Lazy Saturday

Posted on 2006/07/03 14:37:12 (July 2006).

[Saturday 1st July]
Today was a day pretty much lost to nothingness. Chie's friend had stayed over the previous evening, so in the morning we went out to a cafe near our apartment for a spot of brunch, before waving her off.

Then after that we just went back to the flat, and lolled around there for the rest of the day. I did a bit of work on my 'Maison backup utility, and set it off on the first proper run to backup the site. It soon became clear this would need more than just one day...! Whilst it was going, the Mac Mini also provided us with entertainment, initially music through iTunes, and then later on in the day another slew of Frasier DVDs (borrowed from my friend at work).

Oh and I tried out buying music from the iTunes store for the first time. I bought The Best of the Proclaimers (!). It was all a scarily effortless procedure, and I'm very impressed with how well the software integrates with the shopping experience. If Apple are making money handover fist through online music sales then I say good luck to them! Having said that though, the DRM is a bit of a put-off compared to just buying a regular CD - it means I won't be able to play any music I've bought through iTunes on my MP3 player. Maybe I could give in and buy an iPod, but then I'd really feel like I'd been suckered by the Apple corporate machine: hook, line and sinker. Honestly, I'm not that easily manipulated!

(...yea, right - watch this space for imminent news of me buying an iPod).

So, correct me if I am wrong, if the mini-mac dies with a crunching sound indicating that the hard disk has eaten itself, you lose all the music you paid for? Or is is backupable to something semi-permanent like an old fashioned CD ?

Posted by Kev at 2006/07/03 21:24:45.

John: Just burn a CD with your bought music. Then, if you want, rip it to MP3 or any other format you need. This is how I "protect my investment"!! :))

Posted by Nigel at 2006/07/03 22:51:07.

nigel,thats good to hear, otherwise it would be a bit of a pain if mac.mini went to silicon heaven!!!

Posted by kev at 2006/07/03 23:03:02.

Nigel: didn't realise I could do that! ...and it makes a regular unprotected audio CD? Isn't that just a giant loophole?

Kev: you can copy it, it just won't play unless the machine is 'authorised'. You can authorise up to five machines. Not sure if iPods count towards this. So anyway, I
authorised my laptop as well, using Windows iTunes.

Posted by John at 2006/07/04 12:50:43.

5 machines is still pretty crap isn't it though, I mean if you had your 'record' collection for 10 years your gonna have more than 5 pieces of kit you want to play it on. Sounds like another scam to make you re-buy the tunes in a few years time.

I can understand why people want to aquire a FLAC version that hasn't got stupid DRM on it. That way you never need to rebuy the tune and its as good as the original recording! Its seems that the only way to do this is to do it illegally.

Posted by Kev at 2006/07/04 13:34:19.

...and as for the pirates well, you only need to hang-draw and quarter one or two and the problem is solved!!

Posted by Kev at 2006/07/04 13:35:22.

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