Posted by Kiel on Jan 8, 2008
For those of you familiar with Google Maps, you’ll be excited to hear that Google Streetview now has Indiana on its radar. It looks like Google has covered all of Indianapolis (and outlying suburbs), Terre Haute, West Lafayette, Bloomington, Kokomo, Marion, and others.
So how can you use Google Streetview? I thought of a great idea as I was planning for my road trips this summer, I took a “virtual drive” of my destinations so that I can become familiar with the area and find things easier. This really comes in handy with urban areas where skyscrapers dominate the landscape.
How does it work? The car has a tripod mounted on the roof with a 360 degree camera mounted on the top. Basically, it’s a sphere with several lenses built-in to create a 360 degree view. The company then takes the several pictures from each shot and “stitches” them together to form a seamless picture.
It’s actually fun to see what kind of things the Streetview car catches, check out this blog posting of weird Google Streetview moments.
So how do you know if an area has streetview? In the top-right hand corner of the map there are some options, including streetview. When you click on that, areas that have been filmed will appear in blue. So have fun discovering!
Tags: Google Maps, Streetview
Posted by Kiel on Dec 26, 2007
If you’re like me, you leave iTunes (or another player) in the background as you work. Being a music lover, I can usually tell what song is playing after listening to the first two seconds. Unfortunately, many cannot. I’ve been looking for a plug-in that will flash the song title, artist, album, and coverart at the beginning of each new song. There used to be a good plug-in for Yahoo! Widgets, but it is no longer supported. So, let me introduce you to “CD Art Display” (download). It’s pretty customizable if you go in and mess with it. I personally didn’t want all the bells and whistles, so I have it display the basic information:
I personally keep the program on the screen at all the times, but you can customize it so it pops up for a certain amount of time (first five seconds, etc.). It’s just a really cool little program that I think all of you should check out! And don’t worry, it supports various players (including Windows Media Player, iTunes, WinAmp and others).
Tags: CD Cover Display
Posted by Kiel on Nov 28, 2007
Before I had bought an iPod and even before I had broadband, I bought music from the iTunes Music Store (now known just as “iTunes Store”). I was thrilled! For once I didn’t have to go to the music store and pay an overpriced amount for an entire album when all I really wanted was a single! But there’s a darkside to the iTunes Store, DRM.
Now before you attack me, I don’t share my music. I’m pretty protective of that. But when I pay for music, I want to OWN my music, not just have a license to listen to it… which is essentially what DRM does. And with iTunes, they’re making the blatant assumption that they will always be your digitial music player and provider. So when you buy tracks through iTunes, you can only listen to them through iTunes.
Sites like AllofMp3.com popped up which sold DRM-free tracks and showed the recording industry that people were willing to pay for music as long as they didn’t have restrictions placed on them, which is why I’m excited to see a service such as Amazon’s MP3 download service.
To find the Amazon MP3 download service, locate the part of the menu that says “Digital Downloads” and then select “MP3 Downloads.” That’s it! You now have access to a catalog of music that is DRM-free, you get the MP3 file and it imports it into your favorite music player (even iTunes). You do have to download a small piece of software, a download manager, but it’s small and unobtrusive.
What’s the downside to this service? Well, unfortunately the selection isn’t nearly as good as iTunes. But as more record labels allow DRM-free music to be sold, the more music you’ll see show up on this service. I personally only downloaded two songs out of the possible five that I wanted because they didn’t have the artists I was looking for.
But if you’re looking for an alternative to iTunes, Amazon.com’s service is definitely worth a look. If you have an MP3 player (not an iPod) and listen to a ton of music, Rhapsody and Napster is a good alternative with unlimited music for your compatible device starting at $9.99. Of course once you cancel your subcription, you lose all your downloaded music.
Friendly Reminder:You should back-up songs that you download from services such as iTunes and Amazon.com, they aren’t responsible if you lose your files! Seriously, if you lost a CD, would you go back to the record store and ask them to give you another one? Nope, that’s what I thought! 
Tags: Amazon.com, download, DRM, Music, Napster, Rhapsody
