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Stuff that doesn’t fit in any other category

I just don’t understand…

I read today that pearworks has been forced to discontinue distribution of their awesome pearLyrics widget--this handy tool downloaded and displayed the lyrics for the currently-playing iTunes song. pearworks received a cease and decist letter from Warner/Chappell Music Limited, requiring that pearLyrics be removed from distribution. You can read more about it here on the pearLyrics site.

The reason for this posting, though, isn't to try to start a groundswell of opinion to get pearLyrics back on the market (though that would be a nice outcome). Instead, there's a Big Picture item here that I just don't get: why do the record companies care about the distribution of lyrics? Regardless of whether I own a CD by Band X or not, why does any record company care if there are lyrics servers out there distributing the words Band X's music? I understand that the lyrics are copyrighted, but it's not like the words do a lot of good to anyone without the music (do they? Is that what I'm missing?). And this isn't a case where someone's done something like scanned the latest Grisham novel and put it online for download--in that case, the product is the words, and the artist is clearly damaged by the distribution of the scanned words. But with songs, the words themselvese aren't really good for much of anything without the accompanying music and vocals, right? So why do the record companies care?

To me, this is completely 100% backwards from how it should be--I would think record companies would want people distributing lyrics to songs. That way, someone might stumble across a song with interesting words, and then go out and (gasp!) purchase the song. Instead, the record companies are going out of their way to prevent the distribution of lyrics. Can someone brighter than I explain exactly why they're concerned about this? Like Windows and $50,000+ Cadillac pickup trucks, I just don't get it, so I assume I must be missing something obvious.



I’m in the wrong business…

Disclaimer: This post is only very barely, just kind of a little tiny bit, related to anything in the world of technology. If that bothers you, stop reading now. :)

Moose Muffin bookA while back, someone gave our daughter Kylie a present--a book called If You Give A Pig A Pancake. This slender book quickly became one of her favorites, probably because of the large illustrations on each page.

So we were out doing the weekly shopping on Saturday, and noticed another book by the same author. This one's called If You Give A Moose A Muffin. Knowing how much she liked the other one, we casually tossed the moose book in the cart and proceeded to check out. We get home, and sure enough, Kylie thinks this one's a winner too.

Then last night, I'm entering the shopping receipt into Quicken, and I nearly choked when I saw what we paid for the book--$15.99! Amazon has it cheaper, of course, but it's still not inexpensive...especially when you realize what you get for the money:

32 pages, including the inside cover, and a total of 304 words.

Using Amazon's price, that's about 3.5 cents per word (or 5.3 cents per word for what we paid). By itself, that may not sound like too much. But had my Panther book, at 174,907 words, been priced similarly, it would have retailed for ... $6,121.75 (or $9,270 at 5.3 cents/word)! Zowie! On the other hand, if we could have sold even two or three at that price... ;)

Now, in all seriousness, this is a great book with funny text and wonderful full-page color illustrations, which probably accounts for the majority of the cost. Still, I've learned two things from this. First, always check the tag on a children's book before throwing it in the cart--the thickness of the book is clearly independent from the price of said book. And second, I'm going to put the other "Give A..." books on Kylie's Christmas list right now!



Digital cameras, now and not quite now…

As a follow-up to my Cameras, then and now… story, here’s what’s happened with digital camera evolution in our household over the last three years.

As noted in the other writeup, our current digital camera is the Canon PowerShot SD400, a marvel of features and compactness that we bought this past July. It replaced a Canon PowerShot S30, which I purchased in January of 2002. So just how far have consumer digital cameras come in three years? Probably a lot farther than this article will demonstrate, as I’ll only be speaking to the differences in the two cameras we own. But even there, the changes are pretty dramatic, starting with (of course), the size:

s30 vs. sd400

[continue reading…]



Cameras, then and now…

Sometimes, in the everyday hustle and bustle of life, I sometimes overlook just how amazing the last twenty or so years have really been. This weekend, for instance, we undertook a (very often put-off but very important) project to electronically catalog all of our important assets, personal documents (passports, social security cards, etc.), and bank access info. I built a simple FileMaker Pro database off a standard template, and then started populating it with data—including images of various things. Once it’s done, we’re going to burn it to a CD, print out the contents, and take both the CD and the printout to a safety deposit box.

In the midst of all this, I was digging through the shelves, looking for potentially hidden assets, when I came upon an old camera of mine. No, not an old digital camera. An old consumer ‘point and shoot’ 35mm camera, the Pentax Zoom 105-R, which I bought in the fall of 1993. Back in the day, this was a really decent consumer 35mm camera, and relatively portable for its time. I seem to recall purchasing it for, among other things, it’s relatively small size.

But it was while snapping a photo of the old camera with my Canon PowerShot SD400 that I realized just how far cameras have come in the last 12 years:

cameras compared

[continue reading…]



For the long hint-less weekend…

Two extra days with no hints, and I doubt I'll write much on robservatory during that time ... so what to do, what to do!? To make up for the lack of hints and new writing from yours truly between now and Monday, here are some ways to amuse yourselves...

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

-rob.



A very cool retro CD label…

There's a Portland radio station, KINK FM 102, that has a fair number of live 'in the studio' performances each year. As a result, for each of the last eight years, they've released a compilation CD with the best of those live performances. Money earned from the CD sales goes to SMART--Start Making A Reader Today, a program that helps at-risk youth develop their reading skills. As such, I feel good about purchasing the CD each year; the fact that there are usually a fair number of tracks I like (almost all are acoustic with simple piano and/or guitar accompanying the voices) is just an added bonus.

So what's all this have to do with technology? Well, this year's CD, Kink Live 8, has one of the most unique, creative 'labels' I've ever seen. Below are small images of both the front and back of the CD:

Kink Live 8 frontKink Live 8 back

Click on either image for a larger version in a new window, and you can see the details in the front--it looks just like an old vinyl record (for those of you old enough to remember those). What you can't really see is how much it actually feels like a record, too. The grooves are there, there are smooth areas between each song, and the overall texture is very similar to what I remember of vinyl. The back side is just pure black, and polished to a near mirror-like finish. I didn't even know such things were available, but Froogle quickly pointed out my lack of knowledge on the subject.

That's it; I just wanted to point out a really cool CD label design (and plug a good cause, if you happen to like any of those bands and are in the greater Portland area). It's a nice change of pace from the image- and text-heavy labels that I usually see.





A tale of two tech support calls…

Today, I had the (unfortunate?) need to contact two companies' tech support departments. I found the experience interesting, if not fairly time consuming. Over the years, I have had very little need for tech support, so this was a relatively new experience for me. I found both good and bad elements in both calls, and I thought I'd share what I went through, along with a few combined rants and recommendations on how to improve the tech support experience.

Case #1: Cingular

I had to contact Cingular, as I'd been having troubles with my Treo cell phone. The phone and PDA parts were working fine, but the internet connection (for web and email) stopped working on Friday morning. I started by calling the stored number (toll-free) in my Treo for customer support, but after punching my way through a few menus, I was directed to call another number. I did so, and again worked my way through a few menus to reach what I thought was "data technical support." When the rep got on the line, the first thing she asked me for was the name on the account, as well as the last four digits of the tax ID number (kind of like a social security number for companies) of the account owner. My phone is provided by Macworld, but that's not the official name of the company (Mac Publishing, LLC). Even worse, Macworld is part of IDG, and I had no idea which entity actually set up and "owned" the account ... and I certainly didn't know their tax ID number. So I had to hang up and contact Macworld.

[continue reading…]



My initial thoughts on Intel and Apple…

Macworld logoI wrote a weblog entry for Macworld covering my initial reactions to the announcement, as well as some thoughts as to what it might mean for the future. I've heard it called Macintel, but that seems to easy to me. Since it will have "Intel inside," I prefer Mintelac [min•tel•ak], since that's literally Intel inside Mac.

In short, I'm definitely excited about the potential, but quite scared about the transition ... you can read why in the full entry over at macworld.com.

[Note: I've disabled the comments for this article, as editorials such as this one are now actually part of my job for Macworld -- hence, I'd like any follow-up conversation to appear on Macworld, not here. Don't worry, my blog's not going away, and I'll still try to post here regularly. But there will be posts such as this, where the topic I wish to discuss is very closely aligned with my job, that will appear on my Macworld weblog instead -- I will always include a pointer to such articles here, though.]



Ten things I know about golf

When I have some free time (ha!), I enjoy playing golf. Despite the fact that I'm really not that good at it, I find it both relaxing and challenging. After a recent round, I was thinking about the sport, and came up with the following list of observations (and don't worry, this isn't turning into a sports blog; I've got a long writeup on Butler in the works! This was just top-of-mind last night...).

  1. If there's one spot on the fairway you don't want to be, that's where you'll find your drive.
  2. Golf balls have a strange magnetic attraction for water.
  3. Though it may appear the putt breaks left (right), it actually breaks right (left).
  4. If your irons (woods) are working really well today, your woods (irons) are not.
  5. If your score on the front nine is five shots better (worse) than your typical round, your score on the back nine will be at least five shots worse (better) than your typical round.
  6. If you consistently hit your 9-iron 150 yards, and you need to hit it at least 140 to carry the lake, you will hit it 139 yards.
  7. Trees may be 90% air, but your ball will hit that single, tiny, skinny branch sticking out roughly 99.5% of the time.
  8. When the Golf Gods force you to use five shots on a short 175 yard par three hole, then immediately let you use only three shots on the very next 440 yard par four, thou shalt not question the Golf Gods decision making process.
  9. The hardest shot in golf is your opening tee shot on a busy Sunday morning at the local course, where the crowded outdoor patio at the restaurant overlooks the first tee.
  10. If you ever stop to really consider what it takes to even make contact with a golf ball, you'll probably never hit one straight again.

Despite all this, I still find the game fun to play ... though I'm not sure why!