iTunes DRM-free Songs. At What Cost?

Posted January 8th, 2009 by Albert Banks

Apple recently announced they will offer DRM-free versions of all songs in their library by the end of the quarter. For now, about 80% of the library will be available without DRM. Apple struck a deal with the four major labels and multiple independent labels – with a catch.

The catch is they must allow for $.69 and $1.29 song pricing in addition to the previously standard $.99 price. Not that big a deal until you look more closely.

1. Most new music will now be priced at $1.29 versus $.99.
2. To get the DRM-free version of a $.69 song, you have to pay a 30 cent premium ($.99)
3. The DRM-free versions are still AAC format, meaning they are still are tied to Apple software and devices.

This deal is great for the music labels, as they get a revised pricing stucture. Apple wins by publicly fighting and “defeating” DRM.

But, consumers are a big fat loser with this change. They will pay more for new and DRM-free music, and those files will still be in Apple’s format. Until Apple starts offering only DRM-free (or same priced) music in the standard MP3 format, iTunes will continue to be a sub-standard provider of digital music.

Remove the iTunes 8 Store Arrows

Posted September 10th, 2008 by Albert Banks

Just when you thought it was safe to upgrade, Apple’s new version of iTunes turns on one of it’s most annoying features – and removes the option of disabling it. Yep, I’m talking about those nasty gray icons in your song list linked to the iTunes Store.

You used to be able to uncheck “Show Links to Music Store” under Preferences -> General. I guess Apple really really wants you to buy buy buy!

After a few Google searches I discovered threads about removing this “feature.”

MAC: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080909130752871
Windows: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8049293#8049293

It’s a shame that must revert to these kind of fixes to customize the user experience…

Dreamweaver FTP Frustrations

Posted August 20th, 2008 by Albert Banks

Here at Myjive we utilize and for the most part enjoy Adobe’s Creative Suite. We have used the various versions for years. In fact, I originally started with Dreamweaver 3 back in the day.

Dreamweaver is great for coding, visualization and design previews. But what continues to frustrate us is the FTP functionality of the program. We are currently using CS3, but this goes for past versions as well.

We are often plagued by “timeouts” and “unable to connect” errors. It doesn’t matter the location, IP or operating system of the server we’re connecting to. I’ve even had problems setting file permissions. We’ve tried all the tips, increasing the timeout to 40+ seconds, using Passive FTP, etc. But the program continues to have issues.

At some points we are forced to use Filezilla or Fetch – and they have no problems. Each new version of Dreamweaver we keep hoping Adobe will make the effort to improve the FTP functionality. Maybe next time… CS4 anyone?