Rock Hard Funk II drum loops

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With 400 live acoustic grooves to inspire any songwriter looking for a strong rhythmic foundation, this collection takes the atttiude of rock and pop and infuses it with the groove-centric vibe of funk.

Beta Monkey makes the best drum loops in the business. These are real drums, recorded in a studio with a drummer.

Humor: iPad 3 facts

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Joy of Tech: iPad 3 is so kickass it comes with Chuck Norris action jeans.

Samsung admits its tablet are a flop

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Samsung Electronics admitted that its attempt to breach the tablet market has largely been a flop, with one executive offering a sobering summary of its performance.“Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market,” Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung.

So, to boost sales you release a stylus?

Apple announces iPad event for March 7 in San Francisco

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As expected, Apple on Monday announced an event to show off the company’s next generation iPad. The invitation, sent to me by Apple, says the event will take place at 10:00 am on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. […]

Thumbtack gives easy access to Pinboard bookmarks

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Thumbtack is a menu bar utility that provides quick and easy access to the most recently saved bookmarks in your Pinboard account. It was developed around one core feature allowing it be polished, reliable, and extremely efficient.

The Loop’s full text RSS feed and other sharing options

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When The Loop re-launched in September 2011, I took down 99 percent of the ads and made the site easier to read. It’s all about the content. As part of the change, I also added a membership option and full text RSS feed.

Many people have said they didn’t know about the full text RSS, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention it again.

A membership to The Loop is basically a way for readers to help support the site. It costs $3 per month and in return you get access to a full text feed. We also have a free truncated feed too, so there are options available.

Even though the free feed is truncated, we try to include the full text for the linked list posts. The goal is not to make it harder to read the site, but easier.

The money from members has gone to good use. We have used the money to upgrade the servers, bandwidth and CDNs we use, making the site much faster than what it’s been in the past.

There are other ways you can follow the site. We have a Facebook page that you can like, a Google+ page, and you can follow The Loop for site updates and my twitter feed for site updates and my personal thoughts.

You can also share the stories using the Twitter, Facebook and Google+ buttons on the bottom of each story.

Thanks everyone for your continued support of The Loop.

Deposit for iPhone helps you count cash

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In many work environments, cashiers are given worksheets where denominations are counted, recorded, totaled, then submitted. Deposit was created with this in mind. With Deposit, each denomination is recorded separately, the total is calculated in real-time, and printed cash reports are only a few touches away.

It can also print the total and send an email to your manager.

School won’t publish student editorial about atheism

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Andrew Beaujon for Poynter:

Krystal Myers’ editorial for the Lenoir City High School student newspaper about how atheists like her don’t have the same rights as Christians met a somewhat ironic fate: It was not published. School officials feared “the potential for disruption in the school.”

Principles of clean Web design

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Minimalism has always been one of the things I admired most whether it’s about interior design, people, fashion or web design. When you are looking for information let’s say on the Internet, you might get really annoyed because of the flow of commercials or different colorful and intricate designer stuff that get in your way while browsing a website in order to find what’s most important – content. “Less is more” – that’s what should be on a web designer’s mind when inventing something new to post on the Internet.

Motorola can’t enforce patents in Germany while Apple appeals

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Florian Mueller:

Apple scored a breakthrough court victory today against Motorola. Its important can hardly be overstated. This is so huge that it even begs the question of whether Google’s strategy for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility has failed before the deal is even formally closed (they’re still waiting for some regulatory approvals).

ViewSonic announces the ‘ViewPhone 4s’

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Pocket-Lint:

Running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the smartphone will come with a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera and VGA front camera. No details as yet as to what the processor, memory or storage capacity will be.

Oh come on, you can’t be serious. Now companies can’t even come up with their own names?

The Apple product that scares Wintel vendors

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Tim Bajarin:

Yes, the iPad is a real concern for the PC vendors as Apple has a huge lead in tablets and strong demand. But if Apple starts eating into their laptop market share, this will have the greatest impact on these PC vendors in the future and make it even harder for them to make strong profits on this part of their laptop business.

Tim brings up a good point. You could argue that Wintel vendors are scared of everything Apple does because they don’t understand how to compete with them. The iPad is a perfect example of that. However, it must scare the hell out of them when Apple starts eating their lunch in the laptop market.

Apple is attacking the PC vendors from both sides — one with the iPad and the other with the MacBook Air.

Samsung unveils the Galaxy Tab 2

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BGR:

In summation it’s a Galaxy Tab 10.1 with Ice Cream Sandwich and a slightly modified case.

Did anyone really expect Samsung to introduce an HD tablet? Of course not, they have to wait until Apple introduces theirs so they know what to copy.

Privacy, Safari and Google

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John Gruber takes on John Battelle’s defense of Google and its practice to track users through cookies, even if they don’t want to be tracked.

Typography in Web design

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There are many websites where the typography speaks for the site itself. Here typography becomes the chief element of a web or graphic design project. Interesting examples of how different type affects the look and feel of a site.

Create custom brushes in Photoshop

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Brushes are one of the fundamental features in Photoshop. With brushes, you can blend masks, create effects, add textures, and create lighting. There are thousands of brushes available online that you can download for your projects, but sometimes it can … Continued

Jason Schweitzer on mixing Snoop Dogg with Universal Audio

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Here’s what Schweitzer had to say about developing artful ears, and channeling years of experience as a performing musician into every mix he does. Of course, he also waxes on the utility and power of his Universal Audio signal chain, and other secrets to his success.

There is nothing like hearing directly from the pros about how they do it.

BFD Eco 1.5

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An update to FXpansion’s drum sampler. The new version adds native 64-bit support for Windows 7 and Mac OSX, as well as a new kit and bonus kit-pieces from the BFD2 library recorded at London’s Air Studios (2 full kick/tom/snare sets, 2 crashes, 2 rides and a hihat).

BlackBerry services down in the UK again

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We are aware some of you may not currently be able to access certain services on BlackBerrys including, email, some internet access, BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry App World. We are working with RIM to resolve this and we will let you know as soon as we know more.

RIM’s new CEO is right, nothing really needs to change, the company is just fine. Customers on Vodafone don’t seem to agree though.

Influence peddlers

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Michael Hiltzik for the LA Times:

Technology news bloggers’ curious habit of accepting investments from the very people they’re presumed to be covering objectively blew up last week over what might be termed the Path Affair.