“Universal is now offering music through Spiral Frog as free downloads supported by advertising revenue. But according to Daily Tech, the files being offered won’t work on iPods. ‘The move to not allow its content to be played on iPod’s appears to be a clear snub by the Universal Music Group, similar to NBC’s recent move of its television content from iTunes to Amazon.com. Apple has not commented on this development. For many, though, SpiralFrog.com presents an intriguing new business model that may present a legal alternative to file sharing or spending large amounts of money on CDs or paid download services, such as iTunes.’”
So I guess they don’t want to see me DRM free music, they don’t want to sell me Blu Ray movies, they don’t want to sell me NBC content, and now they don’t want to sell me music in general.
I didn’t realize my cash was so unwanted in Universal land. I guess someone else will step up to take it.
I called Verizon to find out why my email system is suspended (I don’t use their email, am just curious why). I am having this discussion with the computer, and it goes like this:
Verizon Computer: “Aside from the email issue, can you browse the web?”
Me: “Yes”
Verizon Computer: “Ok, just so you know, if you decided to talk to a representative, it could take up to 10 minutes on hold, so let’s try and solve your issue first. ok, I have something I would like to try, how about holding for a representative?’
Jott rocks. I left this jott to myself via a bluetooth headset.
I used jott to say this from my jabra headset. Amazing how well it translates.
Jott To Self
Hey man, I am now headed to the AppleStore in Washington Square. I am driving in my car along Baseline highway and I am going to use this as a comparison to see how the job one[1] sound compared to the job row(?)[2] later today after the job owner starts[3].
Set reminders, assign, and manage this jott on Jott.com
I bought this awesome Simple Human trash can last year that uses grocery bags. It is an all in one unit meant to be screwed to the back of a cupboard door, but the cupboards below the sink are too narrow and the bag holder would hit.
So the unit has been sitting next to the refrigerator but loosely, which meant it would fall over when you used it, etc.
So I ordered 4 12lb rare earth bar magnets from these guys and they work perfectly. $10 and I put two on the top frame, two on the bottom frame and the trash unit is firmly attached to the refrigerator.
Awhile ago the key to decode HD-DVD and Blu-Ray content was cracked and passed around. Recently it was blogged, there was a take-down notice (which also contained the key hehe) and then more sites started pointing to the original story.
People were then digging these blog entries with the key code in them. Digg started removing these dugg stories citing DMCA laws and better yet, their own Terms of Service that said they will check out and pull stories containing intellectual property rights violations.
Well the kids of Digg.com got upset and started spamming the site with stories containing the key code, claiming “free speech is dead,” and essentially using a script kiddie technique of denial of service to piss digg off.
Well in this blog post Kevin Rose, accused of selling out to the HD-DVD consortium, sold out to the digg users and posted the key and said:
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Yeah whatever, Kevin. I respected you more when you supported IP. This society we live in feels entitled to content just because it exists and to crack/copy it all we want because its easy to do and really doesn’t cost the IP owner anything.
Actually this is about respect. Respecting IP and content and the owners of the content. OK so HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is encrypted. So what? Oh noes, I can’t see the latest Will Ferrel movie unless I pay for it? What will I do with my life?
It is time for us all to grow up. If you don’t like the terms the IP holder puts forth, don’t buy their content. Communicate with them about why you are displeased, but certainly don’t copy it just because you can. Show a little more self control and self respect.
In the process, show the original owners of the content some respect for them to do whatever the hell they want with their content.
Jott is a new free service that lets you register a US or Canadian phone number with them, then you call a 877 #, speak who you want to Jott (”Me” or “Matt”) and record a 30 second jott.
The recipient then gets a text translation of what you spoke as well as a link to the original audio.
I don’t know how they plan to earn money - Maybe reselling email addresses, I’ll have to check their ToS, but its a pretty cool service.
I am a contractor for a major out of state university. In order to get expenses reimbursed, I have to fill out a form. An awful form at that.
They send me a link to the PDF file. I open it in preview and I cannot edit it. Fine. I download Acrobat Reader, which lets me edit the forms but it will not let me save the document, or print to PDF! I have to print it out and scan it back in to email it. ugh.
So now its weeks later and I need to mail in the real form. My Canon IPX 4200 printer is out of three inks. I check into various laser printers, etc and finally decide to just print the two sheets via kinkos.
Kinkos charges 11 cents per page, so two sheets is 22 cents. Except that they have a $1 minimal order. Fine. I have them print 9 blank expense forms. The order sheet informs me my print job will be done at 3pm, which is 3 miles away, but near the grocery store, so I’ll kill two birds with one trip.
At 3:30 I head to Kinkos and they say my job was “suspended.” After 20 mins of looking around, they finally decide to just print it on a laser writer. Only the expense PDF from hell prints out in Klingon. Its a mess. So I walk out with my one good sheet. Damn.
A highly recommended color laser is $280 and toner lasts a LONG time, but with the uncertainty of my job, I decide to spring for the $70 of ink, which carts have special chips on them that unless I want to mess around with knives and such, I am stuck paying $14/color.
I head off to the store and then home. I plug the 2 empty inks in (I bought all five because I am smart) and sure enough, the other three start blinking. Ok I replace those and the lights on the printer are happy.
Except the Airport Extreme N basestation isn’t. It can’t see the printer. Damnit. So I cycle the printer, unplug the power to the printer, unplug the USB, nothing. Says no printer. Apple discussions say to reboot router.
What the hell. I have people on Skype, etc, I can’t reboot my router just to make a printer or disk show up. Damn you Apple. Get some quality assurance on the Airport team ok? And fix the Sonicwall VPN issue too!
Anyway, I happen to have just set up my old Tibook as a PPC code test machine so I run the printer into that, download the canon drivers, reboot, turn on print sharing and I can finally print.
And yes, yours truly, your beloved geek, the one on the bleeding edge, just had to run it on his a) encrypted disk image and b) his mac book pro!
In both cases, DiskWarrior 4 found errors - Improperly named .journal files on the disk image and various icon and text encoding issues on the laptop, as well as giving me back 200mb of free disk.
Now compatible with Intel macs, this utility is (sadly) a must have for any Mac user. I’ve used Macs since Feb, 1984, so I know what I am talking about here.
If you do not own Disk Warrior, run to your nearest Mac retail store, or go to Alsoft and pick up a copy.
If you own an older version, upgrade! Support these guys. DiskWarrior 4 now repairs disk images and Apple’s file vault, which is a huge huge deal. You can upgrade at Alsoft’s website.
In an earlier posting, I complained that I had bought the 10th Season of South Park, only to later find that Apple had split the season into two parts, 10A and 10B. I was to only receive 10A.
Anyway, I complained to Apple and after several emails, they gave me $5 store credit. Which I used. Live and learn I thought.
Tonight I get a xmas gift from Apple:
Thank you for purchasing the South Park Season 10A Season Pass from the iTunes Store. We know that the decision to split this season into two parts created some confusion for our customers.
We strive to create a perfect experience, so iTunes is giving South Park Season 10B to everyone who purchased the South Park Season 10A Season Pass. To download these seven free episodes, click this link.
Ah yes, this is why I love Apple. Downloading all seven episodes now!
Firefox 3 Alpha 1 (Gran Paradiso) is out, using a new cairo based graphics engine. The layout is surprisingly different. My layout sucks for this sort of thing, so you can right/control click on the images and open in new windows if you’d like.
The iRobot virtual wall keeps a roomba inside of a room. Because Fizzgig took a tumble down the stairs, I decided to use the virtual wall to give it a better idea of where to stop.
The virtual wall shoots an expanding IR beam across a distance of 3 to 9 feet depending on its setting. However, there is a prism which splits the beam, aims it upwards and reflects it out via a half-dish mirror, so there is a circular protection zone around the virtual wall unit to keep Fizzy from running into it.
The problem is, at least with new batteries, this virtual hole is 3 feet in diameter!
So as a test, I did some low class tests and found that, just like in photography, toilet paper makes a good diffuser.
So I took a couple sheets, folded it over twice on one end to form a little bead, wrapped the bead around the reflector on top and twisted it at the back side.
I then angled the virtual wall unit down the stairs a little, just to move some of the widening beam off the stairs.
This video is the result: Watch (5.8mb, requires QuickTime)
So I charged the room, moved some chairs, unplugged my laptop and set roomba to work.
It rocks!
Ok its not a replacement for a full vac. But on a maintenance cleanup, it does a really good job.
It runs around banging into things, going under chairs, etc. I moved most chairs into the kitchen and it still went under them in there, getting crap off the kitchen floor.
It didn’t like the floor vent too much.
My discovery SE from woot.com came with the nicer caster wheel.
The roomba got stuck under the backside of my couch because the corner is slanted and it wedged the roomba so the wheels were off the floor. The roomba cycled 10 times and got free. Later, it hit the same spot, got wedged and abandoned cleaning.
I stuck it in the middle of the living room and did a spot clean to get what it missed.
This is what the roomba picked up in 45 minutes:
Update: I will make a time lapse video of the roomba working. Also, I plugged in its home base charger, powered it up, pressed SPOT + CLEAN at the same time and it beeped, spun, and docked itself for charging!
Boot Camp is Apple’s system for letting one install Windows XP onto a Intel based Mac. Boot Camp partitions your disk into two partitions, one for OS X and one for XP, creates a CD of drivers for XP and then installs XP.
I have a copy of XP that came from the launch. It has no service packs (major updates) so I can’t use it with Boot Camp. The Intel macs require SP2. So I spent $5 and ordered an XP SP 2 CD from Microsoft (how cool of them!). That arrived so I was ready to go.
I run Boot Camp and let it create my CD of drivers for the Mac hardware. Then Boot Camp tries to partition my disk, but it found disk errors! Well thats a nice side effect of this whole process, actually. So I boot into single user mode, run FSCK and I’m all fixed up (geek method which is faster than booting off the OS X installer cd and running Disk Utility)
I reboot and try to partition with Boot Camp again. No go. Now it can’t move some files. (ie, some files are so important to OS X they can’t be moved down into the OS X space so a XP partition can be created)
Well poop. So I boot off my external HD and run Boot Camp. Now it tells me I cannot partition an external disk. So much for that.
Next I run iDefragLite which I had never run, but owned as part of Coriolis’ iPartition package. iDegragLite ran overnight and when I woke up, the hard disk was nicely compacted with a huge block of free space at the end.
So I reboot from the internal drive and run Boot Camp. Success! I now have a 10gb partition all set up for windows.
I whip out my brand new Windows XP SP2 CD, insert it into the Mac and click “Begin Installation” Acccck. No go. “No installer CD found” Sheesh. Ok so I check on the CD and it just installs SP2! Its not a full installer CD, just for the damn service pack.
I run Boot Camp again where it kindly offers to delete Windows XP and restore the 10gb back to my Mac drive. I thank it and accept.
Yeah, that’s right. Doug Morris, one of the music industry’s enlightened ones, of Universal Music, says “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it”
Screw you, Mr. Morris. Screw Microsoft for caving into your licensing, too. What did Microsoft do, you ask? They agreed to pay Universal $1 for every Zune sold. Oh I’m sorry, you’re paying Universal $1 if you buy a Zune. Universal gets 50 cents an the remaining 50 cents is distributed to all of their artists equally. YEAH, RIGHT.
Oh and you don’t get any free music after paying your Universal tax, do you? Of course not, because you’re a thief and you have been found guilty by Doug Morris and the Microsoft court of appeals agrees. By purchasing a Zune you have signed the plea bargain in admitting you are a thief.
Next up? Who knows, maybe Doug’s buddies from the RIAA might be sending you a letter. You’re a thief after all!
