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Archives for September 2006

The Weekly ‘Loper – September 24, 2006

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While you were relishing the fact that for the first time in your life you have a retort to “eat your spinach,” here’s what we were looking at:

  • Playing For One Night Only: The Fall Television Season – Many are called, few are chosen.
  • My Problem With iTunes 7 – Is different than other people’s problems with iTunes 7. Lotsa people having lotsa problems. As it turns out, perhaps the only person not having problems with it is Tim.
  • Microsoft Insider Clarifies Zune’s Sharing Limitations – or “Whoops. Remember that Thing I Blogged? About Zune Wrapping Everything Up In DRM? Well, Not So Much.” Considering the firestorm surrounding Zune & DRM, you wonder how long it’s going to be before Microsoft disappears the poor guy.
  • The DRM Virus Is Spreading – A Pandemic May Be Near – Home taping didn’t kill music. Used CDs didn’t kill music. Downloading didn’t kill music.
    Ironically, under the guise of “protection,” DRM has a better chance of killing music than all of these things combined.
  • Will Success Spoil YouTube? – A slightly paranoid question, to be sure. But I’ll still bet that, by the end of 2007, YouTube will feel totally different than it does right now.
  • That’s What I Like: The Office – Kassia hits the nail on the head when she calls it “one of the smartest, funniest, most painful shows on television.” I continue to think that it’s the best cover of an undisputed classic since Hüsker Dü’s “Eight Miles High.”

The Daily Loper – September 22, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

That’s What I Like: The Office

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About a week ago, I received a severance package. It was completely unexpected. You know, I thought I’d been doing a good job, so this blew me out of the water. However, if I keep getting packages like this one, I’m probably not going to be inclined to change my attitude or even work harder.

Yep, I received my boxed set of seasons one and two of The Office. All the deleted scenes, Dwight Schrute’s business card (you can call him), helpful swag. We’ve been training for season three with a vengeance, and it’s been fun catching up with the gang these past weeks.

For all my snark about not needing appointment television, you can bet that I was planted on my couch last night. Last night was the season premiere of The Office, and no way was I going to miss it. The Office, after all, is one of the smartest, funniest, most painful shows on television.

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The Daily Loper – September 21, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

Will Success Spoil YouTube?

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In the past several months, YouTube has gone from “wha?” to something mainstream enough to be the source of Jay Leno bits. The mainstreaming of YouTube has been formalized by the deal they struck with Warner Music, the first of no doubt several they will be striking with the music labels, despite the bluster from Universal.

Of course, they only faced two choices: go legit or go the Napster route. They went legit, and I get that. We all know what happened to Napster when they fought the power. And yet, I wonder if this means that YouTube has peaked in terms of cultural influence.

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The Daily Loper – September 20, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

The DRM Virus Is Spreading – A Pandemic May Be Near

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Last week we were startled to learn about Zune’s viral DRM system. As it turns out, the whole thing may have been a miscommunication on the part of Microsoft’s Zune Insider. But that doesn’t mean that Zune isn’t responsible for spreading the DRM virus. On the contrary, there’s mounting evidence that Zune is directly responsible for a mutation of the virus.

With the release of Zune, Microsoft has intentionally turned its back on its previous DRM standard – the PlaysForSure system. As a result, PlaysForSure partners are starting to drop support for Microsoft’s old DRM system in favor of their own proprietary DRM systems.

On Monday Real Networks and SanDisk announced that the Rhapsody music service will be switching from PlaysForSure to Real’s own Rhapsody DNA system. In an attempt to emulate Apple’s iTunes/iPod experience, SanDisk will release a new player that will be tightly integrated with the Rhapsody music service. The move is designed to position both companies against the upcoming Zune Marketplace as well as iTunes.

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The Daily Loper – September 19, 2006

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Today’s arrrrr-ticles of interest:

Microsoft Insider Clarifies Zune’s Sharing Limitations

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It’s been four days since we noted that Zune’s wireless file sharing sounds an awful lot like a form of viral DRM that may be in violation of the Creative Commons licenses. This afternoon Cesar, the Zune Insider, has stepped up to clarify his original comments:

I misspoke (mis-blogged) on last week’s post. We don’t actually wrap all songs up in DRM. Zune to Zune Sharing doesn’t change the DRM on a song, and it doesn’t impose DRM restrictions on any files that are unprotected. If you have a song – say that you got ‘free and clear’ – Zune to Zune Sharing won’t apply any DRM to that song. The 3-day/3-play limitation is built into the device, and it only applies on the Zune device: when you receive a song in your Inbox, the file remains unchanged. After 3 plays or 3 days, you can no longer play the song; however, you can still see a listing of the songs with the associated metadata.

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My Problem With iTunes 7

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So I downloaded and installed iTunes 7 last week, plugged in my iPod Nano, and I saw the strangest thing: all of my music had disappeared. It was there in iTunes 6, but not so much anymore. 4GB — 700 songs (that 1000 songs is a 128k joke) — had simply vanished. Gone like Kahoutek.

Except of course, it wasn’t: according to the space indicator, it was all still there, taking up room on the Nano’s hard drive. I had 3.72GB of something taking up space on my , it’s just that neither iTunes nor my Nano could find it. This, BTW, is exactly one of my fears about the already infamous Zune “three days / three plays” issue: the music stays on your hard drive, but is forever inaccessible.

So I said frack that, and restored the iPod, figuring that I would just start from scratch. After determining that it was all clear, I did what I’ve always done: used Windows Explorer to drag a file directly to the iPod window in iTunes, only, unlike every single other time in the last year I’ve owned the Nano, it didn’t show up. Oh sure, it took space, but wasn’t seeable as a song. Gee thanks!

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