As reported by Ars Technica, the New Zealand House of Representatives passed a bill on 8 April 2008 reforming copyright law for the "digital age". Most netizens even outside the US will have come across the American DMCA: any mention seems tainted by the taste of bile. The DMCA criminalises circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) technologies and access controls—many folk argue at the expense of "fair use". Do the NZ reforms provide workable compromise?
Continue reading 'New Zealand progressive on fair use laws'
Tag archive for 'itunes'
While generally in life you get what you pay for, there are rare instances when the reverse is true. Since their launch I've been fairly regularly checking out the free Single of the Week on the iTunes Music Store (UK and NZ editions). A 30 second preview is enough to decide if it's worth a download or not, and I have discovered some real gems from artists I hadn't previously heard of. Here are the "keepers" from my Freebies playlist; I hope you find something that tickles your fancy too.
Continue reading 'iTunes freebies are worth checking out'
Like many Mac users I archive my pictures in iPhoto, largely because I enjoy the tight integration this affords with Apple and third-party apps that might want to use them. Having entered the world of geotagging I was disappointed to discover that iPhoto can fail to show coordinates in EXIF (and when shown, oddly lists them under Exposure), does not recognise location data in IPTC headers, and does not provide any "show on map" facility (even Preview does this). Norbert Doerner of West-Forest-Systems then pointed out that I'd completely neglected archive and retrieval of geotagged images in my "ABC" article. This Mac software critique goes some way to redress that omission by considering the role of CDFinder in a Mac user's geotagging workflow. CDFinder is essentially an asset manager that catalogues any file on any volume (CD-ROM, DVD, USB drive, etc). But media metadata are its speciality, and this indexing powerhouse has recently been extended to handle geotags and provide related functionality.
Continue reading 'CDFinder in the Mac geotagging workflow'
As reported by the BBC, the Sussex Ambulance Service NHS Trust are providing MP3-based first aid advice on how to deal with common and potentially serious situations (such as fits, collapses and resuscitation). This joins first aid advice available as a podcast on the iTunes Music Store by St. John's Ambulance.
Continue reading '999 advice on your iPod'
This blog is published using the iBlog client, an easy-to-use OS X application that makes uploading static pages to the .Mac server simple. iBlog version 1.x has been around for a few years now and despite a number of updates its basic feature set has remained relatively static. However, version 2.x is now in development and promises to add some of the features requested by users in the small but friendly community Forum. Mac fans can now choose from an increasing range of blogging software, and here I take a quick look at ecto, a seemingly popular and well-regarded client.
Continue reading 'Blogging with ecto: big on features'
Palm or Windows Mobile? I've been firmly in the Palm camp to date, but have just acquired a Pocket PC together with Missing Sync for Windows Mobile. This is not a review of the Dell Axim X50v, but rather a functional comparison with my Palm T3 from the point-of-view of a Mac user. How did a Palm user making a trial transition to Pocket PC fair when pairing the device with Mac OS X? For given applications and functionality, does Palm or Pocket PC have the winning edge? Will he or won't he become a "switcher"? First impressions count, so I decided to document my experiences during the first 48 hours with a Pocket PC. There will be plenty to revisit in subsequent bloggings...
Continue reading 'Visiting the other PDA platform (first 48 hrs)'
