Fear and Surprise

Yesterday, I mentioned the upgrade to iTunes to feature podcasting. I found Accident Hash, a great podcast that features podsafe music. Podsafe music is free of many of the restrictions of commercial music released by the major record labels. Typically, podcasters are only able to play 30 second clips of commercial music. Since the record labels do not hold the copyright, entire songs may be shared. This is a great way for unsigned artists to get the word out about their music and find an audience.

I first heard about this through Adam Curry's Podfinder podcast. If you're looking for good music that doesn't sound like everything else on the radio check it out. What's the worst that could happen? It's free. If you like it, pick up a CD or buy a few tracks at the iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Adam at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple has upgraded iTunes to version 4.9. The biggest news of the upgrade is podcast support. Overall, this is a huge boost for podcasting. However, the iTunes implementation is not without its own quirks. It does not support BitTorrent. Perhaps Apple is one of the few players who could get away with podcasting without using BitTorrent, given their relationship with Akamai.

There is also an interesting quirk about how podcasts are used in playlists. Podcasts are listed in the left panel of iTunes like Library and Radio. The files downloaded through podcast subscriptions are not added to the library. This means that the files will not show up when using smart playlists. One of my favorite smart playlist is podcasts from the last ten days that I have not heard. In order to use this playlist, I have to add the files to the library manually. Hopefully Apple will address this shortcoming soon.

Posted by Adam at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many broadband providers are upgrading their access speeds. Check out your speed at dslreports.org.

Posted by Adam at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across an article discussing how California is considering banning all textbooks over 200 pages. At first, I thought that this story was a delayed April Fool's joke, but I found it on the California Legislature web site. What I can't believe is that this legislation has already passed on house of the legislature. Don't worry, there will be references to direct students to web sites for more information.

Posted by Adam at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you have a copy of Tiger, you may want to check out a Dashboard Widget for access to NPR on your desktop.

Posted by Adam at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple has announced that it will be transitioning to Intel based processors over the next two years. This announcement came at the Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Francisco. You can watch the Keynote online.

Some people are predicting that this marks the end for Apple. Others expect that this will lead to lower cost Apple computers and a more competitive computing environment. In any event, the next two years will be an interesting time for Apple.

Posted by Adam at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)