Off running, over Vista

My days with Vista are almost over.



I love you MacBook.



Safari is well on its way to my heart. At first I tried leaving internet explorer altogether, but pages with squares and random numbers were a frequent thing. Microsoft had me hooked, but Leopard is making it so easy to bury my PC forever.



Apple is winning the interactive entertainment war. Finally, a company is putting all of the pieces together and making it so easy to turn your laptop and relax on the recliner, flick the power button on the plasm and just enjoy all the internet has to offer. Youtube at your finger tips, while reaching for the lever of the Lazy Boy.



I remeber a couple of years ago (like 10), when paying for music involved heading to the store and looking through rows of CDs and coming home with 5 albums, because it was such a task, you'd pay for Cds for just 1 song you liked, hoping at least 2 more songs on the album were worth listening to. Thats why downloading the music on share sites for free, was redemption for years of paying $18 for 1 song. Then iTunes comes along with the .99 track. At first it seemed like alot of money for 1 song that could be downloaded off of share sites, within a minute, but after awhile quality versions of songs were harder to find, because duplicate files with static or loud noises every 15 seconds were so aggravating. So I'd download 6 different files to scan through, hoping to find one worth saving.

Why buy songs on iTunes? I look at like this.. Its the time spent, most people work and receive pay per hour, even on a salary, it can be broken down per hour. Purchasing something or spending time reviewing products before purchasing, takes time and effort. Say for instance you make $30 an hour, you get in your car to drive to the store to search for the album that contains the song you must have, pay for it, and drive back home. 2 hours spent cost you $60, plus the CD $15, loading to the computer 15 minutes and 5 minutes to get it to your ipod or mp3 player or phone. Your cost would be roughly $90. Now for the internet route, $50 for internet access, unless you borrow it from a neighbor, Open a share site on the computer, search for the song and 30 versions of the same song fill the screen, you must now begin the task now of downloading the files and sorting through to find a full version of the song that plays the full length of the song, now..does it have gaps, repeats, slient spots, or loud noises and static every 15 seconds. That would take 45 minutes for 1 song, then if you wanted more from that album, multiply the time by 10. The Share site is about $80, less if you borrow from your neighbors wireless access, but if everyone did it this way, music would slowly begin to cost more, because your not paying the artist. The iTunes route.. Internet access monthly charge $50, open itunes and search by artist, all albulms with album art, and 30 second clips of each song on the album. Now think of the time and money your saving. Now select the song you want, listen to it and press buy, you can buy just the song or the whole album, but its delivered instantly, with fastest servers, unlike the share sites with borrorwed bandwith. The version of the song is the right one, with no filtering or scanning for viruses or static. Time is money saved.

I derailed a little, but iTunes will be the demise of Microsoft. I like instant gratification, and Apple does it well. The quality isn't the greatest on films or even songs, but as more people get online and purchase content, the faster the servers will become and the better the quality we will receive.

I've seen internet video get better, one example is http://revision3.com. The video streams of the shows are incredible, the best I've seen so far, and thats from IPtv internet shows, that started as 2 guys drinking beer, and talking about stories posted to http://www.digg.com, referring Diggnation. Check'em out. Later..