I use a Mac. I’ve been using email and browsing the web on my Mac for at least 10 years now. (Well, okay, I sometimes stop to sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom.) I have never used any virus-checking software or spyware removal software, and I have never had any viruses or spyware. That’s because there are no viruses and no spyware that have affected the Mac. The Mac has been completely immune to everything that has ever been out there.

Continue reading “Protect vs. Create” →

Be sure to check out the new Google Maps service. Those guys are doing things with Javascript that I had no idea were possible. They are absolute wizards of the web. You can use it to simply see a map of an area, or get driving directions, and probably a few other things I haven’t discovered yet. It looks like a really beautiful, useful service. (Very unfortunately, Safari isn’t supported yet, so if you’re on Mac OS X, consider Firefox for now.)

Napster’s Superbowl ad, which will air sometime in the next couple hours, encourages viewers to “do the math” on how much it will cost to fill up their MP3 player using Napster or using iTunes. Never mind the fact that the same MP3 players won’t work with both, so if you already own one…

Napster’s bait: you can get an unlimited amount of music for (only?) $15 per month. Napster hopes people will think, “Wow! I can download 100,000 songs for only $15.” And that would be true. You could technically sit there and click buttons for an entire month and download and listen to an unlimited amount of possibly-good songs. You could. Also, you can use Napster with your choice of 75 different music players! None of which are an iPod. None of which are as good as an iPod. Oh well. There’s gotta be one that’s almost as good, right? Let’s hope so.

Napster’s sharp, rusty hook: when you end your subscription, you no longer have any of the music you “purchased.” What you’re actually doing is renting your music for $15 each month. Stop paying? Stop enjoying your music. It’s that simple.

Now, let’s do some real math.

Let’s say you purchase 8000 songs online. That’s about 800 albums worth of music, all purchased online. That’s more than one album each month for the rest of my natural life. I’d say that’s pretty realistic for a lifetime of music buying. It’s even a liberal amount. I’d bet most people never own that much music. I totally love music and I own only about 2400 songs (not counting speeches, audiobooks, etc). Mind you, the number I’m quoting here is 8000 songs on top of the music you already own on CD. It’s all the music you’ll buy online in the future. I know a few people who have 6000 or 7000 legally-obtained songs, but just a few. It’s certainly not the norm. (If you’re stealing music, you don’t even need to bother with these equations because all your music is free. But don’t steal music.)

Now, consider this: I plan on living for another 60 years. That’s what I’m shootin’ for. I would like to be able to listen to this music any time I want up until the moment I die. Maybe even while I’m dying. Why not? It’s my music.

How much would this plan cost me with iTunes? Well, 8000 songs at $0.99 each would be about $7,920 for a lifetime of music. How much would this plan cost with Napster? Well… 60 remaining years of life times 12 months a year times $15 a month is… $10,800 for a lifetime of music renting. Surprise! It looks like iTunes wins by a wide margin! And if you buy less than 8000 songs, iTunes’ margin widens by even more than what it is in this example. In fact, assuming a remaining lifespan of 60 years, you’ll have to purchase over 10,692 songs to break even with what iTunes gives you. That’s not taking into account that, on iTunes, groups of songs bought as albums are usually much cheaper, you can get a new free song each week, etc, etc.

Now think about this: what if Napster goes out of business? What happens to your music, the music you thought you owned? I don’t even want to risk it. What if I want to burn my music to CD? Napster charges me extra. What if I wanted to be able to pass my music collection on to my kids and grandkids, as I think most people would? Then the fee goes up, up, up. iTunes’ prices stay right where you left them, and you can burn your music to CD or do pretty much whatever you want with it for no extra charge.

Now, combine that with the fact that Napster doesn’t work with the most popular MP3 player on the planet (and most popular for a very good reason) and… why would I use Napster, again? Oh, I know! If I’m terminally ill it’s a great deal! Honestly, if I find out tomorrow that I have cancer (which honestly, I may, because cancer has claimed so many in my family) and I’ve got a year to live, I’m totally going with Napster. So maybe Napster should change their slogan:

Sweet.

Update: Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I put up a quick-n-dirty Napster & iTunes Price Calculator just so you could all play around with your own set of figures.

I don’t usually indulge in schadenfreude, but in the case of Microsoft I’ll make an exception by posting this article.

I know I’ve been rubbing it in everyone’s faces recently, but let’s take a look at the performance of a few companies stock prices over the last year. The blue line is Apple. Orange is Gateway. Red is Dell. Green is Microsoft. Black is HP.

Interesting.

I think today’s Keynote was possibly the best keynote in recent memory. I’m totally excited about everything we announced. Check this stuff out:

iLife ’05 – With new versions of iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, and Garage Band. Each one has too many features to list, and they all work together to do crazy-awesome stuff with video and audio and photos, and… you’ve just gotta see it. Print exquisite books made from your own photos. Shoot high definition video and burn it (even in 16×9 aspect ratio, if you like) to a DVD. Burn a DV tape from your camcorder straight to DVD with only one click using OneStep DVD. It even rewinds the tape for you. The one-click is literal, it’s not just a name. Record multiple simultaneous audio tracks, do music notation, and add effects with GarageBand. I could go on and on. I can’t wait to create with this. Oh, it’s only $79 for the whole thing.

iWork – Successor to the admittedly-sucky Appleworks. It includes Keynote 2 for presentations, and Pages for word processing. Way more options. Way more Mac OS X-era text manipulation. Pages edits and exports Microsoft Word documents too. No one but a Spreadsheet Nerd would spend $399 (yes, really) on Microsoft Office if they’ve got this. iWork is just $79.

Mac mini – Just what the doctor ordered. Now, switching to the Mac will only cost you $499. Bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse, and you’re set to go. It comes with iLife. It comes with iWork. It comes with Mac OS X Panther. (Geez, that’s $287 worth of software right there.) It comes with a 1.25 GHz G4 processor, and plenty of everything else for basic day-to-day stuff. Now you’ve got no excuse not to switch.

iPod shuffle – Tiny. Tiny tiny. Starts at only $99. Players with half the capacity of that iPod shuffle are going for $149 in the market right now, and they don’t have Apple’s design and ease of use to back them up. The concept is simple: people love listening to their music on shuffle. So the iPod shuffle automatically shuffles it for you (if you want) when it syncs with your music library. Every time you sync it and go, you’ve got new surprises waiting for you. You’ve got no reason not to join the digital music revolution now, if you haven’t already. As Apple’s page says, “Give chance a chance.”

Apple’s marketshare of MP3 players went from 31% to 65% in the last year. 29% of the remainder of the market is made up of thousands of different kinds of crappy MP3-playing stocking stuffers. Don’t worry. The horror will end soon, and everyone will be shuffling.

I just love good keynotes. It’s like the Super Bowl to me. Except this is on QuickTime.

I just had a great idea for functionality that should be integrated into Mac OS X. Here’s the premise: people spend a lot of time getting files over email (or from other sources) and trying to figure out how to use the files. You’ve got all sorts of files, often times with their own metadata and file extensions. But how would you know what kind of file something was if someone didn’t tell you? Look at this list of extensions: .bin, .cwk, .doc, .exe, .gif, .graffle, .html, .idx, .info, .jar, .java, .jpg, .lha, .mov, .nib, .php, .plist, .png, .ppt, .raw, .rdf, .rsrc, .rss, .rtf, .sit, .strings, .tar, .tiff, .txt, .wmv, .xml, .xls, .zip.

Some people may recognize all of those extensions, but not many. Average users never would, so the question becomes this: why would we author our software in such a way that it expects people to recognize extensions? The full list of extensions is probably 100 times longer than the one I’ve made above, and it’s just going to get longer and longer. The problem in our scenario becomes even more difficult when the file has no extension on it and no custom icon.

Truth be told, usually the OS will automatically recognize a file as long as the application is installed (and in some cases, when the application has been run at least once). What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t require that. The OS should be able to tell you what kind of a file you’ve got even if you don’t have the software to run it. It should look at the file and say “This file is a _____ file. You need _____ to use this file, and it appears that you do not have ______” if you don’t have the application. I’m not aware of any OS that does that. Are you?