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Piracy: The Loss of Objectivity and Intelligence

“Unfortunately, many schools have turned a blind eye to piracy,” Berman said. “I don’t doubt that there are legitimate issues that universities must grapple with, including privacy and cost concerns. However, when a university such as Purdue tells the AP that it rarely even notifies students accused by the RIAA because it is too much trouble to track down alleged offenders—such inaction is unacceptable.”Congressman Hollywood: Universities a wretched hive of scum and villainy

This is what happens when a person in power, brains’ get turned to jelly and is spat out by the cat. It never occurs to these people funding researching and going around screaming disaster and catastrophe from the hill tops, to actually look what is right in front of them.

The Music/Movie Industries is Inherently, poor at adapting
So what exactly does this mean well its quite simple. When Napster came along the Music industry looked at it and said “We still good it will all blow over in a couple of months” Then a couple of months later they had a problem. The same goes for the Movie industry. They are arrogant enough to dimiss a technology that will quite clearly effect them in the money making department and try to place the sole blame on the cosumer. The consumers pay them money in the first Place

Solve not Sue
Anyone with a slight business interlect and brain cell(s) would look at the current situation within the Music/Movie industry and start working on solutions, put the money were it is well spent. The industry will never change the habits of the youth of today, they have spent to long in the courts increasing the resentment for that. They need to start working to give the consumer product they want in the form they want, this by no means free.

The idea that forcing your consumers to do something because the man companies say it should be is completly stupid and cause more illegal downloading, just so you as a consumer feel happy your pissing the said companies off. Everybody knows that downloading music and not paying for it is wrong, but when the labels offer no better alternatives, what else are your options.

The Other Options
iTunes Store, has a big market share and a big catalog of major labels and indie music, look deeply at the  Store and you see just what a miracle it is, its there, and in the same moment why it doesn’t give what a p2p client gives. The simple matter of choice is what it now starts to boil down to, what could be classed as the catalyst to this whole thing in the first place.

People want choice they want to choose how they consume media and where, iTunes limits you to the iPod and your PC/Mac, there is a simple solution get rid of DRM and completely and open the whole thing up, and I would never illegally download again.

However, there is one place that iTunes excells at apart from providing a seamless UI experience. Our friend the Longtail, p2p only really is a good distribution system for popular tracks, when you get to less popular tracks you quickly find nobody sharing things.

To cut a long story short we need a solution, that the consumer is happy with and we need it fast else we could see everybody going down to court.

Less DRM is Good…


Sign an Open Letter To Steve Jobs
Whether you believe that it was an elaborate publicity stunt or actually Steve Jobs own hand that wrote the “Thoughts on Music” there is one important feature that we all need to take action upon.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Lets see if the people of the internets will prevail and get rid of DRM, or at the very least start the removal process. Sign the Defective Design Letter Here

Microsoft Does it again…

A Vista ad i saw at Microcenter, I just thought it was kind of funny that they decided to use a mac in the ad.

read more | digg story

Its obviously a stock image but you would think Microsoft with a marketing budget that could dwarf Dells would spend a little money in getting images of laptops that actually Run Vista, and Bill Gates has once again shot himself in the foot with this along with the fact Vista is now cracked the suposably most secure operating system windows has ever made…

How the JT Blob was made.

How the JT Blob was made - Screen 5As you can see from the new design, the blob is taking more of a centre stage. So how did I come up with the idea? and how did I make it.

Designing in general can seem complicated and daunting but with just a few photoshop techniques in your toolbox. You can create a logo for you in a couple of hours or less.

You start with a blank sheetHow the JT Blob was made - Screen 1
Like all good things its best to start with no computer, a soft pencil, rubber and blank sheet of paper will do. Start by just randomly sketching something and then start working that into a logo (say you initials for example) You can spend as long as you like making this drawing look something like how you want it, but it doesn’t have to be very neat.

Say Cheese
Next step take a photo of your design (or scan it) I tried drawing my logo free hand straight on the my fantastic Wacom Intuos3 tablet, but it never looked right. This way works best for those of us who aren’t 100% confident with the graphics tablet. How the JT Blob was made - Screen 2

Follow the Yellow Brick Road
How the JT Blob was made - Screen 3Now for the slightly more complicated bit, open up your photo in photoshop and start using the pen tool, to trace over your logo. You can find a fantastic tutorial on the pen tool over on PixelPerfect
How the JT Blob was made - Screen 4You can then continue and play with the path till its perfect (this is why you pencil drawing didn’t need to be perfect)Then fill the path with a gradient by creating a gradient layer and using the path to mask it. Repeat this process until all elements of your logo.

Add a bit of text and you have yourself a logo. Its not that difficult, really. The harder part is making your website match your logo.

Apple Computer Inc. Now Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. iPhoneIt certainly has been a big afternoon/morning (depending on where you live) for Apple. Finally the iPhone sees the light of day and my god was it worth the weight, more information on the Apple TV (iTV) and all the usual fanfare.

I wasn’t expecting the keynote to end without the usual iLife and iWork Updates (though it does save my wallet) I was already and prepared to shell out for it. I can only imagine that some sort of update will be coming with Leopard to entice me, not that I Really need that much enticing.

Apple Inc. Well done, you still manage to prove the rumors right about something but wrong about the actual hardware itself and also have put to bed the most recurring rumor ever.

The Best of Both Worlds

Parallels Windows in Coherence ModeParallels have release a new BETA of there Virtualization Application for mac os x with many updates, the biggest of which being “Coherence” this things rocks, so much its untrue.

How about Windows Taskbar at the bottom of the page and mac os x everywhere else, thats right the holy grail of being able to run everything you could ever want has been acheived. Apples’ decision to switch to intel seems all but justified now.

Running windows apps as if they were mac apps without have to have a separate window open is genius, how the hell they manage to do it is beyond me. What I do know is Macs are most definitely going from strength to strength and a actually think Parallels would be a welcomed acquisition for Apple, because Leopard could take this stuff and run to such a level were you can no longer tell you are virtualizing windows. For example download a file with safari that happens to be an .exe, double click it and windows opens it. Simple elegant and apple all over.

Come apple this is certainly a feature i would love to see in Leopard (if it isnt already in there)

Sorting the piracy mess

I though I would take a break and post something else that really gets me.

We all know that piracy has ended up as a monumental PR mess for the record industry, and it is a undisputed fact that the industry in general were far too late and couldn’t adopt the same model they do in the shops so invented DRM (lets not go any further into this)

I love music as much as the next man, but when a consumer thinks their being ripped of they will always find a new way, the internet provides such a way. So when Napster and Kazaa came along the consumers went there instead of going to the local music store, by the time the industry realised just how big this was they had only one option left to sue everything and everybody related to this P2P software. As a resulting pissing off there next generation customers and the ones they already had, and along the way giving themselves and P2P developers bad press.

Continue reading ‘Sorting the piracy mess’

My Macbook Is Officially, Outdated

Yes thats right, I have decided to do the obligatory post about the Apple Product. Reading this news for the 15th time? Then you now know what the cult of mac is.

Link
http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html

Weekend In London

The time has come the mac-expo shame I couldn’t get to the rest of the event but Saturday should still be good. I will be posting some more stuff related to the Expo over the weekend. You have to love the free BT Openzone account I have.

Apple’s (Product) Red

iPod Nano RedSo Apple have a new (Product) Red Nano, and there has been an uproar against the miniscule $10 apple is giving per iPod, without me getting ranting and annoying.

Where would the campaign be without Apple, fair enough it is a small amount but Apple is Cool and also everywhere, if you haven’t got an ipod your nobody, so the upshot of that being free advertising. Its like FCUK putting slogans on the front of t-shirts that you need to read twice to make sure what they actual say. Red iPod, does good and also gives the publicity it needs to get more companies on board, in short never think one sided about these things.

We need to get a grip

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports that the glass Cube Apple erected earlier this year on New York’s tony Fifth Ave, dubbed Apple Mecca by many of the Mac faithful, is offensive to Muslims Muslim community offended by Apple’s Fifth Avenue NYC Cube - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

We are fast becoming a world wide culture of everything that we do offends somebody or other and that if we moan it will change something. The simple fact is de-railing a project simple because it offends is not good enough.

Also the fact there are so many people/organisations that it becomes a vicious cycle. The internet has gave us many things a place to voice or concerns and a place were everybody is heard, but it also a place were disinformation and exaggeration is rife, using the example above when has any apple Genius Bar every served Alcoholic Beverages.

A Little Knowledge is dangerous. So is a lot. - Albert Einstein

Arndale Opening

Apple LogoI couldn’t get to the Arndale opening, as much as I wanted so I thought I would link to some pictures so I don’t feel all that left out.

http://www.nikfletcher.com/index_files/arndale2.html

Bootcamps Back

Bootcamp

So I have put Windows back on on my macbook, and it certainly does fly. Shame it defeats the point of my mac but I need Windows for Visual Basic so needs must, but I do spend as little as possible in windows as I can.

The OS Maketh the User

This means that Mac users almost always have multiple windows and application visible. We can switch easily between them and, probably more importantly, they’re always there, reminding us of their existence, nagging us. We naturally become multi-taskers.

Mac users created, not born? - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

I find this interesting but also, how true do you find this?
I work in a mixed environment what some mac users would term a slider, I work on windows at College through the day and work on macs at home. I often find that I look for exposé features in windows but I also do find it frustrating that windows assumes you want the window full screen, when you hit maximise.
So I think I will stick with that while mac user choose mac, it makes the user more likely to multi-task because the way that the OS works. I wouldn’t say that the OS entirely makes the user.

In writing this post I learnt that pressing alt+e will let you put the little flick above letters ‘á’

Blogged with Flock

iTunes 7 has landed

iTunes LogoApple dropped the latest version of iTunes today, and guess what it is better than what it says on the tin. Video support is now flawless and the overall UI is much more refined and very much like the look of a Pro App. All you information is stored in a much more structured and easy to use manner and iPod integration is just cool and gives all the information you need in one window.

There are also improvement to downloads, an extra tab will pop-up showing what is downloading and what size it is, it little things like this that make the whole app run a lot smoother and noticeably faster than iTunes 6. At some point it would be nice to get some Bit Torrent support in the mix.