February 2004

Midterms are finally over. I had three straight weeks of testing, covering Spanish, Virology, and Parisitology. Finally that’s over with.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to finish a lot of client web sites so be sure to take a look at my portfolio for some really cool new designs. One site is going to use a brand new program called ExpressionExpression, which costs $200. It’s worth it.

The Oscars are on tonight and I’m hoping that Lord of the Rings wins best picture and Bill Murray best actor. I think the other strong contenders are Mystic River and Sean Penn. As for best actress, I have no idea. Probably Charize Theron, since she won all those other award shows. Hopefully the voters will make some sound decisions.

There’s an Alpha Phi Omega meeting tonight at 7PM that I have to attend. I’m not happy about it because they scheduled it right during the Oscars. Oh well, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. It just pisses me off that I have to miss some of the show because of bad planning.

Today is Grey Tuesday, a day of protest against the guerilla tactics employed by the big labels to suppress independent music. The RIAA is using copyright law to suppress artistic expression and I’m not happy about it.

DJ Danger Mouse released a CD entitled The Grey Album which is a remix project of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ The White Album. EMI, The Beatles’ record label, is trying to suppress The Grey Album because it uses unauthorized samples. Danger Mouse had to resort to just putting the album out into the public because EMI wouldn’t let him legally license the samples. Jay-Z and his label, Roc-A-Fella, haven’t publicly denounced the album. Jay-Z intentionally released an A-capella version of The Black Album with the intent of allowing remixers such as Danger Mouse to have at it.

Right now EMI is totally within its right to go after people distributing the album and you can’t criticize the label for protecting the Beatles. However, I do think we need to rewrite the rules governing fair use of samples in music. That’s why I’m supporting Grey Tuesday today and I urge you to do the same. We need to allow DJs the ability to take a piece of music, rework it (significantly of course) and distribute it. I find it ridiculous that artists can do cover songs but not use samples.

Other supportive sites

• Downhill Battle
• Lawrence Lessig. The Black and White about Grey Tuesday
• Waxy.org: Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album MP3s
• A Whole Lotta Nothing. I got 99 problems but copyright ain’t one.
• Joe Gratz. Grey Tuesday Sites C&D�d

Like I previously mentioned, ExpressionEngine is now available for public beta. You can purchase a commercial license for $199. You read that correctly, $50 more than Movable Type. I think this is a bold move by pMachine. If you want to convince MT users to switch to your software, is charging $50 more a good idea? I don’t think so. However, the program is really awesome so maybe pMachine will prevail. However, MT is free for non-commercial use, which is a big plus.

pMachine 2.3 is currently free, but it can’t compete with MT. ExpressionEngine is a better program than MT but it also costs $200. I think this will be a big factor in people’s decisions to stick with MT.

Right now I’m sticking with MT on my own site since I make use of many plug-ins, particularly Paginate and GlobalListings. If these plug-ins got ported to ExpressionEngine, I would definitely switch though.

I’m working on a new web site for undisclosed client and the site is going to be run entirely off of pMachine’s new ExpressionEngine. From what I’ve seen so far, ExpressionEngine beats Movable Type in every area, especially speed. The amount of load the program puts on the server is far less since no rebuilding is required. The program is completely modular, so it’s very easy to add new features to the program without hacking the source code. Yes, MT has plug-ins, but they don’t integrate into the user interface. pMachine also has built in mailing list capabilities and way better calendar management.

For now, I’m sold. I’ll report back on how the template editing goes but I’m very impressed. In the future, if somebody could port the SmartyPants and Textile plug-ins for ExpressionEngine, I’d be much obliged. Here’s hoping that MT 3.0 gives ExpressionEngine a run for its money and makes the content management system market competitive.

I managed to download Mozilla Firefox from a mirror site this morning and the program is great. I’ve already switched it to my default browser and installed the Flash Player.

Firefox is the future of Mozilla and is becoming the perfect browser. It loads quickly, has a search bar built in like Safari and Opera, blocks popup windows, and has an easy to use configuration menu. The browser is skinnable and there are lots of plug-ins available for download on the web. I already use the web developer toolbar and the RSS panel.

There are some new features that set it apart from Mozilla 1.6, my other browser of choice. Firefox lets you open tabs in the background. Also, the download manager is smarter — it lets you set automatic downloading preferences. Finally, it is easier to change how Firefox handles file requests for video and documents (such as MPEG or Word, respectively). In Mozilla, WMV files never loaded properly for me. The browser would try to open the file as text and it would come out garbled. In Firefox, you can easily tell the program to open the file automatically with Windows Media Player.

Finally, the browser gets done right. I love Safari on the Mac and now Firefox is really shaping up to be a killer ap on Windows (I’m aware that it is cross platform, but on the Mac Safari is still king).

Right now mozilla.org is getting hammered with download requests, so I highly recommend using the list of mirror sites above.

I just found out about DJ Reset. He’s a mash-up DJ much like Z-Trip. He’s stuff is really good — he has some sets from K-Rock available on his web site. Download and give them a listen. You won’t be disappointed. His style is a little bit faster than Z-Trip and he uses more dance beats in the background. At the moment, I still like Z’s mixes better but Reset has skill.

Today I read through a couple of articles posted on PVRblog by Matt Haughey and got really angry with the state of affairs in the PVR market. As expected, PVR units such as TiVo or ReplayTV are selling like hot cakes.

Yesterday, TiVo reported the largest surge in usage of its service due to the Janet Jackson/Justin Timerlake incident. It really bothers me that PVR manufacturers have access to this kind of data. They claim they will only use the data in aggregate, not on a personal user level. Still, I think this has privacy implications. TiVo or ReplayTV could easily sell this data to TV stations, and they probably do.

I refuse to buy a PVR until it is disconnected from a centralized network. I don’t want companies having access to statistics about how often I watch TV, the times I watch, and the channels I watch. Essentially, I want an upgraded VCR with a hard drive. Let me cut out the commercials and pause live TV. In return, I’ll throw down a hundred bucks, maybe even one fifty if the unit is nice.

However, try to charge me a subscription and I’ll think twice. This has been my reaction so far to such units. I don’t like the idea that at any point in time in the future, TiVo or ReplayTV can raise their subscription fee and I’m screwed because I already threw down $150 for a unit. Realistically, this model plays into the hands of the manufacturers and the consumer ends up getting the shaft.

TV stations claim that TiVo is going to change the way television is broadcasted. Ads are going to be placed on screen during programming. The one thing TV stations don’t mention is that if they’re going to keep their current style of programming in the half hour format, full screen ads are going to stay in place. Right now on some stations TV commercials take up fifteen minutes of a thirty minute program. If stations are going to replace full-screen ads with ads during programs, programs are going to half to get longer.

Let’s face it — TV stations aren’t producing very high quality shows right now, and they’re going to have trouble doubling run times. Therefore, I think their claims are a lot of hype. I’m not a big fan of the media anyway because stations started logo-branding their channels. Yes, stations very well might start showing ads during a program, but it’s not going to be because TiVo is killing TV. No, stations are going to start doing this because they want even more ad money, so they’ll use TiVo as an excuse to saturate the airwaves with ads.

In the end, for me it’s a tough situation because I refuse to pay a subscription for a new wave VCR. I hate ads so I want a PVR. I guess the only possible solutions are to build my own PVR or just stop watching TV. If stations start running ads all the time on screen, they’ll make the choice of unplugging the tube a lot easier.