LaLaClick is a web application to visualize and explore similarity relations of music artists. Warning: if you love music, you’ll get addicted to this site!

It works like this:

• The engine starts with the pre-loaded example: Radiohead. Music starts to play and some nodes appear on the screen.
• When no more nodes are added, you can simply select the option Clear All
• In the search band box, type the name of a band or singer and press the Enter key. Click on Add Aura. You can repeat the process over and over and produce a giant tree of alike artists.
• The nodes added, are bands somehow related to the name you typed! This way you can learn about bands similar to your taste :)

How does this work? Quite simple and interesting – the similarity is based on the principle that people who listen to this artist also listen to that one. The information about these “listening preferences” is powered by last.fm, a music community website which gathers about 20 million users.

A few days ago, I received an email with this website (thx Isabel), with the tag line: “The world as you’ve never seen it before”:

http://www.worldmapper.org/

This site has a huge database with maps, correlating several indicators, population density and countries dimensions. It reminded me a brilliant talk by Hans Roling on TED. It’s hard to understand the huge gap between the countries in many indicators. The question is: what can you do to change the situation?

DHH = David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the creators of the Ruby On Rails framework and an active collaborator of 37signals. I’ve read several articles about the company and RoR, but this was the first time I saw David in action. This lecture about “The Secret To Making Money Online” is full of great ideas and gives you a chance to think about “simplifying” your goals (following the approach “Less is More”) and getting things done.

http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08

…and you still don’t have a recording application? nRecorder is your answer! :P

NanoAppz, a small portuguese start-up, founded by two friends of mine, has recently published on iTunes App Store their first iPhone application. Give it a try!

According to Google Analytics, my blog has become famous around Bergen, Norway. I don’t have a clue about what are you looking for here, but you are welcome… Velkommen, Bergen Venner! I have been in Bergen a few months ago and this is my first post about it.

Bergen is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The center is a small village nearby the sea which has an original architecture – everything looks like a “dream-village” where people live in peace and harmony. You can find harbors for everything: small fishing boats, leasure boats and huge cruise ships. If you get lucky, you’ll find the traditional fish market place open! A nice place to experiment a nice snack with fresh shrimp, salmon and other seafood, right after being caught in the Ocean (by the way, this was our best meal in Norway!).

We took the Oslo – Bergen train. It is considered one of the best train trips of the world. It’s easy to understand that award – the beautiful landscapes from ocean to montain, passing through green fields, florest and snow plateaus are breath-taking!

One of my best friends, Pedro Carrilho, has just published his first book related to Personal Finance Management called “O Seu Primeiro Milhão” – in Portuguese.

I have start reading it and I definitely recommend it. Pedro also teaches this kind of contents in his company courses. I can assure that you will get your money back in less than a month. It’s a good investment :)

1 October 2008. Time for a blog change.

I got tired of the previous theme and decided to make it by myself, keeping WordPress as the main engine (got wp-plugin addicted). The transparency are my favourite parts, however, older browsers won’t show it correctly. It is still in beta, so any suggestions are welcome :)

This blog is about to change soon. :)

Stay tuned!