.

Behind the Leap

I finally know what 21 million other people already figured out.

iTunes is awesome.

First and foremost, the ability to encode high-quality, DRM-free mp3's is such a basic function in 2008, I still cannot fathom why it isn't built into OS's. Either way, it's made my music production workflow far more economic (converting high-bitrate wav files quickly....nice.) And the encoder sounds just fine.

Well played, Apple.