albums

Getting shallow in the attention economy

Did we like music more back when we had to pay for it in bulk?

That's essentially the question writer Nick Carr asks in yet another provocative post on his Rough Type blog. "Slanted and Enchanted" revels in the one-hit wonder but also asks if we are losing something by dumping albums for tracks.

I've suggested that artists may find new ways to more deeply engage their fans by focusing on singles rather than albums, but there's something to Carr's logic:

Today, we're quick to dismiss those ancient days of "scarcity" … Read more

Attractive wallpaper changer

HomeGallery is an easy-to-use wallpaper changer that lets users edit and organize their images within an attractive and intuitive layout.

The program's interface is exceptional, with a sleek and professional-looking design. The fact that it consists of three separate windows can be a bit annoying, but we were willing to ignore that because it was so nice to look at. One small window contains controls for the changer--play, fast forward, and so no--and also gives access to the program's settings. Another window provides a cool-looking filmstrip-style display of the user's images across the top of the screen. … Read more

BOL 1027: What's your major smellfunction?

On today's episode, we invent a new word that we hope will show up on a show like "The Hills" sometime soon. Plus, we get fired up, make terrible jokes about monkeys controlling computers with their brains, and actually work in a tiny bit of news. For example, Apple's doing a tablet and music labels are trying to sell some new weird digital album thing. You might like the "fired up" part better.

Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video) EPISODE 1027

Apple partners with music labels for interactive content for new netbook -- Sept

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Confusion at Best Buy over rumors of a $99 Palm Pre

Installing Pre homebrew apps: now even easier

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Wi-Fi on ordinary cell phones

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Nissan's Forest AC blows wild scents through your ride, keeps you alert

Monkeys and scientists develop persistent "plug and play" control over brain-to-computer interface… Read more

Broken record: Why labels want new album format

Apparently, the digital download didn't kill the album after all.

The four largest recording companies and Apple reportedly have plans to create what they hope is the next-generation album. Driving the efforts is the hope that music can once again deliver fat profits, instead of the scrawny margins earned on 99 cent downloads.

On Sunday evening, the Financial Times reported that Apple plans to entice customers to accept packaged music by throwing in "photos, lyric sheets and liner notes" and also enable consumers "to play songs directly from the interactive book without clicking back into Apple'… Read more

Labels to serve digital albums to iTunes rivals

When news broke late Sunday that Apple has plans to create the next-generation music album, some in the record industry were steamed.

The Financial Times reported that Apple was working on a plan code-named "Cocktail" that involves the creation of "new type of interactive album material, including photos, lyric sheets and liner notes that allow users to click through to items that they find most interesting." That's nearly identical to a plan that executives from some of the four largest music labels pitched Apple about 18 months ago, said a music industry source who requested … Read more

Fun With the Palm Pre's Camera

I remember when my family got our first digital camera. It was 1.2 Megapixel, no zoom, and no flash. We were so tickled that we could take a picture and see it on our computer screen just minutes later.

Digital cameras have come a long way. Now we even have them on our cell phones!

My first cell phone's camera was less than a megapixel, but I thought it was amazing that I could take someone's picture and use it as their called ID photo!

Now, I could print a photo taken with my cell phone's camera. … Read more

Putting Media on the Pre

I'll admit. I'm a geek. I use my phone for a lot more than talking, texting, and updating Twitter.

With 8 GB of internal memory the Palm Pre is ready to handle my music and photos. Today I hooked the Pre to my laptop for the first time...

I love the camera on the Pre (more about it later) but the way the photos are organized bugs me a bit. All Photos and Photo Roll are nearly the same. And, there's no way to actually organize the photos from the phone. While this can be easily accomplished from your computer, pairing my devices via USB up isn't something I do every day of the week. I wish there was a way to assign photos to certain albums from within the phone. … Read more

No sharing allowed

FlipAlbum Standard allows users to organize their pictures into realistic digital photo albums, but there's a learning curve involved and some of the more useful features aren't available until you pay for an upgrade.

FlipAlbum's interface is fairly plain and most of the space is dedicated to viewing and creating albums. Before you can get started, though, you'll need to supply your name and e-mail address and wait for a key to be sent to you. Once that's taken care of, we suggest you use the Quick Start wizard. The wizard makes it easy to … Read more

Photo organizer

Arclab Thumb Studio provides users with an advanced program for sorting, resizing, and viewing their computer's digital photo collection. With smooth direction and well-planned design this will help a lot of people get organized.

This program's professional interface was a big plus for us. Users are shown a wizard-like tool featuring screens containing various project options, all in a smooth, easy-to-use flow. The screens are so simple to navigate that most users will not need to look at the User's Manual PDF that comes with the program. Actually designing a photo album, slideshow, or batch processing job … Read more

Webware 100 winner: Picasa Web Albums

Site: Picasaweb.google.com Category: Photo & Video

Picasa Web Albums is Google's Web photo-hosting service. Users get 1GB of free hosting, and images can be uploaded and manipulated using Picasa, Google's free desktop photo management application. Users who want additional storage can shell out up to $500 a year to bump up the hosted space to 400 times the size of the free hosting service.

We really like the integration between the desktop and Web application. Similar to .Mac and iPhoto, Picasa makes it really simple to take photos from your desktop and publish them online for … Read more