EricDaugherty.com

Convenience or Quality?

February 15, 2007

37Signals has a (somewhat) recent entry Convenience over Quality. This is a debate I’ve had several times with people, and I feel that the decision about quality or convenience depends greatly on the medium or function we are talking about.

There is no doubt that the trend in audio is towards convenience. Compressed audio (MP3, etc.) has taken over, and high quality audio formats such as DVD-Audio have been failures. I think this is largely because listening to music is a secondary activity. Very few people spend significant amounts of time listening to music as their primary activity. They listen while they exercise, drive, work, etc.

iTunes Export 1.1.0 Released

February 13, 2007

I released a new version of my iTunes Export utility.

iTunes Export exports your iTunes playslists as .m3u files, allowing you to setup playlists in iTunes and use them with other software or devices.

This release adds the ability to copy the music files in a playlist to an output directory. This was requested by several people, including Jason Clarke.

This release also excludes files that are just web links from exported playlists.

Proprietary Apple

February 10, 2007

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, but unfortunately Rolling Stone beat me to it. It makes some interesting points, but it doesn’t really target what I was thinking.

Apple is VERY proprietary. Now, this is a double edged sword. Apple components (iPods, Wireless Routers, Music Players, etc.) all play very well together, and can be setup very easily. However, many of these systems are very locked down.

iTunes Music Store -> iTunes -> iPod is a closed system. You can add your own MP3s to iTunes (prohibiting that would be a non-starter for nearly everyone), but beyond that, you can’t really swap any of these parts. Want to buy from another music store? Too bad. Want to listen to your music on a different device? Too bad. Want to sync your non-iPod with iTunes? Too bad. There is no doubt that this drives the popularity of the iPod. Syncing your iPod with iTunes is easy, and much better than the compatible experiences. Using a Dell DJ, even with additional 3rd party software still doesn’t compare.

Apple's Position on DRM

February 7, 2007

Apple is at an interesting place with DRM. Some have implied (Cory Doctorow) that it is in Apple’s best interest to use DRM because it locks users in. Since iPods already have a huge market penetration, this is a real effect, whether intentional or not.

However, Steve Jobs recently suggested that Apple would prefer to distribute the content DRM Free. This is an interesting position for Apple to take, and one could assume it is simply a bluff.

Cancel or Allow

February 6, 2007

OK, in case you think I’m an Apple basher because of my iPhone post, I thought I’d pass along the new ‘Get a Mac’ commercial. The newest commercial, entitled Security, depicts the new Vista security enhancements, which prompt users asking if they want to allow a program to execute an action that may be risky. While this is a good concept, apparently it is a little too aggressive in Vista based on what I’ve read.

No iPhone for me

February 4, 2007

About a month has passed now since the announcement of the iPhone, and I think enough information has leaked out of the Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field to begin to talk rationally about what it is and what it isn’t.

The iPhone is the next gen iPod. It is first and foremost a media device, capable of listening to music, watching movies, pictures, etc. It will be less effective at the music portion than an iPod, but will be much better at video than the current generation of iPods.

Development Frameworks

February 2, 2007

It seems that Java has as many development frameworks as it does developers. While that is an exaggeration, it is only a minor one. The .Net platform has a growing number of frameworks, although a large number are ports of existing Java frameworks. (It is interesting to look at the two communities and see why this exists (or if it isn’t accurate, then why this is my perception), but that is a topic for a later post.)

Java Servlet url-pattern - Exclude Me

January 31, 2007

Recently I was investigating one of the many Java web frameworks, and came across an old frustration. First though, I should give some background.

The Java Servlet specification provides for the ability for developers to map various URLs to specific Servlets (request handlers). You can map ‘*.do’ to your Struts request dispatcher to enable the framework to handle all the requests for pages that should be served by the framework. Basic wild cards are supported, but only positive matching, no excludes.

Joining the online revolution

January 29, 2007

I’ve been a bit of a skeptic when it came to embracing hosted services. I could setup and run my own email server, web server, etc. and didn’t see the need or justification to pay someone else to do it. In fact, I actually wrote my own Java Email Server.

However, as I look back of the last couple of months, I’ve moved to a much greater dependence online services.

I moved my email and web servers from my own hosted box to a hosting provider. The services offered are so cost effective that it isn’t worth the time or hassle of worrying about maintaining it. But hosting was just the beginning.