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Play Rachel Stevens The lovely Rachel Stevens, formerly from S Club, has added a new game on her official website for her new single So Good. Play the memory game at:www.rachelstevensofficial.com read more:
Pay Per Play how long can it survive I’ve heard about pay per play a service similar to adsense but on an audio based advertising. You place a code unto your site and your site will then display an audio ads to be played per unique visitor to your page. According to Wall Street Journal article quotedStarting Feb. 1, San Diego-based V2P Communications [...] read more:
Pay Per Play about to officially launch their system Pay-per-play just announced its slow release of its audio ads to the public with caution. They officially launching it according to their blog.NetAudioAds will begin pushing live ads out to their audio ad distribution network.Audio ads will NOT begin playing everywhere at the same time. This will be a slow, methodical ramp up until NaetAudioAds [...] read more:
San Andreas online a 'sacrifice' too far Rockstar play it safe read more:
Xbox 360 Redux
I like my Xbox 360. Don't get me wrong. And I'm sure later I will love it But I'm not loving it yet. I play the games some, but they don't compell me. No slam dunk glad I spent nearly a grand on the system games at this point. Perfect Dark blows chunks. Kameo is Ok if you are in to that kind of game. Call of duty is such a camper's game that it doesn't fill my blood lust, and there are no button mashers as DOA4 is not out yet. Sure there are racing games, but come on, how many car games do I need? Forza makes me happy, and PGR is well not Forze.
I got the Media Center Extender stuff working and like that a good deal. I'm working on making that more useful, but as my MCE and my Xbox are literally stacked on each other their is no extending happening.
The Trailer downloads are neat. I liked the X-men 3 trailer, but most the trailers look like they were encoded by... Um... yeah even my grandmother would have done better. No one I know could have done such a poor job. I think maybe they used a Tarrarri card. That is the only likely answer.
In any event. It has helped me meet girls. More than one girl has come over to play Xbox 360. Not the chick magnet my Toshiba Libretto is, but still.
Take-Two boss comments on controversy Boss urges critics to play the games read more:
Morrissey to play homecoming gigs Morrissey will perform at two live concerts in Manchester this December. read more:
Get the Most Out of Your Color Color can play an important role in technical documentation. read more:
Zune-PlaysForSure Reax: 'This Can't Be True.' Skim the Digg commentary and you'll find many users who can't believe that Zune won't Play For Sure. It's so bizarre, they assume the report is inaccurate, despite citations to numerous press reports and MS' own release. Even CrunchGear refused to believe it. I think most media reports were so confused, that they didn't report on it -- better to avoid the subject altogether than to write an erroneous report. (That, and the media got spun hard on the wireless sharing feature.)
To be fair, I was pretty shocked too. Sure, I can understand the possible business rationale, but the simple fact remains: Microsoft developed a player that can't play protected Windows Media content from all services providers except the Zune Marketplace. Hell, that even includes the MSN Music Store. On its face, that just doesn't seem to make sense -- until it was official, I couldn't believe anyof the rumors.
Noel Gallagher joins charity gig list Noel Gallagher will play an acoustic show as part of the Mencap Music event this November. read more:
FACE DOWN Play First Show With New Drummer: Photos Available FACE DOWN, the reunited Swedish outfit featuring former THE HAUNTED singer Marco Aro, played their ... [in BLABBERMOUTH.NET Latest News] read more:
A sinking ship powered by PR Nah, not actually a ship, though this blog also hit by those PR decrease from PR5 to PR3 and the directory from PR4 to PR3 but this blog is not sinking as Google trying to play. In fact, it is still on the first page of the key phrase I am targetting.Traffic is going strong [...] read more:
Shows I thought I should mention Mirah, The Weeds and The Lovers play the American Legion on Smith St. this Saturday.
And finally - far, far away from Providence Don Hertzfeldt is holding his first art show. read more:
The Need for The Search Engine Optimization Keeping yourself armed with the proper knowledge and the technical know-how of how to make your site surface above the rest is pretty momentous. Each day, more and more sites utilize the tools of the search engines to optimize their websites ranking and if you do not play your cards beautifully, you may just get crushed along the way and your site may join the long list of other failed e-commerce sites... read more:
Badly Drawn Boy announces chip shop gig Badly Drawn Boy will play live in a chip shop to promote his new album. read more:
Summer schedule for board game nights in Allston and Somerville The next Exploit Boston Game Night is happening tonight at the Common Ground in my neighborhood of Allston. It’s the perfect weather to play some board games. Things start up around 7pm and we’re there until 11pm. There’s usually a group or two that stays later — the bar is open until 2am and the [...] read more:
Preservation
After finding four official National Geodetic Survey benchmarks during an interesting walk around downtown New Orleans, it was time to meet at Antoine's for dinner. The famous restaurant has been continuously operated by the same family since 1840. Through wars, the Great Depression, epidemics and storms, the culinary treasures continue to be served. The French Quarter, where the restaurant operates, was fortunate to not have any water damage, although the winds took a toll and repairs are still underway. After dinner, my son and his friends headed for the music they wanted to hear. For me, there was only one place I had in mind.
I had not been to Preservation Hall for more than thirty years but I remembered exactly what to expect. The sound of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is unique and inspiring. The musicians are polished and professional. I talked with the trombone player during break and he told me he was a professor of music at a local college. To hear him and his colleagues play you would never see a piece of music. It seemed to come from their soul. The saxophone player told me he read music when he was a boy but that now it comes from the soul. From their web site are a coupe of great quotes. "Musicians in New Orleans are born to entertain. There's nothing wrong with that, because I'm happy when I play. I love what I do". "We play gospel music here. We play old spirituals. We play military marches. There's no end to the variety of music that we play. But we play it all our way. And the more we play, the more the level of happiness rises. Just to watch our audiences go wow when we play, that gives me a good feeling and makes me want to put out more."
The amazing part to me is the coordination. There is no sheet music, no conductor, not even subtle leads from one of the members. All seven -- trumpet, two trombones, tuba, drum, tenor saxophone, and piano -- played as one. Soloists knew when to stand -- at times several would stand -- the crescendos and decrescendos were perfect and soft harmonies were flawless. These are truly great musicians. Walking a half mile down Bourbon Street back to the hotel there were dozens of "bands" playing at peak volume. It was a different world than Preservation Hall. I prefer the latter.
After Sunday brunch overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, it was time to head for JazzFest. The temperature was 90, the humidity was 100%, the crowd was 100K+ and there was no place to sit. In spite of this it was a great experience. The Paul Simon performance, in particular, was worth the price. Nice to see the 60+ performers -- he was amazing in every respect. Digital music is great but nothing compares to a live concert. The big screen made you feel like you were in the front row (even though there were no chairs). Regrettably, Fats Domino (78 years old) cancelled at the last minute for health reasons. Lionel Richie took took the stage instead.
On Monday morning it was a pleasure to make a presentation to a group of networking and IT executives at the English Turn Country Club. The topic was, guess what, the future of the Internet. With the incredible humidity, I do not regret not being a golfer and staying for the afternoon.
With regard to New Orleans,I found a mixed story. The water marks, damage, and debris were staggering. One can see why a huge number of people have been displaced and why housing is the main issue on many people's minds. I spoke to a number of residents who were working in the service industry. The common thread was that they were hopeful, courteous, and wore smiles on their faces even though they had every reason to be bitter. One person told me there was three feet of water in the second story of his house. He and his family moved in with a cousin -- eight people in a small home. The only good news is that there are plenty of jobs. The biggest tragedy may be that there are only five schools open in a city that was once more than a million people.
Play Windows Media files with QuickTime Player (free!) Today, two more signs of the forthcoming apocolypse.(1) Apple announces the first Macs with Intel Inside, as Steve rubs “man, can you believe how friggin’ slooow the PowerPC was?” salt into our collective wounds several times during the keynote. (Wouldn’t want to be Kottke right now…)(2) With somewhat less fanfare, Microsoft delivers Windows Media Components [...] read more:
Hand made wooden furniture (Kyle) Hand crafted original designs in wood. All treated material, will last a very long time. Picnic benches, Octogon picnic benches, kid sizes available, Adirandack chairs, bench seats, play houses, tree houses, gazeebos, decks, patios, etc. You name it, we can build it. Very affordable, quality workmanship. Call 512-351-0560 or 512-268-2453 read more:
Microsoft's Zune Won't Play Protected Windows Media
In yesterday's announcement of the new Zune media player and Zune Marketplace, Microsoft (and many press reports) glossed over a remarkable misfeature that should demonstrate once and for all how DRM and the DMCA harm legitimate customers.
Microsoft's Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or 'rented' from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That's right -- the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn't even play on Microsoft's own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that 'Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264' -- protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuouslyabsent.
This is a stark example of DRM under the DMCA giving customers a raw deal. Buying DRMed media means you're locked into the limited array of devices that vendors say you can use. You have to rebuy your preexisting DRMed media collection if you want to use it on the Zune. And you'll have to do that over and over again whenever a new, incompatible device with innovative features blows existing players out of the water. Access to MP3s and non-DRMed formats creates the only bridge between these isolated islands of limited devices.
The real culprit here is the DMCA -- but for that bad law, customers could legally convert DRMed files into whatever format they want, and tech creators would be free to reverse engineer the DRM to create compatible devices. Even though those acts have traditionally been and still are non-infringing, the DMCA makes them illegal and stifles fair use, innovation, and competition.
May this be a lesson to those who mistakenly laud certain DRM as 'open' and offering customers 'freedom of choice' simply because it is widely-licensed. With DRM under the DMCA, nothing truly plays for sure, regardless of whether you're purchasing from Apple, Microsoft, or anyone else.
[Postscript: In an interview with Engadget, Microsoft Zune architect J Allard pointed out that Zune has sufficient video format support, in part because there's 'Lots of DVD ripping software out there that encodes to those formats, so the most popular formats out there, whether it's MPEG-4 or H.264, we'll support those.' Gee, he isn't suggesting that his business model benefits from customers using tools like DeCSS or Handbrake to evade the DRM on DVDs, right? Especially since Microsoft is furiously trying to squash the FairUse4WM tool, that would seem rather hypocritical.]
Geri Halliwell Eyes Stage Career With her latest album Desire tanking in the charts, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is setting her sights on a stage career. Geri Halliwell told a spy, "I love the instant connection that theatre can bring and see this as my natural next step." A source said she has already auditioned for the play Little Shop Of Horrors for its run on the West End. The singer also lashed out at Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell as the man who halted her pop career after Mr. Nasty blasted her last video. She fumed to Neil Sean of Sky News, "It was such a cruel thing to do." read more:
When does learning become copyright infringement? Guitar instruction sites shut down by music industry: 'Music publishers are taking action against guitar fan websites which they say infringe songwriters' copyrights. Publishers have started to use copyright lawsuits to shut down sites which share notations to help musicians to play songs at home.' [The Register] read more:
Video game concerts draw packed crowds was a scene many orchestras would envy at a time when classical groups continue to struggle financially, and when some are branching out to try new formats as a means for survival.Liam Conlon doesn't fit the profile of your typical classical concertgoer. But when the high school freshman recently discovered that a show featuring music from the computer game "Final Fantasy" would be playing near his suburban Chicago home, he could hardly believe it.He and a friend snapped up a pair of fifth-row tickets to the Rosemont Theatre concert and joined the cheering, sellout crowd of nearly 4,500 that turned out to see the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra play. Above the stage, images from the game — a theatrical and multi-chaptered quest to save the world — played on giant video screens.The response — including several standing ovations — was much the same last year when the Los Angeles Philharmonic played the music at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. read more:
One more note on LibraryThing: data portability
Okay, so I was a little inaccurate in my last post about LibraryThing; it’s not an overnight sensation, having been launched back in August of last year. In fact, Alex Barnett (who was in my home aggregator but not my Bloglines subscriptions; rectified) wrote about them back in January, as he was gentle enough to remind us this week.
Alex’s point bears thinking about. LibraryThing is an online service that makes it possible to get your data back out, in a variety of ways—RSS and blog badges and mobile access, of course, but also plain ol’ tab-delimited or CSV export. And that’s pretty cool.
In the meantime, the rest of my books have finished importing (guess they were pretty backed up!), so I’m off to play with it a little.
Speculation - Why Did Microsoft Design Zune So Protected WM Doesn't Play? Below I've talked about the what, now for the why. Microsoft's J Allard can do a lot of hand-waving about Plays For Sure and Zune being two complementary solutions. Or perhaps you think that Microsoft is trying to run competitors out of the market and take Apple head-on with a similar integrated, vertical DRMed platform; perhaps they want the sort of anti-competitive power people ascribe to Apple's iPod-iTunes tie; perhaps Microsoft was tired of its Plays For Sure licensees failing to attract many customers and wanted to take the wheel. Or maybe some mix of those.
But let me throw one more possible rationale out there: because Microsoft's 'Plays For Sure' WM DRM does not accomodate the Zune sharing feature (and that's just my speculation), they ditched it. In other words, WM DRM failed to accomodate new, emerging, and potentially unforeseen lawful uses. The end result is that Microsoft decided to force customers to rebuy their preexisting WM DRMed collections in order to make use of Zune's novel features.
Microsoft wants Zune to be just like iPod-iTunes. They want customers to know exactly where to go to buy music, what software to use to manage their collection, and what the device will do. It's a fully integrated platform. Having customers buy Napster 2.0 music, load it onto the Zune, and then find out that the Zune would play but not wirelessly stream it would have been a disaster.It's exactly the frustration they're trying to avoid.
And that's to say nothing of the fact that many users were already having a lot of problems with WM DRM. Janus DRM licenses would expire randomly and it wouldn't sync with devices right for many users. By starting fresh with Zune, they also avoid that frustration.
However, just like Apple, Microsoft is discounting the frustration of people who want to use an alternative music vendor. Those customers who have bought PlaysForSure WMA files will certainly be confused when their Microsoft player is incompatible. Microsoft is also discounting that many customers will simply opt out of thelicensed services altogether, because they can't trust their investmentin DRMed media. At the same time, it's betting that the integrated platform will be worthwhile given the fact that most people's collections are MP3s anyway. Most people don't own a lot of PlaysForSure files, and, just like with the iPod and iTunes, most Zune songs won't come from the Zune Marketplace.
I still think this won't be a winning business strategy, at least not in the short run; it's not going to turn people away from the iPod (not this incarnation). But, so long as they're using DRM at all, one can make the argument that it's a better business strategy for Microsoft than Plays for Sure. Both may be losing strategies, but Zune might be less of a loser.
Regardless, I think these DRMed services under the DMCA are a raw deal for users. These are the sorts of bizarre business decisions made in the DMCA+DRM world. But for the DMCA, this wouldn't even be an issue.
[Updated a few times today for clarification and additions]
Congress Sneaks Through Online Gambling Restrictions Last week, Congress dead-locked on many dangerous surveillance, IP, and other cyberlaw-related bills. But they did manage to sneak a new online gambling ban [PDF] into the port security bill -- it's an embarrassing, disappointing instance of our country throwing its weight around online, crippling a burgeoning industry and taking away a favorite hobby of millions of ordinary Americans.
For those who needed a wake-up call that the Internet is indeed regulable, this ought to do it. Sure, some people will be able to work around the regs, but many won't, particularly in the near term. Three days after the bill passed, the stock prices of major online gaming companies crashed, and major companies like Party Gaming and 888 vowed to ban all US customers.
The online gaming business is still rather young, yet it was already roughly as big as the US record industry -- around 12 billion dollars in yearly revenue. While the gaming industry was cut off at the knees, online payment companies like Neteller also took a nose dive.
The bill doesn't impact all gambling -- it exempts fantasy sports, lotteries, horse racing, and purely intrastate gambling. Domestic gaming companies were either indifferent to the bill or happy to be rid of foreign competitors. The US has ignored WTO rulings against this protectionism before, and it could very well do so again.
But forget about the companies -- what about the ordinary people that Congress is ostensibly trying to 'save?' What evidence is there that 'we're addicted to online poker as a people?' Addiction implies disease.
Let me make my bias here clear: I play online poker for about 5 hours a month and head to Vegas with friends to play about twice a year. I make a tiny -- but, for me, quite significant -- amount of spending money that way. And I have a ton of fun doing it. My poker blog is now defunct, but it should give you a sense of how much and why I love this hobby.
Sample my blogroll, and you'll find many others like me. Some have even made their whole income from playing poker -- it's their livelihoods.
Like the many people who flock to local cardrooms, Vegas, and Atlantic City every year, most online players don't win money, but they do have a lot of fun. The Internet brought to the fore ordinary Americans' desire to play poker -- it's no coincidence that poker on TV has grown in parallel, and, at least in California, local cardrooms are sprouting up.
And, yes, some people do get addicted. My point is not to marshall a complete argument against this paternalist policy-making in general or this policy in particular, as distasteful as I find both to be. Rather, I want to highlight that there are millions of ordinary Americans just like me who didn't ask for this ban, oppose it, and will be harmed by it. The industry invitedregulation and taxation, and yet poker players are now facing an outright ban.
Congress completely sold us out -- if you care about this issue, head over to the Poker Players Alliance site.
[Note: as usual, this blog represents my views, and not those of my employers past or present.]
I knew that my residency in the Berkshires was no vacation, but between rehearsals, calls for work, the concert tonight, and driving home afterwards (ETA: 1:30 am), I’m gonna be dead tired. So here’s to the Friday Random 10, which is hopefully going to do its job and take my mind off the next twelve hours:
Smashing Pumpkins, “Stumbleine” (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)
Nada Surf, “Concrete Bed” (The Weight is a Gift)
Dead Can Dance, “Song of the Nile” (Spirit Chaser)
Hank Williams, Sr., “Hey, Good Looking’”
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, “Leap Frog (alt tk)” (Bird and Diz)
Making Academic Work Advocacy Work: Technologies of Power in the Public Arena Through interviews and courtroom observations in a case study done in collaboration with a community partner in two judicial districts in Minnesota, the authors extend the scholarly conversation about critical, activist research in business and technical communication and make pedagogical suggestions by studying two groups who contribute to the discourse about victim rights: judges who accept plea negotiations and make sentencing decisions and advocates who help victims contribute, through victim impact statements, their reactions as crime victims and their requests for certain punishments and conditions for the crime perpetrators. The authors identify the technologies of power used by each group to assert their disciplinary authority and trace how these assertions play out in the courtroom. They conclude that by capitalizing on the normative structures of impact statements, advocates may actually give victims more power. Such activist research might benefit research participants and enhance research methods. Propen, Amy and Mary Lay Schuster read more:
Friday Random 10: Big day edition
A big day indeed: it’s finally sunny (cause for celebration in and of itself), it’ Friday, it’s the end of the quarter, and we’re about halfway through the year. Our company shipped some major products this week, though for various reasons the press release won’t be out until the second week of July. And I have some other news that will have to wait until Monday, for various reasons.
In the meantime, it’s a good sort of day to sit down and shuffle through the iPod and see what comes up:
MSN Video Download apparently went live today with a choice of two membership types Premium and Basic. Premium is $19.95 a year and has more content than the free Basic membership. Not wanting to commit myself to a membership yet I signed up for the Basic membership, thinking I could load some videos on to the miniSD card in my smartphone....
Sign up was easy, I used my passport account, agreed to the terms and installed the download software. The download status page showed content was downloading from Fox Sports. In order to sync content to my phone I needed a smart playlist so I followed the instructions to download one. This was the first problem, the instructions used Windows Media Player 9 and I'm using Windows Media Player 10, a little strange, but not a huge problem. With the smart playlist in place I thought I'd be good to go...
That wasn't going to be the case though. I started by trying to play a video in Media Player directly and got prompted for a username and password which was being requested by 'admin.theplatform.com' not 'msnvideodownloads.com'. I tried my Passport email address and password which might not have been a great idea, but it didn't work anyway. Meanwhile I could see that Activesync had been trying to sync the content to my phone so I checked the Sync page in WMP. Nothing had been synced, instead there was an error message 'Windows Media Player can not synchronize the protected file. Protected files can not be converted to the required quality level or format'.
Now I have almost half a gigabyte of content (and it's still getting downloaded) and I can't watch any of it. If anyone gets this working I'd love to know how.
Disney-Owned Label To Sell Full Jesse McCartney Album in MP3
Two months ago, Sony released the new Jessica Simpson single in MP3 through Yahoo! Music. This week, Variety (via PaidContent) reports that Disney-owned Hollywood Records will release Jesse McCartney's full album in MP3. It seems that some major record label execs may finally be coming to their senses:
'We're trying to be realistic,' said Ken Bunt, senior VP of marketing at Hollywood Records. 'Jesse's single is already online and we haven't put it out. Piracy happens regardless of what we do. So we're going to see how Jesse's album goes (as an MP3) and then decide on others going forward.'
Kudos to Yahoo! for making progress on this front, even if this is just a baby step in the right direction by the major record labels. DRM won't stop or even meaningfully slow 'Internet piracy.' And after years of pushing for improved compatibility with DRM formats, the record labels have witnessed more, not less, balkanization of music services and devices. If the record labels really care about making sure their customers can play music on the devices of their choice, the only solution that plays-for-sure is an open, unencrypted format like MP3.
Wednesday 26th November 2003 at 7.30pm Bowdon Rooms, The Firs, Bowdon, Manchester.
Nicholas Ward
The Northern Chamber Orchestra, led by its Artistic Director Nicholas Ward, will perform Alan Bush's English Suite for String Orchestra in Manchester on 26th November, in a programme of music for strings spanning 200 years. Formed in 1967, the NCO has a formidable reputation throughout the North West of England. Playing without a conductor, the ensemble members are all distinguished musicians who play as principals with other orchestras and regularly appear as soloists.
In 1994 the NCO recorded Bush's English Suite - one of his more important works - on a CD for Redcliffe Recordings, Music by Alan Bush. You can listen to the Passacaglia movement on the Listen section of the website.
EMI Deal With Qtrax Shows Long Way To Go read more:
Final Links To Rome
Thanks for all the nice feedback on the stories about the Business Leadership Forum in Rome. There are two final links that may be of interest. Chris Barger at IBM has posted the audio for the podcast about the demos, Internet technology, and healthcare. You can play it from here. Also, if you like the printed word, there is a single pdf that contains all the stories in one 23 page printable document. You can find it here.
C&Lís Late Nite Music Club with Norah Jones Legendary music producer Arif Mardin died Sunday night. This was a very classy man, much loved by all the artists he ever worked with. And the artists he worked with were as diverse an array as anyone has ever tackled. For decades he was a star in-house producer with Atlantic Records, making records with Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Average White Band, Barbra Streisand, The Rascals, Phil Collins, John Prine, Halls and Oats, George Benson, Average White Band and dozens more[sigma]
He retired from Atlantic in 2001 and a few months later he went into the studio with an unknown young woman for his pals at Blue Note Records. The result was the Grammy-winning, multi-platinum debut by Norah Jones, COME AWAY WITH ME. And our song tonight is my favorite from that album, a cover of Hank Williams[base '] classic "Cold Cold Heart."
In honor of Arif[base ']s passing I have 2 brand new box sets called WILLIE NELSON[^] THE COMPLETE ATLANTIC SESSIONS. If you wanna play this game, be sure to include an e-mail address. Just send us your top 10 songs (could be "my top 10 songs of all time," "my top 10 songs by women singers," "my top 10 songs with a political message," "my top ten songs with an alto sax," "my top 10 songs from the 80[base ']s"[sigma] anything). Tomorrow morning I[base ']m going to look [OE]em all over and pick one and John[base ']s gonna look [OE]em all over and he[base ']ll pick one too. And the two winners are going to each get a box of Willie.
Enjoy Norah!
(guest blogged by Howie Klein)
I missed the death of Arif Mardin, not hitting the mainstream news.His is a name I remember seeing on so many albums as I grew up. All those wonderful soul albums. I will always associate him with the sound of Aretha Franklin.
Once again, I tried to narrow dozens of good releases down to just ten. Wasn't easy, but I think it's a pretty good snapshot. I would have had them up last night, but I felt sick from writing code for Tiny Showcase. The site launches in one week.
Crooked Fingers - Dignity & Shame I think Crooked Fingers is the only band with multiple releases where I own every single one of their albums. Well, except for this one - I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. Mark preordered and got an autographed copy. They play KEXP today. Stream the disc on the Merge site.
Many questions - MSAS, playing WAV files and what to develop Media Center apps with
I've had lots of questions recently and no time to really get answers and post them up here. If I haven't answered you question it's because I don't know the answer and haven't had enough time to get to the bottom of it yet.
First of all I had a couple of questions on MSAS which I don't know that much about.
Can I tell which tuner is being used when a recording takes place using MSAS? No, you can not. What you can do, which may or may not help is use OnTVRecordStateChange from a background add-in which will give you a GUID and you could track which was in use - this won't help if a tuner is being used for live TV though. Here's a code snippet on how to use OnTVRecordStateChange:
void IAddInEntryPoint.Launch(AddInHost host) {
host.Television.OnTVRecordStateChange += new Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn.TVRecordStateChangeDelegate(TvRecordStateChangedHandler);
...
}
public void TvRecordStateChangedHandler(object obj, Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn.TVRecordStateChangeArgs TVArgs) {
if (TVArgs.Started)
mcHost.HostControl.Dialog('Recording started on tuner ' + TVArgs.Tuner, 'TV Recording',1,10,false);
else if (TVArgs.Stopped)
mcHost.HostControl.Dialog('Recording stopped on tuner ' + TVArgs.Tuner, 'TV Recording',1,10,false);
}
Can I use remote desktop to connect to a Media Center PC? Yes. You can even use Media Center, but it won't play video over a RDP connection
Can I use animated backgrounds in an HTML page? Not really a media center question, but I don't see why not, use an animated gif.
Could I create an add-in that played a selection of WAV files with a gap between them? Yes, using Playmedia and Playrate you could contstruct an addin to do this - waiting until the playrate was stopped, then wating however long you want before playing the next file. You could also use More With This to make this work with any folder of audio files.
Can I use ASP.NET for development? Yes. You can use any web technology that outputs HTML.
Can I use WinForms for development? Yes, but if you're running as a .exe you won't have access to Media Center APIs. If you're running as a .NET applet in a webpage you'll have access to the Media Center APIs from the HTML page and will have to communicate between the page and the .NET applet to use the Media Center APIs - non-trivial to do, but not hard.
WSJ: Free, Legal and Ignored. The subhead says it all: Colleges Offer Music Downloads, But Their Students Just Say No; Too Many Strings Attached. The article is about the unsurprising-to-anyone-except-Napster miserable failure of subscription based music services to take hold in universities. Compared to the complicated barrage of restrictions on the music offered by Napster, the students come across as models of common sense:
While Cornell's online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated. "After I read that, I decided I didn't want to even try it," says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in the fall...
Purdue University officials say that lower-than-expected demand among its students stems in part from all the frustrating restrictions that accompany legal downloading. Students at the West Lafayette, Ind., school can play songs free on their laptops but have to pay to burn songs onto CDs or load them onto a digital music device.
"People still want to have a music collection. Music listeners like owning their music, not renting," says Bill Goodwin, 21, who graduated in May from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. USC decided last year that it was finished with Napster after fewer than 500 students signed up...
There’s also a telling quotation from the director of the Campus Computing Project, who says, “The RIAA’s push to buy into these services strikes me as protection money. Buy in and we’ll protect you from our lawsuits,” which is one of the kinder descriptions of the unfriendliness of the industry that I’ve read lately.
I’m still waiting for someone in the industry to wake up and understand that their path to profitability lies in supporting good music and making their rich back catalogs available, not in fighting the fans of music tooth and nail. Today, three years after the birth of the iTunes Music Store, there are still many albums and tracks that can’t be found anywhere online—some by major artists (just try tracking down any non-album Sting tracks from before the late 90s), some by minor artists on major labels (Annabouboula, anyone?), and some by great cultural figures (I’d gladly pay through the nose for access to e.e. cummings’s Six Nonlectures as digital files, or even on CD). Instead we get American Idol and Rock Star. What, no one ever told these guys that a steady diet of candy can kill you?
BTW, for a good counterexample, check out Verve’s deep catalog—including a bunch of rare Impulse! recordings—though they don’t quite get it right; they support both iTunes and Windows Media, but no DRM-free offerings. But at least they’re opening up their catalog.
On Saturday May 10th 2008, I’ll be teaching a full-day course, Influencing Strategy by Design, for mid to senior level designers on how to influence and improve strategic decision-making within their department or company.
This eight hour, hands-on course will be co-taught with Tom Chi as part of the Involution Master Academy (an educational program for experienced professionals in design and related fields) in Sunnyvale, CA. Attendance is very limited to ensure each participant gets extensive hands-on time with the instructors. Registration opens today so get in soon if you’re interested.
Topics Covered
Key Take Aways: At a high-level we advocate these for any designer or design team interested in expanding their strategic involvement or influence.
Organizational Dynamics: Lack of organizational influence is frequently blamed on either reporting structure, or a lack of organizational understanding about the role of design. While both of these factors may be in play, focusing only on them to increase influence is unlikely to yield results.
Metrics: Taking the initiative to measure and track explicit customer experience metrics provides designers with a significant amount of leverage during strategic planning and product design.
Design Skills: We’ve distilled four attributes central to design that provide unique value to strategic decision-making.
Executive Presentations: When working on strategic initiatives that impact business direction, more likely than not, designers will need input and buy-in from key stakeholders.
The Official Description This full-day course will teach designers how to greatly expand their influence by synthesizing and articulating clear, actionable business and product strategies. Often, career opportunities for designers are artificially limited by org charts that fail to fully capitalize on the galvanizing role that design can have beyond product or marketing. This course empowers designers by giving them tools to impact strategy, by illuminating important decision-drivers like market or user research, web analytics, financials, and product reports.
Created for experienced designers who want greater influence over strategic decision-making within their department or company, this hands-on course will immerse you in principles for communicating and influencing strategy and teach you and practical skills and techniques through group activities with Luke and your fellow students. By the end you will have new insight into the untapped potential that your design skills have to transform your career. See complete course details.
Creating viral content for social media is always a gamble. Seemingly great pieces can unexpectedly flop while poorly written blog posts and strange images can go viral without any effort from the creator. In most ways, the success of viral marketing is out of the hands of the marketers. Yet, smart marketers, just like smart gamblers, know there are certain things they can do to help their chances.
The last point is the one that I think is the least practiced.
At SEOmoz, our annual top referrers are direct access, search engines, and the social media websites, Digg.com and Stumbleupon.com. We receive massive traffic from direct access and search engines by creating unique quality content on a daily basis and providing useful tools to attract return visitors. These techniques are our safe bet. They send us steady traffic every day. Sometimes, however, we like to roll the dice.
The Grand Prize
Digg.com is the massively popular social ‘news’ website. It gets an unholy amount of press and produces fierce competition to get to its homepage. The lucky ones who do get to the homepage receive between 50 and 100 thousand visits in a two day period.
Daily Unique Visitors Highlighting When a Story Got On the Digg Homepage
This phenomenon has led many social media marketers to spend the majority of their time trying to get their content on Digg.
The Gamble
Last week Jane and the development crew launched the 2008 Web 2.0 Awards. Most of the SEOmoz team (myself included) then started working on a social media marketing campaign to promote our new article.
As soon as the article was submitted to Digg I started tracking the submission’s Diggs and the amount of referrers from Digg.com on a minute by minute basis.
I then compared this to the referrers we were getting from StumbleUpon for the same article.
For a broader perspective, I tracked the view statistics from three other successful SEOmoz articles that had been submitted to both StumbleUpon and Digg.
All of this data has led me to believe that StumbleUpon is really the better bet for the focus of my social media campaigns. Over time StumbleUpon simply yields better results than Digg. This is not to say that submitting to Digg is worthless. I think new marketers should always put in some effort to ensure that their viral content gets submitted to Digg with the appropriate meta data. However, unless they have access to a Digg power account, I think their (and my) marketing efforts are better spent elsewhere. My data tells me that my efforts at social marketing are much better spent trying to get stumbles.
Today, Apple released iTunes 7.0,among otherthings. In earlier versions of iTunes, Apple didits best to prevent users from being able to copy music from an iPod back to adesktop computer. Now, Apple has changed course and is marketing “ReverseSyncing” as a new feature of iTunes 7.
But there is one giant catch:
1. Music and media not purchased from the iTunes store only syncs one way, fromyour computer to your iPod.
This is uninnovation in its most frustrating form. It’s easy to spot and avoid drm-saturatedjunk, but these kinds of subtle limitations in an otherwise great product frustrateusers and drive them to alternativeapplications.How about trusting the user enough to let them get at their own files without thesechildish restrictions?
WMP11 added reverse filetransfer support back in March which works with purchased, and clear content.(It’s also had album art matching in WMP9, dramatically improved in WMP11). I thinkthe author is being a bit overzealous however in his claim of “uninnovation”- it'salways been easy to transfer music off your iPod, it's just a little hidden. Here it’s a little less hidden.
I’ve seen lots of chatter on iTV - Apple's Media Center Extender-esque device forstreaming video to the living room. It feels like we’ve been here before. LongZheng at istartedsomething.com hasa good recap of the relative strengths and weaknesses of products in this space. It seems a bit odd that Apple would break from long-time tradition and givea 'sneak preview' of a product that won't be available for at least Q1 '07, particularlywhen they could have held the announce to availability around MacWorld in January.It's clear they had to do this to try and spur purchase of movies from theirnew store- with no rental model, people just don't want to buy movies towatch on their portable players. Tell them they'll be able to play it in other placesas well around the home and their likelihood of purchase is higher. It’s the battleof cognitive dissonance - buyer's remorse. After all, you're already dealing withthe psychological barrier in that the user is buying an intangible good, somethingwithout physical form that perceptually has less value than physical media such asDVDs. But... you're going to charge about the same as a physical DVD. Without theBonus DVD content. Oh and the 640x480 video quality people are downloading isgoing to be between VHS and DVD quality (which offers 720x480p). Never mindthat it will be potentially less for letterboxed content since the new iPod doesn'tsupport 16:9 (widescreen) display. In the time it will take most customersto download one of these movies, I could have gone to the store, bought the DVD, popcorn,a 6-pack of Coke, dinner, come home, cooked dinner, and be ready to watch. Ina rental model, all of these issues can be forgiven for immediate gratification anda lower price, as witnessed by the popularity of Video On Demand and InDemand services.
The challenges in streaming TV from the PC aren't just the hypothesized need for higherspeed wireless (802.11n) which should be provisionally approved in early 2007. This might be delaying their launch, but streaming 640x480 video across the home hasbeen possible with Media Center Extender for just about two years now. A challengeis going to be convincing consumers to buy and set up yet another single-purpose devicein the living room, another remote, another input on the TV for this thing.
Today, you can get an Xbox 360 that includesMedia Center Extender at no additional cost. Over 16 million Media Centercustomers can use this today, no additional charge. Even if you don’t have a TV tunerin your PC, you can connect a USB tuner and record TV or HDTV (OTA today, DigitalCable with equipped PCs with Vista). No additional fees. As announced at CESlast year, multiple HDTV manufacturers are putting Media Center extender into theirdesigns, something that costs less than a night at the movies to implement.
As for another box in the living room, the Xbox 360 does HD gaming, DVD/HD-DVD Playback,Music, Photos, Video, TV/HDTV playback, runs rich media apps from a multitude of providers,and delivers an increasing amount of media content via Xbox Live, including HD. And it's going to get significantly better with WindowsVista Premium's Media Center features – automatically updating your Xbox 360 tosupport in the family room with the same level of animation and experience.
Either way, a saying comes to mind: “A rising tide raises all boats” and for thatI welcome Apple's foray. But if Apple's iTV costs the same as an Xbox, offers nothing more than a 'simplified remote' and fewer mainstream features whichreally makes more sense when competing for consumer dollars outside the Job'sfaithful? With Sony and Nintendo's Wii also vying for that same space, it'sabout to get a bit more crowded. Or perhaps just noisy. So begins the 'Great FamilyRoom Battle of 2007'.
(Disclaimer: I used to work on Media Center, but haven't for over a year, andspeak only for myself.)
After finding four official National Geodetic Survey 
![/>I don't imagine that anyone thought EMI's deal with Qtrax would allow non-DRM files of EMI artists to run free on the Internet but, is a completely new and proprietary format the way to win over users?<br /><br />According to the <a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200101.html'>Washington Post</a>, when launched, the service will not only be ad-supported but, the free songs will be in a proprietary '.mpq' format that can only be played a limited number of times and only on the computer to which they were downloaded.<br /><br />Add to that the fact that tracks player will force 'click-to-buy' advertising on listeners and you have the makings of a truly subpar offering. This is starting to look less like P2P and more like a listening post in a brick and mortar record store. Actually, with the listening post, you aren't subjected to anywhere near the captive audience style marketing that is promised from Qtrax and EMI.<br /><br />A flat fee monthly service will be offered by Qtrax, and the files provided under that agreement will be in the Windows Media format. No word on bitrate, but if Qtrax's Windows Media based competitors are any clue, the subscription purchased tracks will be of sub-par quality. Tracks <strike>purchased</strike> leased through the service will no longer play if your subscription lapses. <br /><br />Financial terms of the EMI deal were not disclosed, but EMI does get a share of advertising revenue generated by Qtrax.<p>'Advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money to be associated with music, and the music industry is willing to cooperate as long as the value is preserved and the artists get paid,' Parks said.</p>[via <a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200101.html'>The Washington Post</a>]<h6 style='clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;'></h6><a href='http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/2006/06/12/emi-deal-with-qtrax-shows-long-way-to-go/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent link to this entry'>Permalink</a> <BR><a href=](http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/media/2006/05/EMI-PUB_Web.jpg)
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Thanks for all the nice feedback on the stories about the Business Leadership Forum in Rome. There are two final links that may be of interest. Chris Barger at IBM has posted the audio for the podcast about the demos, Internet technology, and healthcare. You can play it from 
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