I sure would have never guessed that Jonny Fairplay would be the first ousted from Survivor’s Fans vs Favorites.

He found himself in a unique position…Two newly formed alliances needed him as their “Fifth” and he agreed to both.

He had the power to be the swing vote and decide which alliance he thought was the most powerful…. BUT THEN

He started crying about his unborn baby like he was playing the “My Grandmother Died” card, but it turns out that he wasn’t.

The unanimous vote definitely took me by surprise.  It was disappointing as I was looking forward to more of his antics.

Well, at least Survivor is back on.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is one of those things that was created with good intentions, but managed to punish the honest consumer.

If you were to purchase a music file that has embedded DRM, you are not buying the use of the music, you are renting the use of it.  For example, if you purchase an album from the iTunes store or an audiobook from Audible.com, tracking is embedded in the digital files you receive. Attempting to copy these files to a different machine, your laptop for example, will be prompt a user name and password request from the account that you used to purchase the media.  This, in turn, contacts a server representing the organization from which the media was purchased and authorizes it as a legal copy.

While DRM is meant to reduce/eliminate digital media piracy, and it does not seem to be a problem when the media is purchased legally, it is not always the case.

First, DRM usually limits the number of times you can “authorize” your media to five.  So if you are a person like me, who reloads his computer 2 to 3 times a year, even if I take great care not to lose my digital media, it becomes useless after the 5th time I authorize it to my computer anyways.  It is my understanding, that Apple (and surely others), will reset your authorized limit if you call them.  But what happens if Apple decides to discontinue the resets or discontinues the service, or worst case, goes out of business altogether!  Yes, I realize that Apple will probably be around for as long as I live, but what about Audible or some other small company?  Will this damage the growth and/or creation of new companies that retail digital media because there is no guarantee that they will be around two years down the road?

Second, DRM prevents you from converting the file.  For example, Audible distributes its audiobooks in a proprietary format that many digital players (iPods for example) can play natively.  However, what if I have a device that isn’t supported (i.e. Microsoft’s Zune), I can’t transcode the audiobook into a format like MP3 that the Zune can easily handle.  That just sucks!

My point is, companies that employ DRM in the media that the sell, hold that media hostage without most consumers even being aware.

I now take every DRM’d media file that I own and send it through a time consuming DRM cleaning process.  I convert the DRM to a CD/DVD image which removes the DRM and then RIP that image back to my desired format.

Audible has partnered with Nero to created a version that can burn the Audible file format (AA) to CDs.  If they support converting their files to a different format (CDA), in this case, one that removes the DRM, why try prevent me from transcoding it to MP3?!?

Let’s face it, hackers have already busted this wide open.  There are many free applications to remove DRM without having to go the Burn-to-CD-and-RIP route.  Just like gun new laws would only prevent honest people from owning guns, DRM only prevents honest people from copying media and many times unrightly so!

I just want to be able to freely use the digital media that I purchased.  DRM stunts the transition from physical media (CDs/DVDs) to digital media.  I for sure would rather spend my money on a CD, knowing that I can RIP it to any format and as many times as I want, usually, for the same price!

Some companies get it, though.  Sony-BMG is offering media that is free of DRM.  Amazon offers almost 3 million DRM free tracks in its music selection.  iTunes even has about 2 million in its repository.

Hopefully we will see the demise of DRM in the near future without an uprising of a different breed of copy-protection.

</rant>

As a reward for becoming Feature Complete on a project at work, we were all given iPod Shuffles.

Though originally I used it to shuffle music while running, I found it is perfect for podcasts.  I am fairly new to podcasts, but am now addicted.  Here are some of the podcasts that I am currently listening to:

All this listening to podcasts has made me interested in starting my own.  Episode 1 of the Real Deal describes how to make your own podcast.

Because I just don’t get

I guess it would be kind of cool to be able to track my friends and see what they are up to, but then again, I don’t think many of my friends would participate in a program that would need them to send frequent updates for others to track their activities.  Maybe if twitter was an application that ran in the System Tray and just updated what application you are currently using…well I guess then that would be

Which is what I use, click here to see my profile.

So what is exactly the benefit of following the actions of people you don’t know.  That is what people are doing when they are using twitter.  I assume that if you are into Soap Operas, then seeing whom is breaking up with whom is appealing to you, but I’m not that person!  I am also not the person who understands why anyone other than teenagers and twenty-something’s use facebook or MySpace either.

My age is showing

Can you believe it?  The 2008 schedule has been announced, spring training is less than a month away and I have to endure another season where my Yankees don’t play in Atlanta during inter-league play. 

On the bright side, we may have missed out on the Santana deal, but at least he went to a National League team and not the Redsox!  I am looking forward to the new rotation.  I really like Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy and I don’t think there is any Yankee fan that could dislike Joba.

I am getting anxious…after Sunday’s game, it is all downhill.

If you know me well, you know that I am not much of a Football fan, but I have to pay attention to this Super Bowl, growing up in a Yankees/Rangers/Giants household requires me to.