Robin Trower

A few months ago Fake Steve Jobs posted a blog about todays music. Here he waxed lyrically about listening to an album of Robin Trower called Robin Trower Live. I immediately searched for it on the iTunes Store, but it was not available there. Luckily, after a few weeks I found a similar album called Bridge Of Sighs it on bol.com.
After it arrived, I immediately popped it in the CD player. The moment I heard the first beat, I was sold. This is a classic guitar power trio from the early seventies, reminiscent of Jimy Hendrix and Fatal Flowers. The music is raw and pure and somehow strikes a nerve that most modern music misses.

Give it a try,

Zaaf

AVRO quits podcasting due to rights issues.

Since long I've been enjoying the podcast delivery of the radio show Andermans Veren. However, they decided to stop this due to rights issues. In short, they need to pay BUMA/STEMRA (Dutch ASCAP/BMI) a license fee, but they don't know how much.

This is the letter I sent them (in dutch)

Re: Podcasts stoppen.

Naar aanleiding van uw bericht over het stoppen met podcastweergaves van ondermeer Andermans Veren, zou ik u het volgende willen meegeven.
De afgelopen twee jaar heb ik met heel veel plezier gebruik gemaakt van de podcastservice van de AVRO om uw programma Andermans Veren te beluisteren op een tijd die mij wel schikt (namelijk 's middags in de trein naar huis). Mede hierdoor ben ik in aanraking gekomen met een keur aan kleinkunstartiesten die ik anders nooit zou hebben gekend, of waarvoor mijn waardering veel lager zou zijn dan nu het geval is. Hiervoor mijn hartelijk dank.
Dankzij uw podcast heb ik ondermeer CD's aangeschaft van Mylou Frencken, Alex Rouka en Boudewijn de Groot. Tevens heb ik door het enthousiasme meerdere theatershows bezocht van artiesten waar ik anders nooit naar toe zou zijn geweest.

Door te stoppen met uw podcastservice, verliest u mij als luisteraar. Dit zal voor u als organisatie waarschijnlijk niet een heel groot verlies zijn. Voor mijzelf is het ook geen groot verlies daar er genoeg podcasts zijn om het Andermans Veren-gat op te vullen. Degene die wel verliezen bij het stopzetten zijn de artiesten, daar ik nu niet meer blootgesteld word aan nederlandstalige kleinkunst.
Om Kasper van Kooten te citeren:
"De artiesten verliezen en dat moet jullie een rotzorg zijn." (uit "De Ziekte van Download").

Ik hoop dat u een en ander in overweging neemt bij het besluit om weer door te gaan met podcasting. Wellicht is het goed om te bedenken dat podcasting, net als radio, bijdraagt aan de populariteit van een artiest.

Hoogachtend,

Zaaf

So does anyone know about a good replacement for the loss of this podcast? Should I start to listen to Soccergirl Inc.?

Zaaf

iPhoto All Events shortcut key

I just discovered a shortcut for getting back to the All Events view in iPhoto when you're in a specific event view. Just press Escape and you're back! It's that simple. Now you don't need this specific hint to do it.

Zaaf

5 September Apple Announcements

Well, Apple suprised me again. The did refresh the iPod Nano and the iPod Classic to something much more visually appealing. I did not expect that. Nor did I expect the inclusion of WiFi and Safari in the iPod Touch. And neither did I expect the iPhone price to be cut so drastically. $200 of from $600, that's 33% price cut.
But what about the total cost of iPhone ownership? The AT&T subscription? Did that come down too? I just checked, but I could not find any information about it. The cheapest rate is still $59.99 per month for a two year contract. So that's $1439.76 for two years. Add the $599 iPhone to it and you get $2038.76 which is now down to 1838.76, which is slightly more than 10%.

You might argue that all iPhone buyers already have a mobile telephone that would cost them something similar, but I disagree. I'm currently paying €10 per month for my mobile telephone contract and I still have minutes left after each month. So the price of the iPhone has not come down significantly enough for me to buy it. The iPod Touch on the other hand, that's a different story. There are a few things about it that I need to further investigate before I will invest in it.
First of all, it's only 16 GB in capacity, minus the storage for OS X. Currently I've used 53 GB of the 80 GB available on my iPod. And given my preference for album shuffle, I'll only buy one when I'm sure that it will pick out whole albums at random for me to listen to. Although I'm very tempted with the built in browser.

So in the end, the Steve's Reality Distortion Field, which I alluded to in the previous post, did not prove strong enough to wipe out my credit card and buy an iPod Touch.

Zaaf