Bent Corner

I read somewhere that you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. If that’s true, then I guess you can also tell something about a person by the music they don’t want to listen to any longer. Music that for whatever reason they enjoyed at one time in their life, but no longer feel the same way about today. Music they don’t want even sitting in their hard drive taking up ones and zeros. There’s only so much room in a hard drive.

So here goes. Here is the music I will no longer have in my music library:

• Good Charlotte - I’ve been to Charlotte. It ain’t that good.
• Jem - I don’t even know who or what this is.
• Jewel - Didn’t she marry a rodeo clown or something?
• Keith and The Girl -Technically, this isn’t music, it’s a podcast. It’s taking up a massive amount of space on my hard drive.
• Metallica - This is one of those bands I look back at and wonder why I ever liked their music.
• Mike + The Mechanics - I haven’t listened to them ever since they were the butt of a joke on the UK version of The Office.
• Simple Plan - I have no memory of ever listening to a single song of theirs.
• Soul Asylum - I think I downloaded a few of their songs after somebody in the band died. That’s how I show my respects. I got to the iTunes store and spend two bucks.
• Velvet Revolver - What can I say? I love Guns N’ Roses. I love Stone Temple Pilots. I just don’t care for blend of the two.

So there you have it. The music I will no longer be listening to. I honestly thought there would be a lot more I was getting rid of. I should really do this more often if for no other reason to remind myself just what I have. For instance, I forgot that I had acquired a massive collection of music from the Stray Cats. At one time I owned everything they ever put out on cassette tape. Even the stuff released in Europe.

Apple has removed NBC Universal television episodes from the iTunes Store.

The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Personally, I think even $1.99 is actually a bit too pricey for TV episodes that you can watch for free on television. But $4.99 for a 22 minute sitcom? Thats just silly. Its especially silly when you stop to realize that this was free money for NBC Universal. These were television shows they produced for their network. Allowing Apples to then go and sell the shows on the iTunes Store after they had already appeared on their network was a win-win for NBC Universal.

Greed and stupidity are a dangerous mix.

Its not like people wont be downloading NBC Universal programing. They just wont be paying for it. People will simply download NBC Universal television shows on bittorrent.

Link (marketwatch.com)

NBC Universal, the No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple’s online iTunes Store has notified Apple that it has decided to not renew its contract to sell of television show downloads on iTunes. Supposedly NBC Universal wanted to have more control over how the television shows were sold to consumers. They evidently didn’t like how consumers had the option of paying $1.99 to download an episode. They wanted to force consumers into purchasing an entire season of a television show.

I’m a big fan of the iTunes $.99 music downloads and $1.99 television program downloads. I appreciate the ability to purchase only the media that I want. If I want to watch the first of Heroes, I shouldn’t have to purchase the entire season. That is what NBC Universal wants the power to do. They want to be able to force consumers into buying product they may not want.

What NBC Universal did is really quite laughable. This was free money for them. Apple was selling product that they had already used for programing on their television networks. They didn’t produce anything new for the iTunes Store. It was stuff that had already gone out over the air or through the cable. People were actually paying for media content that they themselves had been distributing for free. Leave it to NBC Universal to screw that up.

Greed is an awful thing. Now people who want to download digital episodes of The Office, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica will have to do it the old fashioned way - they will have to bittorrent it.

I started listening to audio books on my iPod. Our local public library has a massive collection of full, unabridged books on CD just waiting to be checked out and imported to iTunes.

This past week, I listened to Brad Meltzer’s The Book of Fate. I enjoyed listening to it. The only problem I discovered was that unlike a podcast, my iPod would not remember where I left off. I would have to do a lot of hunting for the exact place I left off when coming back to listen to more. I eventually got to the point where I would write down on a yellow sticky the file and the time mark where I left off.

There had to be a better way.

I started poking around iTunes and I think I found out how to make it so my iPod remembers where I left off. While looking at each individual album (CD) in iTunes, group highlight the audio files. Hold Ctrl+A if you are a Windows user. Then right-click your mouse button while pointing to the highlighted files. A drop-down menu will appear. Select Get Info located at the very top.

A box will appear with all sorts of options to choose.

Located at the very bottom of the box is Remember Position. Check the box and change it to Yes. Now all the files you highlighted will be bookmarkable in iTunes and on your iPod.