Inspirational Technology

Site in Spain to reign in MP3 playin'?

A new all-you-can-eat music download service that claims to take advantage of a loophole in Spanish copyright law will launch Tuesday and has teamed with Grokster for distribution. [CNET News.com]

This is an interesting twist on the unlimited download model. Great if you have broadband, not so great otherwise. Legal? Sounds fishy.

eMusic Adds Beggars Group

A couple days ago eMusic added a whole boat load of music from the Beggars Group of independent labels. Groups such as Dead Can Dance, Bauhaus, PJ Harvey, The Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Peter Murphy and many more. Tons of cool stuff that I've been overloading on over the weekend.

This is good news as it's been a rocky few weeks for eMusic. On May 1 they made some major changes to the service. On the good side they increased the quality of the files tremendously, going with VBR MP3s. On the bad side, they imposed the use of their, less then inspired, download manager and a new 45 track queue limit. At the same time they also had massive problems with their content delivery systems which made the service unusable for many people. Overall a none too impressive handling of a significant change in the service. It seems most of this is worked out and the new download manager is mainly an annoyance. However, It does provide an unfortunate precedent and sets the stage for further declines in the usability of the service. Fortunately, the service is so good otherwise it's tough to complain too much right now. I really hope eMusic continues to prosper. it's an incredible service. I'm absolutely loving all the great music that's available and the addition of Beggars Group is a tremendous boost. If you have any kind of an open mind toward music, eMusic is an absolute gold mine and definitely worth subscribing to.

Oh yeah, they've also started getting albums from Supraphon. An exciting source of classical music.

Napster reborn! Roxio buys PressPlay

No file trading, from sound of it [The Register]

A curious twist indeed. Hopefully they'll tweak the Pressplay model so that it actually works and then bring it to the Mac.

Microsoft to license SCO's Unix code

Microsoft agrees to license Unix after SCO Group sends ripples through the Linux industry with claims that its Unix code has been illegally incorporated into the open-source OS. [CNET News.com]

Hmm, I wondered how Microsoft was going to explain the money they're paying SCO to launch the lawsuit against IBM. ;-) Ahh, FUD and conspiracy theories, what fun.

XRA - developer release one.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been brewing an idea for a ubiquitous text watcher that integrates with the Cocoa text system ... [Michael McCracken - Weblog ]

This is a really cool idea that I've been wanting to see for a while too. I haven't quite gotten it to work since the one plugin in comes with depends on remembrance agent for emacs. I don't use emacs. However, it does run (just don't get any results) and the plugin interface looks really simple and could be useful for playing around with in other contexts.

Nerds Only: DIY MP3 toaster One...

Nerds Only: DIY MP3 toaster

One of my partners found this while searching for something else and thought I'd enjoy it. He was right. Business relevance? Well, if you can homebrew such a gadget for under $500 BOM cost over at Fry's and Target, it defines a tough benchmark for PC/CE convergence products. [Due Diligence]

Networking Frameworks Comparison

Stepwise reviews various Cocoa networking frameworks. “With network capabilities required by so many applications, Cocoa developers often wonder why Apple doesn’t provide a complete Objective-C solution for network programming... Fortunately, there are many third-party open-source solutions available.” [ranchero.com]

Cool, this is definitely a big question. Now we need to do something about that XML problem.

Tim Oren On No Exit

Tim Oren of Pacifica Fund has a great in-depth piece on why venture investors often like a company but won't invest. Many of the bigger disasters of the late 90's were good ideas that should have never been funded by VCs. Tim does a great job explaining why:

This is definitely worth reading for anyone starting a company and even thinking about going after some kind of venture funding.

NetNewsWire 1.0.2 Ships

There are three main changes in 1.0.2 (since 1.0.1): the news reader is faster, lots of bugs were fixed, and there are new weblog editor features for Movable Type and Radio UserLand users.

Thanks to everyone who helped with bug reports, feature requests, and other feedback! [ranchero.com]

Mining the Vaults

While I'm continuing my quest to rip my entire CD collection into MP3s I entered a rarely travelled portion of the collection tonight. It's the stuff that's always at the bottom of the rack and rarely listened to. Mostly rock compilation discs and a bunch of random discs that I picked up who knows where. Well, there is some killer stuff on these discs. In particular I discovered a totally obscure disc by Chris Burke called Idioglossia. I had no idea what was on this disc, but it is absolutely killer. It's very cool, very experimental, electronic music built almost entirely from samples. I've had this disc for years and I don't think I've ever listened to it.

Overall this is something that I love more then anything else about music on the computer. It puts all the music on an equal footing and all of it is at your finger tips. Random playlists and iTunes smart playlists that show all the tracks you've never listened to give you a view into the music that just isn't possible with a CD based collection. So far I've discovered so many incredible pieces in my collection that I had no idea were there.

I've always known I have a huge amount of music that I've never listened to, in fact I'm guessing I probably have at least 200 CDs that have never seen the inside of a CD player. Some are even still in the shrink wrap. For instance I own a copy of the Complete Mozart Edition. 180 CDs of everything that Mozart ever produced and while I've listened to large portions of it, there are a number of the opera boxes that I never bothered to open. I'm really looking forward to the day when all of that will be on the computer and it will be possible to explore any aspect of the music at any time without having to swap discs. In my opinion, this is the real revolution of music on the computer.

Apple service changes industry outlook

[MacNN]

A sign of progress, maybe the record industry might actually get it some day...

Editors' Newswire for 8 May, 2003

Newswire stories, including: Dave Pawson on XPath 2.0. [xmlhack]

Lots of complaining about the infection of XPath 2.0 by the XQuery working group. I fear we're going to be stuck with XML 1.0, XPath 1.0 and XSL-T 1.0 as everything coming after is to put it simply, scary.

I guess I'm adopting the perspective that as soon as W3C XML Schema touches something, it's doomed to whither on the vine. This is really too bad, XML is a tremendous tool, but its benefit is supposed to be simplicity. Using anything that W3C XML Schema has touched is just not simple.

Well formed XML is the useful core. You shouldn't have to pull in all that schema machinery to run an XPath against a well formed document. It will just bloat the size of implementations, books and headaches for little benefit. Schema support could have easily been partitioned out of the core of XPath 2.0 where it could fester and die from lack of real interest. Now the whole of XPath 2.0 will suffer that ignominious fate until someone defines an interoperable subset that jettisons all the schema garbage.

W3C XML Schema: Just Say NO!

NetNewsWire 1.0.2b7

A beta a day keeps the doctor away. This beta fixes a crashing bug in the Notepad and improves the layout of several of the Preferences panels. See the change notes for details. [ranchero.com]

Spring 1.3b2

Spring 1.3b2 is now available! This is beta software! It has bugs. Download it only if you're comfortable working with beta software.

Please don't link directly to the download. Link to this weblog item.

Release notes (plain text). [Robb Beal's Radio Weblog]

XML query specs edge closer to completion

They would allow collections of XML files on the Web to be queried like databases. [Computerworld XML News]

TEN! TEN!!!! TEN!!!!!!! Working drafts for XQuery/XPath 2.0. Man it just keeps getting worse. I'm curious does anyone really care about XQuery anymore? It certainly could be useful, but who is going to be able to implement it? Ugh, anyway, I'm glad to see they're adding full text, but it looks like updates are still missing. Oh well, it doesn't matter now.

Spymac iTunes Music Sharing

Spymac has created a directory for people sharing their iTunes music libraries. This is a fascinating use of this technology, and is very cool. Unfortunately, I suspect Spymac is just asking for trouble with it.

One kind of interesting thing about poking around in other peoples music libraries is how untidy they tend to be. Yet another cost of using P2P systems to get the files.

Tonight I went through and tried to replace the few P2P acquired tracks I have with legal copies from the iTMS. Not really very successful, I was only able to find five of the 20 or so that I looked for. All the tracks were for VERY popular music, this is the only thing I've ever bothered using P2P systems for. So I'd say the iTMS still has a way to go before it can be a good solution for replacing these things. Anyway, of the 7,715 tracks in my library, 18 are currently from P2P networks and will be replaced as soon as they're made available on iTMS.

I think my opinion of iTMS is changing. I still think it's too expensive and the DRM sucks, but it's just so damn easy to use. I swore I would never pay $.99 for a song, but so far I've bought 5 individual tracks and even worse 5 full albums through iTMS. This is the result of pent up demand and I won't be buying much else for a while since I really can't afford this right now. What albums did I buy? Heh, heh, 2 Eminem Albums, the 8 Mile soundtrack, Kruder & Dorfmeister G-Stoned and James Brown 20 greatest hits. The K&D and James Brown were impulse buys, the Eminem I'd actually wanted for a while.

One other interesting observation is that even though, in the last week, I've added roughly 1,800 tracks to my iTunes collection (I'm aggressively ripping my CD collection). 19 of the top 25 most played all time were purchased from iTMS. The other six were from eMusic.

Heartbreak of UI work

Heartbreak of UI work: Andrew Orlowski in The Register interviews interaction designer Gitta Salomon, and this quote cracked me up: "If you do this kind of work, everything bugs you. Your car, your cordless phone, your home entertainment system -... [JD on MX]

Oh man, is that so true. When I switched to the Mac I also picked up a new found interest in interaction design. Because of this I started reading everything I could find on the subject and the more I learned the more dissatisfied I became with the world around me. I'm constantly getting frustrated with the poor design on everyday things like doors, VCRs, TVs, just about everything. It really kind of sucks. It seems at least once a day I angrily declare something is a piece of garbage because its human factors are so poorly considered. Of course the most common thing you'll hear me say is "I hate computers", and I do. Computer usability is pathetic.

What's really so frustrating though, the flaws in computers run so deep that it's almost impossible to believe that you can do anything about it. Very, very, depressing.

Werbach on Post-PC

Post-PC When it rains, it pours. This has been quite a week for the emerging post-PC ecosystem. Apple introduced its iTunes music service, which is really more interesting for what it says about Apple than what it means for digital music distribution. Dell announced it is changing its name to remove the word "computer". And on Sunday, the New York times published a marvelous article by Steve Lohr about the evolution of the technology industry. The common theme is that the ecosystems of the personal computer and enterprise IT are maturing and giving way to something new. Or several new things. What comes after the PC isn't the Internet appliance, or the interactive TV, or the smart phone -- it's all those things and more. The underlying forces are irresistable. Moore's Law continues unabated, but for end-users today's processors don't feel that much faster than last year's. The market is no longer about putting a PC on everyone's desk, or about connecting that PC to the Net, or about wiring up corporate systems, or about giving people tools like email and Web browsers. Been there, done that. Smart companies like Dell, Microsoft, and Intel that have generated extraordinary wealth by riding the PC adoption curve realize that the ground is shifting. Dell's name change reflects the fact that it, like the others, is branching out to non-PC devices. But that's the least interesting of the three stories this week. New platforms such as handhelds, game consoles, and home media servers have been around for several years. Apple's iTunes service is more significant. Simply put, Apple is becoming a post-PC company. Everyone scratching their heads about how this will sell more Macs is missing the point. The Mac is near and dear to Apple, but the company has shown several times that it can jettison a core product -- the Apple II, the 68000 processor, the pre-OS X system software -- and reinvent itself. Apple is becoming something much closer to Sony: an integrated digital media company. Sony sells computers, but no one would call Sony a PC company. What it does best is create unique platforms and experiences, then market the hell out of them. That describes the new Apple as well. The heart of the company is the digital lifestyle, not a box. (I wouldn't be surprised if Sony acquires Apple, though similar deals have fallen through before.) And then there's the New York Times piece. Don't be mislead by the article's rhetoric about tech's "midlife crisis." That's the negative spin the Times' editors no doubt insisted on, because after all, how could anyone say positive things about tech these days? The point of the article is not that tech is dying, or that innovation is drying up. It's that enterprise technology is moving into a new phase. Bigger, faster, and more feature-laden are no longer selling points in the same way. Smarter, simpler, more efficient, and more flexible are the new criteria. It's much harder to make powerful system simple than to make them complex. The same issue arises in the consumer market. Apple has won plaudits for the user experience of its digital music service. That, more than a novel business model or better deal with the record companies, is what could change the market. EMusic had most of the same features well before iTunes. But there were personal computers before the Apple II, and graphical user interfaces before the Macintosh. Apple, especially under Steve Jobs, has a genius for user experience and promotion. In a post-PC or post-technology world, those are two essential skills. So, onward we go. This is a time of reinvention, not senescence, for the tech industry.

Thanks for the great analysis Kevin!

Hackers and Painters

Paul Graham compares people who write software to painters—they both make things. [ranchero.com]

This is a must read for anyone who builds software.

Central followup column

Central followup column: DevNet published this month's column, about the initial reactions to the Central announcement... Jonathan's got the pro, and I've got the con. Drop a comment here if you wish to wrassle out anything on these, thanks.... [JD on MX]

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Macromedia does with Central. I clearly see real value in a cross platform solution for a "beyond the browser" solution similar to what Sherlock and Watson provide on the Mac.

We had this before with the Marimba platform, i.e. Castanet and Bongo, but it was a little ahead of its time and based too much on being a way to simply deliver fat clients to the desktop. Now, I see the focus on tying into network based services as being much more compelling.

Music sales bounce Apple stock up 11%

via MacMinute: Following news of more than 1 million song sales, shares of Apple rose more than 11 percent Monday, gaining US$1.64 to $16.09 each on the Nasdaq Stock Market. [Mac Net Journal]

iMS XML

Tristan Louis has some musing on the XML format for the Apple Music Store. [Simon Fell]

It will definitely be interesting to see if Apple opens this up to other developers. As it is now you can't do anything with it due to the terms of service for using the iTunes Music Store.

iTunes store: More than 1 million sold

Apple's new online music store sold more than 1 million songs during its first week of operation, and analysts say it shows people will pay for downloads if given the chance. [CNET News.com]

Why is it that whenever the record industry complains about lost sales no one ever mentions the fact that the economy is terrible and that just about every industry is losing sales? In this article they did mention that it could be more because of the end of the vinyl to CD conversion, hmm I suspect that ended quite a while ago, but OK. Why won't people just call this for what it is? The economy stinks, people aren't buying as many non-essentials as they were previously (CDs are definitely non-essential), and let's maybe mention the fact that the record industry has been raising prices to go along with it. I was in Borders yesterday and decided to look in on the CD section, $18.99 and $19.99 for newer releases. Sorry, that's just too expensive, obviously there are much cheaper places then Borders, but this still shows how outlandish the full retail price on CDs is now.

Now I'm not sure if I want the Apple service to succeed or fail. On one hand I want it to succeed so that the record companies will finally see that people are actually willing to pay for digital music, but on the other I also want it to fail since the DRM crap is still too annoying. I don't know which is going to be better in the long run.

I'm curious how much Apple would have sold in the first week if there was no DRM, better then 128 Kbs files and a lower price? I know I certainly would feel a lot better about making an investment in the music purchased there and would have bought a few more things. As it is I feel uncomfortable with my purchase and it was only the sheer convenience of it that got me to buy anything at all. Apple did a phenomenal job, now if the music industry would just get the hell out of the way, maybe they could hit a real home run. Apple's solved the sales channel problem, now we just need to get to the point where we're not paying for what is an inferior and crippled end product.

Iconara DOM Framework 1.0

Iconara DOM Framework is a Cocoa framework for manipulating XML-data in applications, similar to JDOM and XOM for Java. Also contains a high-level interface to Apples XML-parser. [Studio Log]

This could be so useful...too bad it's a library released under the GPL. Instant uselessness.

Microsoft Rolls Out iLoo

[Slashdot]

Now that's innovation...

Interface Details: iTunes vs. Safari

John Gruber compares iTunes and Safari, and shows where Safari could learn a few things. [ranchero.com]

Billboard: iTunes Music Store "Overwhelming Success"...

Billboard: iTunes Music Store "Overwhelming Success" [MacSlash]

Well, like just about every other Mac user in the US I dove into the iTunes Music Store as soon as it was announced. I have two major impressions, one Apple did an incredible job on the technology and two the record industry still doesn't get it.

The integration with iTunes is beautiful and Apple truly has made the experience easy, maybe even too easy since you can set things up to buy things with no confirmation. I had things set this way, but changed my mind since my nieces sometimes use my computer now. I'd hate to see what would happen if they realized how easy it is to get songs from the Back Street Boys and such (assuming BSB is actually on the service that is).

From peeking under the covers a bit it looks like everything is XML and appears to use a REST style web services architecture. The responsiveness of the system (after the initial deluge of users) is extremely quick and this should really be powerful ammunition for people who want to complain about how XML is slow and bloated. This service in iTunes works beautifully, is quick and it's all XML behind the scenes.

One thing that's really unfortunate, even though Apple has used a very open mechanism for building the service, the agreement you must accept before using it prevents using any of the content for any other purpose. Very unfortunate, especially since Apple will see the revenue for all sales regardless of what channel it comes through. Having things like an RSS channel for new releases would be much better then having to visit the store to keep checking that. I'm not expecting Apple to provide this, though building one would certainly be easy given the way the service works. Oh well.

Now as for the record company involvement in all this. They still just don't get it. Everything that is bad about this service is the result of the record companies restricting what is available and how it can be used. In particular one thing that has absolutely driven me crazy is the number of partial albums on the service. Most of these seem to be missing maybe one track, but it's enough to prevent being able to buy the whole album at once. I generally like to buy whole albums and would continue to do so with this service if they were actually available. This is really pretty sickening and it really hurts the service.

Another thing that makes me sick is that the one track that I would want to buy individually, Days Go By by Dirty Vegas, is the one track off that album that isn't available separately. It seems the whole point of this service is to enable this type of purchase, but no the ultimate of one hit wonders forces you to buy the whole album to get their one hit. Bah, now they just won't get any of my money as I've heard other tracks off that album and they aren't that great.

Really though, problems like this run throughout the service. It's a huge, huge problem in genres outside pop music. Who wants to buy a single track off a jazz or classical album? Artists in these genres aren't about selling hits, they're about art and that art is in the form of an entire album. However, album after album of Jazz and classical are listed as partial albums. That's just useless and severely handicaps the service.

I give Apple a lot of credit for being able to get what they have out of the record labels. It's just too bad it's still not good enough. The DRM while vastly better then what's come before is still too much. The problem with it has nothing to do with today and everything to do with the future. It ties the music to a service and anyone who remembers the Circuit City DivX fiasco should know why this is a very, very bad thing. In this case the DRM isn't absolutely horrible and is easily defeated, but really it's just punishment for the people who are actually willing to pay for music and that's just sad and stupid.

I ended up buying a few things to try it out. Three albums and one single track. The experience is truly great. Unfortunately, I'm extremely worried about protecting my investment and I'm not comfortable with the current DRM scheme. I'll probably buy things every once in a while, but overall it's still not open enough to make me comfortable given the current pricing. Strip away the DRM and put the full catalog online and the service could be quite compelling. I still think the pricing is too high, but there's room to add value there to justify it. As it stands right now, you're paying awfully close to CD prices for less quality and that is not a good bargain. I guess if you like the kind of music where there's only one good track on a disc then it could be a better deal (assuming they'll actually sell you just that track), but for people who like real music by actual artists where the whole album is worth hearing, the service still isn't there yet.

Of course I'd still rather have a $10 per month unlimited streaming service, but that clearly doesn't fit with the Apple iPod strategy. If I actually owned an iPod I might feel differently, but I'm not too sure. I'd probably still rather have on demand access to a larger body of music with the option of buying the stuff that I really want to keep. Listen.com Rhapsody is still the closest thing available, but alas not on the Mac.

Mac Developer Directory

The new Mac Developer Directory is a place where developers can sign up so people looking for developers can find them. [ranchero.com]

The site seems to be having problems right now, but looks like it could be useful.