Great anecdote in the Economist about the decline of the CD

By tim, on January 13th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

The Economist has a report on change in the music industry, which kicks off with this anecdote:

IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them

…continue reading Great anecdote in the Economist about the decline of the CD

Camera, Flash, Action: review of the LG Viewty

By tim, on November 26th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

I’ve reviewed LG’s new camera phone here. I found this an interesting device because it has a Flash UI, one that for the most part works very well. It also has an excellent camera. No wi-fi, which is a shame.

The Viewty is bound to be compared to the iPhone, because both have touch

…continue reading Camera, Flash, Action: review of the LG Viewty

iPod database successfully hacked – for now

By tim, on September 17th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

A couple of days ago I blogged about the database hash in new iPods, which prevents their use with song management software other than iTunes. There is no iTunes for Linux.

The good news is that apparently the hash has been cracked, “using a debugger on Windows.”

Miguel de Icaza goes on to observe:

…continue reading iPod database successfully hacked – for now

New iPod locked more tightly to iTunes, will not work with Linux

By tim, on September 15th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

Apple has apparently made some changes to the iPod that make it increasingly difficult to use with anything other than iTunes. Since iTunes does not run on Linux, this affects Linux users more than anyone.

I wrote a piece a while back on Linux multimedia, and was impressed at how well my old iPod

…continue reading New iPod locked more tightly to iTunes, will not work with Linux

In praise of SlimServer

By tim, on August 27th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

I’ve been playing with SlimServer, the software developed to serve music to the Slim Devices Squeezebox, and I’m impressed. Don’t have a Squeezebox? Read on, because you don’t need one to benefit from SlimServer. In fact, I’ve not yet tried the Squeezebox itself, only the software. SlimServer is written in Perl, and is both

…continue reading In praise of SlimServer

Recreating iTunes in Silverlight

By tim, on August 23rd, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

Browsing through Codeplex I came across this project to recreate iTunes as a Silverlight application. What’s remarkable is that author Jose Fajardo has kept a kind of developer’s diary on his blog, complete with YouTube videos here, here and here showing how he is recreating Apple’s music app as a Silverlight/Ajax web application.

…continue reading Recreating iTunes in Silverlight

Linn Records adopts FLAC for hi-res downloads

By tim, on May 4th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

I was interested to see that Linn Records now offers FLAC downloads in its music download store. This is a download store done right – no DRM, no lossy compression (unless you specifically choose MP3).

It’s still something of a struggle finding a file format to please everybody. Linn now has three: MP3, lossless

…continue reading Linn Records adopts FLAC for hi-res downloads

MP3 device runs .NET – but in Mono guise

By tim, on April 9th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

I’ve long been interested in Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft .NET. It seems to be maturing; the latest sign is the appearance of an MP3 player using Linux and Mono. Engadget has an extensive review. Miguel de Icaza says on his blog:

The Sansa Connect is running Linux as its operating system, and the

…continue reading MP3 device runs .NET – but in Mono guise

Steve Jobs on DRM: sense and nonsense

By tim, on February 7th, 2007 Follow tim on Twitter

Kudos – mostly – to Steve Jobs for his remarks on Apple and DRM.

…continue reading Steve Jobs on DRM: sense and nonsense

The best and worst of Vista multimedia

By tim, on December 27th, 2006 Follow tim on Twitter

A friend called on Christmas day. She was away from home and had forgotten to set the video to record a couple of TV programmes. We’re testing Vista media center, so it was a matter of going to Vista’s TV guide, scrolling to the programmes she wanted, and selecting Record. What about the transfer

…continue reading The best and worst of Vista multimedia

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