Daring FireballMac and web curmudgeonry/nerdery. By John Gruber.7digital Now Selling High-Quality DRM-Free Music From All Major Labels- September 16, 2008 Distorted Loop: This is highly significant, and means 7digital is the first digital music store in Europe to offer downloads from all four major labels, Sony BMG, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI Records. Tracks are sold free of DRM rights restriction as high-quality (320 kbps) MP3 files &8212; better quality than offered by iTunes Plus.http://distorted-loop.com/2008/09/16/7digital-offer-music-from-all-labels-drm-free/ Apples Capricious Rules for iPhone Apps- September 16, 2008 Podcaster-gate is percolating upward in the media hierarchy. Saul Hansell has a good piece on it for the NYT Bits Blog. &8220;Capricious&8221; is a good word for what&8217;s wrong.http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/apples-capricious-app-policy/ Gears for Safari Requires Input Manager Hack- September 16, 2008 Gears, Google&8217;s API for offline web applications with local storage, is now available for Safari. Alas, it requires an input manager hack: When you install Gears, you&8217;ll notice that it&8217;s composed of 2 components: an NPAPI plugin which lives in &8220;LibraryInternet Plugins&8221; and an InputManager. Gears needs to load first thing upon browser startup, for cases in which the first page loaded into the browser is from the Gears offline cache. NPAPI provides no mechanism for...http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/09/gears-for-safari.html David Foster Wallaces 2005 Commencement Speech at Kenyon College- September 16, 2008 Thoughtful and true. But this bit, in hindsight, is painful to read: Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts clich about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from...http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html VMware Fusion 2.0- September 16, 2008 Free upgrade for existing users. New features include the ability to run Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine.http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2008/09/windows-gets-ev.html Hewlett-Packard Cuts 25,000 Jobs After E.D.S. Purchase- September 16, 2008 Ashlee Vance, reporting for the NYT: The computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard announced on Monday that it would eliminate 24,600 jobs, or 7.5 percent of its work force, as part of its plan for digesting the computer services giant Electronic Data Systems, which it acquired for $13.9 billion in August. For comparison, Apple only has 22,000 employees total, including retail; Google: 20,000. That&8217;s a lot of jobs.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/business/16hewlett.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&... DFW: Roger Federer as Religious Experience- September 15, 2008 Another terrific non-fiction piece by David Foster Wallace: this August 2006 piece on Roger Federer for The New York Times&8217;s Play Magazine.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?ei=5090&en=716968... From the DF Archive: Closed Is Open- September 15, 2008 Vis a vis the aforelinked item regarding Microsoft&8217;s &8220;choice&8221; mantra, here&8217;s a DF piece from 2003: &8220;Reading between the lines as Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media division, lays out Microsofts shamelessly Orwellian party line regarding digital music.&8221;http://daringfireball.net/2003/10/closed_is_open Joe Wilcox on Microsofts Choice Strategy for Windows Mobile- September 15, 2008 Joe Wilcox on Windows Mobile: Microsoft executives harp on about choice. That&8217;s fine if businesses or consumers choose your product. The local supermarket offers lots of choice, but I can walk to the pricier convenience store. The point: Choice is good but it&8217;s not a market differentiator. People need good choices, and Windows Mobile doesn&8217;t feel like one of them right now. The &8220;choice&8221; mantra was Microsoft&8217;s oft-repeated response to the iPod back circa...http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/hi_im_an_iphone_and_youre_nobody.... LED Football for iPhone- September 15, 2008 Peter Cohen reviews TouchGrove&8217;s LED Football game for iPhone &8212; a replica of the late-70s handheld electronic game from Mattel. Could just be that, at age 35, I&8217;m in the bull&8217;s-eye for this game&8217;s demographic, but I love it. At just $1, it&8217;s a steal.http://www.macworld.com/article/135487/2008/09/ledfootball.html?lsrc=rss_weblogs_iphonecen... |