Beltane by Shadowgate

I subscribe to the Minus Records music service. For €30/year I get access to every release (up to 20) during the subscription period. When new music is available I receive an email with a link to the files. The link is one-time use only - if the download fails too bad, if you lose the files too bad. Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn't built into the files but it's effectively built in to the system.

I also purchase music from Amazon.com frequently and until recently they had a similar model: one-time downloads of music. A few years ago I purchased a new Moby album. My hard drive failed during the same day but I had a backup of nearly everything (BackBlaze!). Unfortunately I was missing a few hundred megabytes of data including my last download from Amazon. Because DRM is built in to the system, I lost the music I paid for.

Beatport is another place I purchase music from. They have a slightly friendlier system in that they allow you to re-download your purchased music for 24 hours.

Enter iTunes and iPhone synchronization. Apple provides one mechanism and one mechanism only for managing music on your iPhone and that is iTunes. Create a playlist, synchronize that playlist with your phone. Delete items from your playlist and they are automatically deleted from your phone. Because DRM is built into the system, every song that exists on your iPhone must also exist on your computer or else, they will be deleted the next time you sync. This usually isn't a problem for me as I run frequent backups of my music (I can't store my entire music collection on my laptop so I add and delete music from a USB hard drive). Recently I unchecked the "copy music to library" preference which is a crucial step in my music backup process. As I went to play the latest songs from Minus Records I realized I had deleted them from my Downloads folder assuming they were copied to my Music folder when I added them to iTunes.

Because of DRM I can't re-download them from Minus, and because of DRM I can't download them from my iPhone back to my computer even though they are paid for!

 Fortunately there are other solutions to this specific problem (PhoneView to the rescue!) but my point is this: None of the solutions are supported by the providers and in fact, the barriers to such conveniences are built directly in to the system. Imagine downloading $300 in music from Minus or Amazon, uploading all of it to your iPhone and then your computer hard drive crashes. You have all the music you've paid for but the next time you sync with iTunes it will disappear.

As an aside: I also subscribe to the Ghostly Records Music Service and they allow you to re-download your music any time you choose. It's an awesome service with great people behind it, definitely check it out.

DRM frustrates paying customers in order to discourage or prevent piracy. DRM does not prevent piracy, it only makes it slightly more difficult for people who would not otherwise pay. Stop treating digital goods like physical goods. 

I am to my beloved by Shimone Samuel

Considering love, friendship and communication in the digital age got me thinking - what’s the best way to tell someone you care? A new friend or an old one, a family member, partner or lover. Maybe you just want to say “thanks” for whatever it is you’re thankful for.

So here’s what I came up with in order of most expressive to least.

1. See them in person
2. Call them on the phone
3. Write them an email
4. Send them a private message
5. Post on their Facebook Wall
6. Send them an MMS
7. Send them an SMS
8. Send your regards through someone else
9. Wait for their call
10. Think happy thoughts

There are many ways to tell someone you care but how you tell them makes all the difference. Next time you’re thinking of someone special how about calling them up to say hey - thanks for being everything you are, I want you to know how much I appreciate and love you.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Straight Strength by Shimone Samuel

I'm noticing a new trend in the social network: deactivation. What I find most interesting are the reasons behind some of these deactivations. Among them, people deactivating when their emotional reaction to the real and virtual worlds overlap.

It may suck when a friend flakes on you but that's where it ends in the real world. Now with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and others you also get to find out what they're really doing instead of coming to your party. And that's gotta hurt. So much that you may start to wonder - why am I even on this network? So you just delete your profile rather than deal with it or respond. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons but these are the 3 most recent examples I've heard:

1. You have a falling out with a friend at a party - but you're still friends on FaceBook. You may no longer be interested in hanging out anymore but deleting them from FaceBook? That's kind of harsh. Then you're feed gets updated with all the good times they're having with your other friends - they all went to a barbecue and you weren't invited. This turns in to days and weeks, maybe a month and before long you are just so flippin' sick of reading how wonderful their life is and how oh-so-wonderful the ski trip everyone went on was.
2. A friend calls to tell you they're sorry but can't make it to your kids birthday party because they're sick or stuck with a ton of work over the weekend. The next day you notice they uploaded pictures on FaceBook - pictures from some other party or a day at the beach. You're thoroughly offended - I thought we were friends?
3. A friend you thought was intelligent gets in to a flame-war on your status update. They're not even responding to you but to someone else's comment on your post. What's worse is you completely disagree with what they're saying and are embarrassed to be associated with them in this context.You don't want to stir up trouble or ruin a friendship over some FaceBook postings but the experience has left you unhinged.

There are ways to handle this other than deactivating your account (grouping, filtering, hiding, etc.) but for the purpose of this post I'm more interested in the 'why'.

As the social web evolves and people begin to understand the etiquette (much the same as they now understand say, how spam works) there will be a lot more thought put in to how people interact with one other in cyberspace. I believe the networks themselves will begin to respond to the needs of these types of situations as well (for instance FaceBook has modified the friend request option from "Ignore" to "Not Now") and in time it will be much easier to cope with real-life emotions from virtual hurt feelings. For now, be true to your friends - both online and off.

Very recently I found myself stressed out, exhausted, anxious and just generally overwhelmed. I was actually doing fine until a few weeks ago when my manager asked "how much time are you taking off for the baby?".

I hadn't given it much thought until she pointed out "your baby is due in 6 weeks"

Aaahh! I thought... I've got so much to do and I'm going to be so tired, can I even afford this? What about my music project? Will I even have time for my hobbies anymore? The sleepless nights, I forgot about the sleepless nights, god I'm screwed... This project I'm working on is critical, I've got to get it finished before I go on leave! I'm too stressed, I'm burnt out, I need a break!!

That's how my stress level blossomed into raging anxiety until a couple weeks later I stopped listening to the voice in the back of my head and sat down to consider the future rationally. I discussed paternity leave with my wife and settled on taking 1 week working from home before and after the baby is born, with 2 weeks "vacation" time following the birth. Next, I dusted off Omnifocus and started listing out everything I had to do or wanted to do including;  work projects, music, reading, errands, pre-baby, blogging, motorcycle, studying, recipes, etc.

Once I had everything in one place I began to categorize things further into contexts; office, home, email, phone and then even further: home reading, home email, office phone, office online research, etc. Omnifocus is in essence a very robust GTD application with a workflow for projects, contexts, and perspectives.

The same weekend I got my list in order was equal parts stress-free and incredibly productive. Having everything in view meant that instead of idly surfing the web because 'I've just been so busy and stressed and need to do something mindless' I sat down and worked on music, or read a book, or researched motorcycle parts. My stress began to evaporate and in it's place a sense of purpose emerged, I'm Getting Things Done!

...Since I first wrote this 3 weeks ago I've managed to finish a project I'd been working on for 6 months, took 5 years worth of trash to the dump, finished organizing my thousands of CDs, went through our closet, shredded 15 pounds of receipts and paperwork, sorted through all my photos, organized 9 crates of records, and tackled so many other odds and ends it's unbelievable.

Before: ugh, I've got so much stuff to do. I'm stressed and burnt out, I feel so overwhelmed!

After: I've got x/y/z to do and I'm checking them off one by one, I feel so productive!

BlackBerry 6: Another Sneak Peak

"In the almost ten years I’ve worked at Research In Motion (RIM), I’ve never been as excited about a BlackBerry® software launch as I am for BlackBerry 6" - Andrew Bocking, VP of Handheld Software Product Management

As I read the introductory statement and watch the accompanied video I can't help but feel sad for RIM. Their most exciting software launch in 10 years does little more to advance the sector than incorporate features Apple has been using on its iPhones since 2006 - mult-itouch, coverflow, social networking, on-screen keyboard, etc. Watching the demo I wonder - where's the next-generation innovation?

By now consumers demand the basic set of iPhone features on any competing device. This puts companies like RIM, Samsung, Nokia and even Google in a bind - if they completely change the game (or ignore it altogether) they risk losing market share to a consumer market obsessed with usability (and a certain kind at that), if they don't they risk appearing like just another iPhone clone

When BlackBerry OS6 is released what will it offer the consumer that they can't already get elsewhere? What will have people oohing and aahing, waiting in line and debating the merits of this or that feature? Has Apple advanced the industry or are they suffocating it?

Like most men I shave some part of my face daily. Like some I've been cursed with ingrown hairs to be plucked with tweezers one by one. For many years I simply grew and cultivated a beard so I would only have 50% of the work.

I can't believe I hadn't thought of this sooner...

You're getting ready to travel and suddenly realize with all the free time you could actually get some writing done. Naturally, you consider a blog of your travels to be a fitting subject. You wouldn't be the first however so here are a few tips --

Consider http://wordpress.com instead of building your own blog. Noone wants to "work" building yetanotherwebsite on vacation and WordPress plugs in to everything from Twitter to Flickr and more. Recently they announced API integration for direct posting to Twitter as well.

WordPress.com is a great choice for people looking for something more robust than "posts" and once you're ready for an upgrade you can migrate your data to WordPress.org and host it yourself (I use it for LikeWowOnline)

Other good choices are Tumblr.com and Posterous

Tumblr offers a nice combination of social network, ease of use and categorized posting. Posterous is simple beyond belief and can be posted to from just about any source imagineable.

Most importantly - Get yourself set up before your trip so you can start posting right away

• Sign up for Momentile, get yourself a post-to email address
• Get your post-to email address for Flickr too (http://www.flickr.com/account/?tab=email)
• Posterous lets you moblog via email as well (you can see mine at http://shimone.posterous.com/)
• Get a FeedBurner account, add your RSS feed then set up an email subscription to your blog or Flickr stream.

Your friends and family will miss you loads but if you keep posting you can stay in touch throughout your travels.

(full disclosure - this was actually repurposed advice I sent to my brother before he left for Israel and Europe. You can read all about his trip on the blog One Bag and High Hopes)