My choice of a cool tune for the last Friday of each month.

This month’s cool tune is “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” by The Script (check out their website, it’s one of the best band/ music-related websites I have visited recently).

Watch the video on YouTube.

Beautiful song. I first heard it on MTV’s “Living on the Edge” but enough with that, it’s a great song… one of those raw, emotional, simple but strong songs.  I was at Candy Collective’s Sweetalk 33 about two weeks ago and the design company, iwant, that designed The Script’s album and single record covers were talking about how the band had been very particular about what they wanted. The designers knew that this was going to be a big launch for them. Local Irish talent doing well (in band member Mark Sheehan’s own words, they were “born, bred and starved in Dublin”), fair play (on the talented and doing well part, not the starvation part!).  (more…)

I saw the new Microsoft advertisement on tv earlier today. Microsoft’s response to Apple’s “I’m a PC… I’m a Mac” advertisement seems more like a retaliation than an innovation. “I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype.” Is that an admission that the smaller rival is winning or are they taking them head-on?

What’s clever about Microsoft’s ad is that it focuses on the everyday nature of the PC and the good they can do in the world. A nerdy PC-user is just a scene setter. The ad then quickly moves through lots of different types of PC users including an African school teacher, a blogger for Obama, a McCain supporter, people wearing jeans, designing jeans, and studying genes and not to mention some celebrity endorsement in the form of Pharell Williams, Eva Longoria and BG himself. This is a refreshing contrast to the Apple ads because they take place in a variety of different, colorful locations, with a variety of races and cultures, rather than existing within Apple’s clinical, white world.

Microsoft’s I’m a PC – Life Without Walls website features more information and a chance for users to become a PC on TV by uploading their own “I’m a PC’ videos, which Microsoft will use for their online advertising and TV campaigns.True, this could be considered a great Parthian shot at Apple but what about the people who use both PC’s and Mac’s? We’ve got 2 Mac’s and 4 PC’s in our house… what does that make us? *Niamh walks away saying “I’m a PC and a MAC”… Though, I’m more of a Mac! *

Watch the “I’m a PC” video on YouTube.

Web Developer by Chris Pederick.

I have been using this Firefox add-on for over a year and still think it’s great.

“The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.”

51,675 weekly downloads
8,033,519 total downloads.

More information at: http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/