Cranky n Stinky.com

I've just recently been told I don't write enough on my / our blog. When I tried to protest, and explain I didn't really have much to say, I was very quickly informed I have an opinion on most topics. They also did not hesitate to inform me that I'm very liberal with that opinion around the office. So as to share this opinion with the world, I will try to post more often. This is not going to be anything worthy of news print, so don't expect much.

First off, lets discuss DRM. It's as hot button an issue for me, as politics, religion, or sports are for a majority of America. As my brother will attest, I'm not a big fan of DRM. Not for the standard anti establishment reasons, while I will admit that's where my dislike started, but lately its' just makes most of the things I'd want to to, too much of a pain in the butt. I'm glad iTunes existed without it, we wouldn't have some of the advances we have. I'm very happy that I can now buy a lot of music online, for a reasonable price. However, when buying a legal copy, and using that copy becomes more difficult that finding it via some non legal means, Its very frustrating. Tasha enjoys the simplicity of iTunes for buying music. I agree, there is nothing simpler than clicking buy an itunes album, and having that music automatically synced to your pod for the drive home. 

That's where the simplicity ends unfortunately. Unlike if we purchased a CD, I can't just play any of the music she bought.  Why? because my computer is authorized for my own iTunes account. We can't listen to it on our stereo, because our media player, isn't blessed by apple. This is only one example of DRM making things a much worse user experience, there are so many more. If I were in the media business, I'd be out there pushing to make my products listened to everywhere, on every device, not trying to keep the from the buying public. You'd think the RIAA and MPAA were censors with all the restrictions they want to put on their products, the limitations of where and on what I can watch their content. While a bit out of context, I think this biblical quote applies 'Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house.' Musicians put your music up on a stand, for easy access, the people who buy your music will thank you.

With that said, I am quite glad with some of the developments this year (I think they happened this year) in digital media. Amazon's mp3 service kicks ass. It's digital music in a format I can buy and play anywhere, for a reasonable price. What's not to love? No program telling I've got the mp3 on too many ipods, or too many laptops, or one to many file servers. They have decent pricing, and even offer regular discount albums. They even tell me what's on sale via twitter. I'm beginning to sound like an advert for Amazon. For the record, they aren't paying me to say this, but I just received an email today saying since I spend more than 25 this month on music, they are giving me $5 more dollars to spend.

Hulu, this is another thumbs up, but also includes a slight head tilt. I love being able to watch the shows my Tivo missed. I wish all tv shows were available via hulu. And by all shows I do mean, all shows, not the selection that keeps getting crappier and crappier. They need some real work on their retention policy. There are some series that started this year, that I missed the first few episodes of. By the time I heard about them, the first half of the season had rolled off hulu. I think it's crazy to clip a first run series off. What they could gain in viewership if they get people hooked, has to far surpass what they'll get from first year dvd sales.

Next up is boxee / apple tv / streaming netflix. While I just ranted about drm, and limited selection. What boxee is doing for the apple tv is great. It's blowing the doors off what the apple tv can do. While, I am not currently an apple tv owner,  a user of netflix, or boxee, but I love the idea. Netflix stream sounds like a great idea, BUT I've been told they have a very limited selection.  When I get off my duff and sign up, I'll let you know. Why is it that people can't get this right, out of the box? People want it easy, and they want a good selection. To wrap this up, down with DRM, up with people who make more media accessible, at an affordable price, without making me feel like a criminal.

I just ponied up 5.45 pounds for the new Radiohead album. Why? Because they dared to offer it DRM free. Because they cut out the RIAA. Because they made it easy, and because I like the idea of Radiohead actually getting the money I pay for the album. I haven't listened to it, and I'm unsure what to think yet. I am looking forward to listening to it tomorrow.

You too can choose what you want to pay for it, and download it immediatly here:

IN Rainbows

I was sitting on the commuter rail train last week, and had the idea to check if there was a podcast program for my Q. I had just downloaded the opera browser, and was trying to find other ways to use it while on the train. Just checking my email via the awful IE browser was killing me.

First I found doppler mobile. It's a great tool to get podcasts directly onto the q. The next step for me was buying the silly adapter for my head phones. Out of the box it has a 2.5mm jack, and you can't plug in normal head phones. Why motorola? why? This makes no sence to me at all. You build a phone with a ton of potential but handicap it.

I eventually found the adapter at Radio shack at the mall for 9.99, IMHO it's ugly, and pointless, but does the trick. I still don't understand why the phone needs a 2.5mm jack. So now I've got podcasts, and sound, next up, video and audio books.

Video is easy, assuming your source is wmv, then it can be played. So, I downloaded a few video casts, and away I went. It's not the most elegant interface, it's a chunky version of windows media player. It can't even fast foward, or rewind. but for playing video, full screen it, and you can enjoy a smooth playing good looking hand held video.

Of course downloading anything of substance takes too much time via the evdo connection, so the best bet is to sync via active sync, and manually copying the files over, which IMHO is still kinda painful.

So the next step? I had to check out my other source of commute time entertainment, audio books.
I've been a very happy audible customer for some time, and was extremely psyched to see they have a client for the phone. After installing the client I was very impressed. It's well written, it's easy to use, and it has audibleair. Which is a way to download books directly to your phone. It's awsome! I can buy something, then update my catalog online, and download it directly to my phone. I can pull my audible subscriptions to download too.

I have to say that audible was the biggest supprize, and is the most user friendly.

This just goes to show, you don't need to go out and buy a new ipod to get video, podcasts, or audiobooks on your phone, you just need to do a litte reading, and buy a needless 9 dollar adapter.

Republish from the old articles section.

This is a little story about how digital music has changed my life.

After getting a few new albums this holiday season, I began to realize that proliferation of digital music has really changed they way I listen to music. New CD's in particular. A prime example of this is the CD I got a few days ago. I've listened to it on my way to work twice, and at work once. In the past this new CD would have made it into the rotation in my car or home stereo, if good enough, maybe even taken the trip to the CD player at work. Now a days the first step after unwrapping is dropping it into the CD drive of my trusty pc, and firing up Exact Audio Copy. It is then added to 'the collection'. Having such a collection of music readily at my finger tips and the indecisive person that I am, (I love variety), I put everything on shuffle. In listening to this new album it I’ve realized I’ve completely changed my music listening habits since mp3’s and the evolution of digital music. It started around 97 when I worked in a lab with a bunch of geeks. We shared a work station, and therefore shared our music. At first it was just CD's we brought in, but it turned into mp3's when we learned about them. Some we brought, and before it was frowned upon, we downloaded music we each liked. We had a smattering of this and that from pearl jam, dropkick murphys, to mustard plug, and creed, basically everything under the sun. When one of us would get a new CD, and that would be added to the collection. This is where the change lies.

The difference is was nothing was ever removed from the list. We didn't have to decide to pull out Haughty Melodic, or doolittle from the existing rotation. Which I have to admit would be a tough call. We were adding without subtracting. I didn't have to contemplate which of the current rotation would get demoted to back up, which would get removed from the car entirely and put on the shelf? Basically We had a started with a pool of a few CDs, and now it had grown leaps and bounds. We now had hundreds of songs on shuffle. As the popularity of mp3's rose, it wasn't just a computer thing anymore. However, digital music still hadn't taken over my music life. I mean, I still had to decided what to listen to in my car, and at home. That was until I got an audiotron about 2 years ago. With this super cool digital music player I had all these mp3’s that I could listen to in the living room. The addition of a mp3 player in my car added yet another dimension to this. No longer was I tied to a single CD player. So now the pool goes from a few CDs, to my CD collection + the world of streaming music. So, what's the big deal? What's the impact?

Instead of being a CD on play, it became a collection on shuffle. No longer did the CD get the spot light to develop, to evolve into something more than one song at a time. You'd think that access to all this music would be a great thing for me, and a great impact on my love of music. It may have pushed me away from what I really love about music. Making a bond with it. I haven’t been able to grow the attachment to the music I had. Going from 6 cd's on rotation, I had to be very selective what I kept in the player. What I listened to, what remained in the rotation got a lot of play, and it was a portion of my life. I remember as a high schooler driving to school listening to House of Pain, or Spin Doctors , too many times to remember. Learning even the bad songs on the album by heart. Understanding the feeling the album was meant to give you, riding the ebbs and flows of the sound waves.

I miss that. I miss knowing music by heart, names of songs, and the b-sides. I think I’m going to change this. Starting this morning by listening to that new album again, and again. Until I either appreciate it or hate it, and it will eventually get rotated out, in a few weeks or months, by then I'll know what I've got, and what I like, or don't like about it.