2012-03-13
When I am driving with my daughter and she says she wants to here something specific, I no longer have to tell her that she needs to remind me later to put it on the phone. Which in retrospect seems so old and outdated. "Sorry honey, we have to load that song onto the phone." "What does that mean, daddy?"
But as great as it is, there are a few kinks that still need to be worked out. They are mostly little OCD type things that just bother me as iTunes Match as a whole works pretty well, but that doesn't mean these things don't need to be fixed.
Album Doubling
I don't know why this is happening, but it manifests itself in a couple different ways. I will have an album in iTunes on the computer; one album, ten songs. On the iPhone, for a few select albums, this shows itself as two albums with five songs each. Occasionally, I will get two albums with all of the songs in each one. Or two separate albums, with a mismatch of songs in each one, sometimes duplicating songs. And as I said, it looks perfectly organized on the computer.
Explicit Songs
This is pretty well documented at this point, but iTunes doesn't properly note that you may own the explicit version of a song and will give you the clean version.
Device Won't Update with Current Content
On more than one occasion, my iPhone just would not reflect any of the changes I had made in iTunes, even after I shut down and restarted the phone. In these times, the only thing that works is to turn off iTunes Match and restart it, which can take 20 to 30 minutes to complete.
Running Out of Space on the iPhone
Part of the reason iTunes Match is so great, is that because you don't have to keep your library locally, you can have access to your library even if it has outgrown the storage on your device. Well, the downside of this apparently is near daily iPhone alerts that I am currently out of disk space. iTunes does not seem to be managing the saving of files in the background properly, not discarding them when space is at a premium.
Losing Songs
Yes, I have lost music. I can get it back by reloading it onto the computer, but after my first go-round with iTunes Match, I had a number of songs and albums, now greyed out and 'waiting'. Well, who knows what they are are waiting for, but weeks later, they are still waiting, they are not in iCloud, and they can no longer be played on the computer. So for all intents iTunes Match just ate them. And they are gone.
That is all that I have to say right now. I will update this with problems and solutions as I find them. iTunes Match at this point is a great idea with ok execution. I expect it to improve over time as most online services do, but if you are trying it for the first time, be ready for the occasional issue.
2012-02-28
Merlin has been farting into still water for years now and is pulling the rest of the hosts into the mix, one by one.
This has brought up on the shows many basic questions that I have decided to try and answer here.
The Bottles and Caps
- SodaStreams come with a 1-liter bottle by default. For some people, like Marco, this was too much, which is why they sell a 20oz. bottle for making less seltzer at a time.
- You CAN buy bottles that are dishwasher-safe, and I would recommend that, as the cap area can sometimes get a little moldy and hard to clean.
- For that reason, I would also recommend buying extra bottle caps, which they also sell. Even with diligent cleaning, the caps seem to get mold on them after a couple months. And I don't know about you, but even if I clean off the mold, once I see it, I don't want to use it again.
The Flavors
- Skip them for the most part.
- The Natural Flavor Ginger Ale and Root Beer are not too bad, and contain no corn syrup.
- Your best bet for flavoring is probably mixing in regular fruit juice with the seltzer.
The CO2 Canisters
- They are easily found at many stores, you are not required to mail them back and forth. I use Bed, Bath and Beyond.
- Buy an extra canister for $30 to have on hand.
- When the canisters are empty take them to your local store of choice and exchange them for a full one for $15. Leave the shipping to the stores. You didn't stop hauling cases of seltzer from the car, just so you could start going to the post office every couple weeks.
How Long Will a Canister Last?
- Well, that's different for everyone. If you are like Merlin, just a couple days. But at this point it sounds like he is adding water to the co2 and drinking that, as opposed to adding the co2 to the water. He may have a problem.
- For most people, I would guess that a canister will easily last you a month or more. My wife and daughter, drink the seltzer regularly and and we are only on our third canister after 4 months.
The Dispensing Unit
- I would save your money and buy the cheapest one available. They all do the same thing. If it turns into an important addition to you life/kitchen, upgrade later.
That's about it, unless I am forgetting something. If I am, email me and I will add it.
After putting off the purchase of a SodaStream for years, I finally got tired of lugging cases of seltzer from the store every week; I could kick myself for waiting so long. It was worth every penny, and actually saved me a lot of money.
DeSean Jackson vs. Fred Barnett
2011-12-02
No, not Mike Quick. No, not Terrell Owens either. It's Fred Barnett!!
Lets go to the numbers.
Fred Barnett (First Three Seasons)
- Games Played: 42
- Receptions: 165
- Yards: 2752 (16.67 per)
- Touchdowns: 18
- Longs in each year of 95, 75, 71
DeSean Jackson (First Three Seasons)
- Games Played: 45
- Receptions: 171
- Yards: 3124 (18.26 per)
- Touchdowns: 17
- Longs in each year of 60, 71, 91
Now, I liked Fred Barnett, he was a solid receiver, but no superstar. DeSean, you may look like you can become a superstar, but show me you are before you try and force me to treat you like one.
2011-10-11
"If you buy only ONE comic this month... This is it!" and "Don't miss the 1st issue in Web's daring new adventures into mystery and suspense."
Yes, that comic was Web of Spider-Man #16 and it was the first comic I bought on my own and it created a comic book collector and fan for about the next 12-13 years. And as is want to happen when bills and mortgages appear in life, comic book buying left my weekly schedule. I would try and keep up with story lines, occasionally buy a few issues, and grab graphic novel collections when I saw something interesting, but for the most part I drifted away.
I always wanted to get back though, and now that I have an 8 year old girl who loves to look at anything I have, including my old comics, I was always waiting for a good time to introduce her to some comics.
When I heard about the New 52, and then realized what it was, I thought this might be the time. A new beginning with all of the biggest characters. New story arcs beholden to no history that would allow easy entrance to the DC Universe.
I wasn't about to dive right in though. I wasn't going to add comic book Wednesday to the calendar just yet. I wanted to sample some of the stories first and the day and date iPad publishing made that possible. So over the course of the first month, I purchased about a dozen titles, to get the lay of the land and see where this could head.
Cutting to the chase, I think my experiment is ending soon after it began. Most of what is being published can be split into two different categories. Inappropriate and crap.
Superman has been ruined. Completely ruined. At least I think so. It appears that there are two different Superman's to follow in different timelines, which I find completely annoying. Batman is a parent (I think) and possibly the worst one ever. Aquaman eats seafood and Green Lantern is a bit of an asshole.
And DC comics seemingly produces no regular title that I would ever consider showing my girl.
My little girl just happened over when I was reading Detective Comics (with the naked Joker), and she looked over my shoulder as I flipped to the last page and asked, "Is that the Joker's face?", which had just been cut off and hung on a wall. Check that from the list.
You may say, hey, buy the children's comics, they are safe for kids. No thank you. I am not buying the children's version, or the Ultimate version or the 2099 series, or any series that isn't canon. I like to know that what I am reading is part of the grander storyline. But then again, DC has killed any kind of grand storyline with a massive reboot.
I assume that the reason for the reboot is to bring in new readers and to get potential returning readers back to buying comics. I think that what we have here is a very large failure. There is a lot of excitement here at the launch; it got me excited. But that excitement is gone now, and I will be interested to see what it is like in the next six months.
You don't need a gimmick and new issue number to relaunch a comic book. You just need a good creative team and a character people care about.
Afterthought: The new 52 is supposed to represent the reboot of 52 titles, but part of me wonders if it just means that it lasts for 52 weeks, and that in a year we will merge back with the original stories
2011-10-05
I truly feel like we have lost the Da Vinci of our time. He brought to us the way we all learned how to interface with computers almost 30 years ago, and completely redefined it over the last 10 years, with touch, gestures and now speech.
He brought to us new ways of creating and communicating.
He will be missed.
