Month: January 2009

Pay us to remove the DRM

I seriously don't believe this…

Apple has dropped DRM from iTunes — and is offering to remove their DRM from music you already bought for the low, low fee of $0.30 per song.

Why the hell should people who have paid for there music legally have to pay again to take the DRM off? I can't work out what's worst, buying DRM music or having to pay again to have the DRM taken off. Someone is taking the living piss out of the consumers who try to stay on the straight and narrow path.

Actually this reminds me of something else I saw the other day. Considering a life of crime by Euan Semple. Euan talks about how iPlayer and Audiable's restrictions are weakening his grip on the straight and narrow. Hey no wonder Usenet usage has grown exponentially. There's also estimates (not from the BBC of course) that the recent special of Top Gear was watched by over three times the amount of people online and outside the UK that on tv and iplayer inside the UK.

I got to say I also don't understand the point of paying 10 pounds a month for higher quality streams from iplayer. Something jars with my net neutrality thoughts, specially when I'm already paying over the odds for premium bandwidth and most isp's are not even giving you what they advertise let alone tricking you with there acceptable use policy. 

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A month into the Apple iPod Touch experience

Everyone knows i'm not the biggest fan of Apple products and services. So it was a shock when I went out and bought a Apple iPod Touch. I struggled from day one to do anything with it except turn it on due to the crazy notion that you must pair it with iTunes before it will actually work at all. There's a ton of tweets I sent out of frustration of this process. But how have I been doing since?

Well I tend to carry it with me everywhere because it slips into my pocket really well. I did have a shock when I saw the Sony eBook Reader on sale for 189 pounds the other day because I was thinking hummmm maybe i'd be better off with that. But then its not as portable and although it has a RSS reader, I doubt it can cope with my requirements.

The iPod Touch's shining and worst feature is the Apple App store. Its good being able to download apps quickly over a Wifi connection but its also painful to search (25 items at a time) and there's not enough information for somethings. For example I was looking for a decent RSS reader and the only way to really tell the difference was to try them out. So I tried out the Free ones and then spent 1.19 pounds (the only money I've spent on the App store to date) on a pay one which I used for 2 days.

Its also worth noting that many app authors create a Free version for you to download to get around the lack of a demo option on the app store. On Windows mobile you get apps like PC apps, demos which are time locked or cut down till you enter a serial number.

Then I switched over to Netnewswire because of its ability to sync with Newsgator on the web and on my Windows mobile phones. So I never end up reading the same news twice. But now how do I get my 1.19 pounds back for the app which I hardly use?  I'm also upset about the choice of ebook readers, maybe I need to pay out a load of money to test the paid for versions. But so far each ebook reader has its own storage container, so any new apps can't see the already uploaded ebooks!!! Yes maybe someone might create a decent ebook reader, but how would I ever know?

Multitasking on the iPod touch is painful!!! I hate this device for this thing. Here's a example of why, so I see a good news item and I want to email it to someone. I click the send via email button and it launches the mail app which I have setup. I send the email to the person (its usually stored in the outbox because I'm not online) then I have to click the one button to go back to the app menu then click the netnewswire icon again to re-start netnewswire. I have to do this everytime I want to send a message from Netnewswire and I got to say it becomes a bit tiresome after a while. Some real multitasking wouldn't go a miss, specially when I decide to have a ebook open and want to update my rss. Or even during the night, when I got the alarm set and want to use the ipod as a bedside night clock but also pull down rss during the night time.

I still can't put music on the device even if I wanted to because I'm not using iTunes and nothing I've found on Linux supports the iPod Touch v2 firmware even Hipo, Rhythmbox, Amarok, etc. When I connect it via USB it comes up on desktop as a camera device which Fspot wants to manage although it doesn't actually have a camera.

The keyboard input is still painful to use for me and I generally dread putting in my password to get updates from the app store. I also got to say the way it asks you if it can use your location is good but it would be nice to have a don't ask me again option. For all the fuss about the multi-touch I have used it a couple of times in my current ebook reader to zoom in a bit. Some apps like the first RSS reader I had don't even allow you to do it so its a real inconsistent experience. Something I'm sure Apple would love to stomp out.

The Wifi can be spotty too, sometimes my Windows mobile devices can see wifi that the iPod doesn't, but whats worst is if you get a wifi point which requires web page authentication like BT Openzone, The Cloud, Tmobile, etc. Safari will not attempt to navigate to that holding page. Instead it sits there like a lemon moaning theres no internet connectivity.

So overall, the iPod Touch makes a reasonable RSS reader device. Its true I'm reading tons more RSS that ever before but the move to Newsgator also had its part to play in that (although now i'm looking for a Linux Newsgator compatable reader). The screen makes a good ebook reader but the software is far off the mark. The best I can find can open pdfs and text files. I then have to use another app for chm ebooks and another one for .mobi ebooks. The first one doesn't even support reformatting of PDFs, so you can't really zoom in for that super fast reading. Once this is solved, I'll be happy and the ipod touch will have done everything I've bought it for. Although I got to say if ebook reader hardware got better and more open, I'll trade in the ipod touch no problem.

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HMV now stock the Pacemaker

HMV now stock the Pacemaker

In a very surprising move, Tonium has done a deal with HMV to sell the Pacemaker on there site and in selected stores. This is great news, because finally the device will be available outside of the pro dj shops and in the hands of the general public. I do however wonder if people will understand it without some direction or some time in such a busy shop? Oh well its yours for only 399 pounds now, which isn't bad if you consider how much I paid for mine back in May 2008. At least I can claim braggin rights with number 211.

Oh if you've ever wanted to see whats actually in the pacemaker, someones actually taken it apart [1] [2]. Here's how to do it.

The case is held together by two sets of pins on opposite sides.

If you attempt this yourself, gently pop one side off, then even more gently wiggle the other side off. If you've ever yanked a laptop hard drive, you know the side-most connector pins will get bent if you rush it.

The twin chips are each 512mb of RAM. The spotted one is possibly the Freescale i.MX31L. The spots run to indicate moisture damage. The uppermost chip is audio power management. I didn't look underneath the hdd's ZIF connector as it's really fragile.

The USB and phones boards are tightly secured to the back piece. All of the jacks are snug against the pc boards and i didn't notice any weak solder points.

Looking at the front piece, you can see that everything is screwed tightly to the chassis and backed up further by the hard drive and battery. This means no buttons to break off and push in and nothing to jiggle loose.

Beautiful work Tonium.

As expected its pretty straight forward because the guys behind it only had off the shelf “standard” components to work with. There's already talk about replacing the Samsung HS122JB hard drive with a ZIF comptable Flash Drive on the forum. But the biggest challenge is software it seems. People are trying to build replacement ways to get music on and off the device without the editor. The best attempt so far is the Pacejacker software, which is written in Adobe Air and allows you to alter the song names, genres, etc without touching the files. I'm convinced once this device gets more into the public, your going to see much more hacking on it.

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A few points about going clubbing

I love going clubbing, everytime I go, I remember what I'm missing in this weekend world. Anyway, there's a few things which do bug me about the experience. And seeing how I just got back from Gatecrasher NYE in Bristol's Syndicate Club, I thought I'd share a few of them before going to sleep for most of New Years day.

  1. I don't like it when I go to a club and the bouncer/door person looks at me and asks if I know what's on tonight. This has happened at a few places including Gatecrasher, where the door man asked me and without letting me answer started jumping side to side clicking his fingers saying something about it being a hard house night. I replied with “ummm no its a trance night.” And he says “all the same to me…”
  2. I don't understand why the door people make a big fuss about whats in my little bag but fail to check my pockets or even do a quick body search. If I was carrying drugs why would I put it in my bag? And a weapon could be tied into the lining of my motorcycle jacket easily.
  3. I don't understand why I MUST check my bag into the cloakroom but woman are allowed to carry huge handbags around with them?
  4. I don't like being followed through a club like I'm public enemy number one. And if your going to watch me, don't stand beside me or just behind me, its too obvious and surely a hour or so of doing must be boring, even if you swap now and then with another.
  5. Plastic bottles are good, they stop people killing each on the dancefloor, woman can wear baare feet and club generally. But they make a terriable mess on the dancefloor because they get slidey when crushed
  6. What is it with Lazers, there amazing but only on for 2mins max at a time and there no longer pointed towars the crowd. Even from a safe distance. And whats with the lack of programmes?
  7. The guy who stands in the toilet all night. I don't like it, there always usually african and get abuse from drunk people. I also sometimes just want to get out of the stinking mens toilet as fast as possible but can't because I can't dry my hands till the guy gives me a paper towel and then I need to leave a tip or be rude. In actual fact, that exchange is a influencing trick, where someone does something small for you and then you reicplicate at a much higher cost that the first action.
  8. I don't expect to get the piss taken out of me on a new years eve when getting a taxi back home. They wanted 40 pounds for a journey (town to Fishponds) which is shorter that the journey I took 2 days ago (Clifton to Fishponds) which cost about 15 pounds. In the end I walked from town to Eastville because I also missed the night bus which only came once every hour
  9. What stupid rule is it it that you can't use a dayrider (all day all buses faire) on a night bus, the following morning. Bristol sort out the public transport
  10. Why make a back door exit into a smoking area in a club? The cold air blows into the club and it starts to smell smokey again. This is not good, at least put something between the outside and inside. I've gotten so use to going clubbing and coming home smelling slightly sweaty but not like I've just walked through a forest fire.

That will do for now

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