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Thursday, September 28, 2006
One minor annoyance with Windows Media Player is that it assumes I don't own any of my music. I usually use WinAmp but thought I'd see how well WMP11 Beta 2 was coming along and I noticed that in the List pane of Now Playing, when you hover your mouse over the blue arrow in the top-right it offers up a "Buy" button. You know, for when you want to rebuy the same song over and over and over and over. I already own the song, I do not wish to see a stupid "Buy" button cluttering up the UI.
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Friday, September 22, 2006
One of the software projects I work on involves printing color-coded, barcoded labels. Yes, exactly, the height of fun. Often I need to validate that a code change I just made hasn't completely messed up the rendering engine. Because resolution is a huge issue in things like barcodes I need to actually print through a printer driver vs. just doing a screen preview. Being a good recycling citizen I hate wasting paper, hence where Adobe's Acrobat Distiller and my cheap ass nature come into the picture. I like the concept of Distiller, I don't like paying for it. So, I took
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Friday, September 22, 2006
I've been watching the EU's crusade against Microsoft over the last year and each new development makes me shake my head more. The news that Adobe and Symantec have officially whined to Nellie Kroes, the EU competition commissioner, has propelled the whole issue into some kind of bizzaro fantasy land. The issue already had one arm in the straight-jacket when Nellie Kroes accused Microsoft of engaging in a smear campaign to cast her in a negative light. She was already doing that by herself as she displayed her tenuous grasp on the software industry and the actual concept of a free market.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Ways the Zune could rock: - Small/indie bands can embed info into the metadata so once the song gets locked people can still see things like their URL, so people can buy the music directly from the band. - Show up at location X and get some unreleased tracks from Band Y. Whether it's at a local gig or a promotional event (Warp Tour, X06, X-Games, etc.) - My mother-in-law plays in a Blues band and people are always asking for her CD's at gigs and sometimes she runs out. Instead she could share the tracks and keep the music fresh in
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
I hate DRM. It's one of the reasons I hate the whole iTunes + iPod + FairPlay trinity, that any music you purchase from iTunes can only be legally played back on an iPod. Yes, you can burn that music to disc and then rip it back but at the loss of some quality, time and materials. As much as I hate DRM I've been kicking around this whole concept that any music you share between Zunes will be limited to 3 days or 3 playbacks, which ever comes first, and I have to admit that it makes sense.
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Monday, September 18, 2006
Media is a very personal, ego-driven, expressive part of people's lives and so it stands to reason a media-player is going to arouse just as many emotions. Couple that with most geek's natural over-emotional, sensitive nature and you are in for a very passionate fight. Thoughts: Wireless There are so many wireless uses for the Zune that I don't think people have really "got it" yet. Get past the geek ideas of wanting to wirelessly download or wirelessly connect to every device you own and you have some awesome uses: - Go to a music store and get a music