December 19, 2005

Two things

Posted by Stacy Chandler at December 19, 2005 4:32 AM

Ug, I apologize in advance for keeping it short today -- I'm fighting off some sort of cold or SARS or bird flu or something and losing badly, I'm afraid. Plus, nothing I can say even at my best is going to come close to matching the news in Sean's post below, so why try? :)

So here is a little feature I like to call "Two Things," which anyone who ever e-mails me knows is a favorite e-mail format of mine. So ... two things:

1) Music just got more googlable, and yes, that's a word. Google has recently added a special search engine (much like the one it has for images, or blogs) for music. You can type in a band name, a song name, even a snippet of lyrics and get some helpful results. They don't promise that it's an exhaustive resource (yet ...), so it might not be schooled in little tiny indie bands or even the 1960s bluegrass greats, but it's worth a try. It knows the Jayhawks (I typed in "Two angels one bad end" and the Jayhawks' "Two Angels" was the first hit) and it knows only Lyle Lovett could have delighted us with the line "Fat babies have no pride." It's nice and useful when you have two lines of a song you can't otherwise remember stuck in your head. Just typing in the lyric brings up the name of the song, the name of the artist, the album's cover art, more of the lyrics, and links for buying the CD. It also beats searching on regular Google, at least for lyrics that are everyday words or phrases. If you want information on the Jayhawks' song "You Look So Young," for example, you'll want to type that into music search. Type that into regular search and, well, you get something different. Don't say I didn't warn you. So Google's music search, give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's fun to try to stump. And it's a good way to settle bets quickly, too. Trust me.

2) All right, all right, I know I've said it before, but this time I actually mean it. Mostly. You know, 85 percent mean it. I'm getting a new iPod. For reals. I think. I still hate to replace Ruthie and her meld with my mind, but goddammit she's huge and takes up my whole purse and now is down to about an hour and a half of battery life. So yes, I'm a fickle friend. But when a co-worker let me hold her brand new, pencil-thin 30G buddy with 20-hour battery life (for now ...), my allegiance strayed. Only thing holding me back now, really, is trying to decide what to have engraved on the back. Any suggestions? It's gotta be short and sweet. Or short, anyway (2 lines, 27 characters each). Help me out!

Comments

"Little Ruthie" or "Ruthie II"

Posted by: Jim Pipkin at December 19, 2005 7:44 AM

I've been meaning to post this, but my new video iPod, as of about middle of November, has the following on the back:

HickoryWind.org
Keeps Callin' Me Home

That's right. I'm just that kind of geek. Don't believe me? I'll post a pic!

Posted by: larry at December 19, 2005 9:25 AM

Dang, okay, I'm having picture-taking problems. Those shiny rear-ends on the iPods aren't very conducive to picture-taking. I guess until I get that problem solved you'll just have to belive me.

Have fun with the new iPod, Stacy!

Posted by: larry at December 19, 2005 10:03 AM

How about:

If lost, please return to

Shane O'Donnell
Raleigh, NC

Return Postage Guaranteed

???

Posted by: Shane O. at December 19, 2005 10:23 AM

How about "Caution - Contents Under Pressure"

Posted by: Jim Pipkin at December 19, 2005 11:22 AM

Perhaps "This iPod back left intentionally blank."

Posted by: Shane O. at December 19, 2005 1:40 PM

Or...

In loving remembrance of
Ruthie - R.I.P. 2005

Posted by: Shane O. at December 19, 2005 1:46 PM

Man, good ideas, all of 'em! (Not thinkin' I'll do the return address there, though, ShaneO. Nice try!) Her name will be Ruth Ann, but I'm thinking something other than her name should be engraved, since I can do her name on the screen.

Keep the suggestions coming, please! I'm definitely getting a lot to mull over ...

Posted by: Stacy at December 19, 2005 9:36 PM

Hey, I haven't been much of a carry-my-music-on-my-person person, ever since I had one of the early cassette-size Walkmans. But I was intrigued by something in the NYTimes the other day, namely that you can get an iPod-like device from XM Radio that has FIVE hours of memory. Essentially, it's a radio TiVo. And TiVo has changed my life. Being that you're a fellow X-Country devotee, have you looked into this? Five hours' worth of downloads for $6.95 a month sounds like a pretty decent deal to me. Plus it has a search feature, so you can search for artists or songs. Now I don't have one of these (yet), but I'm checking it out. Also, banks are giving away iPod Nanos and Shuffles for opening checking accounts ... but that means downloading from Apple, and I'm suspicious. If you download from them, can you transfer songs to your computer? Even if it's not an Apple? And if you do, can you still burn them to disc? Or does Apple encode its downloads so that you can't do whatever you want with them? Freakin' technology, what to do....

Posted by: Mark at December 19, 2005 11:48 PM

Mark, okay, you've asked lots of questions. First off, you don't *have* to download music from Apple if you have an iPod. In fact, most of the music people listen to on their iPods are ripped from CDs. So, you use iTunes to pull the music off the CD into an mp3 file on your computer harddrive, and then copy those mp3s onto your iPod. Voila!

If you want to download from other sites, just make sure they're mp3 files, NOT wma files. iPods no likey the wma files. (It's a Microsoft proprietary standard.)

Also, yes, if you download from Apple or Napster or any of those places, they will put restrictions on how/where you can burn those files to CD, who else can listen to them, etc. It sucks, but its true. That's the cost we pay of downloading today rather than buying the CD at a brick and mortar store tomorrow. However, as sucky as it is, Apple's DRM technology that controls this is *way* more lenient than anyone else's, and has only gotten more lenient as time has gone on. Do a quick Google, there's tons of information on this.

As for the satellite radio "TiVo" thing... that is pretty cool. I'm considering making the jump into satellite radio too, but I haven't done enough research on it. Let me know if it works out for you.

Posted by: larry at December 20, 2005 9:21 AM

I've had XM for years -- LOVE IT. I didn't know about the Tivo-esque device they have now, though. Guess I should start reading their newsletters before I delete them. Heh. But yeah, their programming is great. The alt-country station could be better, but shit, at least it's there! And all the stations do nifty live programming quite often. I've heard Nickel Creek shows, and I think maybe Son Volt did one not too long ago. All sort of cool stuff. AND the little receivers you use always show the name of the song and the artist, so you never have to sweat it out waiting for the DJ to tell you the name of the song. The stations do have DJs, by the way, but they're minimalist, just there enough to be interesting and give a station personality but not nearly enough to be annoying. I highly, highly recommend XM. You get all the great music and features AND you're sticking it to the Man (the Man in this case being the FCC and Clear Channel and friends). Ha.

Posted by: Stacy at December 20, 2005 9:41 PM

Yeah - I love XM radio too and it's even pushed my beloved 10G iPod aside.
If you don't live in the U.S. it's still easy to get XM online - you just have to give them a 'fake' U.S. address but they'll take international credit cards. This was awesome when XM was fighting with the CRTC (Canadian version of the FCC) for the right to broadcast in Canada - I was sticking it to the FCC, Clear Channel AND the stupid !$&*wads at the CRTC.

Posted by: Margaret at December 21, 2005 10:32 AM

Thanks much to Larry for the soothing Apple info. I am now a member of iPod nation, having opened an account for $100 at TCF Bank and gotten a free iPod Shuffle for the trouble. (Well, my daughter's 10th b-day is tomorrow, so she'll actually be the owner. What a cheap bastard, giving a little girl a bank freebie for her birthday, huh?)

To attempt to restore my karma, however, here's a code that'll get you one of the XM personal stereos for $29, or the one with memory for $99. Go to http://espromotions.xmradio.com/xm/directmail1.aspx and enter the code ZNCHKJTC1 to get the deal.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna grab the $99 one myself to get that 5-hour memory.

I have to agree w/Stacy that the alt-country station could be better -- and has been. Anybody know what the hell happened to Webb Wilder? He was a (great) DJ on X-Country for the longest, and now he's gone. I e-mailed them and asked but got no reply, so I fear the worst (but hope he's merely out on tour and will be back).

Posted by: Mark at December 21, 2005 6:41 PM

I think if they smushed together the best parts of the alt-country channel, Loft (singer/songwriters), unsigned, XM Cafe("mellow alternative") and the Hear Music channel, they'd have a much better thing going. And yes, bringing back Webb Wilder would help a bunch, too. I *have* heard that he's touring, so it might not be too much to hope he's just on hiatus. But XM's lack of response on that one worries me. Hmmm.

Posted by: Stacy at December 21, 2005 11:17 PM

Webb Wilder ROCKS! Saw him give an awesome show a couple of months back, and he has been playing out a bit.

Posted by: Jim Pipkin at December 21, 2005 11:26 PM