There’s something strange with your podcast file. Within iTunes (Mac), when I pause your podcast, it doesn’t start where I left off upon hitting play. In this one it appears to jump back 15 seconds. I’ve also heard the podcast exit music keep playing well after the time remaining displayed 0 (seconds).

Not a big deal – just an annoying amount of deja-vu when listening to it in chunks.

Arrgh, they be back at it again…

this time CE Pro says that if we get a National Internet Sales tax in the US, then the Custom Integrator business will flourish again!!! Yes, if ye can’t shut down the Internet from consumers – TAX IT! Shiver me timbers

http://www.cepro.com/article/internet_sales_tax_why_youll_benefit/

Some of the high end audio, reminds me of some of the car accessory things, like Fart Pipe exhaust (I like my car to sound like a lawn mover, that’s cool) and the neon light kits.

Best Buy is DEAD to me. The last couple of times I ran in to look for something they didn’t have it and with Amazon Prime, Monoprice and others online I just give up with Best Buy now. I heard someone mention they will become like Radio Shack in a couple of years, just selling mobile devices.

The whole iTunes Match thing is a little misunderstood I think – largely because of the name.

iTunes Match goes hand-in-hand with Apple’s iCloud service. The idea is that, rather than have all of your music only stored locally on you computer’s hard drive, you’ll have your music stored in the iCloud so that it will sync across all of your iTunes devices (computers running iTunes plus any iDevices), and you will also have a backup of all your music in the iCloud so that if you suffer a catastrophic hard drive failure, you can easily get all of your music collection back from iCloud. iCloud is not a streaming or web based service though. The files download to your computers and iDevices.

iTunes Match is a two-part service that you pay $25 per year for. You can upload your files to iCloud for free. But if you have a huge music library, that could take ages! So part 1 of iTunes Match is convenience. You pay $25 per year and iTunes Match will scan your entire iTunes music library. Apple has already uploaded their entire music catalogue (which is massive) to iCloud. So rather than uploading your own files, iTunes Match gives you access to the files that Apple has already uploaded. iTunes Match just scans your library, tells Apple which songs you have, and presto, you now have access to the iCloud versions!

The thing is, Apple has uploaded their entire catalogue in 256 mbps AAC. There are no other file type options. So no matter what type of file and bitrate you have in your own, local iTunes library, what you will get from iTunes Match is Apple’s 256 mbps AAC version.

Now, that’s part 2 of iTunes Match. Plenty of people built huge libraries of low bit rate mp3s back in the days of Napster and the like. Or maybe they ripped their CDs in low bit rate versions back when storage space was much smaller and more expensive. For $25 a year, you can instantly and legally “upgrade” all of those low bitrate and torrented music files to Apple’s 256 mbps AAC versions! That’s really pretty amazing – especially for all of those Napster pirates 😮

In the event that you have a song that is not in Apple’s massive catalogue, iTunes Match will automatically upload your local file to iCloud so it will still sync across all of your devices. It’s really a pretty amazing service for a lot of people.

But iTunes Match is not what Tom has in mind where it literally “matches” what you have in your local file library. If you ripped your CDs to lossless files, iTunes Match isn’t going to “match” that in the iCloud with losselss versions. You’re still only going to get Apple’s pre-uploaded 256 mbps AAC version.

The whole Mastered for iTunes versions could be a different matter though. It’s entirely up to Apple, but there’s no technical reason why they couldn’t start to replace their pre-uploaded 256 mbps AAC versions with Mastered for iTunes versions. And I suspect they might do that, or potentially offer Mastered for iTunes versions as a paid upgrade at some point in the future.

But the whole point is iCloud and the convenience of Apple having pre-uploaded the entire iTunes catalogue.

Netflix really has become the last bastion of hope for fans of any show that gets cancelled. Ever since they announced they were bringing back Arrested Development, fans have looked to Netflix in the hopes they will “save” any given show. It’s a bit comical really.

I have to say though, I’m a fan of NBC’s “Awake”, which is almost certainly going to get cancelled after just one (excellent) season. Honestly, “Awake” should have been a cable programme. It just doesn’t fit into the Network mold very well at all. Really, what makes the show so good is Jason Isaacs. It’s practically a one man show. And there are easily ways to bring its production costs way, way down. It seems like a good fit for a cable network or Netflix to pick up.

And, of course, there’s “Community”. Sweet Mary, I’m going to be pissed if that show gets cancelled! It’s always in danger, always on the bubble, but it’s the best comedy on TV and it pisses me off that, apparently, hardly anybody watches it! Much like Arrested Development though, Community’s fans are absolutely rabid. There is no question at all that they would follow Community onto Netflix if it were to move there. I know I would!