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Aggregator Overload - Good Stuff - Some Explored - Some Not
Sunday, September 14, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/14/03]
Two Things That Don't Make Me Happy. Crappy Spider Programs WebZip is a $40 program from SpiderSoft that lets people save entire web sites to their local drive. Every once in a while, I'll notice a huge spike in my web site access logs. In some cases, it's caused by a link from a popular site. In other cases, it's caused by someone using WebZIP to download my entire site. Apparently WebZIP has some bugs. Today, for example, j-walk.com had 11,557 requests from someone using WebZIP, and 8,221 of them were for files that don't ev...[MORE] [The J-Walk Blog]
[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/14/03]
Create A Stand-Alone Slide Show. A great program from WnSoft: PicturesToExe. PicturesToExe creates presentation in stand-alone .EXE file. Using a clean-looking, intuitive interface, you select pictures from any combination of folders on your system. Then press the Create button. In just moments, you've produced an .exe file that, when run, displays the images with the options you've selected. You have a great deal of control over the visuals, and you can also add background music. It's very easy to use, and seems to work very...[MORE] [The J-Walk Blog]
Thursday, September 11, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/11/03]
How The Music Industry Has Resisted Technology Historically. A nice article from my alma mater pointing out that the music industry has a long history of fighting new technologies - from all the way back when sheet music publishers tried to outlaw the phonograph (it's evil! it's theft! how will all those musicians make a living if we can't sell sheet music!). The article points out that the dominant medium for listening to music is chosen by the listeners, and it's pretty clear they want digital music. The article then goes on to praise iTunes as "paradigm shifting". I don't agree that it is, though, it is (clearly) a step forward. It just seems like a small step - and one that's a long distance from where the music industry should be with regards to digital distribution. Still, history has shown (repeatedly) that despite the struggles against new technology, we do get there eventually - and when we do (amazingly enough) the markets always seem larger, and the amount of money in the opportunity is always much greater. It's just that people making money are set in their ways and like to keep making money the way they always have. What they don't realize is that if the market shifts out from under them, they won't be able to do that no matter what. [Techdirt]
Monday, September 08, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/8/03]
Copyright law's perennial dilemma. This quote is stuck up on the wall here at EFF. It makes me think every time I read it. Figured it should be online somewhere.
Copyright law strikes a precarious balance.Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]To encourage authors to create and disseminate original expression, it accords them a bundle of proprietary rights in their works.
But to promote public education and creative exchange, it invites audiences and subsequent authors to use existing works in every conceivable manner that falls outside the province of the copyright owner's exclusive rights.
Copyright law's perennial dilemma is to determine where exclusive rights should end and unrestrained public access should begin.
Neil Netanel, Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society, 106 Yale L.J. 283, 285 (1996).
[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/8/03]
Bill Gross has finally launched X1, his fast search tool on the desktop (Web, e-mail, files, and attachments). There is a full-featured, no time limit, free version available. This is a good replacement for the hideous search feature in Outlook.
[ Sunday, September 07, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/7/03]
Think you can't afford a photo studio? The "Foam Core Addicts Society" says you're wrong.
[The Scobleizer Weblog] Friday, September 05, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/5/03]
Search the Wayback Machine. 11 billion of the pages stored at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine have been indexed are now searchable through a new search-interface. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]
Monday, September 01, 2003[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 9/1/03]
TiVo for Internet Radio!.
"If you need to record a RealAudio webcast or other audio off your PC, Total Recorder is great. This review on About.Com has a good overview of all the features." [lawrence's notebook]
I've been meaning to try Total Recorder for a while now, but I'm far more intrigued by ReplayRadio:
"Replay Radio is an incredibly easy way to record radio broadcasts. Just pick your favorite radio show, or select a station and a time range, and Replay Radio records it for you. It's like a VCR for the radio. Now you can listen to your favorite radio shows whenever and wherever you like!
Once your show is recorded, Replay Radio makes MP3 files for listening with an MP3 player or your PC. Or, you can have Replay Radio automatically make an audio CD for playback on a home or car CD Player. Everything happens automatically!
Replay Radio is software that runs on your PC. You can record anything you hear, including streaming audio broadcast from Internet radio stations. Hundreds of shows and stations are pre-programmed, making recording as easy as point and click. You can even use Replay Radio as a general purpose recorder for archiving audio books, saving music, monitoring online police scanners, recording from devices attached to your PC (like cassette decks or radios), or other uses."
Since I can't access my Rhapsody playlists away from a PC, I'm trying to find a way to take them with me on my Archos Jukebox. Throw in NPR, and my eyes really start to light up! Here's the full list of shows in their database.
I *think* the quick record feature will help with Rhapsody, but I especially like the idea that this is "TiVo for Internet Radio" because the "Replay Player add-on" skips ads! The program costs $30, while the add-on is an additional $10.
[The Shifted Librarian]