I've just checked my emails and seen that Google has placed in my Spam folder a message that appears to be an invoice from iTunes for the cost of some downloads - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire - and in a nice touch, in brackets, unabridged. Total value of my supposed purchase - $289.90. Must say I liked that little touch, the supermarket psychologist's "just under" price point.
Thankfully the ever watchful Google reports other users believe this is a phishing fraud and indeed the body of the text suggests if I query the transaction, or believe my "account" has been hijacked I may indeed be asked for financial data.
Two giveaways for me. First, I can't imagine Apple or iTunes Media Store ever allowing anything out of its grasp without pre-payment. Second, the sender's email address is a tubarao.unimedsc.com.br address.
If you get anything like this, don't respond, if you can flag it to your email host that it's definitely spam / phishing.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Equalizer
Last Monday I took a break from CD ripping to catch up on an outstanding chore, sorting out some scanned 35mm slides. I knew at the outset it would take all day so I decided to use iTunes as the source of entertainment to stave off the mind-numbing boredom of the task.
I spent the morning listening to various podcasts and streamed internet radio stations. Although it was fun, for a while, to listen to early morning local stations in America just after lunch I turned to what the iPod / iTunes ecosystem was designed for - music. We've just finished a library of 750+ CDs for a client so I dipped into that from the NAS drive we're running just now. I was using my Mac with the Soundsticks attached, a set up I love almost as much for how it sounds as for its looks.
Let the music play. But my attention was fading, my eyes were tired and the thought of cropping a couple of hundred more scans was less and less appealing. I wandered over to the iTunes equalizer settings. The control panel appears under the Window command in the top menu level. It's worth pointing out what this doesn't do, which is to alter any of your digital music files, nothing is changed.
The equalizer intervenes between your ripped music and your speakers and it massages the sound you hear. It allows you to fine tune how your music is played so you get sound playback that's better than the bog-standard settings. At the top you'll see some pre-programmed options designed to suit jazz, rock, classical music and so on, plus others to adapt to your system such as small speakers which I think works well on a laptop. Below that there are sliders which can boost or fade sections of the sound spectrum held within your digital files. You can also create your own pre-sets if you find a particular setting that works well for your music, your hi-fi / speakers and of course your ears.
So I played and fiddled. I tried the classical setting against Exile on Main Street, then to be impish I planted Hip-Hop on Haydn. I found myself fiendishly amused, well against image editing anyway, and the time slipped by. It was a couple of hours well spent.
Just one thought. I wonder if its possible to fix an equalizer setting to an individual track or maybe a genre. It's a powerful tool, certainly one I've neglected in the past.
I spent the morning listening to various podcasts and streamed internet radio stations. Although it was fun, for a while, to listen to early morning local stations in America just after lunch I turned to what the iPod / iTunes ecosystem was designed for - music. We've just finished a library of 750+ CDs for a client so I dipped into that from the NAS drive we're running just now. I was using my Mac with the Soundsticks attached, a set up I love almost as much for how it sounds as for its looks.
Let the music play. But my attention was fading, my eyes were tired and the thought of cropping a couple of hundred more scans was less and less appealing. I wandered over to the iTunes equalizer settings. The control panel appears under the Window command in the top menu level. It's worth pointing out what this doesn't do, which is to alter any of your digital music files, nothing is changed.
The equalizer intervenes between your ripped music and your speakers and it massages the sound you hear. It allows you to fine tune how your music is played so you get sound playback that's better than the bog-standard settings. At the top you'll see some pre-programmed options designed to suit jazz, rock, classical music and so on, plus others to adapt to your system such as small speakers which I think works well on a laptop. Below that there are sliders which can boost or fade sections of the sound spectrum held within your digital files. You can also create your own pre-sets if you find a particular setting that works well for your music, your hi-fi / speakers and of course your ears.
So I played and fiddled. I tried the classical setting against Exile on Main Street, then to be impish I planted Hip-Hop on Haydn. I found myself fiendishly amused, well against image editing anyway, and the time slipped by. It was a couple of hours well spent.
Just one thought. I wonder if its possible to fix an equalizer setting to an individual track or maybe a genre. It's a powerful tool, certainly one I've neglected in the past.
Friday, May 09, 2014
iPod Earbuds to BOOM?
I've been to London a couple of times this last week, once by train and then by car. A couple of things struck me.
First, as I was sitting on the underground fewer people were listening to music on large ear covering speakers. It seemed too that more people were using the white Apple earbuds. Now I think the latest version of Apple's free headset is much better than the original they still lack a lot compared to a bigger and / or more expensive alternative.
Second, the number of taxi drivers with white earbuds. Is this legal? Maybe they mostly use them as a hands free phone system but I did notice a couple of taxi drivers tapping their steering wheel as if they were listening to music. The Apple speakers are quite discrete so maybe the Police and the Public Carriage Office don't notice.
The thought I had in mind is that maybe the tide has turned against wearing anything larger that earbuds in public. OK the sound can be much better but they do make you look a little odd don't they? So I was surprised to read speculation yesterday, repeated this morning in The Times, that Apple are planning to buy Dr Dre, the company that produces the most iconic of the larger than life headsets. Maybe Apple have noticed a worldwide trend that has swept past London, maybe the good Dr Dre has something in the pipeline that Apple admires.
Maybe Dr Dre can work his magic and produce a future version of Apple's own product that sounds much better. Or could it be that Apple want to get hold of the music streaming service that apparently goes with Dr Dre? All will be revealed - or not - in a few days.
First, as I was sitting on the underground fewer people were listening to music on large ear covering speakers. It seemed too that more people were using the white Apple earbuds. Now I think the latest version of Apple's free headset is much better than the original they still lack a lot compared to a bigger and / or more expensive alternative.
Second, the number of taxi drivers with white earbuds. Is this legal? Maybe they mostly use them as a hands free phone system but I did notice a couple of taxi drivers tapping their steering wheel as if they were listening to music. The Apple speakers are quite discrete so maybe the Police and the Public Carriage Office don't notice.
The thought I had in mind is that maybe the tide has turned against wearing anything larger that earbuds in public. OK the sound can be much better but they do make you look a little odd don't they? So I was surprised to read speculation yesterday, repeated this morning in The Times, that Apple are planning to buy Dr Dre, the company that produces the most iconic of the larger than life headsets. Maybe Apple have noticed a worldwide trend that has swept past London, maybe the good Dr Dre has something in the pipeline that Apple admires.
Maybe Dr Dre can work his magic and produce a future version of Apple's own product that sounds much better. Or could it be that Apple want to get hold of the music streaming service that apparently goes with Dr Dre? All will be revealed - or not - in a few days.
Wednesday, May 07, 2014
CD Ripping & UK Law
So, at last, it is to happen. In the next few days we will all be legal. Say goodbye to worries and fears.
It seems hard to believe that just over ten years ago I sat opposite the assembled legal might of the UK's recording industry and was told they'd like to put me (and a few others) out of business. In the following days I awaited stiff legal action, but it never came. CD ripping was a matter of public debate and I kept telling anyone who'd listen that as the process was now very easy, and massively convenient, the great British public would do it whatever the industry said.
Then a few months later senior figures in the industry said that while they still held to the view that CD ripping was strictly speaking a breach of copyright, they would take no action provided it was purely for personal use. So away we went, and along with millions of ordinary people we've been ripping CDs ever since. Despite their grave concerns when we met in London, I don't think anyone in the business would say the humble Apple iPod and iTunes had opened the floodgates and drowned an otherwise healthy industry.
That's how it's been, a kind of legal stalemate. A decent truce which i think has benefited us all. Well today I heard on the BBc that next week the government will introduce legislation to legalise "format shifting" providing it is for personal use. Which I think is very sensible, so well done the good and the great.
It seems hard to believe that just over ten years ago I sat opposite the assembled legal might of the UK's recording industry and was told they'd like to put me (and a few others) out of business. In the following days I awaited stiff legal action, but it never came. CD ripping was a matter of public debate and I kept telling anyone who'd listen that as the process was now very easy, and massively convenient, the great British public would do it whatever the industry said.
Then a few months later senior figures in the industry said that while they still held to the view that CD ripping was strictly speaking a breach of copyright, they would take no action provided it was purely for personal use. So away we went, and along with millions of ordinary people we've been ripping CDs ever since. Despite their grave concerns when we met in London, I don't think anyone in the business would say the humble Apple iPod and iTunes had opened the floodgates and drowned an otherwise healthy industry.
That's how it's been, a kind of legal stalemate. A decent truce which i think has benefited us all. Well today I heard on the BBc that next week the government will introduce legislation to legalise "format shifting" providing it is for personal use. Which I think is very sensible, so well done the good and the great.
Friday, May 02, 2014
Sonos - iTunes - Out of Sorts
This afternoon I was at a client's premises looking into some problems with their network and how that was handling music streaming. The client asked me to look at an issue that was puzzling him and it concerned music on his Sonos controller, compared to his iTunes library.
He showed me his Sonos hand held controller and accessed his Bach music. Right at the top of the list were two tracks that were obviously out of order. When we crossed to the Mac with iTunes, did the same search and looked at the result. A very different result. It was a trip down memory lane for me, back to my early days in IT when as a programmer you had to keep in mind a thing called "sort order".
I've deliberately put "sort order" in quotes, but if you saw that phrase among others, sorted alphabetically, where would you expect it to be slotted? In the good old days It manufacturers took different views and looking at the Sonos display it was obvious that the Sonos view is that single quotes and double quotes should come at the top of the list, like this -
'A
"A
A
B
C and so on.
Looking in iTunes it's clear Apple have set up iTunes to ignore any distractions such as the single or double quotes. So the track title will appear in the place it would be in if it didn't have those marks. Clever, would have saved me hours and hours all those years ago.
So if you have an iTunes / Sonos environment and you're experiencing some sort oddities take a look at your track names and album titles. My client's library is huge (2,700 albums) and I found four albums and 12 tracks that started with ' or ". It only took a few minutes to edit out those unnecessary characters and now iTunes and Sonos sort in harmony. Lovely.
He showed me his Sonos hand held controller and accessed his Bach music. Right at the top of the list were two tracks that were obviously out of order. When we crossed to the Mac with iTunes, did the same search and looked at the result. A very different result. It was a trip down memory lane for me, back to my early days in IT when as a programmer you had to keep in mind a thing called "sort order".
I've deliberately put "sort order" in quotes, but if you saw that phrase among others, sorted alphabetically, where would you expect it to be slotted? In the good old days It manufacturers took different views and looking at the Sonos display it was obvious that the Sonos view is that single quotes and double quotes should come at the top of the list, like this -
'A
"A
A
B
C and so on.
Looking in iTunes it's clear Apple have set up iTunes to ignore any distractions such as the single or double quotes. So the track title will appear in the place it would be in if it didn't have those marks. Clever, would have saved me hours and hours all those years ago.
So if you have an iTunes / Sonos environment and you're experiencing some sort oddities take a look at your track names and album titles. My client's library is huge (2,700 albums) and I found four albums and 12 tracks that started with ' or ". It only took a few minutes to edit out those unnecessary characters and now iTunes and Sonos sort in harmony. Lovely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)