Tune Library goes AJAX

I have always loved working on my WordPress plugins to learn about new technologies. While I am getting quite comfortable with PHP over time, something that I had never dabbled in is AJAX. Thanks to Gary Traffanstedt, who was considering to use Tune Library but found it was lacking some functionality, Tune Library 1.3.1 now offers support for AJAX queries to alleviate requests to refresh pages when viewing different parts of a large music database and to avoid querying all information out of a database. Gary was very helpful in creating an example code base using AJAX and testing out my changes to the plugin. Thanks Gary!

For people preferring the speed of pulling all data off the database in one shot, a non-AJAX query mode is still available.

You can find the latest version of Tune Library on the WordPress plugin web site.

A great pre-order incentive

I am usually not a fan of pre-ordering music CDs. While I am usually a fairly faithful listener and CD buyer when I like a band, I still don’t like the idea of blindly buying an album when I have no clue if it’s going to be good or bad. For example, there is a new Crystal Method CD coming out in 3 weeks and while the pre-order deal on iTunes gives you access to an extra track, the only track that you can currently listen to is not as good as I would expect from that band.

That being said, I just put in a pre-order for the new Dave Matthews Band CD, to be released on June 2nd. After downloading the first single from their new CD for free last week and hearing another song excerpt on their web site, they put up a pre-order offer that could just not be refused: Pre-Order the new CD and get a 3-disc live show for free! Not only that, but the offer is even valid for the digital version of the CD, which makes it a lot easier for international customers as myself to pick up this deal. I am really looking forward to this new music

UPDATE: The free live show offer is no longer available for digital purchase of the new CD. It is only valid on purchase of the physical media.

A look at all of the games that I am watching

The next year look like it will be great in terms of new games coming to the PS3. I have put together a page listing off  the main titles that I am looking for in this new year. Let me know if you think that I have missed anything.

Get the first single off the upcoming DMB CD for free

After there years of waiting, and after the tragic events of last summer which led to the demise of saxophonist LeRoi Moore, the Dave Matthews Band is going to be releasing a new CD in June. For one week only, you get request a free download for the new single from the album, “Funny the Way it is”.

Get your own picture book printed

When visiting my sister a few weeks ago, she showed me a very nice book that contained all of the pictures of a trip that she did to Portugal last year. The quality of the paper was very nice. She explained to me that she used a service called PhotoInPress.ca to do the work. Starting at $15 CAD, PhotoInPress has a web-based application that you can used to layout all of the pages of the book and specify text to be printed between the photos. The result is quite stunning and really affordable. Considering how many pages you can fit per page, it can actually come out to a similar price as individual prints.

Go back through the Stargate

After 10 years of Stargate SG-1 and 5 years of Stargate Atlantis, the producers behind both hit science-fiction series are going back to the drawing board for a third series entitled Stargate Universe. Not much is known about this series so far, other than the fact that a group of humans from Earth end up in a starship that the ancients set on a course to seed stargates through the universe. With no way to dial back to Earth, the expedition will be stuck on this ship and have to figure out ways to survive. Check out the trailers on Youtube.

A great April Fool’s joke

I know, I know… April’s Fool was a week ago. I’ve been meaning to write about this hilarious video that Microsoft made to advertise one of their “new” upcoming games called Alpine Legends. The video that they made has very good production values and could definitely fool someone at a quick glance. Check it out for a good laugh:

Now on Twitter

Everybody, from radio announcers to podcast hosts to bloggers seem to be jumping on the Twitter bandwagon these days, so I decided to give it a shot as well. You can see my latest tweets on my personal site sidebar or obviously by following me on Twitter.

Search the web in a cool way

I was recently introduced to a very interesting web tool called CoolIris. Available as a Firefox plugin, CoolIris lets you search through images or videos on sites such as Google Images and Youtube in a more quicker and interactive fashion.

The plugin adds an icon to sites that it is compatible with to let you easily launch it. With its free price tag, Cooliris is definitely a neat tool to try out.

Changing my site theme (again)

During a web search for cool themes for my wife’s photography site, I stumbled upon this gorgeous new theme that I just had to try. Well, I loved it and updated my site to use it. I hope you will find it as legible as the old one.