I bought it for $3.

Later I looked out on Amazon to get the cover art because iTunes did not find it. There were no new discs available (not surprising, really). There were three used, “… starting at $99.99″ from various sellers. Wait. $99.99? Yes it was true. There were three used discs available, starting at just under $100 and going up to $250. Hm, I said to myself. Just because they’re asking that much doesn’t mean they’re getting it, right?

So the next step was to go out to eBay and search completed auctions. Believe it or not, there are two completed auctions in the last 90 days, both for over $100.

It seems that this disc was self-financed by Miranda and her family before she went on Nashville Star and ultimately became a hit recording artist. There was a very limited production, and most likely a limited distribution. Miranda grew up in Lindale, Texas, which is not far from the D/FW area. I’m guessing that’s why this one showed up here.

You never know what you might find.

Chickenfoot – Soap On A Rope

Earlier this year they brought the 160gb model back in the “iPod Classic” line. As I was trying to decide whether to upgrade or not, I went to bestbuy.com to see what the prices were. On the bottom of the page was a link offering a “trade-in” on my old iPod. After going through the process, it seems that they were willing to give me almost $100 for my used iPod.

Since electronics – especially gadgets – don’t usually hold their value very well, I was a bit surprised. I went out on eBay and discovered that used 80gb iPods were in fact going for around $125-ish.

So the question becomes: would you sell your used iPod on eBay? take advantage of the trade-in value, even if it’s a bit less? Keep the old iPod to give to a friend or family member?

I was looking at the Apple store today, thinking that at one point they had a 160gb model. It seems they’ve dropped both that and the 80gb model; the only “classic” left has a capacity of 120gb. The sales rep (the “genius”) suggested that Apple was considering phasing them out altogether in favor of solid state devices. The advantages are obvious, of course. Solid state storage requires less power (longer battery life) and is more reliable (no disk crashes). Memory is also getting much less expensive as well. I have a 4gb media card in my Blackberry that cost me next to nothing, and it takes very little space.

It will be interesting to see if Apple announces anything new in a few months.

First was a cd called “Beginnings” From “Eileen” Shania Twain. It wasn’t her first disc, but it appears to be an interesting departure from her country roots. Shania is probably best known for her massive cross-over appeal based on the success of “Come On Over” and “The Woman In Me” … both of which are certified diamond (over a million units sold). However, back in 1999 she apparently released a rock album which is more of a Joan Jett / Pat Benetar style than her country / pop style. Interestingly enough, this album doesn’t even show up on her wiki page nor is it listed on her very own site. I picked it up, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit.

If you read the reviews on Amazon.com most of them are positive, with a few folks probably surprised by the difference from her normal style. But as the main reviewer said:

it appears as if the making of this CD was an attempt to transform her into the new Pat Benatar, a kind of rock goddess specializing in the power ballad. That she had the voice for it is beyond doubt–her expressive singing is by far the best thing about this album.

Another interesting find was a disc titled “California” by Wilson Phillips. This disc was released in 2004 (the first studio album from Wilson Phillips in over a decade) and contained covers of various California-themed songs. It included works from both sides of the family with Brian Wilson playing keyboards on one song, and a cover of the Mamas and the Papas song “Monday, Monday” as well. I found this in a used cd store in Arizona while on a business trip. To top things off, what I found was the limited edition version with an extra song tacked on at the end. I popped the disc into the rental car and left it there for the rest of the trip.

Don’t worry, I remembered to remove it before heading home.

Finally, just this weekend I found a copy of the initial self-released “Broken Bracelet” from Michelle Branch. It was released before she had landed a major recording studio, and contains early (and sometimes acoustic) releases of some songs that later appeared on her first national release. This was far from a bargain; I paid more for this disc than I do for some new discs if they’re on sale. But as a curiousity I went ahead and picked it up. Part of the reason was I called my wife and asked her to do a search on amazon and ebay to see if she could find anything about it. She could not even find it listed. Much like Shania, Michelle doesn’t see fit to list this on her discography on her web site.

Those are just a few of the more interesting finds from used cd stores. It’s one of the reasons I keep going back.

• North: 4 items 13.8 minutes
• East: 44 items 29. hours
• South: 86 items 6.7 hours
• West: 18 items 1.3 hours

Clearly the South is the place to be. What about seasons?

• Summer: 34 items 2.2 hours
• Fall: 73 items 4.8 hours
• Winter: 33 items 2.1 hours
• Spring: 24 items 1.6 hours

I know I prefer the fall season, but I didn’t realize that preference extended to my iTunes library.

Colors?

• Red: 215 items 14.6 hours
• Orange: 3 items 10 minutes
• Yellow: 5 items 17.4 minutes
• Green: 82 items 5.5 hours
• Blue: 607 items 1.8 days (because of the “blues” no doubt)
• Indigo: 85 items 6.5 hours (yeah, I have the Indigo Girls on my iPod, deal with it )
• Violet: 2 items 13.5 minutes

How about states where I have lived?

• Washington: 1 item 5.8 minutes
• Colorado: 0 items
• Louisiana: 10 items, 38.7 minutes
• Texas: 39 items 2.2 hours

How about you? Any fun word analysis to be done on your iTunes library?

First, the cables. I need to connect the turntable to my amp, and then connect the amp to the “line in” port on my sound card. My amp is on the top shelf of my office, and the turntable needs to be more accessible. I looked for long patch cables at Walmart. What I found was that the longest audio only patch cables were not very long, but I could get video patch cables that were 12′ in length. I got two of those and just skipped using the video connection. I already had a “Y” adapter that converts the two channels (red and white) to a single input to go into the line-in port on my computer sound card.

One of the posts I saw on amazon.com while reviewing USB turntables was that people could not get rid of an annoying hum in the background. The first album I tried to record had a terrible hum. I was concerned first that the cables were too long, so I tried shorter cables. Since I stacked the turntable on top of the amp in order to do this I went ahead and connected the ground cable from the turntable to the amp, as it should be. No hum. While still in this configuration I replaced the shorter cables with the longer video patch cables. Still no hum. I detached the ground cable, and the hum came back. I didn’t realize how much of a difference it was making until that experiment.

My next thought was that perhaps I could cut the video connecter off of the patch cable and connect the ground to that, which would allow me to put the turntable back down on my desk where I could reach it without standing on my chair. My wife didn’t want me to cut the cable, so that idea was dropped. However, while I was plugging the turntable into my UPS I noticed that the UPS had a ground screw. Would it work?

It turns out that it worked just fine. So now I have my turntable connected to my amp with a 12′ patch cable, and another 12′ patch cable back down to my computer via a Y adapter and into my line-in port, and the ground connection on the turntable is connected to the ground screw on my UPS. An audio purist would scoff at this arrangement, as each cable connection is a potential source for noise, but I am not trying to preserve the audio from my albums for posterity, I just want to be able to convert it to MP3 files to load on my iPod. This is going to be good enough.

Next post I will talk about the software I’m using and the basic process. So far I’ve been reasonably happy with it.

I am always looking for extra time in order to get things done, so I decided to look for “time” in my iTunes library. I found 319 items (21.8 hours) so that should provide some extra time when I need it.

What should I do with this extra time? Should I work (175 items, 10.9 hours) or play (53 items, 3.3 hours)? Seems like work wins out, which oddly enough seems to match reality. Bummer.

If I had the chance to play, would I drive my car? (596 items, 1.7 days) or drive my truck? (4 items, 46.5 minutes) Clearly the car is the choice here. I would imagine it to be a lot more fun (82 items, 4.1 hours) unless mud (4 items, 18.7 minutes) or dirt (35 items, 2.3 hours) were involved.

So what should I search (4 items, 14.5 minutes) for next?

When I searched for “Love” I found 627 items, or enough music to span 1.7 days of listening. That’s a lot of love. When I searched for “truth” I only got 29 items for a bare 1.8 hours. I guess love is easier to find than truth. I’m not sure what sort of observation to make from that, so I will move on.

With truth being so hard to find I expected that honesty would be just as hard. It turns out it’s much worse. Searching for “honest” matched a whopping two songs for a grand total of 7.1 minutes.

What have I learned so far? Love is easy to find, truth is harder, and finding honesty is the toughest of all.

Ironically one of the songs that matched the search term “Honest” was the song “Love, Truth, and Honesty” by Bananarama. They match all three search terms with that one song. Score one for 80’s girl bands.

• DRM = Digital Rights Management
• WIP = Work In Progress
• TLA = Three Letter Acronym

Digital Rights Management or DRM is the process or technology used to “protect” digital media like movies or music from unauthorized distribution. This concept was one of the main reasons why I waffled so long before getting an iPod about a year and a half ago. I didn’t want to limit myself to a single vendor for my digital songs, and the iPod was linked to the iTunes music (media) store. What finally changed my mind? I realized that I didn’t plan to buy music anyway, as I have a library of over 500 music discs already. I didn’t need to buy digital tunes when I already had the cd. So I picked up an iPod and have been extremely happy with it.

But back to DRM. One of my regular stops on the Internet is a web comic hosted at xkcd.com. The author / artist has a warped sense of humor that I find (most of the time) to be quite amusing. (If you visit and start reading the older versions of the comic don’t forget to hover your mouse over the comic and read the alternate text… it’s sometimes more fun than the comic itself.) On Monday he posted this comic:

Click to visit the site

Many years ago I used to work for a software company. Today one of my hobbies is photography. How are those two statements related? With the improvements in digital media management both software and pictures can be easily copied and distributed. Should they be? Not without the permission of the owner. That’s where DRM comes in.

Once music becomes digital there are very few things that can keep someone from sharing the file(s) with friends. Indeed, there are very few things that can keep someone from sharing the file(s) with anyone on the Internet, friends or otherwise. Needless to say, this has media companies concerned. As a result, they have tried to come up with some way to protect the digital files. Some of their efforts are laughable (remember the sharpie news from a few years back?), some are annoying, and some are just dangerous and stupid. (Sony BMG installed a rootkit that introduced a vulnerability on your computer. Then they released a removal program that introduced another vulnerability. Nice job, Sony.)

I’m not going to finish the post by taking a stand for or against DRM. At this point I have not been affected by it because I purchase my movies or music in physical rather than digital form. That means as long as I have possession of the disc, I can play the media. The platform (computer, iPod, stereo, television…) might change but all I have to do is move the physical media from one device to another. As a digital content creator myself I can understand the desire to protect content. As a consumer I can’t see where any of the current mechanisms work well.

To be honest, I will be very surprised if they come up with something that works under the current consumer model. I think someone needs to come up with a different distribution model altogether.