Here’s an error message that I’ve never seen before. It’s from the WordPress Stats plugin for WordPress blogs.

Aren’t error messages fun?

Sirius has a web client you can use to stream their music to your computer, but it’s pretty lame (or it was last time I checked). Enter NiceMac LLC, creators of StarPlayr for Windows [alpha, download], Mac [download], and soon on the iPhone.

StarPlayr’s features include setting presets, choosing a high or low bitrate, tracking what songs are playing on stations, and a one-click button to Amazon’s product page for the CD of the song that’s playing. It’s somewhat tricky to figure out at first without looking at the documentation, but once you figure out what the buttons do, it’s easy to navigate and use. It doesn’t look like it’s synced with the new channels, but a new version of the software is expected in early 2009.

There’s also a lighter version of StarPlayr called StarLight (Mac only) that’s worth checking out.

I was stumbling around recently when I came across this gem someone created on Dipity, a way to put events on a horizontal scrolling timeline. The service itself is a pretty good idea and there are surely other great timelines out there. For now, enjoy this one.

Full Version

The very first Ames Tweetup went down last night at Olde Main Brewing Co in Ames. Due credit is given to @mrdallasjmoore, @jkeyla and others who were involved with planning the event. It’s been a long time coming to have a tweetup in Ames. I haven’t seen an exact head count, but I estimate that at least 20 people showed up at one time or another.

One of the benefits of going was to throw your business card into a hat (or a pitcher) and be eligible for a 6-pack of Olde Main’s brews. Here’s the card I threw in the mix.

I’m sure I’ll enjoy the Dinky Wheat.

Ever have an hour to waste but nothing to fill it with? Do you love flash games? Boy, do I have a treat for you!

It’s called The Casual Collective, which is a group of eight addictive and fun games you can play right in your web browser. They’re pretty fun to play and can be played in multiplayer mode. The site is centered around social gaming and networking, so you should invite your friends to play along.

Game screenshots after the break

Not much to say about this but I thought it was worthy of sharing… anyone want to donate a Roomba to see if my cat will do this? Anyone who actually has a cat will know why this is funny - most cats hate vacuum cleaners more than baths.

I’ve used a lot of Twitter applications. I’ve reviewed at least four on this site. I generally don’t stick with a single application for more than a week or two. TweetDeck has become the only exception to that rule - it has changed the way I use Twitter. I started using it back when it was somewhere around version 0.15. Since then, it’s evolved into an extremely powerful tool.

If you haven’t used TweetDeck, you really don’t know what you’re missing. Users of Tweenky will find a number of similarities with TweetDeck, but I think TweetDeck is still the best Twitter client. It puts a ridiculous amount of information right at your fingertips, but does it in a way that’s easy to manage and use. It takes a columnar approach to tweet display and allows you to create columns for a multitude of categories including replies, searches, direct messages, favorites, groups, TwitScoop, and 12seconds.tv.

Continue reading…

When you’re moving files around in Leopard, there’s no real consistent way that the files get moved. When moving files locally, they seem to move on when dragged around. When putting files onto a remote location, they seem to get copied by default. Here’s two ways to override those defaults.

Copy

While you’re dragging something, hold down the Alt/Option key. You should see a plus sign appear by your cursor. Hold that key down until you release the mouse to copy files.

Move

To move files, hold down the Command key while dragging and dropping. You shouldn’t see a plus sign near the cursor when moving files.

Black Friday is a mere two weeks away. Pandemonium always ensues at the store, but do you know exactly why you’re there? Here’s a few sites to help you find the deals.

Notice: I’ll keep updating this post as long as people keep alerting me of more sources.

View the full list…

Look up - directly above this text. See it? That’s one of mu’s newest features. I decided that as a gesture of convenience, mu will now create a short link anytime you publish a post. Since it usually already does it anyway, I decided to make it automatic and give you the chance to display it wherever you want on your posts.

All you’ll have to do is make a small change to the posts table in your database to add a place for this link. When you publish a post, mu will grab the short link (from the service of your choosing) and hang onto it so your readers don’t have to waste time getting one themselves. Hooray convenience!

There will be two functions in the next release of mu, one that returns the text and one that displays it directly. The other treat in store for mu 0.4b* will be URL shortening using Cli.gs. I’ve decided to build it in and give you a place to enter your API key rather than make you figure out the API call by using the Custom option.

Look for the update next week - I’d like to make sure it’s working correctly over the weekend before I release it.

* There will also be a few small bug fixes included because I’m an idiot