NSLog();

It's simple: for the month of March, allow iTunes songs to be sold without DRM. See whether your sales increase or decrease. People buying songs from iTunes are buying it despite the DRM (i.e. they're honest people, or they're too lazy to look for pirated music - either way, they're paying). The people who are refusing to buy DRM music might buy a bunch of songs.

I imagine the heads of the "big four" music companies sitting in a large office at the top of their ivory towers thinking "we just can't go without DRM - people will pirate like crazy!" This, again, despite the fact that CDs don't have DRM (for the most part). The music industry is using a hunch as a crutch, essentially - they likely have no real idea how the numbers would shake out, but they're dead certain it'd be "bad."

On a related note, why instead of limiting our rights with DRM, can't the songs we download simply be tagged with IDs unique to the purchaser? If songs with one person's ID shows up in someone else's hands, then clearly they've either given them the music or it was stolen. The RIAA could then sue people with actual proof, and honest people like myself and the millions of others who buy music would have nothing to worry about, but would instead enjoy un-DRMed music.

I despise comments posted "backwards" - with the newest comments at the top. The O'Reilly blogs do this and it absolutely drives me nuts. Not only do people read top to bottom, meaning they have to then scan over text they've already read and past text they've not yet read to get to the next comment, but why should every first-time visitor be made to scroll, scroll, scroll to the "bottom" (and then back up again to find the start of the first comment).

It really has nothing to do with the fact that blog entries are posted "newest to oldest" because blog entries are oftentimes rather unrelated. Most blog entries aren't published as a series of the same article. Comments, on the other hand, are usually very much related to the topic at hand and should adhere to the pattern(s) most usable by the readers: oldest first, newest last.

I hereby swear I'll never see a Danny Gans show in Vegas (or anywhere else) so long as I live.

Woohoo!

Bruce Arians, the Steelers' new offensive coordinator, knows how to keep warm in his new office these frigid February days. He has thrown the thick, old, patchwork playbook on the fire.

He promises the new model to be sleek, trimmed down and easy to understand for his players, particularly quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Yet he will add some personal touches, such as playing four receivers on first and second downs without putting the quarterback in a shotgun formation.

There's more at the website, but anything that accomplishes the following is a plus in my book:

• Less predicable passing. Shotgun passing on 3rd and five got old real fast.
• More passing opportunities for Ben Roethlisberger.
• Passing more to Willie Parker.
• Passing more to Heath Miller.

It may sound like I'm anti-run, but the problem with the Steelers running game in 2006 was the passing game. It was feeble and predictable. When half of your offense is missing before the game even starts, it's incredibly easy to stop the other half.

For those noticing something odd with my iTunes status (namely the near-constant presence of a Nelly Furtado song), yeah, I'm on a bit of a binge. She was on CSI:NY on Wednesday, and the show played "Maneater" and a few other songs. They've embedded themselves in my skull, so I'm hoping to beat them out or at least enjoy the music while I can.

I just read a passage about Joni Mitchell in Letting Go of the Camera by Brooks Jensen. He talks about how he loved her first album, but then hated her second album… until it grew on him. Nelly Furtado's third album ("Loose") is not at all like her first two albums ("Folklore" or "Whoa, Nelly!"), and while I'm far from claiming it's a leap of the same quality as Joni Mitchell's, I think it's a bit more than a "gangsta leap" like Mariah Carey (or Britney Spears, etc.) have made recently.

Then again, my friend Arion once told me I was a walking paradox in many ways, and my taste in music was one of them. Most geeks don't listen to Shania Twain, R.E.M., Aqua, and classical music all in a row. As always, feel free to mock me. 🙂

It's kind of obnoxious when half of .Mac (as far as I'm concerned - and syncing is the other half) doesn't work properly. This has been going on for a few days now.

This site lets you compare Canon lenses at various focal lengths, apertures, etc. Nifty.

For weeks, I've been bothered by the fact that QuickTime's full-screen controls don't appear when viewing content from the Radiant Vista's Daily Critique. The iPod Video versions of their files do, but not the QuickTime versions.

Turns out the reason behind this is the inclusion of a Flash track. Disabling the Flash track ("Show Movie Properties", ⌘J) allows the full-screen controls to return.

Radiant Vista's opening animation uses the Flash track, but only in the QuickTime file. The Podcast version (which, technically, is also a "QuickTime" file) does not use the Flash track and, thus, allows the use of the full-screen controls.

I'll post in the RV forums in the hopes that they'll use a rendered movie file to display their logo animation (I enjoy watching the Daily Critiques full-screen), but I wanted to document this problem here as it took me awhile to figure out why my full-screen controls were sometimes AWOL. Perhaps this is a bug (albeit one with a work-around: don't use a Flash track)?

I've done some testing AppleScripting Safari image downloads from a "members" site (a photography club). Images are always of the form http://server.com/[prefix]xx[suffix].png, with "xx" being a number like 01 or 43. Currently I have a script capable of loading all of the images:

1. I log in to the site and navigate to the images I want to download.
2. I run an AppleScript which prompts me for the number of items, the prefix, and the suffix.
3. The AppleScript builds x URLs and then uses open location to open them all.
4. I manually drag and drop the images to a folder I've created.

The last step can take some time. Unfortunately, Safari's AppleScript dictionary doesn't allow for downloading images. The standard save document 1 approach doesn't work either - Safari attempts to save a page archive instead of the actual PNG file.

I did some Googling and discovered that "URL Access Scripting" has a download method, but this method can't get past the site's membership login requirements (and this is not a login which can be accessed via "http://username:password@server.com").

So, what to do? I'm opposed to using another browser for this functionality, and I don't believe tapping into Safari's JavaScript capabilities (via AS) will work. Can images from a members/login site be downloaded from Safari via AppleScript?

Some random thoughts on Jobs' open letter on DRM:

• I don't think Apple is trying to become its own record label, despite what may or may not have recently happened with the Beatles.
• The iPod is still the best player, and I think the iTunes Music store is a loss leader, so going DRM-free probably wouldn't really hurt Apple. C'mon, who would seriously consider a Creative player over an iPod? The iPod's "cool factor" isn't tied to the iTunes Music Store - the opposite is true.
• I think the pressure Europe is applying is largely responsible for the letter.
• To Europeans I simply say: "Don't like it, don't buy it." Duh. It's not like Apple is misleading you in any way.
• If the Europeans are successful, I'm going to sue Apple for locking me into Apple-made computers and Apple-made OSes for selling me Aperture, iLife, and a lot of other software that only runs on Macs. Same thing, right?
• I'd love to have DRM-free music, and I'd love to have all my old purchased music "un-DRMed."
• DRM has never bitten me in the butt. I only worry about the future - what happens ten years from now to the 723 (or whatever) tracks I have?
• Steve says x million iPods have been sold, and so only 22 songs per iPod are DRMed… but I've owned six iPods, and many other people I know have owned (or do own) more than one, so that skews the numbers just a bit.

Interesting times, though, and Steve-o's got some balls.

Copy and paste this into your Terminal. You may want to cd into a new folder for the occasion.

curl -O 'http://assets.artistdirect.com/Downloads/artd/listen/{DDTS,BarLa_Eas_GGLive,cracker-low,Smile,bottomoftheworld,copeland_whenyouthought_hi,PIP_fallingbythewayside,ani-difranco-millenium-theater,brian-eno-david-byrne-regiment,spoon-mountain-to-sound,sufjan-the-henney-buggy-band,belle_another,aimee-mann-ill-be-home-christmas,mobylive,bloodbros,postalservice_district2,walkingwithaghost2,knowyouronion,braziliangirls_lazylover,james-kochalka-superstar-silver-can,Goodbye,For_The_Truth_In_You-Dntel_mix,lonelyastronaut(live),IceCream,BreakfastBytheMattressEPVersion,girl_ritter,fatalist_robbers,brother_annuals,darkermylove_summerishere,Nice_Boys_-_Johnny_Guitar,vannuys_los,everybody_guccimane,benjy_country,breakingthrough_figgs,JUSTSAYTHEWORDacu1}.mp3'

Thanks, Zune!

Unfortunately, the ID3 tags are rather poorly done.

I've made my call: I shoot with Canon digital SLRs. Still, many people often ask me which way they should go. I give them the stock answer I was given when I had the same question: Canon has better glass and, currently, offers the only full-frame dSLRs.

Still, the question remains: for an entry-level dSLR (with move-up potential), which camera would you recommend?

Please keep all fanboy-ish stuff to yourself, and please don't just vote for one because you own it. I've owned Nikons in the past, too.

Comment if you have more to say than simply casting a vote.

I often maintain a few Safari windows. One will have "general browsing" stuff - things I'll open for reading later. I call this my "miscellaneous" window. I'll also have a few project-specific windows open, each with a few tabs. I keep these minimized, as I only work in them from time to time.

I've found a bug that's somewhat reproducible, and it has to do with that working state: "miscellaneous" window up, all "project" windows minimized.

When Safari isn't hidden, clicking a link in, say, my email app or text editor will properly open the URL in a new tab in Safari's topmost window. That's usually my "miscellaneous" window, so all is well.

When Safari is hidden, however, hell oftentimes breaks loose. More often than not, Safari will unhide itself, un-minimize one of my minimized "project" windows behind the already un-minimized "misc" window, and open the URL in a new tab in the "project" window instead of the top-most (and already un-minimized) "misc" window.

It's always the same project window, too - the "oldest" window (or the one with the lowest document ID, if you want to look at it the way you might in AppleScript). If I create a new window, drag all the tabs from my "project" window to it, and close the old project window, I can eventually create a situation wherein the "misc" window is "oldest," but I shouldn't have to: Safari should respect the un-minimized window(s) I have on-screen without pulling the wrong window from the Dock.

P.S. The title, had I felt like being verbose, would have read "Safari Annoyance: Opening Minimized Windows when Hidden and a Perfectly Good Window Already Exists For Crying Out Loud"

Link is here. I should consider setting up a "QuickLinks" category, but for now, you just get them like this. 🙂

The Colts proved the AFC was again the incredibly dominant team last night. The only points the anemic Bears offense scored were essentially handed to them - three tries to get in from the five-yard line (after a nice 52-yard run) and a field goal after being given the ball deep in the Colts' end.

All this talk about the Bears defense was blown out of proportion - the Steelers ran roughshod over essentially the same team and the same defense last year on their way to a Super Bowl win, and last year I said that any AFC playoff team could beat any NFC playoff team regularly.

Thank goodness the Steelers didn't wait around for Ron Rivera. He may be available, but after that shoddy performance, who would want him?

P.S. Did any one seriously think Rex Grossman was a Super Bowl-caliber QB? Come on!!