iPad

Although it's late I felt perhaps I should get my own thoughts down as it pertains to Apple's announcement of the iPad.

Let me first say that I was not overwhelmed nor underwhelmed by the device I am simply interested. Maybe it's because I don't have many of the hangups that others have such as no multitasking or video conferencing and that it's not based on OSX. Right now I am more focused on what I can use it for and comparing it to other devices that do similar task such as the Zune HD and the Kindle. I bought a netbook and while I like it I agree it's underpowered and I don't use it for even browsing the web on the couch like I thought I would, actually I tend to use my iPhone instead.

I won't go much more in depth because after all I am typing this late and on my iPhone and sending it via email to my blog. So will I buy an iPad, the answer is simple, I am not contemplating if I should get one but which one should I get? I like the idea of 3G but not the monthly cost and I question if I'd ever really be using it outside of Wi Fi range (I do after all still have that iPhone). So at this point I just need to figure how it will work for me and be used in my technology world and take it from there.

I'll close by saying that while there is a lot of dislike out there I ask you to remember when the first iPhone was released for $600 without an app store. At that time it was hailed as the second coming and if I've learned anything since then it's that Apple makes cool stuff that's fun to use and right now that's good enough.

Why So Sirius?

I love it when I mull over something (especially technology) forever and when I finally take the plunge and buy whatever it is I'm buying I realize that yes indeed it was the right decision. This time it is of course Sirius Satellite Radio.

My interest in Sirius began this summer, however by the time I figured out how much it was going to cost me I decided that I could probably pass on it. At the time it seemed like one of those things I just "wanted" which is often the case with me. Not set to just leave it be I found a way to enjoy Sirius without that major cost, Sirius Internet Radio. I used Sirius Internet Radio for most of the summer while outside and it was pretty good, a very good selection of music without commercials.

There are a variety of alternatives to a paid service like Sirius, two which come to mind are Pandora and Last.fm and of course your own mp3 collection is a pretty good alternative as well. While I use both Pandora and Last.fm they tend to play artists and songs that you know already and your own mp3 collection is songs that you already own. The bigger issue with your mp3 collection is that it can be pretty large and unless your going to spend time making all the right play lists you can spend allot of time skipping songs rather than listening to songs.

Listening to Sirius Internet Radio was a pleasure and the song selection on your channel of choice is usually good enough to keep you listening and enjoying it. When the summer was over I switched to listening at work and with football season in full swing began listening to ESPN and Sirius NFL radio.

Just last week while listening a banner popped up on the web player with "great deals on radios" so I decided to give it another look and it turns out I found a pretty good deal. Sirius was offering me a Stratus 6 with Vehicle Kit AND a Free Home Kit for about $65 so I took the bait. I figured at that point that the radio was pretty much free and if the home kit would work in my office at my work I could get Sirius NASCAR coverage (which you can't get online) just in time for the new season to kick off.

After just a few days of listening I can say that I'm hooked, you just can't listen to normal radio after listening to satellite radio. Thankfully the home kit install was easy and the one window in my office faced the right direction and the car install was pretty easy as well.

I already have my favorite channels and my daily listening schedule of CNN in the morning then off to ESPN with The Herd, then NASCAR around 1 p.m. and music after 3 p.m. As for the music channels, I'm still sampling the various channels (though I already have my favorites) and I just discovered "The Pulse" channel 12 tonight!

The radio that I bought is your basic starter model and I'm already planning to upgrade to the Starmate 5 so that I can get the ability to pause and rewind and program the radio to switch to programs at certain times.

Needless to say I am enjoying Sirius very much at this point and while I can't really say that I should have done this a long time ago, circumstances were different with it a few months ago, I kind of wish I did. If your contemplating Sirius check it out at the very least online to sample the channels and my guess is you'll get hooked just like I did.

2010 - The Year I Completely Abandon the CD.

To be fair I can't remember the last time I actually USED a CD other than to rip it onto my hard drive and I can't remember the last CD I bought for myself, but up until now they've still kind of stayed around.

When I began to rip my CDs onto my hard drive I started putting them away, so most of my CDs have already been packed and placed out of the way. Yet a bunch still remained, mostly CDs of artists I don't listen to anymore or ones that I have 5 CDs that have been replaced happily by a Greatest Hits compilation, however up until today they were simply just taking up shelf space in the office (okay toy room).


This past weekend I packed up the balance of those CDs, leaving behind a small stack that needs to be ripped onto the hard drive and leaving out a few of those "collector" case CD's for display. One bane of existence remains however - my wife still uses CDs!


How is it that someone such as myself has allowed this to happen? Well to be fair we tried once to rectify it with one of those FM Transmitters but really do those ever work? So with no real way to connect an MP3 player to her car stereo she continued to use "gasp" CDs. This is evident with one of the remaining stacks of empty CD cases of which the CDs are in one of those cases that hold CDs on the go (really why do they even sell those anymore, actually do they?).


This year I am determined to change her life! I guess we'll need to look into replacing that stereo finally but at this point at least they don't cost as much anymore. We already have an available MP3 player for her to use, and of course she already has her phone as well.


So yes its about time to get this done.

It's much easier now to abandon CD's since most places you can get music digitally you can now get it without that pesky DRM. Both places I use which include Zune Marketplace and iTunes offer DRM free purchases so no matter which store I buy it at I can easily play it on the other stores player and/or software. I also really enjoy the convienence of the Zune Pass on the Zune Marketplace (but that's another blog post).

It's funny I alway's worried that my CD's wouldn't last forever, that something would happen to them and they'd become unplayable. Turns out something did happen to them, they became irrelevant.

iTunes DRM

For the longest time I never used iTunes, yet after the last major upgrade to iTunes (version 9) I began to use it much more, and even started to really enjoy using it. Perhaps owning a Macbook and an iPhone (and all that time I spent getting apps from the app store) has helped.

Something else that has helped was an important change within iTunes to DRM associated with music. Previously you purchased music through iTunes and you played it on your iPod and iTunes, and nowhere else. As someone who's never been an iPod user that really never worked for me. Nowadays you can buy DRM Free music on iTunes and send it to whatever MP3 player you like, so now I can enjoy my music in iTunes but also send it over to my Zune as well. That small change makes deciding to purchase music on iTunes that much easier.

Although music has gone DRM free TV shows and movies still have not (along with Audiobooks). Adding to the fact that TV and Movies are not DRM free is another strong caveat, once you download a TV show or movie you can't download it again without REBUYING it. That is a pretty strong DRM agreement. Let's say you download a TV show and you accidentally delete it before watching it, in that case you will have to rebuy it! Since everything is tied to your account they should let you redownload it through a purchase history or something like Zune and Xbox allow (although thats not always a safe bet either) but in iTunes that is not the case.

So I thought about this long and hard, especially since I most recently decided to make a pretty extensive purchase through iTunes. On one hand I understand and appreciate the rules, on the other had I loathe them. At least you know, if you screw up, its your fault and this makes backing up your purchases THAT much more important. Homesharing (introduced in iTunes 9) makes that a little easier if you have two seperate computers running iTunes. In that situation you simply just make sure you duplicate your purchases; if you don't then at least back them up to an external hard drive.

So what if you don't back up? Well you should and if you're not your running at risk all the time. Simply put if you lose it, you lose it, don't bother calling. At first I didn't think that was right, but after I thought about it longer I realized that if you buy a DVD at Best Buy and throw it in the garbage Best Buy is not going to give you a new one, you need to BUY a new one. With iTunes its the same way. Understandably this is the digital age and we should at least have some protection against a failed hard drive or an accidental delete but with iTunes thats not the case. Now it could very well be that restrictions placed upon this content from the studios is what is forcing Apple's hand and after all we know that the studio's still don't get the whole DRM thing so that's probably not far from the truth.

The funniest part to all this DRM is that in the middle of this all is the app store, a place where if you do happen to delete a program you can redownload it again for FREE! Its nice to see that music has gone DRM free and we can redownload apps, if we could get video to adopt one of those things would be that much better.

In closing if you use iTunes you're probably happy with it and as long as you do your backups your purchases should be safe. Lets face it iTunes users and dedicated users and after all have you browsed the iTunes store recently, its SO much fun!

Zune and 360 Marketplaces – Just Dating

One of the coolest things that was sort of flying under the radar with the new Xbox 360 update today was the convergence of the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace.  The past couple days I tried to find information about how this was going to work, because what little I knew had gotten me excited.

I have not bought much on the Zune Marketplace in the means of videos but I had bought a bit on the Xbox Video Marketplace so the idea of getting all that content to my PC sounded pretty cool, also the idea of streaming that content from the Xbox servers was also pretty cool, especially when you are a multiple 360 household.  So it was with much excitement that I entered today.

What I’ve found is that these two marketplaces are far from being “converged”.  I knew going in that the Xbox Live Marketplace had MUCH more content than that of the Zune Marketplace so I didn’t expect Microsoft to open up a world of content in a day.  What I did expect was that at least the content that I had purchased on the Xbox Live Marketplace that was available on the Zune Marketplace and that shows in my purchase history would now be available for download, so far this has not been the case as it is not allowed.

After a little test purchase I made I did find out that it does work that way with new purchases for the most part.  I made a purchase of Land of the Lost episode 1, downloaded it to my 360, then downloaded it to my PC afterwards.  I have yet to test the sync to my Zune 80.

The content that I had purchased through Zune Marketplace however was available to download to my 360 without any trouble.  So it does appear to at least work in one direction.  Maybe Microsoft is still working out some of the kinks.

The other thing I thought would be nice would have been the ability to stream content I had purchased already to a different 360 with my account without downloading it, alas for much of my content this is not the case, it will work however for that Land of the Lost episode and the item that was purchased from the PC Zune Marketplace previously.

It does appear that making purchases on the 360 is the place to do it as before you make your purchase it will tell you exactly where your content will be allowed, if it can be streamed, downloaded to your Xbox and downloaded to your PC and Zune.  Content that is not available on the PC Zune Marketplace is evident as it will only say you can download to your 360.  I did not see this on the PC side but I didn’t really try to make a full purchase on that side either so it may be there.

I’m not complaining here as its day one of this convergence and its a big step in the right direction but after spending a little time with it tonight there’s quite a way to go.  I will say that if this convergence comes together a bit better  I will be much more willing to make more purchases.

One last thing I’ll say is that with the new Zune branding everything you ever downloaded shows up in your library now if its on your hard drive or not.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that and I didn’t think I’d like it but in a short time its growing on me.

I like that the Zune brand is now out there more, I’ve been a big Zune supporter for awhile and hope the brand can get more recognition this way as its well deserved.  If Microsoft can continue to work on this it can really be a powerhouse in the future.  No one is ever going to topple Apple and iTunes but today was a step in the right direction.

Maybe an engagement next year with a wedding to come soon after that.  Until then these two are simply just dating.

Living in High Definition

About five years ago my father in law was shopping for an HDTV. I helped him out, the deal was too good, and I bought one too.  That was my first HDTV, it was a 42 inch rear projection LCD.  Its a great TV, still is, but rear projection TV’s have fans in them and I could never get over hearing the one in mine.  So a little over a year ago I replaced it with a 46 inch Vizio LCD.  I had bought a smaller 32 inch for the bedroom prior, which was moved to the living room later, and really liked it.  I really liked the upgrade, but of course it wasn’t perfect.  It was becoming my “thing” with getting an HDTV, nothings perfect.

The Vizio was where I watched most of my TV, the Sony was moved to the “toy” room but it also became where I started to watch a lot of football since September.  About a week ago I got a great deal on a Panasonic 50 inch Plasma I had been eyeing.  A year or two ago my dad got a 50 inch Panasonic Plasma on Black Friday and I’ve loved it ever since, it has such a great picture.

Needless to say I don’t have a lot of TV’s but they are all now High Def.  That 32 is now back in the bedroom as well.  On top of that, where the TV’s are now have lessened their deficiencies. I love the picture  on the plasma, its like nothing I’ve ever seen before!

Its like the DVD player, eventually you knew you’d have one in every room.  I’ll say that although I have a few the prices have always been the reason why.  Of course my wife is still not happy with the much larger TV she has in her living room (and a TV on a TV stand even looks bigger than in an entertainment center) but she’s getting used to it.

Windows 7 and IE 8

So the Windows 7 upgrade went smoothly for the most part, I had to locate my video card driver on my own (annoying) but the install was done in about a 1/2 hour.

Needless to say I am enjoying Windows 7 so far, there are little things that maybe don’t make things faster but just make things a bit easier and more fun. 

The first thing is the taskbar and how it works with Windows 7 products like Internet Explorer 8 and Zune 3.0.  It’s cool to be able to hover over the IE8 taskbar icon and see what web pages you have open and go right to them.  Sure it’s similar to tab browsing but it just feels more fun to do it that way.

Actually the taskbar in and of itself feels more useful because of this little trick since you can easily and quickly see what any of your open programs are doing at any time.

Zune 3.0 for Windows 7 along with IE 8 also have “jump list” items attached to them so you can do things like jump right to a web page before IE 8 is open or resume playing or shuffle music in Zune quickly.

I’ve been a pretty dedicated user of Firefox for a long time, but I have to say using IE 8 (64 bit) and using things like web slices and suggested sights has been fun.  IE 8 seems to crash a bit more than Firefox ever did but I switched to IE 8 64 bit now to see how that works.

Still early with both but so far really enjoying it.  If your thinking of making the switch to Windows 7 and you’ve got the hardware to do it (pretty much any PC running Vista) I say go for it!