How many k? One. One k. Not two k, one k. And here it is.

Cheers,
Ian

I'm subscribed. When I subscribed, I had about 3.7k files < 256kbps (I remember the numbers because looked to see if it was worth it). After the matching, I now have ~ 1k files at < 256kbps. Of those, most are non-commercial tracks that have never appeared in any other form (hello http://remix.kwed.org) - I download their quarterly playlists.

So overall, a good job and I'm satisfied it saved me a ton of time upgrading my own rips. However that's the good - time for the bad.

Artwork. Artwork has been a mess. When I initially matched, I noticed a lot of my tracks had poor quality artwork (not due to match, they always had them). I went through and fixed them all - a few moments later, Match came back and blatted everything - right back to poor quality artwork again. Making it accept the newer high quality has been very hit and miss, usually involving deleting the track frmo my library and Match then re-importing - even then it doesn't always work.

That's artwork everywhere. Now to specific problems with the iPhone. I turned off Match due to a bad wi-fi area I was in - I had a connection, but couldn't get anywhere. As soon as I turned Match off, all artwork was wiped from my phone. Turning Match back on again appears to have randomly reinstated some artwork and not others.

Sorting. I had some hassle again and turned Match off on the iPhone. I then put it back on again, and suddenly the sort order of my artists was massively out - I have artists starting with K appearing under the 'I' section. It's not random, the artists are actually sorted in alphabetic order, however if you use your thumb to scroll down directly to letter 'M', for example, the first artist listed is James Newton Howard. Hmm....

The other thing is that I'm not sure I'll stay subscribed next year. As a labour-saving initial hit, the price was worth it for me. Now my files are matched anyway, I'm not sure it's worth it for me any more -I'm just as happy with the wireless syncing.

Cheers,
Ian

I've handed over some passwords to my wife. I try to keep them up to date, but admittedly that lags a little - at least she will know I have accounts there and may be able to act from that.

However, there's plenty of accounts that will simply wither. This one, for instance. It's not that I have anything to hide, it's just that I haven't enumerated the account as being one that needs dealing with. That's Slashdot, a relatively major case. I also have hundreds of accounts on single-purpose forums that I used maybe once in my life and that's it. VMware Forums? Cinemaware? Various coding sites? Music software sites? All that information will just go because I barely know every case I've registered for let alone be in a position to hand it to other people.

My hard drive? Again, my wife knows how to log in as me and is perfectly capable of using my machine. A few things, like the family accounts etc., are encrypted and she also has the password to that. Everything else - well, it's there but would she necessarily know there's something to look for? Again it's not deliberate, but I haven't pointed much out so it is an open question if everything relevant would be found. And if it is, in what format. A .pages document is one thing, a local svn repo in /opt/var or my local Confluence install is quite something else.

A lot of my stuff would disappear. A lot would seem to - wood for trees and not knowing where to look. In the end though, I think everything drastically important is covered.

Cheers,
Ian

With the finding of "The Underwater Menace" part 2, we now have a new "earliest surviving episode to feature Patrick Troughton."

Yeah...but having seen The Underwater Menace, I'm not terribly sure he'd thank us for it...

Cheers,
Ian

For cars I can imagine something similar to car audio. You get something up-to date with a new car, and you put up with the fact that it ages. Eventually someone purchases it as a used car and decides the audio isn't good enough, and fits an updated one.

Completely agreed, which is why I think form factor and interface need to be standardised rather than operating system. I can fit another stereo because I reliably know the original is a single or double DIN device, so my replacement will fit and can be powered/connected. What about the tablets?

Cheers,
Ian

I don't know, is the honest answer. People have found the binaries in iOS5, but Apple have stated they don't support it under that version. So honestly? No idea.

An interesting chat about the whole thing can be found on The Register.

Cheers,
Ian

DRM on iTunes (at launch and for a time afterwards) being the reason it grew so big?

He specifically said iTunes [program], not iTMS. He's talking about the application that runs on your computer, not the music store.

He's right as well - remember the original advertising slogan of Rip, Mix, Burn? You took your CDs, turned them into un-DRM'd AAC or MP3, and that was that. That's what helped the original iPad/iTunes combination get so big - simplicity.

Cheers,
Ian

Yep, here's my post from around nine years ago saying it was Quicken keeping me on Windows.

I've since relented and am using VMware to run Quicken 2011 on OS X, but I'd far rather have a decent native solution for it. I've tried the alternatives such as iBank etc. and they're not really there for what I do.

Still holding out some hope that Quicken Essentials might eventually lead to a Quicken 'proper', but we'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, VMware for me (because I already owned it - these days I'd probably have gone VirtualBox).

Cheers,
Ian

How many bee transport journeys were made? What percentage of those journeys resulted in accidents? How does that compare as a percentage to the transportation of other goods?

It's not a possible question to answer without a lot more data. It's not even possible to determine the question has a valid premise as yet.

Cheers,
Ian

"The fact remains, however, that the iPod was lame and continued to be lame until it got wireless. And it didn't have much storage space. Also, it was DRM-laden back then, too."

No, the fact does not remain. It had 5Gig - a massive amount for a pocketable player at the time. Forget CD player-sized Nomads, the correct comparison is to pocket-sized Diamond Rios and similar. They had 64Mb and 128Mb typically (my memory fails, there might have been 256Mb ones as well by then).

DRM-laden? Rip, Mix Burn was the advert - you ripped your own CDs, DRM-free. The iTunes Music Store came later than the iPod.

It's perfectly possible not to like them without falsely belittling them.

Cheers,
Ian