General

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DRM problems – solved?

Yesterday I posted about the problems inherent in DRMed music files, and one specific example.

Amazingly, Fox has listened to the fans who had problems downloading and enjoying the Firefly soundtrack!

According to a post on the same fan forum I mentioned last time, Fox now sells the soundtrack in unencrypted MP3 form! I haven’t accessed it myself yet, but plan on re-downloading very soon.

Quite simply, I never thought I’d see a major publisher listening and reacting to fans on this level or this quickly. Granted, this is still just an isolated incident. But maybe if I cross my fingers and wish really hard, it’ll be a sign of things to come.

DRM problems – case in point

As I’m sure I’ve ranted about before, Fox cancelled Firefly a couple years back after a mere 13 episodes were produced. Later, DVD sales were so high that Universal decided to make a movie out of it – Serenity – which hits theaters a week from friday. (glee!)

Today, Fox finally listened to fans and released the wonderful western inspired soundtrack from the TV show. For reasons unknown, it is an online downloadable purchase only. In DRMed wma format.

Here’s a link to a Firefly fan forum’s thread on the topic. This is a group of pretty rabid fans who are desperate to give Fox their money. Unfortunately, they’ve met with limited success in the ability to purchase and/or listen to the files. Mac users are shut out entirely for example, and only IE can be used to purchase the tracks. Users outside the U.S. are unable to purchase at all. Once purchased, a number of owners have been informed that their license is invalid.

I don’t disagree with DRM in principle – copyright holders are entitled to protect their work after all. But the state of this protective technology is still far too primitive to be put into practice. The only ‘successful’ protection I’ve ever seen that works reasonably well is iTunes. Its cross-platform and seems to just work. Providing you have an iPod of course, but that’s an aside.

When DRM prevents customers from listening to legitimately purchased music on this scale, the system needs an overhaul.

Random catch-up

I’ve been falling behind on blogging recently, I’ll admit. Here’s a quick list of stuff that has caught my eye recently:

WordPress is offering free blog hosting along the lines of blogger’s setup. Simply get in line at WordPress.com and await your golden ticket. I really love working in wordpress, and having someone else keep an eye on updates and general maintenance for me would make it even better!

Meebo.com is an amazing web-based meta-IM service. I’m really excited about all these “web 2.0″/Ajax sites we’re seeing pop up. My only real problem with Meebo is that its too easy to accidentally close the window and log off. But its still a great product for being so early in development. Its great to see real applications that are entirely web-based.

Speaking of Ajaxy sites, Netvibes.com is my new homepage. Its similar to Microsoft’s Start.com and Google’s IG, but better executed. I’ve never been able to stay logged into Google’s between browser sessions, for example. Plus, it lets you put multiple Gmail accounts on the page, something neither other service does. I can monitor my ‘real’ account and my spamcatcher at the same time! Netvibes could use a better, more relevant URL though… I keep having to look it up.

In library land, D-Lib has a great analysis article this month on the Google Print project. I admit a bit shamefully that I haven’t been following news on this topic as closely as I probably should. This piece was a good catchup.

Nintendo finally unveiled the controller for their next console, the Revolution. And the design is, well, revolutionary. There’s tons of potential for innovative, more fully interactive gameplay here, and I sincerely hope Nintendo follows through. I find myself more and more drawn to the innovative games over the newest hot shooters recently. The Revolution might be the one next gen console I invest in.

I also continue to really enjoy and learn from Digg.com. I’m trying to find a way to integrate my recent diggs into the site here, but I just can’t make it work with the design. Suggestions are welcome.

That’s all for now, I hope to be back more fully in the blogging swing of things soon.

New librarian tip #1: Do someone else’s homework

As a new librarian, I thought it might be interesting to share things that are helping me to get acclimated to the working world. This is the first in an occasional series.

Today I received a copy of a “scavenger hunt” assignment that students from a business class must complete. I had a couple of open hours this afternoon, and took a crack at the list.

Hoo boy was that an undertaking. While I don’t have the exact questions in front of me as I type, they were along the somewhat obscure lines of “What percentage of people who eat Cheerios are under 17?”. Lots of market research, demographics and company profile info. I finished off my MLIS with a business resources class, but this was a whole new level!

I didn’t get to answer every question exactly, but I now at least have an idea of where to look for the answers. When a student comes in with questions about this assignment, I’m better prepared to assist.

And that was the objective I set out to accomplish. But along the way I picked up a couple of unexpected bonuses: Firstly, I’m much better acquainted with our business reference collection in general. Secondly, I struck up a conversation in the stacks with a student who was doing the assignment himself. We were competing for the same book, actually. The whole task also sparked some good conversations with my co-workers

In sum, it was a great integrating experience. I’m hoping to pick up some similar worksheets from our other subject specialists.

And the award goes to…

…Xbox Live!

An emmy, even!

Microsoft’s online console gaming service won in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Technology and Advanced New Media.”

I suppose an emmy has to go to to one concrete entity – otherwise I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go to podcasting or some other general concept.

Nintendo DS

Last weekend I made a trip to the Unclaimed Baggage store in Scottsboro, Alabama. They gather up all the stuff people leave in their, well, unclaimed baggage at airports and sell it rather substantially discounted off of list price. Flickr pictures are here.

The big find of the trip for me was my Nintendo DS. It has some scratches on the outside, and is missing a couple of unimportant accessories, but the discount made up for it.

After a week of playing with it on and off, I’m extremely impressed. I know I’m a bit late on the bandwagon for the system, but I still feel it is worth talking about. I only own three DS games, and two of them are extremely innovative. This is largely due to the touch screen. The lower of the two screens is manipulated via a stylus, and this new method of control really revolutionizes gameplay.

Super Mario 64 DS is a remake of the Nintendo 64 Mario game with a few extra features. I never really liked the original, so wasn’t surprised when this one underwhelmed me as well. Thankfully, the new mini-games make extensive use of the touch pad and are worth a play. This game came with the system or I wouldn’t own it.

Meteos, my next purchase, instantly claimed hours of my life. The game is a twist on the old “blocks falling from the sky” puzzle style that Tetris made famous. This time you manipulate the blocks directly on the lower screen with the stylus. The gameplay feels more immediate somehow, really putting you in the middle of the action.

Today I celebrated my first paycheck by purchasing Kirby’s Canvas Curse. Unlike Meteos, which has an option to play via control pad, Kirby can only be moved around via the touch pad. The player has to draw paths for him to follow, and tap the little pink dude to nudge him along the way.

Neither of these games would be particularly remarkable, or even playable, if controlled via a standard control pad and buttons.

As a bonus, the DS is backwards compatible with Game Boy Advance games. I scooped up the original Super Mario Brothers game very cheaply. This back catalog is a big plus. And to top it all off, the system is wireless-capable. I don’t know anybody else to play against right now, but this fall’s highly anticipated DS Mario Kart game promises to be enabled for free internet play. Sign me up!

The Playstation Portable may hold the ‘sexy’ spot in the handheld gaming market, but the DS delivers a unique and fun gaming experience at more than $100 less. Kudos to Nintendo for trying something different.

As a disclaimer, Nintendo does have a high nostalgia value for me. I grew up on their consoles, and their consoles alone. It almost feels like coming home again 🙂

Helping Out

Today at work it was announced that we’re throwing open our computer labs to the large numbers of Katrina refugees who have ended up in the Huntsville area. Library cards and printing cards will be issued free of charge – Getting them access to our resources has been made a priority. This is after the public libraries’ computers have been very full.

One of our librarians put together a handout of sites relevant to the situation, and we have tentative plans to open more labs than usual and have staff on hand to assist person to person.

If you know anybody in the Huntsville area who could make use of these resources, please point them to the UAH library and/or drop me a line: Haefele@gmail.com

Meetro

I was excited to discover Meetro last night. But now… not so much.

Meetro is an IM client that interfaces with AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, and MSN. But Meetro doesn’t stop there, and goes on to add their own IM service. The key is that the Meetro service is “location aware”. Enter your location’s address, and your buddy list fills up with people physically near to you. From there, you browse the users’ profiles to find those with similar interests. Strike up a conversation and voila, you’ve got a new friend to hang out with.

As a new transplant to the Huntsville area without a social group, this core functionality really excited me. An easy way to meet like-minded people!

However, Meetro has an achilles heel – nobody uses it. Or at least nobody in my area. At first I thought the client wasn’t even working – “within 1/4 mile”, “within a mile”, “within 5 miles”, and “Other Locals” were all showing zero results. I had to broaden the last category substantially to find anybody. The nearest person I’ve seen online so far is 146 miles away, and there are only five within 300 miles.

Which brings me to my point: I think there are simply too many options out there. AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and MSN have the market pretty locked up. How can a newcomer break in? Users established their preference long ago. Enabling Meetro to connect to these older services was a step in the right direction, but the key question is how to convince users that they need this extra functionality. They’ve gotten along just fine without it so far, after all.

Even when a user does venture into something new, how are they to pick an option? Google Talk? Meetro? Service XYZ? There are too many options for any newcomer to reach the critical mass of users necessary for success in a collaborative environment. A company almost has to be first to market, even if not the best – imagine if there were half a dozen capable alternatives to Flickr. They never would have gotten the user base necessary to justify continued development and improvement of service.

A site or service needs users to get users. I don’t tend to be an early adopter who sees this process firsthand, and so would be interested in a case study on how to successfully grow a user base.

Meanwhile, I’m crossing my fingers that Meetro catches on. But not holding my breath.

Magical Time Travel

One of the strangest aspects of moving for me has been that of changing time zones. There’s tons of little things that you just don’t think about being different.

-My free phone minutes start an hour after my brother’s do back east
-The Today Show is tape-delayed by an hour
-Evening news and late night TV are not delayed, so now I keep forgetting what time they’re on
-When watching commercials, the second time in the “Tonight at 10/9c” statements

OK, so maybe most apply to television. But it still takes some getting used to.

P.S. I finally got around to updating the clock and ‘Welcome’ box, for those reading not via the RSS feed.