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Who's in the corner?
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December 5, 2004 |
Random thought:
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Another source for musicIn the past few weeks, I've downloaded several albums from the Internet. I could have obtained them for $10 from Itunes, but I chose to use "allofmp3.com" because I can download most albums for about $1 (40 cents for CDs that replicate albums released in the 1960s to $1.50 for double-CD sets.) And it seems to be legal. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) doesn't like it when people download music from systems that use peer-to-peer networking. When I first heard of AllOfMP3.com (which is located in Moscow) I checked the RIAA's website and found Your search for "allofmp3" returned 0 pages. Search time 4.828 seconds. So apparently the RIAA doesn't have an opinion. AllOfMP3.com, because it is located in Moscow, is subject to Russian copyright laws. Because of this, it provides downloads that are priced at 1 or 2 cents per megabyte. In many cases, you can choose the encoding rate (128Mbps to 320Mbps). Higher encoding rates create larger files that cost more. To use the service, you need to provide credit card information on a secure link and pre-pay ($5 to $50). Once you've done that, you have access to more than 20,000 albums, nearly 1000 soundtracks, and more than 700 classical albums.
Click either of the 2 images above for a larger view.
At the right is a summary of "The Best of ZZ Top" downloaded as Itunes files at 128Mbps. The cost of downloading the entire album was $1.443, or about 3.8 cents per track. The Explorer works only with Windows systems; if you have a Mac, you'll have to download files individually or ask someone with a Windows computer for assistance. When everything you've ordered has finished downloading, you can move the tracks into an Itunes directory or have an application such as Musicmatch or Winamp add them to their libraries. The download speed is decidedly slower than what I'm used to at Itunes, but the downloading all happens in the background without my intervention. I've found several tracks that either didn't exist or were truncated during the download process, but AllOfMP3 has a technical support page on its "All of MP3 Explorer" page and reports of problem files have all been resolved within 24 hours. The site has been particularly useful in helping me to fill in some blanks in the music that's available on my Ipod. I have several hundred LPs from the 1960s and 1970s and converting the tracks from these albums to MP3 has been on my schedule for a long time. It's a time-consuming process, but I'm understandably reluctant to buy CDs of albums I already own (although I did do this with the Beatles). In some cases, I've found CDs of albums I own at the library, but there were still large gaps.
As far as downloading new music that I will play numerous times and keep ... I'm not sure. The price suggests that there's something vaguely improper. But the fact that the RIAA's website has no information about the site suggests to me that there's nothing illegal.
A Rough Guide to IpodsI was just sitting here minding my own business when an envelope flew over the transom, whacked me in the head, and delivered a couple of books from a company I'd never heard of. The Rough Guide to Ipods is what told me about AllOfMP3.com.
The two Rough Guide books are uncommonly well organized with numerous references within the individual books and references to other books in the series. They're well designed and edited books, too. Brief, but not terse. Complete, but not verbose. The Ipod book, for example, is a little over 200 pages. You can easily read it in a couple of evenings, but then you'll keep it around for reference. The book covers the differences between the various kinds of Ipods (those with disks and those with only solid state memory), how to manage your music, downloading from various stores (including AllOfMP3, above), how to hook up an Ipod to an audio system, how to fine-tune the sound, and even how to choose and use add-on devices.
This book might be marginally useful if you have a portable music device other than an Ipod, but to get the full value from the book you need one of Apple's little devices.
Nerdly NewsThe MicroblogMicrosoft launched a service this week for people who want to create online personal journals. By any other name, a blog, Microsoft calls it "MSN Spaces" and users can add photos, music lists, and more to their blogs. Ah, spaces. Blogging has turned out to be quite popular and was an important part of the recent election. Until AOL entered blogspace late in 2003, the space was owned by much smaller companies. Google is there, too. The question is whether Microsoft will dominate the market. The consensus is "probably not" but MSN Spaces will serve to publicize the concept and cause more people to start blogs. If everyone starts blogging, everyone will be able to sit around incessantly contemplating everyone else's belly button. That's probably a bit harsh, but it seems to me that about 90% of the blogs contain nothing of interest to anyone but the person who wrote it. There are exceptions, of course, and some blogs are well worth the time it takes to read them. But they are the exceptions. MSN Spaces, as the name suggests, will be closely linked to the MSN Messenger and MSN E-mail. The service is currently free. Microsoft is considering fees and advertising options. HP says it will throttle viruses and wormsStarting sometime in 2005, HP computers will include what the company is calling "Virus Throttler" software that will watch for abnormal activity and then isolate the application that's responsible. The company is developing the application in England. The program identifies unusual network traffic and then stops it. It won't remove the offending application -- that will still be up to a technician -- but HP says the throttler will stop or slow a virus or worm that's spreading through a LAN. Initially, HP will include the application with its ProLiant servers and its ProCurve network switches. Eventually the application will show up on personal desktop systems. HP says it needs to be made more "consumer-friendly" before that happens, though. HP has 16 patents on various components of the system and HP says Throttler won't affect computer performance. Reality check: Hello, HP, any application that's running on the computer has some effect on performance. It may be small; it may not be easily noticed; but it will affect computer performance. Let us know what you think about this program! Write to: |
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You select the individual tracks you want (or entire albums), then choose from the various formats (Mp3, Wma, Ogg, Mpc, FLAC, Monkey Audio, and Mpeg-4 AAC) and place your order. AllOfMP3.com offers a free "All of MP3 Explorer" that makes the download process easy. Start up the AllOfMP3 application and it begins downloading the music you've selected.
I've found tracks from some of the old albums at AllOfMP3.com and, while I'm not willing to pay $10 to buy music I already own, I am willing to pay 40 cents or so to download digitized versions (albums in the 1960s and 1970s were short by today's standards.) Even the RIAA shouldn't be concerned about this. I've also downloaded some CDs that I don't own, but many of these are CDs that I wouldn't have purchased, anyway. They're artists I may listen to once or twice before 
deleting the files. My Ipod is full with nearly 2 weeks' worth of music (24 hours per day) and that doesn't include hundreds of selections I've moved to non-Ipod directories. If I include everything that WinAmp can see (which is all of the files except "protected" files downloaded from Itunes), I have nearly 7000 items (including some half-hour "old-time radio" programs) that would play without repeating for nearly one month. 
The two books in the envelope were "rough guides" to the Ipod and to the Internet. These are small books -- a little over 4 inches by a little over 6 inches. They're written for a multi-national audience, but the authors are clearly British. I'm one of those people who enjoy learning about the differences between US English and UK English or Canadian English or other variants of the language, so reading the Ipod book was a treat.
