Music

Amazon MP3 Store

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Since the iTunes store opened, I have been a customer. I have bought a bunch of music from the store over the years. I have still bought regular CD’s but recently that has been happening less and less. Out of all the online buying options I liked that Apple’s AAC format’s DRM would allow me to burn regular CD’s. But recently I have ran into issues with that option. I have wanted to play music bought from iTunes on my Nokia phone. In order for me to that I have to burn the music to a CD and then rip it back to iTunes as an MP3. By doing this I would lose quality. I knew this when I bought the music in the first place, but I didn’t think I would need to do the conversion ever so I figured what the heck. Well fast forward a few years and if I bought all my music as CD’s and just ripped them as MP3’s I wouldn’t be in this situation.

I know that the iTunes store does offer some MP3’s without any DRM, but the issue is the store only offers SOME MP3’s. I haven’t found a song I want to buy from iTunes that was in MP3 format. About a week ago I checked out the Amazon MP3 store. I have heard about the store since it came out, but the ease of use of the iTunes store kept me lazy and I never checked it out. Last week I picked up 1 single to try out. Amazon made it really easy to buy and import my completely DRM free MP3 into iTunes. I was very impressed, but how about the stores selection?

Yesterday I did some browsing for music. I searched the iTunes store and then searched the same music on the Amazon MP3 store. What I found was that most of the music I wanted was in both stores. I ended up buying the latest Stoke 9 album on the Amazon MP3 site. I actually was going to buy that album about a month ago but I held off because I wanted a DRM free version. Now I have it. I will say I am not a huge fan of the DRM in Amazon’s ebooks, but I buy them. That being said I am impressed with the DRM free music they offer. For now I am switching to the amazon store vs the itunes store for my music. I will wait for more music to be DRM free on the itunes store, but I am not holding my breath.

For the future, I don’t see myself buying any DRM enabled music. I will get it from amazon or another store that offer’s DRM free music, or I will buy the CD’s like I used to and just rip the music. This is a time where I will not let laziness win out anymore. Now I wait for a more open ebook reader like the Kindle, but until then I will be still buying DRM’d books.

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Ipod Classic

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I know, my recent posts have been all about new gear. I like writing about it. It is my guilty pleasure. So sue me. Well, actually don’t sue me. That would be bad! As readers of this site know i am perpetually upgrading. Some things more often than others. My iPod has been one of those things that I haven’t needed to upgrade in almost 2 years. (2 years in November). I had a nice basic black regular iPod 60 gig. The 80gig wasn’t that much larger than my 60gig to warrant an upgrade, and no other new wiz bang feature came out to get me to upgrade so my trusty iPod stayed with me. When Apple announced the new iPod Touch i was tempted to go with one of those, but at 18gig I wasn’t sold, but when I heard about the 160gb classic. That was another story. I can keep all my photos, music, some movies and all my documents on that.

Today i checked apple’s website and saw that the 160gb models were now “available to ship within 24 hours”. That is a usually sign that they have them in stock at the store. I swung over to the 5th Ave Apple store on the way home and within 10 minutes i was walking out with my new classic 160gb iPod (silver). Apple sure knows how to get people in and out of the store if they are buying a popular item and are willing to get an email of their receipt (credit card’s only). I don’t mind, it is faster and i am down with it.

I am now syncing the new pod with my iTunes. Then it will be time to load up the drive with my docs and stuff. After that I need to wipe my old one and get it up on ebay!

Oh, and a shinny easily scratch-able iPod is not complete with its nice protective mylar case. My new Agent 18 clear case is now on order. I just hope i don’t scratch the pod before i get it. The old case on my 60gb served me very nicely so i have high hopes for this new one! And yes i will pimp products if they actually do what they are supposed! These Agent 18 cases are awesome. My old iPod looks brand new since it has stayed in that case.

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The Birthday Gift

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For my mom’s 60th birthday I got her an iPod. I was going to get her a mini, but with all her current music on CD’s and the music I was going to rip from my collection (still fair use I believe since I own the CD’s) she would have more than what will fit on a mini. the final straw was when I was at the Apple store and saw how small the screen on the mini was. My mom wouldn’t be able to read that thing. So I got her a nice color 20 gig iPod. Plenty of room, and easy to read for her. that was last month. The thing has been sitting locked in my desk at work. Why you may ask? I need her CD’s to make this gift worth while. I finally saw her and she remembered to bring her CD’s with her.

That is a story unto itself. My grandmother is in town so I went to dinner with her, my mom, sister and niece. They are all “interesting” to sit with at dinner. I survived so that is all I need to say. Since I got to see my mom she brought the CD’s.

I am now home beginning the task of ripping all the disks using my trusted iTunes. I setup her an account on my mini and am putting all her music on that machine. My goal is to then sync the new iPod on that account for her. I am seriously planning on giving my parents the mini to use as their computer instead of the dell they have. That is yet another story unto itself that I will go into detail (i hope) later. I figured that was the perfect place to stage all her music. She will never use the computer for listening to it, but I need to store it someplace.

The problem I am running into is that some of her CD’s are not in good shape and have scratches on them. So far 2 disks are not able to import because of this issue. I am going through the stack to see if more will have problems.

The other issue is that some of her taste in music is painful for me to import. Some songs should just not be digitized onto the computer! The joy about importing using iTunes (much different than in the old days when I ripped stuff using music match) is that you can program iTunes to begin importing music at CD insert, and then tell it to eject and make a tone when it is done. All I have to do is every few minutes I have to feed it a new disk. Apple was very smart with that program!

So a ripping I will go. More later…

Apple Ranked Top Brand!

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Apple has been voted the most influential brand according to Cnet News.com. Take that Microsoft! Where are you in the top 5? See even only having less than 5% of the personal computers in world hasn’t stopped Apple from having the most influential brand in the world. Go iPod!

Now the question is what will Apple do besides the iPod and music players?

The “Official” Cut Over To My New Computer

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I have been spending less time on my move to a new desktop (see past posts), but I am almost done. I think I am past the point of no return. Or shall I say I am now officially working off of that computer. What fine line did I cross to let me say that? Not sure. I am doing almost nothing on that computer yet. I think what did it was moving off 90% of what was on my firewire drive (plugged into my powerbook) over to the new computers drive. The final straw was importing my MP3 collection into iTunes for windows on the new computer. All 28gigs are now working on the desktop. Fear not, I can still listen to all that music on my Powerbook. I just shared out the itunes on my desktop. Now I can listen wirelessly anywhere in my apartment.

Like I said I am still using the Powerbook as my primary machine, but everything is now a network share off of the new desktop. I am also using the desktop as the DVR I originally planned.

I am also reformatting my iPod as we speak. I am setting it up so it will sync with my PC. I have never used the iPod with a PC so lets hope it is as easy as with my Mac? With it formated for a PC (FAT32), I can use it as an external hard drive and shuttle data back and forth between work and home. I can also use it to plug into a Mac or a PC. The limitation I had with it in Mac formatted mode is that I needed to plug it into only Mac’s. It was a pain to do that.

Once the iPod cut over is completed I will need to continue to install all the needed applications on my desktop. Now that most of the data copying is over, I can focus on configuring the machine more. New computers are time intensive to setup:(

Well the format of the iPod to FAT32 went ok. I am now installing my music again using my PC copy of the files. it looks like it is taking longer than on my Mac. Not sure what is up with that.

Music On The Computer Like Device

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Been working on my music collection allot this week. Hey I am sick and have this is the most strenuous thing I can do. Howard gave me a gift certificate to the iTunes store so I bought R.E.M.’s latest CD. I also ripped a bunch of CD’s. I now have a massive 30 something gig’s of music. The question is do I get rid of the CD’s now that they are on the computer? Dan thinks so, but I will keep them in case of problems with the MP3 version of the music.

The good news about my ripping frenzy is that all the music is nicely organized. Some of the original CD’s I ripped years ago were not categorized or labeled correctly. I even went back and re-ripped some of those so I could correct some errors and encode them with the higher 160 bit encoding, instead of the 128 I did back when I started this odyssey in 1998ish. Man I haven’t used some CD’s since 99. I am getting old.

The New iPod

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After several months more than I had originally planned I have a new iPod to replace the one I sold way back in March/April. I got a new 40-gig model. it is nice. I was at the apple store for something else and saw they had the new models on sale earlier than I had thought so I got one. It is all charged up for the commute tomorrow.

I don’t like that it didn’t come with a case or a remote, but everything else about it is good so far. I gave it a little spin last night when I was doing my laundry, but the trip to work tomorrow will be its real test.

I also got a new 20″ Flat panel from the apple store. I needed a big screen to replace the screen I had on my iMac. I really missed the large wide screen flat screen. now that I sold the iMac I had to do something. It set me back a bit, but I had some cash from the iMac sale. So far the screen rocks. I plugged it into the powerbook and I was off. Now I need a DVI KVM so I can plug in my windows box to it. The only problem is most consumer DVI KVM’s or any KVM for that matter can only do 1600×1200 dpi. The flat panel does a little higher resolution than that. I am shopping around now.

iPod And Storage Space

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Jury Duty makes me remember I want another iPod. I am waiting to see if something new is coming out from Apple. Macrumors say that the iPod is in mid product cycle and won’t have a new one coming out for a few months. I am still holding out. I think the 20gig units are too small for what I want to do, and the 40 gig ones are too expensive. I am hoping that the middle of the road unit has 25-30 gigs when the refresh their product cycle in a few months.

For now I am going to wait. I may invest in a 512 meg SD card. I have been thinking about it, and the prices are coming down. It is that or a USB flash drive.

Ebay Sale’s

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My 10 Gig iPod has been sold on eBay. I am taking it to work today to ship to its new owner. I wanted to get a new one with a bigger drive, but I didn’t realize they don’t sell the 30 gig one’s anymore. 40 Gig is more than I need, and it costs more than I want to pay. I may just hold onto the money and wait and see what comes out next.

I also sold my Treo 270. That went out at the beginning of the week. I go through cycles of selling things on eBay. Looks like I am in one now. I am going through my apartment looking for stuff I don’t use or want to upgrade. So far I am happy with most of my stuff and don’t want to part with it. Of course I really didn’t want to part with my iPod but I kept running out of space on it.

The iPod

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I have been avoiding the subject but I really do need a new iPod. I now have 200megs free on my 10Gig iPod. That is only by filtering out some music from the device.

I want to store other stuff on the thing, but I can’t since I have filled it up with music. I am looking at how much a 30Gig model might cost. I am thinking of cashing in some American Express Membership Rewards points. I found out a few months ago that I can buy stuff with those, and not just use them for travel tickets.

The debate in my mind continues…