Intellidick.com - Pure Insanity

Anyone who knows me has listened to me rant about the state of online music for a long time. I can’t stand DRM’ed music because I feel like i’m being punished for the sins of others. I’ve purchased over 500 CDs throughout the years…. yes, that’s right, over 500! I BUY THE MUSIC I LIKE. STOP PUNISHING ME!

Thanks to what I like to call “the Napster generation”, lots of people no longer purchase their music. They think it’s cool to download it from some P2P service and rip off others. Same thing with movies. I OWN my movies. I didn’t download them. I went to the theater and saw the ones I thought looked promising, and bought the ones I really liked on VHS or DVD.

Thanks to these people, i’m being punished with DRM, copy protected CDs and DVDs, and just general harassment. What a pain. What an absolute pain. I won’t say the recording/film industries haven’t committed their evils as well, but if people legitimately purchased their music/movies, the industry probably wouldn’t care that I want to rip my CDs and DVDs to my portable media device.

Now, on to the good part. Magnatune.com has arrived! Yes, the wait is over. An online music store that suits me has arrived. They provide the music, I purchase a legal copy, they get paid, the artists get paid, and I get a copy of the music that’s DRM free. Here’s a quick rundown of the finer points of this store. (Taken from their Why we are not evil page)

• Perfect Audio Quality, your choice of FLAC or WAV, you can get MP3 or AAC (no DRM) if you’d like
• Previews, you can listen to the entire album to see if you like it. If you do, buy it, if you don’t, move on.
• Good Music, they work with the artists directly and hand pick. There is no label influence
• Musicians get theirs too, 50% of the purchase price goes straight to the musician.
• Downloads and CDs, you can get the instant gratification download version, or you can order a CD if you’re a collector like me.

Anyway, check them out and give them a chance. There’s a huge selection of music, you won’t like all of it but there’s plenty that you will like. Open your mind and your ears… you won’t regret it.

Check them out at Magnatune.com

Amarok users, it’s built in.

For those of you who have a home theater setup, i’ve got something you NEED to own. I recently bought an Xbox 360 (thanks to a big gift certificate from work) and finally got tired of the many remotes scenario. Neither my girlfriend nor I ever watched TV in the living room because it was such a pain to operate everything. Oh sure, i’ve had other universal remotes from various companies, but there was always something that didn’t work correctly. It was time for a change.

On a whim, we picked up a Harmony designed for the Xbox 360. I wanted to use the features of the Xbox 360’s media center extender and didn’t feel like using a wireless controller to do so.

At first, it was a bit troublesome, the wizard didn’t allow me to set up all of my devices, and it didn’t work exactly like I wanted it to. After closing the wizard and going into the manual setup, it all started to come together. Everything was working correctly and the remote was correctly controlling inputs, volume levels, etc, etc, etc… all with simple “activities”. What a concept! I hit “Watch TV”, and it knows that I need the TV, Receiver, and DVR on. And it knows that I want to use the volume on the receiver, channel on the DVR, and the first input on the TV. Everything is simple and easy. The BEST part of the Harmony is that it allows me to keep the technical complexity of my setup while allowing my girlfriend and others to operate the entire setup without a 30 minute explanation on how it all works! Oh, and it controls that damned 200-disc Sony CD changer that even my Sony universal remote didn’t work correctly. LOL

My hats off to Logitech! What a fantastic product! They have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty in the universal remote world. For those of you who don’t believe, run down and grab a harmony and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Check out the entire Harmony product line at the Logitech home page.