Paul Hammond's Blog

It has been a while since I posted about an artist I am enjoying listening to.  Frankly, there aren't that many that strike me enough to warrant a blog post!  However, after stumbling across some videos of Sara Bareilles playing acoustic sets of her music, I decided that I really wanted to tell the world to run (not walk) to the CD store and buy "Little Voice".

I first discovered Sara when I heard the song "Love Song".  This song is about as perfect a pop song as you could wish to write.  It has fantastic lyrics, a kick ass chorus that you'll hum for hours after hearing it, and her voice is just perfect.  The song prompted me to seek out the album, and it turned out to be my "album of 2007", resoundingly so.

There isn't a single "album filler" track on the entire CD.  Every single song is well written, both musically and lyrically.  Some of the harmonies make the hairs on your arms and neck stand up straight when they kick in.  The production is great.  And Sara's voice is anything but "little".

A great test of an artist for me is usually when I see them playing in a really stripped down acoustic environment - it tells me whether they are for real, or just well produced.  I stumbled across the following video linked to via the Sara Bareilles Facebook fan page.  The music pretty much speaks for itself, so I won't even try!

Watch Sara's acoustic set for Walmart's Soundcheck site (particularly "Morningside" and "Gravity").

Is the world going mad?  From this article at FoxNews.com, it is reported that:

"People who have been injured while walking and texting on their cell phones may be in luck.  A London street is experimenting with padded lampposts to protect those not paying attention from banging into them, ITN reports."

I have a whole other solution.  DON'T TEXT WHILE YOU ARE WALKING.  Stop and move to the side.  There is a reason why they have banned mobile phone use in cars in the UK, and it is mostly because people are completely incapable of any other cognitive function once a mobile phone is introduced into the mix.  Even just talking on a phone can render a person incapable of sensing their surroundings.

The report goes on to say:

"In a study, more than a quarter of respondents wanted lines on the pavement to create routes for texters to walk while using their phones."

Mad I tell you.  Completely insane.

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1.  The release is intended for Web Developers and Designers so that they can be ready to take advantage of the new features that are offered.

There are a number of important changes from a developer's perspective.  The main areas (unashamedly cut-and-pasted from the Microsoft site) are:

• Choice of layout engine (IE5 quirks mode, IE7 strict, IE8 standards).
• CSS2.1 Compliance.
• HTML Improvements (fixes to cross-browser inconsistencies).
• Improved Namespace Support.
• Performance Improvements (in multiple subsystems).
• Developer Tools.

You can read full details for these items over at the Features page on the Microsoft site under the "Faster, Easier" section.

I just installed the software, and the one feature that immediately caught my eye as a developer was the Developer Tools dialog.  Microsoft shipped the IE Dev Toolbar before, which was nice, but this is built right into the application.

I particularly liked the CSS hierarchy feature.  You can select an element in the HTML tree, and it shows you all of the CSS that has been applied to it, and where in the hierarchy it came from.  You can turn the individual items off to see what effect that has.

The Layout tab also gives you details about the layout for the currently selected element.  In this example, you can see the size of the element itself, the padding, the margins and the offset from the parent.

You can also switch between the three compatibility modes and the rendering of your page will update immediately.

The Outline tab has many of the features of the original Outline options in the IE Dev Toolbar, allowing the visual outlining of tables, tables cells, divs, etc.

The Script tab in the left pane gives you a whole load of debugging features that I didn't look at yet.  Judging by the UI, the debugging features are going to be very comprehensive.

While looking through the site, I also found a link to the Internet Explorer Developer Center, which has some excellent resources.  This includes full details on using the Developer Tools, as well as Defining Document Compatibility in your HTML using the X-UA-Compatible meta tag, and VPCs for IE6, 7 and 8.

For more information about other new features in IE8 (such as Activities and Web Slices), check out the main Internet Explorer 8 Download Page.