CNN recently redesigned their site, and I have to say it makes me a little sad. Usually these big corporations have the money to put in to serious design, and news agencies especially are looked to as sources of innovation, since their bread and butter is typography and layout. CNN’s new design, on the other hand, looks like a customized (maybe even ’slightly customized’) WordPress theme.

Three-column home page, two-column sub-pages. I know that blogs have become albeit sometimes questionable sources of information that have seeped into the world of journalism, but that the blog “design vernacular” has made it’s way to the forefront of one of the internet’s most popular websites is just, well… sad.

One upside: CNN’s taken a cue from the wiki-world and now has keywords linked to “topics” (used much like blog categories) in their articles, which can be handy if you’re interested in more recent stories on a particular topic. I’ll wait for the next round of design and hope for some innovation next time.

But I’ve also been using something else for a long time. It used to be called iScrobbler, and what drew me to it was that it would keep track of what I listened to in iTunes, allow me to check my own personal charts, and then recommend things to me based on my musical preferences. Somewhere along the way, that idea developed into what we have today as Last.fm.

Here’s what I’ve been listening to lately.

The charts are still there, but the site has expanded incredibly to not only let you know when bands you like are coming to town, but to let you know what’s new, what you’re likely to like, and, my favorite, what your friends are listening to. For the last 3 days I’ve been listening to my friends’ “stations” and it’s been awesome. With the desktop app, you simply double-click your friend’s name, and it starts to stream music from their charts. You can also listen to music from what they call “neighbors”, people who have tastes similar to yours, as well as a “recommendations” stream which has already introduced me to some music I never would have found otherwise.

Pandora is great, and it definitely still has its place, but if I were trapped on a desert island with a laptop, internet, and solar power, last.fm would be my iTunes replacement of choice.

Check out last.fm here.

Not horrible. The bit you get to once you sign in always irked me. The functionality was odd, but workable. Why then would they make the back-end look like THIS:

Seriously? Some of the additions include linking to Amazon reviews of books, being able to more easily see what branches have a copy of the book you’re interested in, and more cover images of the collection. They’re in dire need of some formatting, and clicking on a Library Branch under Holding Information gives you a screen with nothing but a map of the library. Hmm…

It looks as if the services provided to the LA Public Library come from The Library Corporation which, according to their website, do provide services that aren’t butt ugly, which begs the questions:

1) Is it ok to provide a steamy pile of design poop to a client who doesn’t have the money to pay for something “better”?

2) Is this re-tooling simply unfinished?

If you have any more info on the redesign please leave it in the comments… I’ll be keeping an eye on this, since I use the service all the time, and I’ll report back if any new developments occur!

There’s plenty of printed work to be found on Etsy these days, but Roll & Tumble Press stands out for their sense of color and type. Everything is hand illustrated, carved, set, inked and printed. Check out their many fantastic posters here.

Thanks to changes in Leopard’s Address Book app, you can now choose to sync up Gmail and Yahoo! contacts, which then makes it very simple to sync up your iPhone through iTunes. That works great for synching via the USB cable, but what about wirelessly?

Enter Google Sync! Google allows you many ways to sync up your BlackBerry, Windows Mobile device, and of course, your iPhone. Instructions on setup are here, but the jist of it is that you’ll set up a Microsoft Exchange account on the phone using Google server info. It’s that easy, and it works great.

Well, almost great… one issue I ran into was that the way my phone was set up, I ended up with duplicates of all my contacts, which I’d seen a million times before in other people’s synching issues. I worked with the settings for a bit and found a quick fix.

In Address Book, set up a new Group titled Blank, and leave it empty. Then in iTunes, with your iPhone connected, under the Info tab you can choose to sync only the Blank group, and still choose to sync your Google contacts. This way your iPhone syncs wirelessly with Gmail, and your Address Book syncs with Gmail, and then the two synch with one another! Not too shabby…

Hope this helps someone out there, because I know how frustrating some of these issues can be. Good luck!

Actually, I should say two miracles. Not only are they good, but they’re also from Sacramento to boot! It’s like they say, the strongest of trees grow on the harshest of mountain tops. The lead singer Natalie’s vocals, while a little Cat Power-y at times, take us on a delightful journey of the ears, sounding like she’d be a good fit in some Eastern European burlesque troupe. Their music has sprinkles of punk, jazz, and folk, and would be a good fit on the playlist of those who have a taste for Gogol Bordello, Mirah, and The Decemberists.

Sample a song off their 2006 LP “On Time Travel and Romance”:

Agent Ribbons – Obituary

If you like what you hear, chances are they’re coming to a city near you! Check out their tour dates on their Myspace page, or give a listen to the other songs on their playlist.

Software makers Chocomoko has pushed their stylish LastFM companion app SweetFM into open source waters, and you can find the free download here on Google Code.

LastFM allows you to keep track of what you listen to in iTunes online, adding a social aspect to your musical tastes. Once logged in, you can see your own top artists, songs, and albums over different time periods, and find other music like it via recommendations, friends, or “neighbors”. SweetFM provides a desktop interface to all this magic, allowing you to stream music and save the songs you like to iTunes in listenable, but albeit 128kbps quality. Perfect for tucking away those tracks you’d like to buy later through iTunes!

Between this an Pandora, I’ve found tons of music I never would have otherwise. What I like best about LastFM is it’s large international community, so you can stumble across some kid in the Ukraine’s favorite local gypsy punk band, classic chanson from France, or indie music from Philly. If you like music but find yourself without the time to go hunting for the good stuff, LastFM + SweetFM is a good combo.

You can sign up for LastFM here, and download SweetFM here.

Check out San Francisco in the 40’s, Las Vegas in the 50’s, and much much more in the new Google Earth 5.

Portland-based beardstress Erin crafts beards for folks out of felt and yarn. View and purchase the assortment of beards at her Etsy shop: imadeyouabeard.

MyFonts has posted the top 10 fonts of 2008 as determined by sales, and unsurprisingly they are mostly retro-fabulous. It’s a good collection of new fonts, and I think it supports the idea of a taste trend towards the hand-made, away from the bland, put-it-together-quick design that was so prevalent not too long ago. They are homages to things that take a long time to do, which is becoming increasingly less desirable as the economy becomes even tougher.

Metroscript, Corinthia, HandMade, and more at MyFonts.com.

At noon today, even before he was officially sworn in, Barack Obama officially became the 44th President of the United States of America, and as quickly as he said his oaths, the www.whitehouse.gov website was re-launched. The new design reflects the aesthetics of the Obama campaign, and is clean and accessible to a very broad audience. Sections are large and obvious, and it seems to be easy enough to navigate.

My one complaint would be their typographical choices for the blog section, although most of the content on the site is well-formatted. On the front page, the list of articles could use a bit more spacing to read easier, and is inconsistent with the list on the actual blog page. It does however feature an RSS feed (which, along with the weekly radio address, I will be subscribing to!) There’s also a weekly video address which will probably show up on Youtube and other sites as well, so the new administration is definitely a few steps closer to “web 2.0″ than the previous folks!

Stop by and check it out, and bookmark it, because I have a feeling that the new people in charge will be using it a lot more than the old.

See more artwork here.

I was stuck at a Borders this weekend and browsed through the latest issue of MAKE Magazine, which happens to be entirely dedicated to DIY spy-tech! There was an awesome article about building your own laser-pointer communicator device for sending super secret messages via LASER BEAM, and honestly, I can’t think of a cooler way to send super secret messages. Thankfully the giving season lingers, and MAKE has made the PDF of the article available for free online.

Download it here, and after a short trip to your local electronics shop you’ll be beaming you voice incognito, via laser. Awesome.

Amazing paper-based stop animation short to celebrate UK publisher 4th Estate’s 25th anniversary. Also, behind-the-scenes time-lapse video of the set creation and more on Vimeo.