Last.fm is a great service, even since acquisition, and the streaming capability through their own applications has played for hours both within the Quiqcorp offices and through my laptop whilst travelling.

SweetFM, a new application from choko moko bridges the gap between Last.fm and iTunes. Described as “Last.fm + Awesomeness” the author is not far wrong with his claim.

Not only does SweetFM stream Last.fm stations, but it also supports shuffling tags. Simply define a number of station tags you wish to hear and let the app take care of the details.

While there are a number of features such as impressive album art from Amazon.com, growl support and customised styles there are two features which make this app an absolute gem.

• Stream pausing: Really like the song you are listening to when the phone rings? No worries, hit the pause button and resume the stream when you come back.
• Export to iTunes: Yes it’s true, you can directly export streamed songs to your iTunes library for local storage. SweetFM can automatically export your loved, playlist or all tracks. This certainly isn’t legal in every country, but it is very slick. And in case you were wondering, even on poor connections with continued buffering the resulting iTunes stored copy is identical to the original stream.

Do yourself a favour, go and download a trial.

After considering Tumblr and other services I realised that I spend quite a lot of time reading and collecting resources across the internet for personal development or out of interest and quite often intend on sharing or commenting on such content within my blog. This of course doesn’t happen simply due to time constraints, enter asides.

Asides, linklogs, tumblelogs and any other associated name you want to throw in allow you to post short form comments/posts, in my specific case related to other content I have found around the web.

I have set this up on my blog quickly and will expand on it over time when I can focus on the display and functionality issues surrounding it. For the mean time they will be the short ones (obviously) with a grey(ish) background.

It has often been mentioned on the forums that the eZ Publish Roadmap needs some love and that a product without a roadmap inspires the confidence of no-one. Luckily this has been updated as recently as June 12th and the new roadmap is looking pretty nice.

From cluster and performance enhancements and eZ Flow updates through to new extensions and updates to eZ Find there is something in there for everyone. Unfortunately Admin Interface redesigns don’t make the cut until the 4.3 release slated for March 30th 2010, but then that is only 9 months away in any case.

If eZ Systems manages to deliver on these promises there is some really nice looking functionality for both partners and customers alike, but as recent history has shown I will remain optimistically cautious and continue delivering the services I need now rather than waiting for something to materialise based on an ever-shifting roadmap.