thems

At Coachella on Friday night, I had the thrill of seeing one of my musical heroes, John Paul Jones, play live with Them Crooked Vultures, which also features Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar and vocals and Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) on drums. The set had a lot of highlights--including a tremendous jam on "Scumbag Blues"--but my favorite part was seeing Jones switch between instruments, including basses with four and ten (!) strings, a mandolin, and a keyboard.

As well as...this thing. It looked like some sort of slide guitar with an electronic … Read more

Free All Music, whose unusual business model is to show users a short video advertisement in exchange for letting them download an unrestricted MP3 file, began private beta testing of the service last month.

The process of watching ads, then downloading MP3s, is surprisingly painless. The site will limit you to a certain number of downloads per period (right now, users are permitted 10 downloads to start, plus an additional 5 every week, but those numbers could change before launch). Through a secondary advertising system, Free All Music shows banner ads noting that particular users have downloaded songs "sponsored&… Read more

Internet memes travel in waves. A fun site can lie dormant for years before suddenly being rediscovered.

The latest example I've found is Let Them Sing It For You, which has been around for years, but has been drawing new attention on blogs in the last couple of weeks. On Tuesday, I received my first personalized message through the service.

Created in 2003 by Eric Bunger, Let Them Sing It For You is a simple but fun Web application that lets you enter a text message, then translates the words into audio. The catch: it uses popular song snippets … Read more

If you're a United Kingdom dweller feeling left out of U.S.-only services like BuyYourFriendADrink.com there's light at the end of the tunnel. Launching Friday is Get Them In, a new way to buy your friends food and drink items right on Facebook which can be redeemed at various U.K. pubs and retailers.

Unlike BYFAD, Get Them In is not just centered around bars, and it works in grocery stores too. Purchases of drinks and snacks are made through Facebook using PayPal, so you've got your entire list of friends available in one place. … Read more

It's been more than a year since Windows Vista was launched and Windows XP is still going strong. In my opinion, it's still a great operating system--though, it's not that hard to look great when compared to Windows Vista. Once thing is undeniable, however: Windows XP is getting old, especially in its aesthetic.

For this reason, on Wednesday, July 30, The Skins Factory launched Hyperdesk, a software package that will spice up your Windows XP, and turn it into a world of exciting themes, skins, and wallpapers. The software even allows you to create widgets for other … Read more

The big news today in the software world is a new beta version for Mozilla Firefox. The world has been sitting on Version 2 for almost a year and a half now, but the open-source foundation is making sure that Version 3 is fully baked before releasing a final version.

The latest beta release promises "more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta," but a large number of those improvements are back end and mostly invisible. Two significant features in the fourth beta that I appreciate are: an improved password manager toolbar that replaces the old semifunctional dialog; … Read more

With free DVDs handed out at the door, numerous camera crews shooting interviews, and--oh yes--"special guest" celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, last night's Twiistup party seemed proof that the Los Angeles tech community is pulling out of the shadow of Silicon Valley and putting its own spin on geek culture.

Like its predecessor, Twiistup 3 packed a sold-out crowd of Web folks and other geeks (including Doug Campbell from Tuxedo Travels and CNET alumnus Rich DeMuro) into the Air Conditioned Supper Club in Venice, where attendees talked tech, networked, and vetted business plans over drinks. And while … Read more