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A Song at Ourmedia

I’ve been bothered by the fact that Ourmedia has been fubar’d for me for quite some time. I mean, I was an early user, and a good supporter, but when my account no longer allowed me to upload (due to some weird problem on their end in which they seemed to believe my archive.org credentials were incorrect) I pretty much stopped using Ourmedia. My videos (and some audio) were going to blip.tv, and nowhere else.

So I did the only thing I could… created another email address, and registered it at Ourmedia, The Internet Archive, and SpinXpress. (Yup, now you also need to use another service/piece of software. SpinXpress is recommended to actually upload your media files. It’s a pain, but it actually worked!

That’s the long complaining version of saying, I created a song. It’s called 13 Diodes, and you can find it at 13 Diodes at Ourmedia or 13 Diodes at The Internet Archive. (Creative Commons Attribution License.)

Anyway, let me know what you think of the song. Most of the music I’ve been creating lately has been put into the videos I do, but I may start playing around with just doing songs on their own if I feel like it.


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Bigger iPods

As I was listening to the Macworld Podcast about the DRM-free deal with EMI, I came away with these points. The iTunes store will offer DRM-free songs, which will cost more, but also be of higher quality. So who wins in this case? The consumer, right? You can choose DRM-free music (and pay a bit more) or choose DRM music and pay less, but have to go through the process of stripping the DRM yourself. Oh, you will also have the option of ‘upgrading’ all the DRM music you have to (higher quality) DRM-free versions (at a price.)

So what does Apple get out of this? They will be ready and willing to sell you a bigger iPod. If your iPod is at 80% capacity, I’m guessing that after doing the ‘upgrade’ to DRM-free versions, or after enough time buying the new DRM-free stuff, you’ll run out of room. When you need that iPod with twice the storage of your old one, Apple will be there to sell it to you.

Thanks Steve Jobs!

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Web414 Meeting: Thursday, April 12th, 2007

Milwaukee web nerds and graphic designers… Join us at 7PM on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 to hear Mike Rohde talk about the Importance of Iteration in Design…

Web414 - The Importance of Iteration in Design

Mike just had an article published on the subject that may be a good preview: Embracing Iterative Design

If you haven’t been to a Web414 meeting yet, and are interested in building the new web (as a designer, coder, whatever) stop by and check it out. (I’ll also talk about Lightbox-type libraries a bit if there is time.)

Note that we will still be at MSOE, but in the The Brady Corp. Conference Room this time. Details are at web414.com


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NAS versus Server

I’ve written quite a bit about the Linksys NSLU2 we’ve been using at the office, and the problems we’ve have with it. (Linksys NSLU2 Update, Linksys NSLU2 versus ????) Overall it’s been a nice device for what it does, and for the price (about $80) but we’ve outgrown it, and we’re looking for a better solution.

I think that better solution is just going to be a server. (Going back to Small Business – Server & Backup I guess.) We should be able to solve most of the problems we had with the NSLU2 by using an old G4 PowerMac. The Mac should be faster than the NSLU2, and should not have any of the permission problems we’ve experienced. We’ll also be able to just deal with AFP instead of SMB since we’re a Mac-shop.

(I still think the NSLU2 is a good device for what it is, and for a home network would probably work well. Though reading up on FreeNAS it looks like a cool solution, and something I may try to play with in the future.)

The Mac will also allow us to do a few more things, like run the internal wiki, and possibly handle the office calendaring needs. What I really look forward to is automating our Amazon S3 backups using a Mac file server.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll keep posting updates on this as we go…

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For the Love of Fonts

I come from the design world. I don’t often admit this, but I love type. I love type design. I’m a fan of fonts. It’s all true…

FontExplorer X

I just started playing with Linotype’s FontExplorer X. It’s an amazing application. Besides managing the fonts you have installed, it also acts as a front-end to the Linotype store. Imagine iTunes for fonts. You can browse, search, test, and purchase fonts all through FontExplorer X. Damn that’s cool!

It may only appeal to design geeks, but if you have hundreds of fonts and need to quickly go through them all to find what works for a specific design, this may be just what you need. (I know I said “hundreds of fonts” even though some designers have thousands of fonts, I just didn’t want to scare non-designers too much.)