Frank Caico's Blog

Have you ever used Pandora Radio?  Its a very fun way to listen to music.  You simply type in an artist's name, or a song name and it plays music that is similar (based on a complicated set of heuristics).   It does a real good job.   Best thing of all, its free and there are no audible commercials (there are ads on the web page itself and you can buy songs through the site if you like). Pandora basically tailors a unique musical experience for every listener.  This is something that traditional radio just can't do.  I especially like Pandora for finding new music that I wouldn't have heard otherwise. 

It's this sort of innovation that makes Internet radio (some people call it webcasting) so compelling. Unfortunately for internet radio however, the Copyright Royalty Board last year ordered the per-song performance royalty on web radio stations to pay double what it was paying.  The trend goes like this:  If nothing changes by the year 2010 every time a song is played on an internet-based radio station, that station will incur 19/100  of a cent per song per listener.   That may not sound like alot but as an example, Pandora has 1,000,000 listeners and is adding 40,000 more every day. In 2006 the rate was only 8/100 of a cent.  Traditional radio doesn't even pay this fee and satellite radio pays a lower rate.

The net result is that there isn't a single internet radio station that can afford these rates -- even the successful ones! Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora and the Music Genome Project has stated in no pretty black and white terms that Pandora may soon be finished:

We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for webcasting. We’re losing money as it is. The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money.

We’re funded by venture capital. They’re not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn’t feel like its headed towards a solution, we’re done.

Congressional Rep. Howard L. Berman (a Democrat from California)is attempting to make some sort of arrangement between web radio stations and SoundExchange (the organization that represents artists and record companies) that would mitigate these new (and excessive) fees.  Unfortunately though, its doubtful that this will happen, and Pandora isn't going to be able to wait around very long to see how this plays out.  

Its really a shame.  Copyright and Patent laws were actually put in place to encourage innovation and protect the little guy.  Unfortunately, over the years these laws have been warped and twisted to represent the interests of big corporations and have actually started to stifle the innovation that these laws were originally put in place to foster.

Okay, I was hunting around the net for a workaround to the problem I blogged about yesterday, and I did in fact find one.  A clever guy by the name of Andrew Grant posted a means by which you can trick your version of iTunes into thinking its the same instance running on another computer.  The net-net of this is that you can manually sync your iPhone easily with either computer adding music to it from either location.  Here are the instructions.

I verified that this method does in fact work and I have been happily adding and deleting music to my iPhone from both work and home.

Note: You do this at your own risk.  If you make a mistake, it is altogether possible you could render your iTunes (or even your computer) inoperable. 

Update:  Be very careful with this method.  I had one of my iPods set to automatically sync a playlist on one computer (not the other) and when I plugged it into that other computer (to charge it), iTunes came up, silently deleted all my files on the iPod and *then* complained that the playlist didnt exist.  D'oh!

So I've had the iPhone 3G now for just about a week and I thought I would give a brief review.

I was switching from a Samsung Blackjack (which is a great phone but didn't live up to my initial expectations).  At any rate, the iPhone has been functioning pretty well so far and I don't have too many complaints:

My biggest fear -- battery life -- hasn't been too big an issue yet.  When I take it on a trip I'll get to see how it really fairs here.  The good news on this front is that it doesn't seem like using the iPhone as an iPod impacts the battery much at all!  Games are another story, but I can live with that.

Web browsing is a dream on this phone (it was a nightmare on the blackjack), and exchange support (which I was worried about) while not perfect, has been perfectly adequate for my needs.  It even does one or two things better than my old Windows Mobile-based Blackjack on this front.  The Apps from the app store are also great.

BY FAR my biggest gripe has nothing to do with the technology, but more too do with its control.  Apple has really locked down the iPhone to a draconian degree.   syncing is more restrictive than ever!  I've had an iPod for years now and its been a real workhorse. 

As you know, in general, iTunes will not permit you to copy music FROM the iPod to your computer. However, if you manage your iPod's music manually, you can copy music from multiple computers too your iPod and play it. I do this all the time, I routinely add music to it from both work and home. I have the bulk of my MP3 collection at home, but I have a backup of a large chunk of it on a drive at work.  These are my own MP3s -- they are not DRMed and there should be no issue putting any of them on my iPod.  iTunes lets me do this just fine as long as I manage my iPod manually (which I found to be the easiest method anyhow since my iPod was smaller than my music library). 

iTunes will not let you do this with the iPhone! Period. Exclamation point. End of story.  Here's an example: I have my iPhone synced with my music at home putting about 14Gb of my favorite tracks on it.  I thought that I had put Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" on it. This is one of my favorite albums and I don't know how, but I managed to forget to put it on.  I have this album on my work computer as well and I would love to just plug in my phone and push the file up to it.  But I can't.  I'll have to wait until I get home.   If I bring up iTunes and buy a few tracks I won't be able to put them on my phone until tonight.  Nope.  Not at all.  Why is itunes being so restrictive about the iPhone?  Piracy?  If the tracks are not DRM'ed they could be anything and as far as I'm concerned, its not Apple's job to tell me what I can and can't put on my MP3 player.   And if the tracks *are* DRMed, then it doesn't matter what I do with them, I'll only be able to play them on authorized computers.

Most online sales of music are no longer DRMed.  Why is this? Because people don't want technology preventing them from doing what they want with the music they've purchased (e.g. what computers or devices they can play their song on).  Now here comes the iPhone and *everything* is DRMed... even when its not.   Arg.  How completely frustrating.

I really hope Apple sees the light on this because its my biggest gripe about an otherwise great product.  The unfortunate reality (based on past experience) is that this is highly unlikely.

This is my first post from my brand new iPhone!

Yay!

Spice Cabinet

For anyone wondering what I've been up to, this is the latest one of the woodworking projects I've finished. This is a custom cabinet made entirely of ash I built for my friend's Mary and Jon. Mary wanted a cabinet to store all of her home-made spices, and unguents. The carcase of this cabinet is made of one continuous 10" wide board joined with half-blind dovetails. It also features cope-and-stick doors fastened by rare-earth magnets, adjustable shelves and a shipplapped back. You can see more pictures of it on my flickr site.