Category: Web/Tech

DRM Removal from Itune files

I received an Itunes gift card for Christmas and was wondering how I would get the songs that I purchased into Ogg Vorbis for my Linux desktop system. From DRM Removal, I learned that I could burn the songs to an audio CD, and then rip them to whatever format that I wanted.
Since there is such a straightforward workaround to the DRM involved, what is the point of having it at all?  And where did those violent terms for putting audio onto a CD and taking it back off come from?

Squid

I usually do one organizational project New Year’s day or the closest weekend thereof. Usually, this involved cleaning out closets or something similar. This past weekend, I recabled my PC and its many peripherals so that I could actually turn off the power to peripherals except when I use them. Since I have a ton of USB peripherals, I had to match up USB bridges with power strips as well. I even did a little cleaning while I was down there.

In my reorganization, I employed a new Power Sentry 5-Outlet PowerSquid Power Multiplier. I thought it was very cool when I saw it on a website a year or so ago, and it came in very handy extending power between the UPS and the tower and monitor.  My computer desk is rather massive, which makes it difficult to get to the connections on the PC.

Google Maps

November 20, 2007 – Click on image for higher resolution version.

When Google Maps first became available, we noticed that the entrance to our drive way was shown as being near our northwest property line, instead of near the southwest corner.  Google now allows you to move markers. In this satellite photo found on Google, you can clearly see the difference between our main horse field and the one we enclosed several years later and still call the new field. You can also see the track that leads through the new field to the gate to the old field. I am surprised that it is so clear because it only gets driven on one or twice a month.

Arbitron

Jack signed us up to participate to keep diaries of our radio listening for a week for Arbitron. We start tomorrow.  At first, I didn’t think I would be able to contribute anything but empty sheets, but Jack told me that he thought Pandora Radio qualified as Internet Radio.  Pandora is rather odd since one creates one’s own channels by rating music as it is presented.  I usually listen to Pandora at work when I am not on the telephone or talking to anyone.

Five Years Ago

Five years ago today I started a web log called “Coffee and Oranges.” Blog software was still quite primitive or seemed difficult to install on a web host, so I created my own using a handful of Perl scripts. In July of 2003, I volunteered to be a beta tester of the new TypePad service and started a web log called “Five Acres with a View.” I decided to install Movable Type when the beta was over a few weeks later and kept the name of my TypePad blog which seemed more appropriate than a Wallace Stevens quote. I moved to WordPress when forced to stop running Movable Type by my web host in May 2004. I have been running some version of self-hosted WordPress since then.

If my web log was a child, it would be old enough for kindergarten in the fall. Where do the years go?