Freedom’s author is none other than Fred Stutzman, co-founder of claimid and local ibiblio dude. Now, can I get a weekend version to lock the keyboard…
Freedom is an application that disables wireless and ethernet networking on an Apple computer for up to three hours at a time. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you time to code, write, or create. At the end of your selected offline period, Freedom re-enables your network, restoring everything as normal.
[From Freedom, OS X Networking Freedom Software]
Enough with the generic presidential debates already. Haven’t we learned about everything we can from gotcha debates? Let’s debate science policy; environment, health and medicine, and technology. This is real substance, real interesting and real important.
For the past few months, I have not been feeling eMusic. If you’ve only dealt with iTunes, then eMusic seems like a breath of fresh air. The pay-per-tune model is replaced with a monthly subscription that includes a fixed number of downloads. Once you reach the plan limit, you’re cut off and have to wait for next month. I had a 90 track per month plan for $15, so that’s a lot cheaper than iTunes at 99 cents.
Unfortunately, wading through junk recordings to find something fresh gets harder every month of the plan. I was in for the jazz and classical recordings primarily, but the eMusic offerings just don’t include the small labels who are publishing really good, modern stuff.
Lots of good jazz is archive and if you’re interested in early, classic recordings then eMusic can help fill the holes in your collection. Outside of that, eMusic won’t help you much.
So, goodbye eMusic. It was a great start, but you’re history; just like most of the jazz recordings in your library.
Update (1/30/2009): I’m back and so far have been finding some really great stuff. Thanks eMusic, for not reading this post and punishing me for it!
