Technology - Aldoblog

Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Relic, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, is not a new book. It’s the first in a connected series of novels that features or involves Special Agent Pendergast, and was originally published in 1994. As an audiobook, it was only published on cassette, and has long been out of “print.” This new MP3 CD edition, released in March, is what I hope is the first of the authors’ back catalog being re-issued in modern formats.

You can read the synopsis at Amazon.com; my summary: it’s a terrific novel, and a great spoken performance. I especially enjoy the character of Agent Pendergast, who seems to be the authors’ favorite character. He is a delight. Rochelle and I listened to The Cabinet of Curiosities, which also features Pendergast, before we realized that the book had others that came prior, and was abridged. In spite of that, we were gripped the entire time we were listening, and didn’t mind the traffic we were in much at all.

To date there are seven published novels featuring Agent Pendergast, with an eighth on the way later this year:

Preston and Child are a great writing team. The later novels by the duo have been best sellers, and have also done extremely well in audiobook format. I believe that’s why Relic is being re-released at this time. If Relic’s publication is an indication that the other books will be issued in digital and unabridged formats also, then I’m very, very excited.

Recommended: Sonos Digital Music System

We bought a Sonos Digital Music System back in September 2006, and I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while. It’s a terrific product that has us listening to music far more regularly than we ever did. What’s more, it works pretty well with audiobooks that we’ve imported into iTunes or purchased from Audible.com, which is nice for listening to them when we’re moving around (e.g., in the kitchen), when an iPod and headphones might get in the way.

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Review: Audiobook Builder 1.0

Over the course of importing dozens of audiobooks, I’ve used a variety of techniques and different tools to try to improve my workflow and the final product. And in the course of answering hundreds of reader questions, I’ve mentioned and even recommended a few of those tools. This is my first full on software review, and I’m inspired to do so by the quality of the tool: Audiobook Builder is awesome, and at $10 it’s also a bargain.

Audiobook Builder gets my rave review for three reasons:

It’s easy to use
It saves a lot of time
The final product is superior

The only real “problem” with it is that it is for Mac OS X only.

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The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty

The Bloomsday Dead, the latest novel by Adrian McKinty, has just been released in audiobook format. This is McKinty’s third novel to feature Michael Forsythe. Michael is a surviver, an angel of destruction, and a lyrical narrator; I intensely enjoy the character. Gerard Doyle has read all four of McKinty’s books, and has a lovely Irish accent that’s distinct enough for atmosphere, but not so strong as to be distracting. I greatly enjoyed the first two Forsythe novels, and have been looking forward to this one for almost six months.

The first two books are (in order) Dead I Well May Be and The Dead Yard, and they’re available from Audible.com via the links, as well as Amazon.com and other online stores. Both are highly recommended, and judging from the early reviewer comments, so is this latest.

Note: I’ve only been able to get The Bloomsday Dead via Audible.com, though it’s ::amazon(“0786160780”, “listed on Amazon.com”)::, as well a few of the specialized audiobook retailers. When I tried ordering it from Amazon.com, they sent me a follow-up email saying there was a delay of up to a month before they could ship it, so I cancelled the order. Audible.com released it the next day, and that was that.

Upgraded to WordPress 2.1

I am in the process of upgrading Aldoblog to the latest version of WordPress. I think I’ve finished most of the work, with just some cleanup remaining where the new version of my formatting plug-in is behaving differently. It seems to only be affecting my longer instructional pieces, mostly for numbered lists, so the scope is limited, but wrangling the formatting back to “correct” is likely to take a while.

Anyway, if you see anything that doesn’t work or look right, please do shoot me an email and let me know. Thanks!

Thoughts on “Thoughts on Music”

On Tuesday, in an open letter Thoughts on Music, Steve Jobs responded (accidentally ;- ) to my prior post calling on Apple to license FairPlay to other device makers. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, as all the best propaganda is, covering a lot of ground concisely and persuasively. Other people have analysed Thoughts on Music in more detail than I care to; I’ll confine myself to three points.

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Harry Potter #7 shipping July 21st

The end is nigh. Preorder at Amazon.com today!

Five reasons Apple should license FairPlay

I have some very specific, personal reasons why I want to see Apple license their FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) system to other device makers; I’ll publish those later this week. Here I want to lay out a logical argument for why Apple should do this, in their own best interests.

Running into the wall of customers’ other (non-Apple) devices slows sales. Requiring people to give up things they like is more likely to lose sales than to convince them to buy new Apple stuff.

I’ve spent more than $400 on the iTunes Store, but I stopped buying FairPlay protected tracks 10 seconds after I realized they wouldn’t play over my new Sonos music system. And I won’t buy movies or TV shows from the iTunes Store because they can’t be played over the network via my TiVo.

I’m not going to buy an AirPort Express or an Apple TV for the privilege of buying content from the iTunes Store. Those devices do not work as well as my Sonos and TiVo, not even close. Instead, I’ll simply buy CDs, and keep my basic cable and Netflix subscriptions.

Apple is going to have to do it eventually. Too much success means lawsuits and government action, neither of which is good for business.

With the success Apple has had with the iTunes Store, they have or will reach a level that some will consider a monopoly. That in turn will bring consumer lawsuits and government intervention. It’s already happening in Norway, the Netherlands, and other European states. There’s a U.S. iTunes lawsuit, too. This is a headache Apple doesn’t need.

Apple is going to have to do it eventually. Too much success will turn the competitive market into “everyone but Apple.”

This happened to Microsoft. “Everyone but Microsoft” is constantly trying to make effective alliances, and constantly showing up to testify in lawsuits (see the previous item). While it hasn’t lead to Microsoft’s downfall, it has added drag to their momentum.

The efforts of Apple’s competitors have to date been pretty laughable, but when their current partners, the record companies, start saying they might consider selling music without DRM attached, it’s not because they’re happy with the status quo. Apple is so successful at selling music right now that Apple is in the driver’s seat, and that’s not something the recording industry has historically been good at accepting. At some point, “desperate times, desperate measures” will apply. And when your partners start conspiring against you, you’re fucked.

Apple is apparently already doing it.

Apple has apparently already licensed FairPlay to NetGear. A step in the right direction. There is a rumor this is the first of many.

People will like Apple more.

Customers. Partners. The market as a whole. Yeah, this is kind of touchy-feely, but if Apple opens up FairPlay voluntarily, before they are forced to, it will generate goodwill and positive buzz, and in the Internet age, that can spread pretty far and wide. Remember that the iPod didn’t start out as an iconic device, and a large part of its spread and success came from the same people who will be happy to see FairPlay opened up.

Brilliance Bits: Weekly podcast on audiobooks

Brilliance Audio is a major publisher of audiobooks, and they’ve recently (re)started a weekly podcast called Brilliance Bits. The 12-15 minute episodes vary in type of content; some are interviews with authors, while others are excerpts from recent audiobooks. Four episodes so far.

It remains to be seen how interesting these will be over time, but the first three I listened to were decent. Worth checking out if you’re interested in extra information about authors and so on, and the excerpts are a good way to sample new books you might not otherwise check out.

“You had me at scrolling”

Two thoughts about today’s Apple keynote given by Steve Jobs, and the introduction of the Apple iPhone.

The first is that it’s an absolute grand slam home run. Think about it this way: take away the phone and the Internet connectivity, and it would still be a breakthrough product, a truly amazing next generation for the iPod. It blows even the current iPods away, to say nothing of Zune and other competitors. People would easily pay $499 for it. (The original Newton MessagePad cost more at introduction, IIRC, $799.)

Similarly, take away the iPod and the Internet connectivity, and the phone is amazing. And then look at just the Internet connectivity — the email, web browsing, Google Maps, the connected widgets like weather and stocks — and in a handheld form factor, it’s revolutionary too. Any of these alone, it’s worth $499. Put them all together…

Second thought, can you guess at what time Steve announced the iPhone?

Backtracking using the CNET play-by-play of the keynote, it looks like the initial (and foolish) sell off came when Steve said he wasn’t going to talk about new Mac products. I can’t figure that out at all. When Steve said he wasn’t going to talk about the Mac for the rest of the keynote, I got chills down my spine. Something big is coming. What in god’s name inspired people to sell at that point?

OK, while we’re doing stock graphs, one last thought, courtesy of John Gruber:

And it will be interesting to compare Cingular vs. Verizon over the rest of this year…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I missed the announcement last week of the title for the final book in the Harry Potter series and, since others might have also, thought I’d pass the news along:

I am so looking forward to this book. A month before it gets released I am going to re-listen to all six of the prior books, to have the whole series fresh in my head. It’s very exciting to know that it must be getting closer!

Free today only: Direct Audio Converter (for Windows)

I haven’t yet used this software myself, but it’s free only for the next 12 or so hours, so I wanted to pass it along quickly. Normally $25, it looks like it might provide a streamlined workflow for importing audiobook CDs or converting existing MP3 files to AAC for better bookmarking capabilities.

Free for 12 more hours (on 19-December-2006): Direct Audio Converter and CD Ripper

Note: You need to download, install, activate, and register the software (four distinct tasks) before the deadline, when the registration code expires. Read the instructions for the details.