Tag Archives: fact

My iTunes Plus Shopping Spree

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I pick up a bunch of albums full of classics my parents used to listen to.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s; my parents grew up in the 40s and 50s. When I was a kid — before I learned to tune in a radio by myself, that is — I was kind of stuck listening to the kind of music my parents liked. I’m talking about Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and other “vocalists.”

Although I didn’t really like the music, I didn’t hate it, either. And nowadays, hearing those old songs brings back memories from my childhood. I can still remember trimming the Christmas tree in the living room of our New Jersey home, listening to “It Was a Very Good Year” from an LP on the console stereo by the stairs.

I’ve been collecting some of those old songs for a while, as well as songs from way before that time — big band songs that really made you want to swing. But I never really got into collecting this music as much as I wanted to complete my classic rock collection with my favorite songs from the 70s and 80s.

Sometime within the past year or so, I stopped buying music online. I was simply fed up with the limitations put on the DRM-protected music available on the iTunes music store. I wasn’t interested in breaking the law and downloading music from illegal sites. I wanted to buy it. But I couldn’t see buying an entire CD at a store for $15 or more (plus tax or shipping or both). So I pretty much stopped buying music, except, of course for new releases by my favorite artists: Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, etc.

Frank Sinatra Album CoverEnter iTunes Plus. I wrote about it on Wednesday, explaining how you could use it to update your iTunes Store purchases of EMI-published music to remove the DRM and improve sound quality. One of the things I didn’t mention in that article is that I bought a DRM-free album, Classic Sinatra – His Greatest Performances, 1953-1960. I don’t know about you, but I think 20 songs for $12.99 and immediate gratification without DRM restrictions is a pretty good deal.

So good a deal, in fact, that I stopped by on Thursday and picked up two other albums: Dino – The Essential Dean Martin and The Very Best of Nat King Cole.

I’m buying this music for a few reasons reasons. First of all, I like it and I want to add it to my collection. Second, I think it’s a great deal. And third, I want to do my part to support legal online sales of DRM-free music.

Let’s face it: I’m not a music pirate and most people who rip CDs and buy music for their iPod aren’t either. The music industry is not going to go broke by removing protection from the music. I believe more people will buy it with the restrictions removed. I believe that this could be the answer to turn around the music industry, to get more people buying music again.

But then again, I might be extremely naive about this whole thing and one of the few fools buying iTunes Plus music.

What do you think? Use the comments link or form to share your thoughts with other site visitors.

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

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A memoir, a history, by Lewis Buzbee.

The Yellow-Lighted BookshopIn clearing out my reading pile, I stumbled upon The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee. I read this book several months ago, then put it aside with a mental note to write up some comments in my blog.

I’ve been incredibly busy lately and not focused on what I’ve been reading. As a matter of fact, I’ve been having some trouble getting back into reading these days. My “To Read” pile is tall, but for some reason, I’m not impelled to read any of the books on it. And every time I pass a bookstore, I have trouble keeping myself from dropping in.

That’s why this passage from the first chapter of Buzbee’s work really hits home:

For the last several days I’ve had the sudden and general urge to buy a new book. I’ve stopped off at a few bookstores around the city, and while I’ve looked at hundreds and hundreds of books in that time, I have not found the one book that will satisfy my urge. It’s not as if I don’t have anything to read; there’s a tower of perfectly good unread books next to my bed, not to mention the shelves of books in the living room I’ve been meaning to reread. I find myself, maddeningly, hungry for the next one, as yet unknown. I no longer try to analyze this hunger; I capitulated long ago to the book lust that’s afflicted me most of my life. I know enough about the course of the disease to know I’ll discover something soon.

In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Buzbee, a former bookseller, writes about his life with books, taking detours along the way to discuss the history of books, printing, publishing, and and the book selling industry. Chapters cover the business of books — including the surprising (for some) truth about what an author earns on each book sold and the impact that large booksellers (think Barnes and Noble and Borders) and online booksellers (think Amazon.com) have on the industry.

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is a look into a life where books are more than just bunches of paper with words on them. Educational, amusing, insightful — the book will appeal to any book lover in a way that few other books can.

I highly recommend it.

Treo Internet Connection Problems Resolved

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But not very satisfactorily.

palm Treo 700p Smartphone (Verizon Wireless)A few days ago, I reported “The Trouble with Treos.” In short, I’d bought a Treo 700p so I could access the Internet from my off-the-grid camping shed on Howard Mesa. Although I’d been told that the Treo would “tether” with my Macintosh for an Internet connection, I later learned that feature wasn’t supported by Palm (maker of the Treo) and Verizon (my wireless provider).

Motorola Q Phone (Verizon Wireless)Today, while running an errand in the Phoenix area, I stopped by the Verizon Wireless store where I bought the phone (Happy Valley, north of Phoenix) and spoke to the woman who sold it to me. I believe her when she says she thought it would work. But I also don’t know why she didn’t tell me about the Motorola Q phone, which definitely would work. Could it be because it cost $150 less?

Could I Love My Phone?

Now, after spending the past week sending photos to my TumbleLog and text messages to Twitter while on a business/vacation trip to California, I’m rather attached to the darn phone. Just the other afternoon, while Mike was driving from the LA area to Santa Barbara, I was stuck in the back seat of the convertible he’d rented. With no chance of participating in the conversation between Mike and his cousin due to wind noise, I amused myself by exchanging a series of photos with my brother in New Jersey who was lounging by his friend’s pool with his friend’s family, his wife, and his dog. I sent him photos I’d taken earlier in the day, as well as a few scenes from the Mustang’s cramped back seat as we made our way up the coast.

That’s something I couldn’t do with my old phone.

I know that other people have been doing stuff like that for years, but I was never into the cell phone thing. Now it’s almost an addiction. And I just don’t want to give up my new phone, even though it doesn’t do everything I want.

But I’m a logical, reasoning person — at least at times — and it makes no sense to be emotionally attracted to a smart phone that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. So what was I to do?

Make it do what I needed it to.

Doing the “Impossible” — Poorly

So I got on the Web and I tracked down a software package called USB Modem. Available in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux flavors, this package includes software for the Treo as well as drivers for my Mac. I installed a few things, configured a few things, plugged in my tether, and connected to the Internet. In other words, I was able to do what Verizon had belatedly told me I couldn’t do: connect to the Internet using the USB tether cable.

But the connection seemed painfully slow. I fired up the Speakeasy Speed Test and tested it out. Sure enough, I had download speeds of only 120Kbps and upload speeds of only 20Kbps. Sheesh! This is broadband?

To be fair, I ran the same test on the Bluetooth DUN connection. I got 135 down and 85 up. Not much better.

Then I ran it on my house connection just for comparison. 524 down and 516 up.

(All these tests were done with the same computer.)

At Least I Have a Reason to Keep the Phone

The only good that comes out of this is that now I have a reason to keep the phone. True, it’ll cost me another $25 to buy the software to do the tethered connection — I was using a demo version to make sure it would work before I coughed up any more hard earned money — but at least it does work.

It just doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Or as well as the salesperson at the Verizon Wireless store said it would. Very disappointing.

I still have three weeks to decide.

Anyone out there use a Q phone with a Mac? Please do use the Comments link or form to share your experiences, good and bad.