Foray into iTunes music store

Nearly two years after purchasing an iPod and storing my music on iTunes, and about a year after buying a CD, I finally downloaded two songs from the iTunes music store.

It seems Starbucks has a 'Pick of the Week' featuring a different song each week, where patrons can walk out of the physical store with free cards that specify redeemable codes to download songs.

This week's song is "So Many People to Love" by Carly Simon.

I don't own any (other) songs by Carly Simon, but a free song is a free song, no?

Around the same time I was looking at the iTunes music store website, I saw the music video for "Famous Last Words" by My Chemical Romance on Comcast's alternative music channel... so bought the 99-cent song on impulse.

It's convenient, for sure. But how often will I be playing songs on my computer or listening on my iPod?

O Brother, Here Art Thou!

After two years of Canonical printing, I switched faiths and now have a Brother.

When I bought my laptop in June 2006, it came with a free Canon PIXMA MP150 inkjet printer. It continues to work fine, but lately I've grown frustrated by the sheet-feeding mechanism as the final product comes out skewed.

Print job after print job, my resumes and other documents appear angled from header to footer.

I had enough, and drove to Salem today and bought a Brother MFC-465CN with the same printing, copying, and scanning features and the addition of a fax capability. The Brother has flatbed technology, not sheet-fed, so I'm assured the paper output will be aligned.

After some tinkering with settings and an online chat with a Comcast rep, the landline is now configured to ring twice for the fax to receive and five times for the Comcast Digital Voice to pick up.

I won't use the fax often, but as I'm not tied into a work setting these days, it might come in handy.

In Search of the Exilim

The premiere issue of Everywhere Magazine, which I read last night at Barnes & Noble while waiting for a friend in Boston's Prudential Center, includes a tidbit about the Casio Exilim EX-S600 digital camera:

Casio calls the Exilim EX-S600 a "card camera," and that’s not much of an exaggeration. It’s smaller than my wallet, so it’s no problem at all to carry the Exilim for days on end—which I often do. But rest assured, this little camera takes very big photographs. With 6-megapixel resolution, 3x optical zoom, and the most intuitive user interface of any digital camera I’ve ever used, the Exilim makes it easy to capture vivid images of vast scenic landscapes or intimate street-level details.

Subsequent online reviews indicate, specifications aside, this is one slim camera with the flexibility to fit in my jeans pocket without exposing a bulge. Compare that to my 18-month-old Canon PowerShot A620 and you can see the inconvenience of toting the Canon around for a night on the town.

I'm in no rush to go out and buy this camera. (In fact, it's not made anymore so it's not like I can go to a store and feel it in my hands. It's only available online, unless I go for a newer model, but I digress.) I'll keep my Canon, but ooooh wouldn't it be sweet to go to a dinner party or an outdoor BBQ and not worry about toting a camera around when it could be snug in my pocket, thinner and smaller than my wallet?

I think so, too.

Cellular Evolution

Your cellphone says a lot about you. So if you're toting a 5-year-old phone, maybe it's time for an upgrade. There are multitudes of cellphones on the market. Knowing which to choose can be daunting.

In a recent story in USA Today, columnist Kim Komando showcases a series of cellphones for photography, gaming, email--pretty much any task but talking on the phone.

During one of my undergraduate sociology classes, I read "The McDonaldization of Society," tracing author George Ritzer's parallels between the fast-food phenomenon of McDonald's and how its nouveau concepts have transformed globalization. The book is so popular among sociologists that a fifth edition will be released this month.

I bring up the book because I remember early versions of Motorola cellphones that were hard-wired into cars. Back then, cellphones (or car phones as they were called) did not feature digital cameras, slide-out keyboards, or headphone jacks. Heck, the phones couldn't even fit in someone's pocket. Like the concept of drive-through windows that forever changed McDonald's restaurant managers' perceptions of customers walking through doors to order food, technology ultimately progressed into fast speeds, small sizes, and feature-packed bundles.

I bought my first cellphone in 1999, during my first post-college job. It was a thick red-faceplated Nokia phone and I thought it was the coolest thing. I could call friends (back before they, too, bought into the cellphone craze) and make plans on the fly. My, how times have changed. But while I'm currently with my fourth or fifth cellular incarnation since that red Nokia, I never bought into the optional features.

If I want to take a picture, I have a camera. If I want to surf the web, I have a computer. If I want to play music, I have CDs and an iPod. If I want to talk on the phone, I have a cellphone.

Why do I bring this up? My LG manufactured cellphone is dying. The battery needs to be charged more and more, the exterior shell shows wear and tear, and today I noticed the plastic screen protecting the LED diodes cracked. It's time to buy a new phone.

Luckily, my Verizon Wireless contract stipulates every two years, I can buy a new phone at or under $100--for free. This past April marked two years, and while the Verizon website showed pictures of dozens of phones under the $100 mark which I can upgrade, it also showed me other higher-priced phones, because it seems if I buy a phone online, I get an additional $50 off. So, I could upgrade to a $150 phone, and pay nada but shipping costs.

I prefer the personal touch, though, so tomorrow I'll walk into a physical store, touch different phones to see how they feel in my hand and whether my fingers can depress the tiny buttons, and then I'll return to the online site and order the right phone--with Bluetooth technology.

Traveling the world via shortwave radio

I bought a shortwave radio, the Realistic DX-440, during my teenage years. I remember spending hours in front of the console, spinning the finger dial and tuning through the long wave, medium wave, and mostly shortwave bands. I don't recall individual broadcasts, but I remember listening to the BBC, Radio Havana, Radio Paris, even the Voice of America. I remember having a fun time traveling the world, listening to global opinions on American issues.

In the days before XM and Sirius satellite radio, there were a plethora of shortwave radio broadcasters. Times have changed...

I never sold or tossed the shortwave receiver (see reviews at Radio Intel and The Gadgets List), and for the first time in over a decade, I dusted it off, inserted new D batteries, and powered it on tonight.

Right now, I'm listening to EWTN Global Catholic Radio, broadcasting out of Birmingham, Alabama. Granted, I'm not Catholic but it's the clearest broadcast I can hear at this hour.

Technorati implies Cobalt Pet is the best blog on shortwave and medium wave broadcasts. Recent posts indicate shortwave broadcasts by Radio Netherlands, Radio Australia, etc. I'll be keeping an eye on that site!

Geekiness

Last August, I bought the 4GB iPod Nano. At the time, I bought it to partially join the iPod bandwagon and partially to satisfy my thirst for techno gadgets. For years, friends and family members had turned to me with their geeky questions, but it's hard to expertly answer a question when I don't have the technology. Despite my working knowledge learned over the years, I bought my first DVD player in 2005 and both a digital camera and laptop computer in 2006.

Frankly, I didn't want it. I freak out every time I board a subway train and see an entire row of MP3 earbud warriors, reading a book while listening to music. I don't know how they multitask like that. Read, or listen, but dear God don't do both at once! And they tap their thumbs, or kick their toes to the ground. Never sing. Well, rarely sing. I rarely hear them sing to their songs blasting through their ears.

So why did I buy an iPod? To reduce space, basically. I haven't bought a CD in about two years, and my collection of 300+ CDs collects dust, so I've gradually imported my collection into iTunes, keep some of them on my iPod and store the rest on my computer. Right now, I'm ripping the albums I care about, and then I'll store about 100 CDs in vinyl sleeves, toss their plastic boxes, and sell the rest for cash or credit.

It sounds like a plan. The thing with me and plans, though, is I rarely keep them, preferring spontaneity. In retrospect, I used the iPod for several months last fall, but as soon as I ditched the T for driving into work, I stopped using the player. The act of importing my CDs also fell by the wayside. Now that I have more free time, I'll continue the importing and will consolidate my personal space with the sleeves and the sales.

In the meantime, if you're on the subway and hear someone singing aloud the lyrics to the Beatles, Nerf Herder, or Lasgo, you know who to blame.