I recently found a small (and free) application that allows you to click anywhere on any window and drag to move it by holding the ALT key. I really liked this functionality in GNOME and I remember looking for a program that would do it in Windows. The program has the option of auto-starting with Windows, and it’s pretty light on resources (as you’d expect from a program with such a simple purpose).

AltDrag sits in the tray (with the option of hiding the tray icon), and holding shift+alt will snap the window to window / screen borders to keep everything tidy. You might not find it useful at first, but you could get used to it in a hurry.

As an added bonus, it lets you move some elements that aren’t meant to be moved. See what you can break with it!

http://code.google.com/p/altdrag/

Brad Sucks – “A one-man band with no fans” – was one of the pioneers of the open-source music movement. When he released his first album “I don’t know what I’m doing” in 2003 (for free), he also released the “source” of the songs to encourage remixing. It was the first time I’d ever seen an artist do such a thing. The album was of excellent quality, and people did indeed remix the songs… a lot.

This past summer, Brad [Sucks] released “Out of It“: 10 more excellent tracks with the full source available for download. Grab the album now and spread it around. Half the fun will be seeing what the remixers come up with, and hopefully we won’t have to wait 5 years for the next batch of songs.

Motionless Battle is a music project by a guy from Long Island that calls himself D-Bit. He describes the sound as “Nintendo-esque beats”, made with FL Studio. According to his MySpace blog, D-Bit is in the process of uploading his entire discography for his fans to download for free. That’s pretty thoughtful, isn’t it?

So far I’ve only heard Motionless Battle’s latest, called “The Fortress of Discord“, which I stumbled upon a while ago through a music blog which I won’t link to because of its quasi-legal status. When I saw that it was the artist himself who put the album online for free, I felt a little better about downloading it.

Motionless Battle on MySpace (download links are in the Bio section under “MOTIONLESS BATTLE DISCOGRAPHY”)

In other news, my 360 red-ringed tonight and I’m still looking for programming work. Holler!

MURS and producer 9th Wonder have released a collaboration album online as a free gift to their fans. All they ask in return is that you buy their upcoming albums. The 10-track album can be downloaded here, note that you don’t have to actually sign up for the newsletter (the giant download link is just placed confusingly close to the signup form).

This “Free Stuff” category is part of a new effort to make my blog a little more active/useful. Ideally I’d be posting other things in between, but either way you can get some stuff for free during the downtime.

The Reptilian Complex is a recently-disbanded metalcore band from New Jersey. They apparently decided to release their 2008 album “Anomaly” online for free. If you want a new album of decent metal, but don’t want to spend any money, I encourage you to download The Reptilian Complex – Anomaly here or preview the album on myspace.

Pittsburgh-based mashup DJ Girl Talk has released his new album, Feed the Animals as an online, pay-whatever-you-want downloadable zip. Fans can get 320 kbps mp3s for any price they choose (including free).  A FLAC version of the album is available for 5 or more dollars, and for $10+ dollars you can get the CD version when it’s released in September.

The album is complete fire.  On the first listen, I went crazy with each new sample that came up; Jay-Z, Daft Punk, Gorilla Zoe, and Kraftwerk to name a few.  My one complaint is that some of the samples are too fleeting, and at times it feels like he doesn’t let them play to their full potential, but fans of 2006’s Night Ripper won’t be disappointed. Animals features hundreds of (mostly) rap/hiphop samples, played over alternative and rock instrumentals and all lovingly strung together with a danceable beat.

Girl Talk is the latest in a growing list of popular artists to embrace the “pay what you want” online distribution model.  He joins acts like Radiohead, Saul Williams and Nine Inch Nails, all of whom put albums online and invited their fans to write their own price tag.  I’d previously thought this was a very unlikely idea, but it looks like it’s a trend that’s catching on (although all of the above examples appear to have been only limited time offers).  Despite criticism from record labels, distributing albums in this way allows artists to package their albums with whatever copyrights/credits they want, and it at least ensures that none of the money will go to bootleggers.  I’m excited to see what else will be released in this way.

Don’t underestimate the number of people who will buy anything for 5 dollars!

Download: Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

Girl Talk on Myspace