iTunes vs. Amazon mp3 Downloads

A few months back I went to Yuma to visit my Dad.  My sister Karin was visiting from Oregon along with her kids.  We had a BLAST!

One of the fun things we did was put together a DVD.  My MacBook Pro has wonderful software for editing video and audio and burning a professional DVD with iDVD.  It’s great!

After we shot our interviews and edited it all down it was time for the credits.  We needed some closing music.  No problem!  I have a zillion (or maybe a few hundred) of my favorite songs in iTunes!  Awesome.  Imagine my surprise and utter disappointment (I’m exagerarting here for slight comedic affect) when most of my songs were REJECTED by Final Cut Express.  Every song that I downloaded from iTunes was not accepted.  I had a handful of tunes I could use that I had imported from CDs that I owned.  We ended up using some Hall & Oates song I had from “The Wedding Singer” CD.  (don’t judge me!)

Ever since this somewhat tragic event (OK.  Mildly unfortunate maybe) I have switched tactics.  I can find all of the same music at exactly the same price and quality at Amazon.com!  Best part is, I can use the tunes in movies and videos, even iTunes and it’s no problem!

Well.  If I have some music on a video that I upload to say, YouTube or GodTube, and the artist tells me to cease and desist?  I will.  But, for videos for my own personal use and distribution among my friends and family?  No problemo!

That’s why Amazon.com beats iTunes for music.

Now.  iTunes is amazing for Podcasts!  My favorite Pastor, Pastor Duane Sheriff has a must listen too Podcast in audio, or if you prefer, video.  All of his sermons are uploaded the same day, I believe.  Listen and be blessed!

Of course, you can download thousands of God inspired messages at the ministry web site, or subscribe to his podcast:  www.dsheriff.org

See ya on YouTube and Facebook :-)

Mike

New and Improved Blog!

The content is the same, except I added a bio page.  Otherwise it’s just a face lift.

I decided on the change after helping a client install and customize WordPress on his site.  If I can help someone else, I decided I could work on mine too!  So, I browsed through some of the Word Press themes and settled on this one.  I liked the banner pictures at the top, but thought it would be even better to feature my own photography up there.  So, I switched theirs out and put mine in!

I really really like WordPress.  They really do make installing a blog easy.  I know just enough html and php to do some tweaks, and there you have it.  After helping my friend, and making a few bucks doing it, I’m thinking there might be more opportunities in using WordPress as a template for designing web sites for folk.  It could happen!  If you want to hire me, leave your contact info in the comments!

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

One of the cool things about RTNDA at NAB is the NAB exhibit hall at the Convention Center in Las Vegas.  I’m looking forward to having a little more time to explore, although I’m not sure when that is going to be!  I did find a couple of things that might be useful back at the station.

Here’s a snapshot of one of the more visual exhibits.  I told them they should have Chicago playing.  One of the younger guys told me it was 5:45 in Chicago.  He had no idea what I was talking about!

Dual Boot Baby!

Yeppers, I done did it! I am now a proud owner of a dual boot system. Pretty cool. Yesterday, I finally installed Linux on my system!

I kept my original Windows XP Media Center Edition on the master hard drive and installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux on the slave hard drive. Really it was pretty easy. I just downloaded the Ubuntu Linux. Burned the image on to a CD, and I was ready to go. The hardest part was taking the hard drive out of my old computer and putting it in my new one. Even the brain transplant wouldn’t have been that hard, except Gateway used a ribbon cable that barely reached with one hard drive. When I installed the slave drive, the cable wouldn’t reach! Thanx a lot Gateway! :0) So, I had to go down to CompUSA (our nearest Fry’s Electronics is about 100 miles away) and put down $10 for a new, and longer, cable.

After I put everything back together, I just booted to the Ubuntu CD and installed it on “hdab.” Ubuntu even handled the Grub boot partition automatically. My Windows drive was otherwise untouched, so all of my original files, and configuration remain intact. Now, when I reboot my computer, I just choose Windows or Linux and it boots up accordingly! The Linux was free and the ribbon cable was $10.

Originally, I installed Ubuntu on my old computer. I ended up with a problem though. Ubuntu didn’t recognize the ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card I had installed. So, after hours of “guessing” on the manual configuration for my video card, I got it to work! I had a dual boot system with Windows 98 and Ubuntu sharing that same hard drive. That was fine, but it wasn’t long after that when I got my new computer. This was all about two years ago. I was going to put Ubuntu on the whole drive of my old computer since Windows 98 isn’t even supported by Windows and is less than secure. So, I installed Ubuntu, but without the ATI All-in-Wonder card. It installed just fine, but then I discovered the on board graphics card was messing up. I was getting a glitchy picture. My old computer has been sitting since. I didn’t want to hassle with the manual video card configuration again.

However, this new arrangement is better! Otherwise, I would have needed a KVM switch to use two computers with one mouse/keyboard. Probably $50. Or, two desks, each with their own computer. Not very efficient.

So, now I can explore Linux without losing my Windows setup. My favorite thing about Linux so far is the free Mahjong. It’s the best version I’ve played, and it’s free! I already have the top 5 scores :-)

My old computer is now parts. Maybe my local high school could use ‘em?

Happy computing!