Apple USB iPod Cable: $17
Apple Universal iPod Dock: $35
A dock without a cable: Worthless

Some things you just can’t leave out of a package. For everything else, Apple does.

Since the FireWire bus shorted out on my iPod, I’ve had to borrow a USB cable to sync it. It’s slow (USB 1.1), but it works. Being a nice guy, I don’t want to indebt myself too much with use of the cable, so I paid a visit to the Apple Store today. My thought was that if I’m to get USB connectivity anyway, I may as well get a spiffy docking station. After all, there’s not much point to a dock sans connectivity without a video iPod.

Knowing Apple quit bundling accessories with the iPod a few generations ago, I should have figured they’d quit bundling essentials with the accessories. But alas, no cable was to be found in the (very thick) box. Looks like I’m going to have to keep borrowing for a while.

So my question is this: Besides being an S-Video adapter for the new video iPods, what’s the point of the dock? The IR receiver doesn’t do much good without a remote (sold separately, surprise!), the iPod still can’t be used while mounted, and it doesn’t even connect to the computer on its own. Except for the neato factor of having an upright iPod, it’s completely worthless.

It’s a shame I had to open the package before I realized that.

In a battle between Satan and the Great Harlot, who do you root for?

I’ve long said that Myspace is a blight upon the internet. I’ve also said that the record labels are driving us towards societal destruction. But for all the flack that Myspace takes for its chaotic and mind-bendingly vapid communities, it does provide another, far more respectable service to the internet’s ecosystem: a distribution channel for bands around the record labels.

Naturally the record labels want to preserve their own monopoly on distribution. They can’t touch unsigned or independently signed bands, but the growing number of mainstream bands on Myspace is worrying the labels. Kids can’t stream our music from the internet! It’s unnatural!

But this distribution method is vitally important in a battle against the RIAA. It’s certainly the most visible and accessible method of free distribution (the bands control what songs they upload, and whether they’re available for download or just streaming), helped in no small part by its vast secondary community of non-musicians. Aside from the glaring banner ads everywhere, Myspace is completely agnostic to financial backing in its site capabilities. There’s no “Myspace Plus” for paying customers; the garage band down the street can use Myspace just as well as Nickelback themselves.

This is the power of internet democratization. We may get blinking text and animated GIFs, but isn’t that preferable to an Orwellian world of content controlled by copyright conglomerates?

China for centuries has been using a tactic called Panda Diplomacy to endear themselves to whichever country they feel the need to. Basically, they loan out pandas (since Chinese law forbids actually giving away pandas to foreigners) for foreign zoos as an act of goodwill. Even the US has received pandas under this policy - President Nixon got two of them. It’s certainly a nice gesture in most cases, but recently it’s been used for more devious purposes. In 2005, after decades of disputes with Taiwan as to whether they were independent or Chinese property, China offered Taiwan two pandas - not under a loan, but as a free gift. This seemed like a very magnanimous move on China’s part, and was even very popular among the Taiwanese public, but implicit in the deal was a concession by the Taiwanese government that Taiwan was in fact a Chinese property, since the pandas were not on loan. Despite the popularity of the gesture, Taiwan’s government did refuse the pandas in the end, thus preserving their dignity as an independent state.

Likewise, Microsoft has just struck a deal with a longtime enemy, Novell, makers of SUSE Linux. On the surface, it seems like an equally magnanimous deal: Microsoft gives Novell hundreds of millions of dollars for SUSE licenses, agrees to support customers running SUSE, and promises protection for patent infringement.

Microsoft and China are both great at putting on these benevolent façades, but just as China had no interest in endearing themselves to Taiwan, Microsoft has no interest in promoting SUSE. This is not a peace: Implicit in the MS-Novell deal is the concession that SUSE, and Linux on a broader scale, does indeed infringe on Microsoft’s patents. Think of the “I’m Thinkin’ Arbys” commercials, except instead of the Arbys logo, there’s a giant blinking sign that says “ULTERIOR MOTIVE!!” floating above Steve Ballmer’s head. In this case, it’s not even speculation as to Microsoft’s intent: Ballmer is notoriously loose-lipped. “only a customer who has Suse Linux actually has paid properly for the use of intellectual property from Microsoft”. Like China’s (arguably false) position that it owns Taiwan, Microsoft is of the (arguably false) position that Linux infringes on its intellectual property.

Taiwan was smart enough to resist the smooth talking, but Novell bit the bait hook line and sinker. This is a terrible precedent for free and open software as a whole - and thankfully companies like RedHat and Samba are openly condemning the deal - but now that Microsoft has seduced a key player in the open source community into submission, their legal bludgeon could carry far more weight in future battles.

Aren’t you sick of lists of text? I sure am. The iTunes dock menu, though functional enough, seems a lot taller than it should be. Do we really need 3 menu items for repeat options (off/all/one)?

Tiger introduced a new menu control that to date I’ve only ever seen in the Finder: the label selector. Instead of having a submenu with the titles of all the labels and the color of it beside as was the case in OS 9, the Tiger Finder shows the label icons inline with the menu going horizontally, with the name of the label appearing below as the different icons are hovered over. It’s a great concept for reducing menu clutter, and it’s a shame that Apple’s only implemented it in the Finder so far.

So why not iTunes? The setup lends itself well to the concept: each of the functions in the menu can be represented as a distinctly recognizable small icon. Instead of traversing through a submenu to rate the playing song, the stars would be right there - same function, less mouse movement. As you hovered over a star, those to its right would dim, and it and those to its left would turn black, returning to its original rating on mouse out. I’ve seen this implemented on many different websites (for example, the stars at the top of this one), and it only seems logical to apply the same to iTunes.

Secondly, play/pause, forward and back as icons rather than text is simply more intuitive. My brain will register “back a song” faster if it sees double arrows pointing backwards than if it sees the text “Previous”, and I imagine most people would be the same way. I’m certain Apple could come up with better looking icons for this row than I did, but nevertheless, it’s a perfect match for the Finder’s label control and music-control icons. And for the people that don’t immediately recognize the icons (of which I can’t imagine there are many - they are using iTunes after all), it’ll even display the name of the function - i.e., “Repeat” or “Play” - when you hover over it.

Lastly, I can think of many times when I’ve wanted to check the album of the song playing without leaving what I’m working on. But the menu doesn’t show the album, so I have to bring focus to the iTunes window to check that. “Now Playing” is a rather pointless menu item - it doesn’t give any information of itself, and it’s a general waste of space. I think it would be better to use that space instead to display the album of the currently playing song. It’s a minor kvetch, I know, but isn’t it the attention to detail that sets Apple apart from everyone else?

It’s been said that album artwork is just as important as the music inside. That’s a rather terribly misguided statement, but album artwork is nevertheless still pretty important. After all, without it, the internet would be sorely lacking in blog posts like this discussing it. Which would be, of course, a Bad Thing™.

Now that you’re thoroughly convinced of the eminent importance of a good album cover, let’s eliminate from the running a good 70% of them.
Rule #1: If your picture is on the front of your album, you automatically lose. If you want to be taken seriously, that is, so Weird Al is therefore exempt. Off The Deep End is a great parody of perhaps the second most overrated album cover ever.

Now without further ado, onto the running. The David Crowder Band’s album Illuminate is the essence of good design: Minimalistic, smooth gradient, good font, and orange (ok, orange really isn’t a rule, but look at the header and you’ll see I’m rather partial to fiery varieties of orange myself). And for bonus points, the image is quite appropriate to the title.

Second, we have Subway To Sally’s Nord Nord Ost (North North East). It’s a rather ornate cover, but unlike others of its sort, the focus is clearly on the compass - the Aurora Borealis above and the waves beneath complement it without distracting from it, and the title font above fits the dark and surreal mood of the cover well.

Lastly, there’s Regicide’s Break The Silence. It’s a rather visually unimpressive album, but what’s so great here is the concept: one man otherwise indistinguishable from the identical and seemingly apathetic crowd screaming in frustration. It evokes the same atmosphere of Apple’s famous 1984 commercial with the mindless crowd apparently doing whatever they’re told, though the album has more of a connotation of helplessness in contrast to the commercial’s connotation of victory. And on top of that, they have a pretty cool logo.

Getting the list down to three was certainly a challenge - there are quite a few runners up that I couldn’t bear not to mention:
Rammstein - Rosenrot. Evocative photo.
Nickelback - Silver Side Up.
Breaking Benjamin - Phobia. Surprisingly poignant cover for a surprisingly good album.
Vintersorg - Ödemarkens Son. Fits well with the Swedish mythological themes.
Within Temptation - The Silent Force. Perhaps a better desktop picture than album cover (I actually had it as mine for a while), but a nice graphic nonetheless.

Any album covers you prefer?