#FF00AA

@misc@

Networking is one of the things I hated most at school (I mean computer networking, at computer school, not social networking — not that I’m much better at that one), so I’d need confirmation from more expert sources: should I understand that I could buy a small, $30 Ethernet switch, plug it in place of my old, dusty network hub whose ‘Collision’ LED keeps blinking like mad whenever I’m using anything, and it would work immediately like a charm and my whole local network would be orders of magnitude faster?

Because, right now, transferring files from one computer to the next is rather painful, and I can’t help but think that having that much collision can’t be a good thing.

 

@music@

Most PlaysForSure devices can play Zune Marketplace songs — the format is the same, it’s just that the Zune device refuses to play songs that aren’t specifically tagged by the Marketplace.

I take that as evidence that Microsoft didn’t deliberately cripple their device, but were forced into it by their licensing agreements: they must have believed to deeply in the wifi sharing functionality (mwahaha) that, when PlaysForSure licensees refused to see their songs copied on other devices for three days or three plays (got to understand them, what a loss of revenue), Microsoft ended up having to split their offering rather than just give up on their, uh, killer feature.

 

@misc@

I’m in the mood for spending money: Vinyl CD-Rs; Ready-made neon letters; And a ceramic iPod or iPhone.

I remember reading a blog post a couple days ago saying that there would be an uncontrollable frenzy if any Apple patent coming out by Christmas mentioned phone capabilities, even in passing. Well, I guess this is it: Apple requests a patent for the amazing idea of manufacturing a device with a material that’s transparent to radio frequencies.

I guess the wifi iPod is coming.

 

@misc@