yay Google Talk!

It has been nice to be able to chat with a few people on Gmail's chat while I've been here. Plenty of my friends aren't on it and I of course don't always end up being online at the same time as some of my friends, but it's nice to catch at leaset a few friends. Of course there are other times back home when chat annoys me and is too distrating. There's a simple solution: log out.

things that haven't worked in the past 24 hours

• Sanjay trying to Skype out to my cell phone last night--didn't even show up as a missed call.
• The hot water halfway through my shower.
• The internet connection this morning and at various other times today--slow and couldn't load Google Chat.
• Firefox on another computer--crashed. I screamed "I hate Windows." Actually those weren't my exact words, but my mom reads this blog.
• Various keys on this keyboard.
• The sound on this keyboard even with headphones plugged in.
• The USB port on this computer.

A reminder of all the things I often take for granted. Anyhow, writing a simple outline in Portuguese has been harder than it should be.

Portuguese spam

Got a spam message in Portuguese today. How do the bastards know I´m in Brazil? Spooky.

and this is why I should never read the comments in the DTH

Have to remind myself that the internet is not a random sampling of public opinion (thank God). Of course there's a contradiction in saying I shouldn't read the comments and then passing them on to you. I guess I just don't like to suffer alone.

as I've been saying for some time

the most important product release for Apple in 2007 was not the iPhone, Leopard or one of the new iPods. It was Vista. Sanjay passed along a NYT piece about Microsoft execs having problems with it early on. This has been discovered from emails released in a class action lawsuit.

link

Gmail targeted ads

I was replying to an email in Gmail. Earlier in the conversation I'd mentioned my breakup. This was one of the targeted ads:

http://www.getyourexbacknow.com/just_break_up.html

Wow. Looks like a place to get a lot of bad advice.

It's also crazy how the Gmail ads are sometimes very well targeted to the people they want to reach, but other times not so much. I can see why some people find it a bit creepy. I guess this is the first time I have.

my brief journey to the World of Warcraft

Katie was picking out which photos to print at the photo shop. Since the CD I burner her had hundreds of photos it was taking a while to load. I popped over to the video game store. I found Quidditch for GameCube for $8! Fun stuff. Then I saw this 2-week trial of World of Warcraft for $1.99. I knew better. I'd often said that the reason I never tried that game is the same as the reason I've never tried heroin--I knew I'd like it and I'd get hooked. (Clearly an exaggeration and I don't mean to belittle people suffering from chemical addiction by equating it to addictive video games). But I was curious and figured it'd be fun to try it out over vacation. So I played for a few hours today and what I found is that it sucks me in and it's hard to stop but I also don't enjoy it as much as other things I could be doing.

It also hurts my wrists to play for a long time. The bottom line is that my time is limited and how much I can do that taxes my wrists is limited and I'd rather do other things. So I uninstalled it and threw the DVD in the dumpster.

So many things that I have to do require sitting in front of the computer, plus it's how I keep in touch with friends and family. Together that gives me more than enough time in front of this bright screen. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy the occasional computer game, but not one that requires as much time as WOW.

For me games are mostly a social pastime. I really like a recent series of ads (see this example) for Dungeons and Dragons I've seen in comic books--it's just so much more fun to play with people in person.

my iBook turns two

A few days ago made 2 years that I've had my iBook (14" G4 1.33 ghz). I can't imagine ever going back to the headaches of the PC world. It has served me very well, and I've helped convince at least four people to switch. I have my eye on some of the new macs--they're almost twice as fast--and wonder about when to upgrade. I don't know if my next Mac will be a MacBook or a Mac Mini. One thing to think about is that I'll be doing field work in Latin America in two years so I'll want a laptop but it might be nice to have it not be a brand new one as far as getting stolen, etc. So perhaps a Mini as my new primary computer 6 months to a year from now with the iBook for travel will make sense. To help fight the urge to always have the newest thing (in addition to the monetary cost) I remind myself how much water computer chips pollute--so it's good to wait as long as possible before getting a new computer. Really the iBook is doing great for everything I need it for, so I may wait longer than that. It's interesting how some people upgrade every year or year and a half and others wait 5-6 years.

Tower Records goes out of business

Good web only piece on The Nation here. People blame digital music and the iPod, but it's not that simple:

...the CD isn't really dead. In fact, in the first half of 2006, CD sales still accounted for nearly three-quarters of all retail music sales, out-earning digital sales better than six to one. And despite the growing popularity of online music sellers like Amazon.com, nine out of every ten CDs purchased so far this year were sold in brick-and-mortar stores. Just not Tower stores.

Over the last decade, big-box retailers like Target, Best Buy and especially Wal-Mart have accounted for a steadily increasing share of CD sales, and by 2003 Wal-Mart had become the largest music seller in the world. David Porter, who oversees music merchandise for Wal-Mart's American stores, estimates that the company today controls roughly one-quarter of the US market. Succeeding where Tower has failed in recent years, Wal-Mart and its ilk have extended their low-cost business model to music retailing, using their clout to bully record labels and selling CDs that would go for $15 to $18 at Tower for less than $10. Wal-Mart has even established an online presence, undercutting iTunes at 88 cents per song for digital downloads.

But the good deals come at a price. Although stock size can vary by store, a typical Tower carries somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 CD titles (the larger ones can stock up to 40,000 more); while an average Wal-Mart, for which CDs make up only a tiny fraction of overall sales, carries 5,000 or fewer. Greater size means greater diversity as well--one industry executive estimates that Tower sells as many as 100,000 titles that cannot be found in the stores of any other chain....

For fans who enjoy rifling through Tower's inexhaustible collection, the prospect of a Wal-Mart-style makeover for the music industry is daunting; for smaller record labels--particularly those that specialize in "niche" genres like classical, jazz or roots music--the loss of Tower's combination of size and diversity is something even more dire. Tower's market share in specialty genres approaches 50 percent, and in some cases Tower can account for as much as 25 percent of an independent label's overall business.

So the divide is not just between digital and CDs, but also big vs. small and corporate vs. independent.

Monk on iTunes

My cousin Hilary gave me a gift certificate to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) for my birthday and I used it to buy episodes of Monk. I only have one episode before I'm caught up on Season 5. I think that for me it's a cheaper alternative to cable, since I don't watch that much TV. Also I can watch them whenever I want, pause them, and there are no commercials. My monitor is 19" vs. my 20" TV, so it's pretty much the same quality. Monk is just so funny, and I also enjoy the crazy plots. I don't think I'd buy 30 minute shows on iTunes, though. $1.99 seems a little pricy for that. My gym has TV's on many of the cardio machines, so sometimes I try to time my workouts to catch an episode of Scrubs or Colbert Report.

On the subject of Monk, these cleaning tips are funny, but some of them also seem useful... (Katie cringes).

Back to MySpace?

On campus waiting for articles to print. The printer needed to warm up because all sane people are taking the day off.

I used to have a MySpace page with my music on it and I deleted it because MySpace annoys me. I currently manage a MySpace page for my folk singer friend Stephan Smith. I go on every Friday to approve people who've added him as a friend, reply to messages, etc. It seems as though every musician is on there. So, as I've been mixing the songs for my new CD (see this post) I've been wondering if I should create a new page to help promote it. I could use it to distribute a free "single" with two songs--the "A-side" and the "B-side."

Thoughts?

More on digital music

A few days ago I wrote a post comparing the costs and advantages of buying a CD vs. buying an album on iTunes. A few things I neglected to mention:

• For most people CD's are more convenient. You can play them on any stereo in the house without any additional technology. This isn't a problem for me since my place is 500 sq. feet and my only stereo is attached to my iBook, but it is for other people. Also, playing mp3's in the car requires and iPod and an iTrip or adapter.
• Plus if people don't back up their data they can lose all their music with a hard drive crash. It's appalling how bad people are about backing up their data, but that's another topic entirely.
• You can buy digital music even cheaper than iTunes. I just signed up for eMusic again. You have to sign up for a plan, but it comes out to around $.25 per song. The basic plan is 40 songs a month for $9.99--but hurry because they're changing the plans on the 21st (Tuesday) and the basic plan will only be 30/month. That's still cheap, but if you sign up now you'll be locked in. You can try it for free with 25 free downloads, and if you like it you'll be locked in. If you don't you can quit without spending anything. They tend to mostly have independent music. There's some overlap with iTunes. For example, I could have gotten the Dan Bern album from them. I look at it this way: For the price of that one CD I can download six ten-song albums...

Close save

So I was frantically writing my history paper and Word decided to freeze (because that's what Microsoft products do). I wanted to save what I'd written and it was still vi sable on the screen. So I used OSX's screen capture utility (called Grab) to take a screen shot of the frozen Word page, getting almost everything I'd written since the last save. Then I drug the image to my iBook screen (to the right of the external monitor which is my primary workspace when I'm at home--I love screen spanning) and relaunched Word so I could re-type what I'd written. Some time lost, but much less than if I'd had to come up with it again. Somehow even with the freeze I wrote close to five pages in a little under three hours this morning. Amazing what pressure will do for productivity.

So the moral of the story is: screen shots can make freezes less painful (PCs can take screenshots too).

Dan Bern's New Album

So I picked it up the other day. It's called Breathe. It's good, but I like Fleeting Days, New American Language and his self-titled albums better. Someone wrote it takes time to grow on you, so I'll have to give it some more listens before my final verdict.

I decided to support my local CD store (School Kids Records) and it came to $16.04 with tax. I imported it into iTunes and will listen to it via my computer (plugged into my stereo) as I do with all my music.

The iTunes music store has it for $9.90. So I paid an extra $6.14, for which I got the following additional benefits:

• Access to the album at full CD quality (even though I import it at the same bitrate as iTMS downloads I could play the CD or import it at a better bitrate)
• The physical CD--I can play it in my car without burning it
• The CD case, art, liner notes, etc.
• Support for a local business
• Support for local government services via sales tax
• Possibly having Dan Bern collect more in royalties. I don't know. I bought him a beer once, so I feel that supplements any royalties he's collected from my purchases of his CDs...
  

Is all that worth paying 62% more for an album? Why don't I just get it on iTunes and donate a little bit of money to the local government, etc.?

The internet saves me again

Wanting to put up a shelf in my dining area for kitchen-related stuff. I lost the directions. It only took me 10 minutes to find them online, even though I didn't know the brand going into it.

voting machines = bad

Guardian of the Ballot Box (The Nation)

Killer Voting Machines (The Daily Show)

my Last.fm page

Visit to see what I've been listening to. You can sign up and have it do the same thing for what you listen to. You can tag music, meet people with similar taste in music, and have it play you a personalized web radio station. All for free. For more info see

www.last.fm

I found out about this through an article in MacWorld.

Yahoo owns Del.icio.us

I just found this out, but Yahoo! bought it last December. In light of my previous comments about ditching Yahoo! because of their actions in China it seemed I should ditch del.icio.us, too. But I find the online set of bookmarks are very useful for my research and I've come up with a creative solution which I think is better: tag lots of sites and articles about Yahoo! and about human rights in China...