Let me start off by making it perfectly clear that I while I don’t illegally download software, music, or videos I have decided to take step into the gray area when it comes to my music. Let me explain…
I’m 45 years old and like to listen to music in the background. While I primarily listen to classic rock, I also listen to many other genres as well. I also spend a significant amount of my listening time listening to music from the past. I only occasionally listen to new music.
For these reasons, I chose iTunes as my online music store of choice. The subscription service does not work for me. If I were to listen to new music and wanted to continually experiment, they might have more appeal to me. The iTunes music service seems to have a reasonably large selection of music, in fact the largest of the music services, and I have downloaded several hundred songs.
Lately, I have been listening to the music through my headphones. I own a pair of Shure e5c headphones and they seem to amplify every nuance in the music. The quality of the music downloads from iTunes seem to be inferior to the CDs I own. While investigating this issue, I found that the bit rate of the iTunes music downloads are fixed at 128bps. My research shows that to maintain CD quality I would have to encode them at a bit rate of 320bps.
While it may not seem like a lot, my library of 2403 songs is completely encoded at 128bps. All but 235 of those songs are from CDs I own. Those 235 have all been purchased from iTunes. It saddens me that I will likely have to re-encode the CDs. It maddens me that I am screwed when it comes to the iTunes music. I have paid $0.99 for each one of those and now have to either purchase the CD, live with the distortion, or pirate the music. Or do I…
I have heard about AllofMP3 for at least a year or so. It just was not something I was interested in since iTunes was providing 100% satisfaction to me. Since I now am in need of a better way to download music, I thought I would take a look at their web site. As I mentioned above, I have no intention of pirating music, or any other media.
AllofMp3 allows the customer to select the bit rate of the download, encodes the music to that bit rate, and then charges you accordingly based on the size of the file. Higher bit rates produce larger download files. Longer songs also produce larger download files.
I decided that the only songs that I will download would be songs that I have already downloaded from iTunes. I am just trying to get cleaner, clearer versions of the songs.
I’m sure your first thought is that I am now going to pay twice for the same music. While that is true, the price of the music from AllofMP3 is close to 25% of the price of iTunes. I can now regularly download a song for $0.27! If you were to compare 128bps downloads, the AllofMp3 price is only $0.17 per track.
There is also an added benefit from using AllofMP3. There is no Digital Rights Management(DRM) on the music. I can freely copy the music to any player I have. Of course this also means that I can give away the music to 10,000 of my closest friends, but I would not do that.
The real question is whether this service is legal or not. At this point, it does not appear to be illegal. AllofMP3 is a Russian company and claim that they are following all of the rules of their country. This includes sending royalties to the artists. I certainly can not substantiate the claim that they are legal, but I have heard the Record Industry Association of America(RIAA) has tried unsuccessfully to shut them down. My belief is that if the RIAA was able to shut them down then the company was genuinely operating illegally. The fact that they are now trying to concoct a reason for the illegality tells me that AllofMP3 must have found a loop hole or that they are genuinely performing legal activities. Until that time I am going to consider the service NOT ILLEGAL. I am not willing to say that the service is legal. If the RIAA comes up with a way to shut AllOfMP3 down or declare it as illegal, I will have to stop using their service.
Am I a software pirate? I am going to say that I am not. Based on the previous paragraph, I am not convinced that the site is illegal. Even it is determined to be illegal, the only downloads that I have made are to music that I have already paid the ‘vig’ to the record industry on. If AllOfMP3 is accurate when they say they pay royalties to the artists, I will have done so twice. If any official wants to see whether I have legal music or not, I can show them the receipts from iTunes showing that I did buy the music.
What am I going to do in the future? I think I will continue to use iTunes to listen to my music but I will have to think long and hard about purchasing any more individual tracks from them. I may have to go back to purchasing the CD until iTunes allows for higher bit rates on their music downloads. I suppose that I could still purchase the song from iTunes and then turn around and purchase the same song from AllOfMP3. That would increase the price of a song from $0.99 to $1.26 and give me what I feel is a legal high bit rate version of the music. I suspect that this will be a decision that is determined on a case by case basis.
207.7
I am going to start a new category in this blog that will document my progress in resolving the many technical issues that I have in my life. I would be very pleased if anyone wants to contribute ideas on how to resolve these issues.
I plan on keeping the list active and on the main blog page. Of course, that is one of the issues that I have. I will have to modify the CSS used to display the main page.
At this point the list is simply bullet items. I am not sure I want to prioritize it. I suspect that I will work on them as the desire mounts.
Here is the list:
Modify Blog page to incorporate a side list
Centralized iTunes library with home stereo access
Personal Backup Strategy
Replace Outlook yet interface with all components
Home Security with web access
Interface web site with YouTube and Flickr
Show real time location via GPS coordinates
Create multi-tuner DVR for main TV
213.3
There are some industry pundits who feel that the CPUs in the current crop of PCs supply more than enough ‘horsepower’ for the average PC user. They say things like the majority of the time the CPU is sitting idle while the user is using their word processor, spreadsheet, browser, etc. Sometimes, it is said that only a power user would need the additional CPU cycles that a dual core, core dual, core 2 dual, whatever… processor would provide.
Well, while I’m certainly on my PC for a majority of the day, and while some people think I am a power user, I don’t think that the requirements I have for my day-to-day machine approach the needs of a power user. I feel that what I am looking for is just enough cycles to not have to wait for my machine.
During my day, I need to check Email, both corporate and personal. I need to be able to access the Internet through a standard browser for research, tech support, and my daily informational needs. I also want to listen to podcasts, video blogs, and the like. Most importantly, I need to perform my job which is centered around Microsoft Office and Microsoft development tools.
My current ‘main machine’ is a 1.7Ghz Dell Inspiron laptop. It has 1GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. I purchased it back in December 2003. Yes, it is getting long in the tooth.
I found it virtually impossible to run the applications I need on a single screen so I downloaded the free Microsoft Virtual Display Manager MSVDM (One of the PowerToys for XP). This gave me four virtual desktops to load applications to.
Desktop One runs Microsoft Outlook full screen. I have a connection to an Exchange Server and a couple of POP3 accounts coming in. I connect to three different mailboxes on the Exchange Server.
Desktop Two runs Firefox full screen. I typically have 10 to 20 tabs open at one time. I make extensive use of the Google Desktop so that I can quickly add a tab via the double tap on the Ctrl key. I try and close out the single use tabs at the end of the day…Well, I try…
Desktop Three is used for the day to day applications. I have Word, Excel, Access, VB, Remote Desktop, etc. I operate with the philosophy that once I am done with an application I close it. Typically I only have two or three apps open at one time.
Desktop Four is used for iTunes. I typically fire off a podcast and then minimize iTunes. This is because of a flaw in MSVDM where iTunes will show up on each desktop. Not a problem with Desktops One and Two since it would show up under Outlook and Firefox, but a real problem on Desktop Three.
I run out of memory a couple of times a day. I also spend a significant amount of time waiting for something to finish. I tried reducing the frequency that Outlook used to check for mail, but it would then spend more time hogging the CPU cycles when it checked for email. I would rather wait for 20 seconds every five minutes, then wait over a minute every 15 minutes. I’m sure I could reinstall the OS and all apps to recoup ~20% of the cycles, but that is such a laborious process.
I will be purchasing a new Merom, Core 2 Dual, laptop once they come out. Even at 2Ghz or 2.5Ghz with 2 GB of RAM I am not sure that this will be enough horsepower. I can’t even imagine how much more processing power I would need if I were to do any video editing, audio generation or any extensive photographic processing.
You really need to stop at the Sagebrush BBQ in New Meadows, Idaho. The address is 210 Virginia Avenue (Hwy 95). Phone number is (208) 347-2818
We had an excellent lunch at this restaurant. They opened the outdoor seating area so that we could eat with our dog at our side. The food was fantastic. You REALLY need to have the bacon wrapped jalapenos appetizer. Also the brisket is some of the best BBQ I have ever had. Highly recommended.
BTW, The Cherry Mountain desert was out of this world.
Have you ever had a situation where several things happen in a short period of time, all appearing to point toward the same conclusion? I had this happen to me recently. These four things happened over the span of a couple of weeks:
My 17th wedding anniversary - Like birthdays, I tend to take stock on this day. It just seemed like I was not getting nearly enough things done as I had hoped. While I will admit that I have several hobbies and that I also like to watch TV and occasionally play video games, I expected to have much more accomplished by now.
Kevin Rose became the $60 million dollar man - I realize that Kevin has stated that he doesn't even have enough money to buy a couch. I am talking more about the fact that he has created such a successful enterprise so quickly. I remember watching him start out on TechTV and work up through the positions. This fact just reiterated the notion that I am not accomplishing what I could be.
I was reintroduced to Jerry Pournelle - I used to read Chaos Manor in Byte magazine back in the 1980s. I even met Jerry, although I doubt he would remember, at the Air Force Academy in 1987 or 1988. For whatever reason, I lost track of him and his column until he appeared on TWIT (This week in Tech) recently. This led me to his web site and allowed me to read the archives that he has placed on his site. I love how he describes in detail his trials and tribulations in Technology. I would like to start doing this myself.
I was next door to a 77 year old man in the RV park - I happen to be currently located at the McCall RV Resort in McCall Idaho. (Great RV park by the way. Highly recommended.) The couple in the site next to ours are in their late 70s. In fact, the gentleman is 77 years old. In the two days that he has been here, he has rafted down a local river, caught several fish for dinner, gone mountain biking and rode his antique Harley Davidson motorcycle around the city. He has also washed his truck and his motorhome. His speedboat is parked nearby. He is looking for someone to go waterskiing with. He prefers to ski barefoot. He and his wife have left twice to go swimming in hot springs located near by. Whew!
So I am hoping that these events will provide the motivation for me to increase my productivity and organize my life.
Things are getting out of control again. It seems that I am running around yet not getting anything accomplished.
I am starting to take some steps towards better organization. I have been hitting the productivity web sites and added a few to my RSS feeds.
One site, Lifehacker, should be considered by anyone who wants to improve their day to day lives.
One of the methods I will use to regain control will be to post frequently to this blog. My reasons are twofold. One will be to force me to make progress on at least one category of my life. The second reason will be to create an archive that can be used to search and quantive progress over an extended period of time.
We will see how it goes....