The Raging Tech

Which Apple Should I Get?

Last night after work, I had an appointment with a new Raging Tech customer (my in-person consultation & services business) about 20 minutes out of town from where I work (in the opposite direction of my home). They ended up being some of the nicest clients I’ve had so far.

I was able to resolve their issue with their Macbook and Airport Base Station and printer, and I gotta say: I really like the feel of the Macbook laptop. The interface is nice (the screen is a bit small though), it’s speedy, and the airport is nifty as well. I really like that you can print wirelessly or hook-up a USB hard drive (like ad-hoc Network Attached Storage!). I always though the airport was kind of gimmicky, but now that I’ve seen one, they’re not too bad.

With that said, I also really like the iMac. I use one everyday at work with an extra screen attached. But the downside to that is, my computer is in my office at home, and I hardly go in there because that’s where my unpacked boxes are, and it’s too depressing!

So, while a laptop would be really nice, I like the size of the screen and the graphics processor of the iMac. Then there’s also the Macbook Air, the really thin computer you may have seen on TV that Apple sells that will fit inside a manilla office envelope. I think that’d be really nice to have, something light-weight and not a huge burden to tote.

Finally, there’s the Mac Pro (I’m not even considering the Mac Mini this go round), which is hecka expensive unless I buy one refurbished. But they do have 8 cores, lots of memory slots (very upgradeable), room for several hard drives, and nice video cards.

I look to you, readers: Which Mac should I get if I decide to get one? Leave me a message in the comments.

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Tags: Apple, Mac, shopping

Bye Bye, DRM - Hello Manageable Music!

Since the legitimate sales of digital music downloads began, record labels and recording artists have been looking for ways to protect their intellectual (ha, if you can call it that) property. Copyright law alone was not enough to enforce rights protection, so before many would let their music be sold online, they required a system to prevent copying and distribution.

That’s where Digital Rights Management (or DRM) came in to play. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA) was passed in the United States, making the circumvention of any digital or electronic system designed to prevent copy or distribution of works illegal and prosecutable with huge fines. These DRM systems qualified under the DMCA, and that made the RIAA and MPAA very, very happy.

Unfortunately, there was no standard on DRM, and so each online retailer of digital media invented their own proprietary system. This lead to issues with media not being accessible on all PC platforms, mobile devices, or other arguably Fair Use methods of enjoying your purchased content.

As a result, more people turned to illegally downloading content to get higher-quality, DRM-free media that could be played (or at least converted to play) virtually anywhere. Also, the delivery times from Peer2Peer networks was faster, and often lead to movies and music being leaked before their official release.

From a marketing perspective, what was the community at large saying about how it wanted its media? Free is obviously nice, but people know free either means advertising or lack of legality. Some labels and artists and film studios started to realize that customers want media fast, in high-quality, early releases, and they want to be able to enjoy that media on anything that will play it.

iTunes led the way towards the DRM-Free movement with higher-quality iTunes Plus music unencumbered by DRM or other restrictions. They have by no means released the entire iTunes Store in this format, but offer many artists already. Amazon followed up next by making their entire store DRM-Free mp3 format downloads. And just recently, Rhapsody joined the pack by offering DRM-Free downloads on a per-track basis.

Also, Verizon Wireless is jumping on the bandwagon by partnering with Rhapsody, and will soon allow VCast customers to download music from Rhapsody DRM-Free, by way of a $15 / month subscription for the music rental, or a per-track purchase just as you would from Rhapsody’s program on the PC.

Will DRM-Free music turn more “pirates” into legitimate customers? Will you purchase music, video, etc. that you’ve previously downloaded from Peer2Peer networks? What devices do you use to play your media besides your computer? Let me know in the comments.

-The Raging Tech

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2.5

Tags: Amazon, DMCA, DRM, iTunes, media, Music, Rhapsody, Verizon Wireless

Network Solutions offers PerformanceClicks

If you’re easily confused by terms like CPM, PPC, keyword purchasing, SEO, and the like, you’re probably not quite ready to manage your own internet marketing campaign. If you’re a small business or website operator, or even a large corporation, you’ll want someone helping you put your business out there for people to find, both in search engines and on web sites.

When you need performance advertising, you want to pay for your results. This can happen in one of two ways: you either pay someone to show your advertisement in “Bill Board Mode” where you pay every time it’s shown, or some systems are a pay per click program.

Network Solutions, the company most people know for their domain name registrar services, is promoting their PerformanceClicks program. This is perfect for people who don’t have time to manage their own keyword and internet search engine marketing. They can customize an AdWords or Yahoo campaign, or both, and get your business in local and global search results.

With enough information about you and your business, they can customize a marketing solution to drive only the targeted customers you want to your website or business. Why throw advertising dollars away on a hit-or-miss guessing game when you can have experts efficiently target your ads and write effective copy for you?

You can choose either a full-featured custom plan for around $400 a month, or if you’re on a tighter budget, there are several pre-packaged starter plans for around $125 a month. Hiring a full-time internet marketing agent or a firm to do this for you would cost you almost that much an hour, instead of per month.

Plus, you can order up customized landing pages, which means whatever topic your ad was on is what page your visitors will land on, making it easier to turn clicks into sales. And ultimately, sales, or ROI (Return-on-Investment) is what it’s all about.

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2.5

Tags: Ads, AdSense, Business, SEO, Yahoo

BrickGun: Realistic Guns Made from Real Legos

“The Coolest Lego Weapons in the World,” claims the website of BrickGun.com, about their latest Lego-based creations: realistic-looking semi-automatic weapons.

These handguns and other weapons are made of only genuine Lego-brand parts, even as detailed as Lego-specific rubber bands for weapon articulation. These guns have working magazines, hammers, triggers, slides, and safeties. They don’t actually fire anything, so these are safe and don’t have any specific legal regulation.

But please, please, if you buy one, don’t wave it around in public or someone, namely a police officer, will probably shoot you 22 times. It’s not like the movies where they’ll just shoot the gun out of your hand. They will shoot YOU.

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2.5

Tags: guns, legos, toys

Summer Party Plans

This Friday is pay day, and that’s always exciting. I’m paying bills, going on a date on Saturday, but then I want to (cost-effectively) throw some sort of a small party for people who are still around this summer. (When you live near a college campus and a lot of your friends are college students, they go away in the summer time.)

I’m thinking of something I can make en masse for people to eat that won’t cost a lot. Maybe spaghetti, maybe lasagna, or some other kind of cheap pasta. Bread is also pretty cheap.

Sodas will be the most expensive part, but I am building up more Coke Rewards, so I can probably use my coupons to get some free soda.

I really need to clean up our house. We have a mud room that’s turned into more of a trash and storage room, and there’s probably all sorts of gross things in there that need to be cleaned up and thrown out. Not to mention someone’s old dorm fridge is in there (we have one on our porch, too) and a lot of cardboard we need to recycle.

I probably won’t get as fancy as getting party invitations printed up this time, but I know if I needed to I could always get some done fast and cheap over at Vista Print. Most of my friends are pretty informal, but they are a cheap way to do invitations for things like graduation parties or receptions or maybe inviting coworkers over for a coworker-type party.

Do you have cheap party activities or party foods or party supplies ideas? Leave me a comment if you do, and maybe you’ll get invited to my party!

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2.5

Tags: awesome, party, summer