Tuesday, October 29, 2002

let's classify bloggers Blog Taxonomy - what kind of blogger are you? [ernie/the/attorney] This was amusing although it could be taken a lot further. If I had to identify as one, I would confess to starting out as a Blog blogger - writing a lot about blogging and changing themes a lot! Since then I have (de-)evolved into a Wannabe blogger ;) 6:59:10 PM     Copy-protected CDs may not play on all operatiing systems The future of music. Günter Hack writes: "Before buying music: Check your OS!": Just bought a CD by a band that signed with Universal. The CD is copy protected and won't play on Macintoshes. So you have to check your OS first, when buying music. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer say "thank you". Palladium is coming soon. In William Gibsons cyberpunk stories, everyone is after analog money for making transactions that cannot be traced. Will good old vinyl and audio cassettes go the same way? [etter det vi erfarer] An interesting, if scary thought. Depending on how current proposals of the record industry will develop, we might just end up in this William Gibson kind of dystopia. So value your vinyl records and audio tapes like treasures. Sorry, your non-copy-protected audio CDs don't qualify; they're already doomed. Toni Siegert wrote this extremely interesting article on data storage longevity (in German - a similar article by Dieter E. Zimmer can be found here), in which he points out - among other things - that audio CDs have a lifespan of only about 20-30 years, after which they can become unreadable and have to be replaced (as it happens, the music collection of the German Library in Frankfurt already has problems with disintegrating audio CDs from the 1980s); too bad if by that time only copy-protected or DRM-managed CDs are available. A grim outlook indeed. Günter may have a good point: treasure your analogue media. [The Aardvark Speaks] I don't ever plan on buying a copy-protected CD that is labelled as such, unless it's just for testing purposes. The day that I buy an unlabelled copy-protected CD will be the last day I'll ever buy a CD from that record company - especially if it won't even play in my iBook. I'll just have to look for music from elsewhere - independent labels or directly from the artists. 6:44:22 PM     GartnerG2 study: 77% of consumers think they should be able to copy CDs for personal use Copy protection: consumers say no. A new study from GartnerG2, the research service of Gartner Inc., shows that consumers shun copy-protected CDs: Music companies thinking of distributing copy-protected CDs to protect their content from piracy will likely raise the ire of consumers while lowering their revenue. ... Not only do the copy-protected CDs limit users options - preventing them to make a copy of the CD to play in their car, for example, just as one could with a cassette tape - they also limit their mobility. In some cases, the protected CDs cannot even be played in more than one of the consumer's CD players. These restrictions are likely to frustrate users, possibly resulting in a decline in revenue for the record companies, the researcher said. [MacCentral] So it seems that while the debate on whether Internet file sharing hurts or helps the music industry is still unresolved, at least now we've got proof that copy-protected CDs hurt the business. I guess that's something. [The Aardvark Speaks] 6:35:03 PM     utility for preformatting posts for Radio RadioExpress!. From Serious Instructional Technology I saw a link to this blog (Stand Up Eight, by Dale Pike).  I found this post particularly interesting (bolded text is mine)... Why I use Radio. ...I also use a tool created by Mike Krus of Newsisfree.com called RadioExpress! that installs as a javascript "bookmarklet" in the favorites bar of the machines I use at work and at home. This allows me, when I am on a page I find interesting/significant, to select some text and click the RadioExpress! link, which takes the text I've selected from the page and places it in a preformatted entry in Radio, ready for me to add my comments. When I submit, it takes me back to the page I was working on. It has become a fundamental part of my daily workflow, and I couldn't do it if Radio restricted me to a one-machine publishing model. I'm going to have to check that out--I'm constantly cutting and pasting to get text from non-aggregated sites. [klyjen.blog] I must try this out! 6:29:42 PM

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