Many users were quite happy when Apple announced that they would be selling drm free music at their iTunes online store. It would finally be possible to make one purchase and be able to play the music in your car, mp3 player, computer and other devices. Prices for the drm free music were set higher than for music with drm which did not get the bad feedback that I expected it to get.

The possibility to download drm free music is live and several websites examined the new files that were downloaded after a purchase has been made. As Arstechica puts it: “We started examining the files this morning and noticed our names and e-mail addresses in the files”. This information is however stored in all songs that are downloaded from the iTunes store, not only in the drm free songs.

While it has not been a real concern before it could become one now. I don’t think that a lot of users will purchase music at the iTunes store and then add it to their p2p folder to share it with the world. The professional groups that release mp3 albums get their albums before store release and spread it world wide in a matter of minutes which means that they will not use the iTunes store to get hold of the music.

continue reading "DRM Free Music from iTunes hides account info"

Screencasts are an efficient way of showing someone else how you are performing tasks in your operating system. They are mainly used for educational purposes such as recording step by step instructions on how to use a certain program by capturing a certain region of your screen and commenting the actions using a microphone.

The service Screencast-O-Matic offers a free and reliable way of creating screencasts using just your browser and Java. It is not necessary to register an account to create a screencast. This is only necessary if you want to publish the screencast later on the website of the developer.

It is furthermore possible to export the screencast into Apple Quicktime format without registration as well. You probably would like to know more about the process of screencasting itself.

continue reading "Create, Publish and Export Screencasts"

CD-Wow is a online CD, DVD and games shop that operates from Hong Kong. They ship free of charge worldwide and offer some of the lowest prices in the business. They achieve this by (legally) buying the media in countries like Hong Kong and selling them to Europeans and Americans who are happy to pay a lower price for the media while still being able to enjoy the English version of a CD, DVD or game.

CD-Wow for instance was the third largest online CD retailer in Great Britain in 2005 after Amazon and Play. The companies that produce the media sure love globalisation when it means that they can produce their goods in a country like China for a fraction of the costs that it would cost them in a European country or in America.

The High-Court has now ordered Hong Kong-based CD-Wow to pay £37m plus interest to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

continue reading "CD-Wow to pay £41m to British record companies"

It seems to me that Podcasts are popular amongst a certain (geeky) user group but ignored by the rest of the Internet. Honestly, when was the last time that you have listened to a Podcast ? I have to admit that I’m also not listening to Podcasts mainly because the lack of time but also because of the difficulty to find Podcasts that are interesting enough.

Youloud tries to make at least the second concern irrelevant. It lists a lot of Podcasts in their directory offering features, newest, most popular and top favorite Podcasts.

The site got the typical web 2.0 look and feel offering lots of user interaction like comments on their site. The top 100 list should probably be your first stop into Podcast-land. It contains however a large amount of adult Podcasts which are probably not that suited for minors.

continue reading "Youloud Podcast Directory"

I’m not watching a lot of TV. Just about two hours in a week which is reduced to about zero when the football season ends. I do have to watch sometimes though when my girlfriend wants to watch a show or something and I happened to see an advertisement recently that I liked.

Most advertisements are just annoying and crappy but this one was different. It was for a chocolate snack called Kinder Bueno and the ad used a technique that blended a real actor - Collien Fernandes - into a cartoon. What really caught my attention was not the actress but the song of the ad.

I found out that it was produced only for that advertisement which is a shame in my opinion because it is one catchy tune. So, I thought it would be nice if I would embed the advertisement right into my blog and let you hear it as well. Would love some opinions on the ad and the song.. And yeah, she is hot.

continue reading "Collien Fernandes TV Advertisement"