Category Archives: Entertainment

Would you pay more for DRM-free music?

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With Steve Jobs’ recent Thoughts On Music article mentioning that Apple would drop DRM in a minute if the record companies would buy in to it, I was wondering if people would be willing to pay more for non DRM’d music.

What if you could buy songs at tierd pricing based on compression quality and DRM preference, like this?

  • DRM included and the same level of compression that you see today with online music stores = 89 cents.
  • DRM included and a lower level of compression = 99 cents.
  • No DRM and today’s compression = $1.09.
  • No DRM and no compression $1.19.

Make up your own pricing structure instead of the numbers I made up above.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about that. I’d like having the choice, but if things got too expensive it would probably drive me back to purchasing CDs for most of my music and only using the online stores for the times when I am looking for something and have to have it right now – the “instant gratification” stuff.

I’d love to see not only the DRM dropped, but I’d also like to download everything with no, or lossless, compression.  I’d go as high as $1.09 for non-DRM, no compression music downloads, so for me it would probably all come down to price.

Microsoft’s best product – abandoned

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Anyone have any idea why Microsoft let the UltimateTV die? I’ve been in the IT field for almost 21 years now and their are not a lot of MS products that rank up there high on my “wow” scale, but UltimateTV was one of them.  (Exchange2003, SQL2005, and Windows2003 are a few of the better products)

I realize that you had to have DirecTV to use it, but it sure seemed to be as good, if not better, than Tivo at the time. I always thought that they should have made a model that worked along with cable as well. The final straw for me was HDTV. Once I purchased an HDTV I wanted more and more HD content. DirecTV didn’t have much HD content and they were a year away from providing my locals in HD. That was the final straw that pushed me back to Comcast, but the 6412 HD DVR that Comcast provides is the worst DVR I have ever used. Very, very slow. At times just changing channels is an exercise in frustration.

But, this is not about the Comcast DVR, this is about what a great device UltimateTV was. They eventually came out with a patch that increased the performance, which was one of the last things I wanted out of it – except for HD. So the speed was good, dual tuner support, picture in picture, and a nice Guide. It easily passed the “wife factor” in terms of ease of use and series recording was simple. The UltimateTV did a great job at managing its own space, something the Comcast DVR seems to struggle with as it gets slower and slower the more HD content you have on its hard drive.

My favorite feature of the UltimateTV was the fact that you could add a larger hard drive if you really wanted to.

I never realized what a great product UltimateTV was until I was forced to use the Comcast DVR from Motorola. Hopefully Microsoft took the UltimateTV technology and incorporated it in to the XBox360 as their new television feature that is slated to be released around the 2007 holiday season. That could be the thing to put an XBox360 in my house.

Stealing is still wrong, right?

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sr60.jpgTrying to explain to a 6th grader that most of that “free” music they are downloading for that new MP3 player is illegal is a conversation one should never have to have, but unfortunately it happens.

To me it’s very simple, very black and white – unless the Artist or record company is giving it away, consider it stealing. What’s unfortunate is the peer to peer (p2p) technology used in products such as Limewire, Morpheus, or Soulseek is excellent, but so much of what you find online is violating copyrights, that it is hard, if not impossible, for that 6th grader (or her parents) to know what is OK to download and what is not.

Personally I choose to buy all of my music, but for every one of me that buys the music, there are 99 others that chose to steal it. And this isn’t just about kids. These are adults; your friends, neighbors, people you’d think were just normal people that would never commit a crime, but when it comes to stealing music they don’t seem to feel that it’s wrong. If it’s “up there” and I can just download it I’m not doing anything wrong.

I also see the other side of this where p2p is a great way to discover new music you may have never heard about from any other source. I’ve heard stories from people that say that they went and bought a CD once they downloaded a band’s music because they thought it was so good. If I was in an unsigned band you better believe that I would be dumping our songs all over the Internet to gain exposure.

People say that the music industry is flawed. I don’t know enough about it to argue either side, but I do know that as much as people complain that the artist gets very little of the money from the sale of music, they are getting even less when you steal it. For many it comes down to a moral dilemma. For me it’s just bad karma, so I’ll keep on purchasing the music I want to listen to.

Let your conscience be your guide.

Foxtrot: My days will never start out the same again

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foxtrot3.jpgToday marks the last daily strip of my favorite comic, Foxtrot. Every morning when I get up, the very first thing I read on my Yahoo front page is Foxtrot. It’s made me laugh for years and I’ll miss it 6 days a week. Thankfully the Sunday edition will still get produced, so the entire week won’t be shot.

Good luck to Bill Amend on his next great endeavor. I’ll miss his work.

I was forced to see Dreamgirls

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movieticket.jpgI am not a big fan of Broadway shows and musicals. Just not my cup of tea. But my wife and I set out early today to see a movie before our vacation ends, and Dreamgirls was the only one playing at the time we arrived at the theater.

By the time it was over, we had both given it a 9.5 out of 10. It was an excellent movie, and Jennifer Hudson (remember her from American Idol?) was amazing. We’re fans of American Idol but neither of us remember her having that big of a voice. She made the movie. Another big surprise was Eddie Murphy. He was fantastic. I’d actually see Dreamgirls again.

So, although it wasn’t my first choice (or second, or third), I’m glad we went to see it. I think it was the best movie either of us have seen all year.

Oh, uh, Amanda – when did you get back?

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amanda-congdon.jpgI guess I should come clean. You introduced me to video blogging. I felt for you when the Boom was lowered. I followed you across America. But we kind of drifted apart and I thought we were on a break, so I started seeing other people. Don’t be upset, it’s not their fault, but it really hurt when you left and Joanne and Lala were there to fill the huge void that you left in my life.

But now you’re back and I can’t just turn away – you were my first. Without you I would still be watching reruns on Network television instead of Rocketboom, Tiki Bar TV, Ze Frank, and Digg Nation. So I’ve subscribed to your new adventures; ABCNews and Starring Amanda Congdon, and hope that all of us can coexist peacefully together. I’m willing to give this another try if you are.

Welcome back Amanda – it just wasn’t the same without you. Oh, and I wish WordPress.com offered whatever Theme you are using over at AmandaCongdon.com because it is exactly what I am looking for.

Opera web browser now available on the Wii

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opera.jpegPretty cool.  Nintendo, with the little game machine that could, has not only brought in a very cool way of playing games to our house, but they have also snuck in email (via the Mii channel) and now web browsing using the Opera web browser.  Very smart, Nintendo.

Since I am on vacation I took the liberty of trying a few web sites to see how far I could get.  My own site (the one you are reading now) works fine.  Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2003 works great as well.  The Citrix Web Interface lets me login to the interface, but you can’t select any of the icons that launch published applications.  I didn’t really expect that to work, but I  figured it was worth a try.

I’ll have to hop back on it later and see if sites like GMail and Google Reader work.  I can’t say that this would become my preferred way to use the internet, but it’s kind of nice to have it there if you need it.  Right now the Opera browser is free because it is in beta testing, but long term Nintendo should not try to charge for it as I don’t think it would drive people to purchase a Wii.  Keep it free – as in beer.

What does snow in Africa have to do with Christmas?

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dtkic.jpgA lyric that has always bugged me is in the Band-Aid song “Do they know it’s Christmas?”  It’s the part where they sing “and there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time.”  I mean, I get the reason for the song and the money that they raised, but I’ve always secretly had my doubts that they really get any snow in Africa at all.

After a little Google searching it looks like they only get snow high up in the larger mountains, so unless you live atop Mt. Kilimanjaro you almost never get any snow at Christmas at all in Africa, so what’s the big deal?  Why that stupid line in the song?  I mean, I was over it.  I had moved on.  Bob Geldof was forgiven.  It was a long time ago.  Then the Bare Naked Ladies (I think) covered the song and it was like it was 1984 all over again.  I guess I never really got over it.

The Wii does weather

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wii.jpgToday the Wii grabbed our attention because its drive slot was pusling a blue color. When I turned it on it told me about the new Forecast channel and offered to doanload an update. Pretty slick, as we can now check the weather across the globe. Oh yeah, there is a Globe option where you can grab the planet and spin it around as you need to to find the place where you want to check the weather.

Not sure how much I’ll ever use this feature, but it is nice to see Nintendo pushing the Wii to do more than just play games. Rumor has it that we should see a beta version of the Opera web browser out for the Wii some time this Friday, which is slick, but long term they need to come out with a keyboard or a better way to input data in to the Wii as selecting letters one by one with the remote will become a pain over time.

If you don’t have a Wii yet you need to stand in line and get one. Today the extra nunchucks that I ordered showed up and now we can play against each other with a few more games. As soon as the remaining remotes show up we should be able to play a little 4 person tennis. This thing is a blast.

Did you get yours yet?