October | 2007 | Procrastinating in the Heat

Archive for October, 2007

Happy Birthday iPod

It’s kinda hard to imagine that six years ago Apple went into the digital music player business which at the time was a perceived as late comer to the game. Now Six billion tunes and millions of iPods later including a phone, the iPod is the unprecedented leader of the digital music player market. From zero market share to almost every popular music player out there it shows that anything can happen in this business.

Congratulations to Apple and the iPod.

2007: 10/24
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
ipod
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Something that should have been with the elite

Xbox 360 to get built-in HD DVD drive in late 2008? – Engadget

This is just so late. This should have been with the Elite that came out nine months ago. It’s like an unwanted child that was aborted at the last minute before they made the delivery. It might have made a difference where HD-DVD is at the moment. Yes, I know that the HD wars is far from over but the amount of money that I’ve spent on my Xbox 360 to get it into HD is probably the same amount that I would have spent to get a PS3.

And what does this do to all of us early adopters? Well we just got screwed over by Microsoft. At least I haven’t bought anything non-game related at the Xbox Marketplace only to discover that I can’t transfer any of it to a Zune (if I ever owned one). Let’s see how this pans out this Holiday. Maybe at the same time they would finally fix all those overheating 3RL errors.

2007: 10/22
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: videogames
TAGS: Elite
HD-DVD
xbox360
Zune
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Weekend Web 03

I missed last week’s Weekend Web segment here on my blog so I’m posting two sites which may prove useful to anyone reading this.

I’ll start off with the email verifier. This site will help you verify email addresses if they exist or not.

Next off is the for the Lego fan in you, here’s instructions on how to make an automatic toilet flusher using a Lego Mindstorms kit. The link leads to Engadget’s article on the machine.

Hope you all find the links worth your while.

2007: 10/21
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: Engadget
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You’re Under Arrest – Full Throttle

One of my favorite anime TV shows is finally on air. It’s the story of two traffic police women as they arrest traffic offenders on the streets of Tokyo. If the pilot is of any indication on how the rest of the season is going to play out and I will be very excited. If only we had those here, I’d be very happy.

2007: 10/20
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
TAGS: anime
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RIAA 1 / Listeners 0

RIAA trial verdict is in: jury finds Thomas liable for infringement

That’s the score as of last week based on cases where users who shared music on the net were prosecuted by music labels. Jammie Thomas, a single mother, with an annual income less than $50,000 was told by a jury to pay $222,000 in damages caused by her music sharing activities.

She will appeal the case and I will not be surprised if this case goes to the Supreme Court.

What have we learned here? Does the music industry that Jammie Thomas and others like her will buy more music legally now? They couldn’t even prove that it was her in front of the computer downloading all those songs.

If the music industry thinks that the only way they can recoup their losses due to people “stealing” music is by suing them. Then it is a sad sad world we live in. Face it music bosses, you are in denial. Adding DRM doesn’t make people happy. Using a format that plays only on one operating system (such as WMA) still won’t make me buy music that WONT PLAY ON MY MACINTOSH! Charging internet radio stations and podcasts outrageous amounts of money just to play your music on air isn’t going to help you sell more. All that money trying to sue individuals for sharing music should be spent on making digital music better. Buying more spots on radio and television so we’ll actually know that there is new music. Use the money to save the planet and all sorts of things rather than get back at the very people they expect to buy their music.

We’ll be watching this story very closely. And I’m sure this won’t be the last.

2007: 10/09
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
TAGS: DRM
music
RIAA
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Weekend Web 02

Sketchcast.com

Ever wanted to show that drawing or sketch to someone on the other side of the world your idea? The fancy diagram that you drew on the whiteboard now has to be sent to your co-worker in another timezone? Well here’s the site for you.

Sketchcast.com allows you to record a sketch with audio annotation. Share it with the world and embed the sketch on your blog or website.

Though most of the sketches posted there are not really that interesting. It is a unique way of showing your thoughts to the internet community.

2007: 10/07
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
TAGS: sketch
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What kind of Apple are we expecting?

Truce: iPhone 1.1.1ers | 9 to 5 Mac

When Apple released their 1.1.1 iPhone update, it basically removed all third party applications and reverted any iPhone to it’s original state. Thus any sim unlocking method use will require a valid AT&T sim card to re-activate the device or in some cases completely make the phone inoperable.

Now this has enraged a lot of people who bought the phone and loaded with another sim card. I myself am surprised by the actions that Apple has made in their decision not only to lockout those who are not on the AT&T service but remove the 3rd party applications as well.

It is understandable for Apple to lock the phones that are not running AT&T service since it is well known that they are getting a share of the airtime as well. They are bound by contract. But the 3rd party apps?

It is impossible to totally shut out 3rd party apps especially if you announced application development for the iPhone and SDK kit. There was already enough brouhaha regarding the ringtones which was supposed to be free but then the RIAA got wind of it and demanded that users pay for it. It doesn’t make sense that you just paid 99¢ for a song and now you have to pay another 99¢ for a third of the song in order for it to be a ringtone. That’s already the price of a TV show on the same store.

Apple needs to fix these issues with their iPhone. It may only be now that they realize that the telecom industry is a lot more complicated that selling songs and iPods. There is no lost love for the iPhone, it’s just we don’t like it and users will take their money elsewhere.