Tag Archives: iTunes

Mmmmm…. AppleTV !

Posted on July 21, 2007 | 1 comment

So I’ve been very interested in the AppleTV and never got around to trying it. But I was feeling pretty happy after happy hour yeast and Best Buy has a good return policy so I’m now the proud owner of an AppleTV (40GB). It’s very cool. Very easy to install. Very easy to configure. Pure yummy Apple perfection. And there is no way I’m going to return it!

Two user-interface suggestions:
1) They need a better distinction between the computer you sync with and the computers you stream from. This needs to be better in the AppleTV and in iTunes.
2) The top menu item says AppleTV and it looks like it’s a title and not a menu item (it actually takes you back to the main menu) and it’s confusing. I’ve read about this but I forgot about it…
3) Put in a DVD player and a video/s-video port. (This doesn’t count since it’s not an interface issue).
3b) Safari would be cool too! This would just be for .Mac members so it would interface with your bookmarks!

If you think you’d like one of these, then run and go get one, it’s way cool.

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Brandi Carlile in Detroit – You Oughta Know Tour

Posted on July 11, 2007 | 1 comment

Brandi Carlile is headlining the VH1 You Ought to Know Tour. She’ll be at St. Andrews Hall on October 14th. Yeah, I know I just saw her, but she;s going to be about a 10 minute ride from my place, how can I not go?

If anyone is going let me know and we can say HI at the concert.

Pre-sale tickets were supposed to be at VH1 today, but I can’t find them. TicketMaster wasn’t supposed to have them until Saturday, please note the operative worlds “supposed to” they appear to be available for some cities.

And Ticketmaster give me 10 free iTunes songs (their choosing) so be sure to pay attention at the end of your order to not miss the button for that…

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50 Best Tech Products of All Time

Posted on April 6, 2007 | Leave a comment

So PC World has a story on the Best 50 Tech products. Considering a few of the items in the list, I think few things are missing: Skype, one of the early pieces of ZIP/StuffIt software, maybe a Palm (or even Windows) cell phone, a TRS-80, the Sony WalkMan set standards for portable (choose your own) music players and I’m sure I’ll think of a few more later. Half of the software “tools” seem to be things to fix parts/utilities missing from the Windows OS. And there isn’t any software for creating web pages / FTPing files (from the era of Netscape and Eudora) or blocking spam. Should flickr or Google be considered a product? Amazon or eBay? Okay, so I’m getting ahead of myself, lets show the list.

Of the 50 I’ve bolded items owned/used (some were free or work owned for my use) and added comments to many items (even ones I don’t use): Continue reading →

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Doctor Who – The Season Premiere

Posted on April 4, 2007 | 1 comment

I wasn’t ever a Doctor Who fan (not even a bit), a friend mentioned it to me more than a few times but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. But then they started running a new series a few years ago and it seemed okay, but then I started watching it from the beginning of the 2005 season and it was really good. I really enjoy the humor, just a little British with a lot of wit; some of with wit is just barely acknowledged and then they move along (so sometimes you miss it).

This is a perfect episode to start watching the series, it’s the first episode of season three (2007), it’s called ‘Smith and Jones’. She’s Dr. Martha Jones and he checked into the hospital under the name ‘Smith’. The Doctor is a bit out of sorts having lost his last traveling companion (Rose) but the show always has sidekick so we get to be introduced to the new companion. She’s a medical doctor in training who doesn’t get too freaked out about with the strange things that happen and she’ll probably be a great asset to the show. So it kind of re-introduces you to the main characters.

Since the series was restarted they’ve changed both the doctor and his companion/assistant; it’s the start of year two for the doctor and the first episode with the new assistant. The 2005 Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, has been playing the invisible man on Heroes season one. I haven’t seen Rose on anything else yet. Some people will refer to this (2007) as the third season but some die hards will refer to it as the 29th season. I think the BCC is who restarted the numbering but I’m not sure why (but it’s probably due to a 15 year gap in the series). Continue reading →

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Complete My Album – New iTunes Feature

Posted on March 29, 2007 | Leave a comment

It’s about time! Now you can go back and buy the rest of an iTunes album at a discount if you previously bought one song. Just go to the iTunes Music Store and in the upper right choose “Complete My Album”.

Apple iTunesThis is great mainly for several reasons: If you bought one song off an album that had 12 songs on it (for $9.99) you can now get the other 11 for $9.00 instead of having to buy the whole album (it looks like it’s full credit). Also, if you bought one song off an album and some of the songs were “album only” purchases you now have the option to get rest since you’re actually buying the whole album. For a 10 song album, it really doesn’t make a difference. Not all artists are doing this and you only have six months to get your missing albums, but it’s a nice option if you regretted not getting it in the first place. FYI, they did grandfather in all the old albums you bought more than six months ago (so you can still get the missing ones).

I’m not sure if this will help if you bought a pre-release single since I haven’t bought that many. I’m pretty sure a few of the songs on the list are ones I’ve (purchased) for free, but I could be mistaken. And I know there are a few that I didn’t purchase off the album they are showing, I must have bought off some other album or special purchase mix that iTunes offered (iTunes Originals or something).

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Brandi Carlile’s “The Story”

Posted on March 13, 2007 | 1 comment

Brandic.ThestorySo this week’s free iTunes song is Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” (it’s only free ’til the 20th). If you watch Grey’s Anatomy then you’ve heard her, I think she’s had three(?) songs on, but it might have been the same song a few of the times (Tragedy, the acoustic cello version). This free song is has a little more beat than some of her other stuff, I think of her a being a little more mellow than this one. She’s got a lot of different tracks at the iTunes store, different singles and some acoustic tunes.

I’ve seen her in a small venue (Ann Arbor last year) and she was wonderful up close and personal. She seemed very excited that we were all there to see her :)

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iLike Music (especially FREE music)

Posted on February 4, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I keep forgetting to mentioned that I found iLike, it’s kind of a music social networking site.


The big difference is it recommends music to you and allows you to download it for free. It appears to work best with iTunes, if you download the iLike sidebar it’ll upload lists of what you listen to most and make recommendations in the sidebar where it’ll let you preview music and download it directly to iTunes. Now the free songs are mostly artists that you haven’t heard of, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t any good, I’m really enjoying some of my new found music. It seems like most (all?) of the new music comes from GarageBand.com

My iLike page is at http://ilike.com/user/garylapointe

They just keep adding new features that they’re pretty god a keeping you up-to-date on the iLike Blog. And they’ve got a widget for your web page (which I’m hoping is showing up on your screen as you read this) and it’ll even let you play my recently played songs as you read this post! Continue reading →

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The iPhone

Posted on January 21, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I haven’t said much about the iPhone since it was announce but what’s to say it looks awesome!!! It’s a widescreen video iPod with an internet browser, e-mail and it makes phone calls. The downside (IMHO) is it’s only on Cingular and I don’t think the network the iPhone is using is as fast as the EVDO speed networks.

IphonehandThe negative I’ve seen some reviewers mention is that it only accepts music from the iTunes music store. Which isn’t true, it only accepts protected music from the iTunes music store. And it’s important to remember all other players don’t allow music from the iTunes music store, I see that as a problem. You can buy from some (smaller) music sites and put your CDs on it. FYI, the iTunes music store sells 58 songs a second (5 million a day) that makes them the fourth largest retailer of music (Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target are above them) then just pulled ahead of Amazon. The iTunes and iPod experience makes it so pleasant to use I don’t think most people care if you can only use one store to buy (protected) music from… Continue reading →

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