Tag Archives: iTunes

Sarah McLachlan – Silent Night (Free Song)

Posted on December 16, 2006 | 4 comments

SarahsilentnightOops, I forgot to mention this earlier this week. You can get Sarach McLachlan singing Silent Night for free from the iTunes music store. This track is off of her Wintersong Holiday album. These iTunes freebies are generally from Tuesday to Monday, so make sure you grab it this weekend.

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Posted in holidays + events

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The Future of Television – BitTorrent

Posted on October 9, 2006 | Leave a comment

The TV industry needs to catch up with reality and the Internet (the ‘net is real). They’ve tried a few things like elling shows on iTunes (for $1.99 an episode!) and other sites and free downloads at their websites (really it’s sitting at your computer and watching).

Here’s the thing, people (not me) can download it faster and cheaper from the ‘net. Oh yeah, it’s higher quality and there isn’t any ads (but illegal). Over at MiniNova they list an approximation of downloaders (there are dozens of sites like this, some are private). Here’s some numbers (and info):

  • 15,000 people are grabbing last nights “Desperate Housewives”. And let’s be clear that’s this particular copy, there are probably dozen’s of others (some ultra high-def and some iPod versions).
  • 5,000 are grabbing “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” which for some reason showed up around dinnertime instead of after the 10 PM (EST) showing.
  • This isn’t counting the people who are going on and off line (“leechers” who take and disconnect without “seeding”). I’m not going to get into a technical discussion on this, but it’s not that hard to set up something to grab your shows automatically every night (and it’s getting easier every day).

    If they supplied these shows with ads they could control what the people are seeing, many people will fast forward but at least the ads are in it. Currently people are using BitTorrent technology and supplying the bandwidth for them. Heck, if the cable companies would provide a seed, it wouldn’t even use up much internet bandwidth (which would be a complaint they’d make), they could get a cut of the money or insert in their own ads!

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    Six months to live.

    Posted on August 11, 2006 | 5 comments

    Kyra asked these questions on her blog. She actually asked them two different ways: If you had six months and what if everyone had 6 months.

    If you knew you only had six months to live, and the world was guaranteed to end for you – how would you live?

    What would you do?
    Take it easy, relax, travel and lots more.
    Would you spend your money, or save it?
    Spend it. I’d clear out my 403b, 401k and IRAs! Heck, I’d stop probably stop paying my bills.
    Would you eat healthy/diet, or would you be into the ice cream and chips every day?
    Not healthy (not any less healthy than now either). Maybe more desserts :)
    Exercise?
    Exer-what? Actually, I’d be running around so much I probably wouldn’t need any.
    Would you stay in your current job, or find something else to do?
    Six months? I’d quit! (I like my job but at that point what’s the point).

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    Posted in me + myself + i

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    Red, White and Blue

    Posted on July 4, 2006 | Leave a comment

    ItunesredwhiteblueThe iTunes song of the Week (this week) is Red, White and Blue by Rockie Lynne. If you’ve got iTunes click here and scroll down to the lower left to download it for free.

    It’s country, which isn’t really my thing. But the thing that caught my eye in the description is when it said “it’s willing to admit that flag-waving isn’t enough anymore” and it preaches tolerance “but doesn’t shove it down your throat”. I’m patriotic in that I’m incredibly grateful for this wonderful country we live it (even with it’s flaws), but I’m not a huge red/white/blue kind of person. I was the same way at college too, I loved it at MSU and raved about it to people, but I was a student much more that I was a spartan and my green and white ward robe still suffers.

    Happy 4th of July!!!

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    Posted in general, holidays + events, me + myself + i

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    Kyle XY – Review

    Posted on June 28, 2006 | Leave a comment

    So I really liked Kyle XY. I’m not saying it’s a great show, but I really like the sense of wonder they give him as he figures things out. You can still get the episode oniTunes for free and I think ABC is rerunning it on Friday night. Here’s the premise: This teenager is found naked in the woods, he’s intelligent but no concept of understanding his surroundings. A psychologist (of some sort) takes him into her family with a teenage boy and girl and the story begins.

    Like I said, I really like they way they have him thinking and examining the world around him. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he has no belly-button. Be sure to watch the news running on the television in the background when you watch it (you are going to watch it, aren’t you?).

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    Posted in reviews

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    Kyle XY – Free Premier Episode

    Posted on June 25, 2006 | 2 comments

    Kyle xy freeI thought that the first episode of KYle XY looked interesting (it premiers tomorrow) and I see they have the first episode on iTunes for free (I think only through the 29th). It reminds me of the TV series John Doe but it looks ask if it will be more of a Family show than a mystery show (I haven’t watched this yet, but I needed to mention it while it’s still free). This show premiers Monday at 8pm ET on ABC Family.

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    Pandora Music

    Posted on May 25, 2006 | Leave a comment

    The other day Dawn mentioned Pandora Music so I checked it out. You tell it a few things you like (and it seems the fewer the better, just try one or two) and it does some calculations with the Music Genome Project and creates your own radio station and it streams the station to you. It then shows you cover art with links to Amazon and iTunes and you can then give songs a thumbs up or down and it fine tunes it. what are you waiting for? Go try it out!

    Things to know:

  • Two thumbs down for an artist and you never hear them again (a little harsh IMHO).
  • You can only skip a few songs per hour before it won’t let you any more.
  • It’s free for now (and has been for a while) but they will eventually start charging or add advertisements.
  • It’s not just genre it really seems to be a bit of a song by song comparison, it’s been pull individual songs off of some soundtracks and I’m liking them (a little bit too much bubble-gum though).

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    Another Podcast Test – The long way to JFK

    Posted on March 23, 2006 | 2 comments

    So I’ve got this podcast with the enhanced images working!

    Two kinds of podcasts:
    this is the “better” enhanced AAC podcast (for iTunes, iPods and Quicktime).
    this is the mp3 podcast (for everything else).

    The enhanced file is a AAC/MP4 (m4a) file so you probably need an iPod or iTunes (or Quicktime) to see the images. The MP3 will just be on it’s own for any software/hardware player.

    I now have both a Enhanced RSS Feed and a MP3 RSS Feed set up.

    (If you get goofy characters you’ll need to save it to the computer first, sorry. This should be fixed, but you never know…)

    I apologize to those using feed software, this (and the feed from the next podcast or two) will be goofy as revise and work out the bugs…

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    Posted in Egypt 2006

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