News: Handheld Classics For The Masses

By | November 24, 2011
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 From the Classy Use of Technology Dept comes news of a handheld gadget actually doing something useful at a classical concert. AP reports (and thanks to Gizmodo for pointing it out) of the Concert Companion, designed by former Kansas City Symphony executive Roland Valliere, which displays “a sort of musical road map during a performance, cuing users’ ears for, say, the oboes, muted cellos, or double basses.”
 
A musician at the back of the hall, AP says, wirelessly turns the devices’ digital pages from a laptop. Users can turn off the backlit devices at any time. The gadget has been tested by small groups at four performances, using off-the-shelf Sony Clie handheld computers. Excellent.

Update: X1 On Fire

By | November 24, 2011
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 As if to reinforce my impression that X1 is grabbing the indexing and searching space once the preserve of Enfish, the Idealab company has just launched a beta edition of its next version. The full version should be out soon. New features:
 
* Improved Attachments tab (for Outlook and Eudora users only)
* Improved Eudora email support
* IMAP support
* Microsoft Exchange Public Folder support
* A media player in the View Pane of the Files tab
* Fast JPG viewer with auto-sizing
* Improved file-content indexing, including PDF Acrobat files. (Zip indexing is coming in days/weeks.) You’ll have to re-index your files to take advantage of this new method. To do so, click the Options button and select “Re-index All Files” in the Files Search tab.
* Improved indexing status communication in the bottom status bar for Email and Files tabs
* Automatic import of IE favorites and history into X1 Favorites and History tabs.
 

Less Features, Less Bugs Please

By | November 24, 2011
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 From the It’s About Time Someone’s Talking Sense Dept comes an interesting column by Sean Ammirati the founder and director of Avanti Strategies, who points out that in software, as in most things, less is more (and whose web site seems to take the concept to its furthest practical point).
 
 
Writing in InformationWeek he says that “although software companies would hate to admit it, most people don’t use all the features of their products.” Exactly. What wouldn’t users like me give to have a new version of a program with less features, and less bugs? It’s time for another column ranting about the ridiculous bugs of programs like Microsoft Encarta, Money and Office that somehow survive from version to version.
 

Update: Swappers Scared Off Swapping?

By | November 24, 2011
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 Just as I thought, ordinary folk have been scared away from MP3 filesharing after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)  started to get heavy a few months back. With record companies filing lawsuits against users of online file swapping services — essentially folk swapping bootleg music via the Internet — traffic at such sites seems to have dropped off by about a quarter.
 
The Register quotes market watcher NPD as calculating that 14.5 million US households downloaded music files in April. In May the figure fell to 12.7 million, and dropped to 10.4 million in June, the month the RIAA started getting heavy. On closer inspection, The Register says, the figures suggest that while hard-core downloaders are grabbing ever more tracks for themselves, more casual punters are holding fire.
 
This could all change. The RIAA last week pledged not to pursue small-scale downloaders, so could they all come swimming back? My tuppennies’ worth: Let the small fry do it. It’s a great way to check out new music. Most of them will then buy legit copies, if the price is right. For the big fish, they’re easy to spot, and easy to prosecute.

Update: The Net Dodges A Bullet

By | November 24, 2011
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 Sobig wasn’t quite as big as they feared: The second stage of the virus fizzled when folk disconnected the servers the virus had instructed infected PCs to download new instructions from, CNET reports. The experts feared that the software could be used to spy on the computers’ owners or launch another wave of spam.  The Sobig series of mass-mailing computer viruses is believed to have been created by spammers or a group of online vandals that sell their services to spammers. Phew. For now.