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NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?

Wired.com is running an article on their site about National Public Radio’s podcasting efforts hurting their fund raising.

“Why would I sit through all of that if I can get what I like for free online, listen to it on my own time and not be guilted for weeks into giving money?” says Michaels, a real estate agent who says her husband donates to the station on behalf of her family. “I’ve even found a whole bunch of NPR shows online that aren’t on NPR here, which is so great.”

That kind of thinking reflects both the blessing and curse presented by podcasting. On the upside, the medium is expanding NPR’s overall audience and boosting some shows previously unavailable in many markets. While most NPR programming has been streamed online for several years, the portable, time-shifted, on-demand nature of podcasting affords a new level of convenience and access.

As some one who worked for an NPR affiliate and tried to create podcast content from there, this is interesting. Fund raising happens at regular times of the year for nearly all affiliates. Some stations do this more times a year than others, but it happens. The other major thing to note is that there is a lot of cooperation from NPR themselves, sending satellite feeds of fund drive programming out at specified times.

I subscribe and listen to a handful of NPR podcasts. I really like what they are doing, they get what this medium can do for their programming. What I don’t get is how they can ignore the fund raising issue. It would be very easy to tag something on at the beginning of podcasts to remind listeners to support their local stations, specifically on podcasts that are timely, such as the NPR news podcasts. Continue reading “NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?”

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RIAA Wants Your Money, Forget About Your Education

This upsets me to no end. The Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, is the big giant we all love to hate. If you are one to be in support of freely downloading your music at will, these are the people who are looking to throw a lawsuit at you for a few thousand dollars.

The thing that gets me is that the RIAA is not only comprised of executives from inside the industry, but of musicians themselves. I understand that they want what is right. I am completely and totally all for artists getting the money they are entitled to from their music being distributed. To tell their fans to cough up the cash and drop out of community college is amazing. Looks like Mr. Record Company Executive will be having an extra week on the island this year.

That’s what really upsets me. By the time this money gets funneled down to the artists themselves, it is literally pennies. I could go on about it, but Courtney Love’s piece on Salon.com speaks to this really well. However, it was the piece by Steve Albini that opened my eyes to the situation a long time ago.

Don’t know who Courtney Love and Steve Albini are?

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‘Boot Camp’ Brings XP to Intel Macs

I’ve been watching a lot of websites and listenings to various Mac related podcasts about getting Windows XP to boot on a Mac with an Intel processor inside of it. There is this huge hack that was done to get it to work, but it’s not for the faint of heart. On top of that, you need the cash to do it because you could completely destroy the computer if it goes wrong. Then some other people found other ways to do it, and so on.

However, Apple unveiled Boot Camp today. This is a piece of software that will let people with the already mentioned Intel Macs be able to run Windows XP. You need the latest MacOS update to 10.4, and this software will be bundled with 10.5 when it comes out.

When the Intel Macs first came out, they were kind of negative on the idea about XP running on these machines. This is a huge turn around, and a major shift to the industry if it holds out. Does it run well? Will people buy into it? And more importantly, will Microsoft do anything to stop this? I don’t see why they would, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.

So there you go. Sexy Macs running… XP.

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Priceless

Barry Bonds get a syringe thrown at him during opening dayI couldn’t help myself. This is just too precious of a picture to let slip by. Opening day of the 2006 baseball season, Barry Bonds has his “adoring fans” show him how much he’s appreciated.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but look at the guy over the years. He got huge really fast. Something happened at some point to have that happen.

He’s got a long road ahead of him to show us he’s innocent.

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Apple Releases MacOS Update 10.4.6

This update seems to address a core of issues within the new Apple computer products with Intel processors. The other interesting note that comes with this release that came out yesterday, April 3rd, is the warnings posted along with it.

From Apple’s website:

Important: Please read before installing.

– If you use iSync, you should perform a full sync with your devices before installing this update. Mac OS X 10.4.6 Update includes a later version of iSync with several improvements. For more information and before-you-install steps, see iSync 2.2: Read before updating to Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later, or before first sync.

– With the Mac OS X 10.4.6 system software update, PowerPC-based Macs will restart twice, instead of once, after the initial installation.

– You may experience unexpected results if you have third-party system software modifications installed, or if you’ve modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)

– The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update.

If issues occur during installation–for example, Software Update quits unexpectedly, please see this article.

Yikes. This seems to be a pretty hefty update that might catch some people by surprise. As always, back up your computer before you apply this upgrade. Get more info here on Apple’s website. And that’s just for upgrading from 10.4.5 to 10.4.6. Info on older systems can be found here, and this is the update method I prefer to use and really recommend.

Also, check out other resources on the web. MacInTouch is a great site to read user comments and feedback. The MacNN forums are a great, real time source as well.  Find out how upgrades are going for other users and get feedback from professionals who have the ability to test these things out before you find yourself completely and totally screwed.

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Delayed Reaction To The Junos

I have always been familiar with the Juno Awards. 2006 has been the first time I have been able to actually see them. Prior to now, it was always entertainment reports that briefly mentioned that they happened with limited details of who won some of the awards.
For those of you that are unaware, these are Canada’s music awards. These go out to the top music acts of the nation. In fact, this year saw Brian Adams get inducted to the hall of fame. That turned out to be a pretty huge affair, almost the highlight of the night. Some would say that Nickleback was bigger, but I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye.

Overall, I was kind of let down by the whole event. Broken Social Scene‘s performance was pretty cool. And Michael Buble is bound to be the next big crooner, good for him, hope he has fun with that.

The big let down stems from one of those awards that Buble walked away with. Right after the whole acceptance speech, in the commercial break that followed, there was an ad for his latest album. It said something to the effect of “get the album that won the 2006 Juno Award for album of the year…” In the speech he just gave shortly before that, he was all surprised and astounded that he won. Continue reading “Delayed Reaction To The Junos”

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Canucks PPV Isn’t My Favorite

We were planning our night tonight all around the Canucks and Kings game tonight. Deciding what we wanted to get for dinner, when we’d make it, and so on. And then we got home. While loooking to set a reminder on the digital cable box, I figure out that the game is not on Rogers Sportsnet or TSN. It’s another pay per view game.

Yes, the coverage of the PPV games is outstanding. Yes, John Shorthouse does the play by play. Yes, it is all Canucks for nearly three hours with hardly any commercial interruption. I’m not disputing that it’s great for anyone who calls themselves a Canucks fan.

What I don’t care for is that there are so many of them in the playoff stretch. I think that next season, they could knock the number of PPV games to fewer. Of course, I say this because we are a newly married couple with not a lot of cash to spend while enjoying a nice pint and dinner at good place to catch the game. I might be singing a different tune this time next year when I’m able to have a job, but it kinda sucks.

If you want to see the game on TV, you gotta pay about $12, after taxes and everything. See it at a pub, that’s about $20-$60, depending on food and beverages enjoyed. And if you want to see the game at GM Place, that’s at least $100, give or take $30-$150, depending on who the game is against, and how desperate you are for tickets.

Excuse me if it seems like I’m bitching, but I just wanted to see some hockey tonight. That’s all I’m saying.

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Today It Is Summer

Reuters Photo: President Bush with the Chicago Cubs on opening day of the seasonFor some reason, even I had a little bit of opening day jitters going on. I was nervous for the sake of being excited. It’s here. Baseball is on. To me, this means that summer has officially begun.

Actually, the opening day really kicked off last yesterday. The White Sox, fitting enough, had those duties at home. They’ve bulked up their team during the off season, so we’ll see if they can hold their title. I still don’t like watching their games on TV if it’s Hawk making the calls. It’s just painful to me.

The Cubs start out in Cincinatti today, home opening at Wrigley coming up this Friday against the Cards. I’ll be heading into the interior with my wife. Will have to catch up with the scores later, or you can always check out the Cubscast. It’s not timely, but they’ll let you know who is doing what and where.

It might seem strange for me to be a hockey fan and a baseball fan. They are completely different sports, and you will never hear me trying to compare the two. Baseball is meant to be enjoyed slowly. These are the lazy days of summer. Lazy being the key word.

Edit:  Cubs win!  16-7!  Good game to start the season, but it was a strange one.

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Dear, Makers Of Camino

Please put a spell checker into your great and wonderful browser.  I love using WordPress, but it pains me to no end that I have a lackluster abilty to check my sppeling.  Grammer is a constant annoyance that I can deal with, but being able to make sure that you spell everything right on the fly like you can in Safira is a life sacber.

Opoen source, fast, slick, and a prety great browwer.  Camino is awesome, but it could be awesomrer.

And if you guys know of some other way that I can get this put into Camino without some uber hack, that would be outstanding.

Thank you.

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A Simpsons Movie?

I’m not sure how I feel about it, but the BBC is reporting that the Simpsons will be released in movie form with about a year.  Now I could be a sucker and falling for yet another April Fool’s Joke, but this news hits me in a few various ways.

I’d love nothing more than have this be true, but Homer and crew on the big screen?  It’s a great concept, and I’m sure there will be droves of people who will flock to the theatres to see it.  However, the Beavis and Butthead movie signaled the end to that franchise.  Are we in for the same thing?