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!

I just installed Windows Vista on my machine at home so that I could learn about some of the new technologies that Microsoft is introducing (WinFX is of primary interest to me).  I was concerned that my PC (which I put together about 2 years ago now) would be showing its age by this point and be a tad pokey with regards to the flashy new UI and features present in Vista.

After installing it (and on an old backup IDE hard drive no less) I was pleased to see that it ran pretty well.  I haven't installed Photoshop (or any games) on it yet, but I did install Office 2007 and that seemed fine as well.  

One interesting thing I noticed is that Microsoft has included a Performance Information tool with Vista.  This is a useful way for a user (who may not be a techie) to find out where his/her system may be lacking and in need of an upgrade.  Curious to see how my computer was rated, I checked it.  Here is the evaluation I received:

The base score is the lowest value of all the sub-scores.

If you are curious as to what these numbers mean (I was), here are Microsoft's definitions:

Here are general descriptions of the kind of experience you can expect from a computer that receives the following base scores:

• A computer with a base score of 1 or 2 usually has sufficient performance to do most general computing tasks, such as run office productivity applications and search the Internet. However, a computer with this base score is generally not powerful enough to run Windows Aero, or the advanced multimedia experiences that are available with Windows Vista.

• A computer with a base score of 3 is able to run Windows Aero and many new features of Windows Vista at a basic level. Some of the new Windows Vista advanced features might not have all of their functionality available. For example, a machine with a base score of 3 can display the Windows Vista theme at a resolution of 1280 × 1024, but might struggle to run the theme on multiple monitors. Or, it can play digital TV content but might struggle to play High Definition Television (HDTV) content.

• A computer with a base score of 4 or 5 is able to run all new features of Windows Vista with full functionality, and it is able to support high-end, graphics-intensive experiences, such as multiplayer and 3‑D gaming and recording and playback of HDTV content. Computers with a base score of 5 were the highest performing computers available when Windows Vista was released.

I was pretty pleased with that my last upgrade is still holding up well even after 2 years. 

My experiences with the new Aero user interface have been pretty positive.   While I'm not sure that it adds much in the way of intuitiveness or power, it certainly looks pretty.  Dare I say it, Microsoft obviously took some visual cues from the Aqua interface on the Macintosh.

Microsoft has also improved its interfaces around setting up networking, security and even email to make it easy on non-geek computer users.  Kudos on that one.   I was thrilled to see that setting up my email account was as simple as typing in my email address, username and password.  Vista figured out where my pop server was and connected to it without me even having to get involved! 

My experience hasn't been completely without frustrations or bugs, but so far its not bad since the OS has just been released.  I will be dual-booting with Windows XP on my home box for a while, but if my initial experience is any indication, I will probably switch over to a Vista-only system in the near future. 

"Fort Lauderdale; The Weakest Fort in the Country"
- Demetri Martin

Even if the name isn't familiar, you've probably seen New York-based comedian Demetri Martin on The Daily Show.  He has an ongoing bit on that show called "Trendspotting.

Well, Demetri seems to have been payed by Bill Gates to do some viral advertising.  Its quite bizarre and pretty amusing.   Check it out!

Probably the last game I'll play on my Playstation 2, Final Fantasy sure is a good one.  I just started playing it but so far I'm finding the story as engaging as the one in Final Fantasy X (albiet a little less "personal" - more political) and the look and feel of the game certainly tops its predecessor.

One of the things I hate about Role Playing games is how group combat is tiring and time-consuming.  They added a pretty slick combat interface that allows you to almost completely automate combat.  How much you can automate combat increases as the game progresses (which is pretty cool since thats usually when you get more and more bored with it).

I may get a Playstation 3 when they come out just to play future Final Fantasy games (unless they are released for Xbox 360).  It will be interesting to see how Square Enix takes advantage of the new hardware platforms to make these games even better...

I've had a Hi-definition TV for a couple of years now. If you haven't seen real Hi-Def you don't know what you're missing - its a pretty spectacular upgrade in picture quality and sound from regular standard definition TV. I get my Hi-Def picture via Time Warner Cable, and as far as cable companies go they do a pretty decent job with Hi-Def.

The one downside to my switch to Hi-Def was that TiVo didn't (couldn't) support it. I could go into the reasons for it but I've already covered some of them in the past. So I had to switch to Time Warner's DVR.

While TW's DVR isn't awful (its actually gotten better over the last 2 years thanks to firmware upgrades), it still is a shadow of TiVo's power and flexibility (not to mention that it still occasionally "forgets" to record shows). For one, TiVo's guide has 2 weeks of data versus TW's 1 (this becomes a big deal when you are trying to record a program for next Wednesday and its Wednesday of the prior week or earlier - you can't). TiVo also lets you search for programs while TW's DVR will not - you have to find the program manually, which is a real chore if you don't know when it runs. Add on TiVo's wishlists (e.g. record any movie with Humphrey Bogart) and TiVo suggestions (TiVo will automatically record shows that it think you might like based on your viewing habits) and all the networking features (like playing MP3s from my computer upstairs).

Anyhow, a couple weeks ago TiVo released a DVR that supports CableCard. This is a new technology that essentially wraps a mini "cable box" inside the TiVo. Now it can support digital cable - including Hi-Def! I bought it and returned my TW DVR. Long story short - it doesn't disappoint (well, it has a few bugs but TiVo is working on them).

The downside of this is that I've found so many new and cool TV shows to watch since getting the darn thing that I've become a real couch potato. I've also gotten hooked on a few old shows (like Scrubs and The Venture Brothers) that I never wouldn't have watched if TiVo hadn't suggested them. I'm sure once the novelty wears off I will go back to more normal viewing habits, but for the time being i'm a damn Hi-Def couch potato - and I'm lovin' it!

Okay, this is not a rant about the quality of Hi Definition television. That is actually a no brainer - the visual quality is remarkable and quite evident to anyone with eyes.

No my friends, this is about Hi-Def's ugly draconian shaperone: Digital Rights Management (DRM). The movie studios and big television content houses are worried about your ability to make perfect digital copies of their content. So they (and electronics manufacturers) have settled on a DRM scheme called High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). This scheme allows them to fully protect any Hi-def content transmitted through HDCP devices. Non HDCP-compliant devices cannot even unlock the digital stream in order to display/listen/record it. HDCP compliant devices play nicely, but they must honor its dirty little pact and consumer unfriendly requirements -- such as not being able to make 1:1 recordings of HDCP material (even at the cost of Fair Use).

This may sound reasonable to you, but talk to me in a year or so when you find you can't access digital content on your computer. Digital content that you wish to legally access via your Windows Vista computer. Why? you say. Why wouldnt I be able to do this? Ah - because that fancy digital LCD display you bought is not HDCP compliant. And it cant display the DRM'ed HDCP digital stream coming accross its DVI cable. Oh it is HDCP compliant (some of the new ones are)? Ah, well that doesn't matter much because that fancy new video card you are using (even if it says it does) doesn't support HDCP properly. And since Windows Vista is going to honor the HDCP specification (it really has no choice in the matter) you are going to have to make sure that everything in your PC is HDCP compliant, and enabled if you want to use or view any HDCP DRM'ed content on your computer.

So I ask you, is Hi-Def content worth all this trouble? Are consumers going to replace every piece of electronics in their home (PCs, TVs, DVRs etc) just to upgrade? Time will tell, but in a wierd way I hope not. Its my beleif that all this tight control stifles innovation and keeps smaller players out of the game. The HDCP specification is proprietary and an implementation of HDCP requires a license - which costs money. Writing software or making cool innovating electronics is hard enough without a large barrier to entry like HDCP licensing.

Well, I finally broke down and got myself a Canon EOS 20D. For those who aren't familiar with this camera, it is a digital SLR compatible with my old Canon lenses. I haven't really gotten to shoot much with it yet (pretty much just taking pictures of stuff in the house - nothing exciting) but I can't wait to really try it out.

Angela was messing with it a bit while I was looking for some old equipment. Later on, when I was going through the pictures on the compact flash, I was surprised to find a couple of pictures of a stuffed bunny Angela has in the guest bedroom. I really liked the one and have made it today's "picture of the day". Its not amazing technically, but I really liked the composition and I see where she was going.

I used to think home automation was a cool intersection of technology and living. These people are taking it to a new level by actually implanting RFID chips into their bodies and using various sensors around their homes, cars, etc. to allow them entry/access.

A bit scary, but This Guy says that the operation is quick and painless (they actually use a hypodermic needle to implant the chip) and once healed isnt even noticeable.

Movie of implant being inserted
Movie of implant activating door sensor

I saw this on the net and I thought it was a cool idea. I don't exactly need it (as I have central air at home), but one of you guys might be interested in giving it a try. The materials are dirt cheap and the technical skills required are minimal at best.

How to make your own air conditioner.

Well,  its happened.  Pigs have been spotted passing 727s and there have been sporadic reports from all over the internet about sphincter dwelling monkeys explosively emerging from their underworld habitats.

In case you haven't yet heard,  Steve Jobs announced today at Apple's WWDC  that they have decided to migrate their computer product line to the intel x86 CPU architecture. Jobs claims to have had OS X ported successfully and running on x86 architecture for the last five years.

Citing dissatisfaction with the progress in the PowerPC line as the reason, Jobs stated that the shift would take place gradually over the next 2 years. 

Unfortunately you won't be able to just buy the next verion of OS X and install it on your PC.  Apple isn't planning on letting that happen.  You'll still have to buy an Apple to run OS X.  However,  Apple has no plans to prevent people from installing windows on their Apple hardware.   

It will be very interesting to see how Apple fares over the next couple of years...

This site is implemented using an ASP.NET blogging engine (dasBlog). I like the power and flexibility I get from using an ASP.NET web, but one thing I don't like is its lack of xhtml 1.0 compliance. I am currently researching ways to make this site more web-standards-friendly. Here are some great links on the subject in case you are interested:

Why, oh why can't I find a piece of smart technhology that has both form and function.

I really like the technical features and customizability (sic) of DasBlog, but unfortunately all the themes (and even some of the web user-controls) are coded in some of the worst html/css around. 

Well, I guess it hardly matters, because until Visual Studio 2005 comes out (and with it ASP.NET 2.0), it's too much of a pita to get ASP.NET websites to be xhtml strict.  Especially on a server I don't have control over.