Orange Hipster Shuffle

This must be a sign. On the same day I read about the Hipster Shuffle the folks at Apple released iPod shuffles in new colors (pink, blue, green, and orange in addition to the original silver)! So not only can your Hipster PDA gain multimedia capabilities but it is also now available in snazzy colors. As orange is my favorite color I am very tempted

Macworld ‘07 Keynote Reactions

I must say I’m a bit shocked. Not shocked by Apple TV or even the iPhone really. Shocked that Steve only unveiled Apple TV and the iPhone, the latter not even being available for another 6 months. Don’t get me wrong, I think they are both cool and will talk about them a bit but I am surprised we didn’t see new versions of iLife and iWork. Granted nothing about a year-based naming scheme requires that new versions be released every year, just look at Microsoft, but I really thought Apple would continue with Macworld timeframe updates. Anyway, lets look at what they did announce.

Winter Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice! Wikipedia will educate you about the solstice itself, which happens twice per year, and also about some winter solstice celebrations.

This doesn’t have much to do with Winter Solstice, but I felt like sharing. Last night I bought a few songs from iTMS you might find interesting.

Breathe is a beautiful down-tempo offering from Télépopmusik.

Departures from Karminsky Experience Inc is just one of many great songs from this group. Loungey downtempo goodness.

Treat Her Right and Mustang Sally from The Commitments soundtrack. Check out the movie if you like these tracks.

If it ain’t baroque don’t fix it. I found Masques while looking for something different for Christmas music. I love their Noël Nouvelet and Où S’en Vont Ces Gais Bergers? is fun and lively.

I’ve always enjoyed Carol of the Bells and couldn’t decide on just one rendition of it so I went with three: US Air Force Band & Singing Sergeants, Boston Brass, and Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops.

Microsoft… Still Evil

It came to light today that Microsoft will pay Universal for every Zune sold. Of course the representative from Universal thinks this is a good idea:

We felt that any business that’s built on the bedrock of music we should share in

Apparently selling music isn’t enough for them anymore. Do you suppose Universal are getting paid for every radio sold? I doubt it. Yet when it comes to digital music they feel entitled because as we all know anyone who uses a digital music player is really a pirate. The music industry has pushed for a tax on devices that could be used to pirate music. Now it appears that they will simply negotiate (force) the charge into the contract with the music resellers. Greedy.

So Microsoft is making two statements with this agreement. First to their potential ( though it is beyond me why anyone would buy this thing ) customers: You are thieves. Second to Apple: We’ve got billions of dollars to lose on this thing, how much do you have?

Update: Excellent analysis of this whole thing.

Update 2: John Gruber’s take on the Microsoft/Universal deal.

Weird Al meets WoW

I was a long time World of Warcraft player starting from the 2nd beta up until about 4 months ago. I quit cold turkey because it was just chewing up too much of my time and scaling back prevented me from playing with guildmates with whom I’d been questing with for nearly a year. Today a friend of mine linked me to this video. The song itself is very fun and the WoW video is excellent work. Check it out.

Update: iTMS has the song if you are so inclined.