FineTune
Sep0
In my last post I presented a online radio service that chooses playlists based on a mood setting. Since then I’ve also discovered a online radio service that lets you build your own playlists. It’s called finetune and it is free. The quality of the sound is better than that of musicovery, but not studio quality. There are some constraints on a playlist: at least 45 songs (a solution to fill the remaining list is available) and no more than 3 songs from each artist. Once the playlist meets the minimum requirements, you can start enjoying your very own radio station. The songs are played out in random order. There is also a desktop flash application for finetune which you can download. You can also embed a playlist in your blog/website. In addition to custom made playlists, you can declare yourself a fan of a certain artist. This adds that artist to your favorite artists list. Each artist has it’s own radio station that plays music from that artist and other similar ones. There is also a tag based radio station system. Here are a few snapshots of the desktop application:
Musicovery
Sep2
Yesterday I found something very neat on StumbleUpon: musicovery. This is an online radio service in which you configure the playlist by setting your preferred music genres , the mood on 2 axes: Calm-Energetic and Positive-Dark, a timeframe and flags for hit song and new song. Based on these choices, the service compiles a playlist for you which it follows. I must say that I was amazed at how accurate the generated playlist reflected my input. The best thing is that this service is for free in LO-FI version and the HI-FI version costs only about 10 euros/year.
Microsoft Student Partner
Sep5
Yesterday I received the invitation email to create an account on the MSP website. This means I got accepted in the program 
It also means I have to keep up working on making Microsoft more accessible and easier to understand to students at my university and to anyone else who is willing to listen.
Wish me luck!
Microsoft Community Bootcamp
Sep2
During 30.08.2007 and 02.09.2007 I attended the 4th edition of Microsoft’s Comunity Bootcamp as a MSP wannabe. All members of the MSP and MVP programs from Microsoft were invited. In addition, several employees from Microsoft Romania were present there. The location for the event was the Fantanita Haiducului Inn (The Outlaw’s Fountain) near Sibiu. Myself, Cornel and Adi shared a car (Cornel’s) to get there.
We arrived 15 minutes before dinner, just enough time to check-in. The first thing we noticed was the excellent service from the hotel. At check-in, each of us received a gift bag from Microsoft containing a bootcamp T-shirt, a pc game from Microsoft Game Studios(Halo 2, Rise of Nations or Age of Empires 3), the Microsoft Academic Resource Kit, and the schedule for the 4 days spent there. During dinner we met some of the many people there(less than 5 out of about 80). We already knew the MSP’s from MAP (Microsoft Academic Program) center of our university and spent most of the time talking to them.
Rendering Web Hosting Futile in Windows Server 2008
Aug5
Prologue
About 4-5 days ago, me and Cornel thought it would be a good idea to try out Windows Server 2008 beta 3 and while at it, install Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server (TFS 2008) beta 2. This is supposed to be 99% feature complete and the last version before RTM. Sounds promising. The next 2 days were spent obtaining the install kits for Windows Server 2008 beta 3, TFS 2008 and Visual Studio Team Suite 2008 beta 2. Before proceeding any further, I have to mention that I am not a sysadmin, but Ihave previously managed to install TFS 2005 with no difficulties.
Step 1: Installing Win Server 2008
After obtaining the installation kits and the product key (for Windows Server 2008) from the Microsoft website, the installation process was straightforward: burn image to DVD, backup one partition of the hard drive, format said partition, reboot from installation DVD, enter product key, choose destination and finally, wait for about 30 minutes until Windows installs. I have to acknowledge Microsoft’s new achievements in making the installation time shorter.
Hello world! (V2)
Aug3
I guess I am just starting to become a person since I just started my first blog. I created this blog at the recommendation of Tudor Salomie and Tudor Vlad. My main topics on this blog will be technology and programming.
Here are a few things to know about me: MANY people call me Cretz (all my friends, professors I have research projects with, my boss, etc.) even though my name is Ioan (John in English). I am a student in Computer Science at the Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, expecting to graduate in 2009. I currently work at a company that develops solutions for securities firms based on Microsoft technology. My main interests are technology, 3D art and music (more on what kind of music I enjoy you will find in the about page).
This concludes my introductory statement and I hope to come back soon with another post.
PS. The post is in V2 because I previously had a blog on www.wordpress.com but I switched to a hosted blog, but could not manage to import the old blog.