Monthly Archive for May, 2007

iTunes Plus

Published
by
Rhys
on May 31, 2007
in The Mill
. 0 Comments

Back in April, Apple announced a deal with EMI that would allow higher quality, DRM-free versions of their songs to be made available through the iTunes store. They said it would happen in May.

True to their word, iTunes Plus was launched today, the last day of May[1]. Despite that there was no initial announcement regarding the Australian iTunes store, fortunately it was included.

So what is iTunes Plus? Well, it’s the same music plus an extra 128kbps (adding up to 256kpbs) minus the DRM that makes it more difficult than it should be to move from one computer to another. Oh, and it’s also plus an extra 50 cents (Australian store).Eager to upgrade my library I fired up iTunes this morning and discovered that I needed to update it. iTunes 7.2 is needed, presumably because there is a lot of integration of the store with iTunes the application. After updating I had trouble connecting hopefully because everyone else was upgrading their libraries too. Upgrading my library wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. It didn’t hit me in the face quite as much as the complete my album feature does. But I managed to get through to iTunes plus to be greeted with a new set of terms and conditions.

After getting through all that (as far as I recall, the main difference was that iTunes plus purchases exclude some of the restrictions listed in the terms and conditions) I finally saw that I had 8 tracks that could be upgraded. Hopefully more will be available over time.

Unfortunately connectivity issues with the iTunes store prevented me from downloading the files straight away. Fortunately iTunes is fairly fault-tolerant and they are sitting in my download queue.

I haven’t yet run into any roadblocks with the iTunes store DRM yet, but I haven’t had to re-install OS X. You are able to burn tracks to CD, place them on up to five computers and as many iPods as you like. This is obviously a big restriction if you don’t have an iPod. These restrictions are all lifted with iTunes plus.

You may however be interested to know that your full name and email address is apparently embedded into the file[2]. So don’t go putting them up on your favourite P2P network. I wouldn’t be too concerned about this, although some have pointed out that it makes it more difficult to resell. I see it as being somewhat similar to having my name and phone number in a book I bought. The other issue is that people are concerned about people stealing iPods. Personally I think you’ve got bigger problems if someone is stealing your iPod (they can likely steal other things too).

Of course, you aren’t allowed to use tracks from iTunes as a ringer on a mobile phone (even with iTunes Plus, although there is no technical restriction). Personally I hope this condition is just about good taste. It will be interesting to see if this changes when the iPhone is released.


  1. Apple Launches iTunes Plus [back ↩]
  2. Apple hides account info in DRM-free music too [back ↩]

Online Dating

Published
by
Rhys
on May 1, 2007
in The Mill
. 0 Comments

Recently, my friends Paul and Will got engaged[1]. While we are waiting to see if Will’s competitive nature will lead to him tying the knot first, or Paul to reveal that it was all a bluff to force Will’s hand, I thought it time to look at finding myself a partner.

With lots of experience in writing about when to propose, what to do with rings, etc. I thought I was in a perfect position to start a relationship. What a mistake!I’m not a huge fan of the “clubbing” scene, but that doesn’t mean I like to be confined to the house. The probability of two people who don’t like “clubbing” to meet at a club is incredibly low. With this first test in mind I am left with finding people at work or on the Internet.

Sure, I get emails all the time from “Sexy Ladies” who seem to want to be my sex slave, but this seems a bit too forward for me. I’ve always thought that sodomy shouldn’t happen on the first date. I’m a bit conservative that way. So, surely people who share some common ground with me would be using the Internet, right? And if they were, they were likely to be on Internet dating sites.

I thought I had found the solution through a logical process. Unfortunately, after being on a site for over a year I have received no responses. Not one. Something was wrong. I had also tried to initiate contact with several people, each of whom responded with either a rejection or not at all. I was beginning to feel quite discouraged.

From this experience I think I’ve worked out what one of the key problems with this is. People are looking for perfection. If you don’t have rock hard abs and can bench press twice your body weight, you shouldn’t bother. This negates the effect of finding compatible personalities. Unless of course, my personality is so utterly offensive it scared everyone away.

So now that the Internet has failed me, I guess it’s time for Plan B, asking random people on the street.


  1. not to each other [back ↩]