Archive for January 6th, 2009

Will you pay to ‘upgrade’ to DRM-free songs from iTunes?

So, even Apple fans gotta admit that this year’s Macworld Keynote was a bit of a snoozer. It’s been a long-standing tradition of mine to compulsively refresh the Engadget live blog of the event often offering a running commentary about the goings on to whomever is within ear shot.

This year I had a tough time staying awake. A new iPhoto? *Yawn* (though a little interesting in light of yesterday’s announcement of Picasa for the Mac). I can pay $4.99 to get a video lesson from Sting through GarageBand? No thank you. Oh, and the 17-inch MacBook with the new-fangled battery that might have got the hardcore fans excited, but I am a fickle fan.

The most interesting (and by interesting I mean, worth rubbing the sleep from my eyes and paying attention) announcement was that iTunes was finally going to go DRM-free. It’s about time. But what is more interesting is that for those of us who have a library full of iTunes music we’ll have to pay 30 cents a song to “upgrade” to the new DRM-free iTunes plus version.

I know I won’t be shelling out that 30 cents a song. I’d rather spend all that money (by my guess it’d be hundreds of dollars) on new music. Is DRM-free music that important to you? Would you shell out to get it removed from your music?

Minn Post profiles fontographer Chank Diesel

This is a font called Hoosker Do that Chank Diesel created when he worked at Cake magazine. Remember Cake?

Font lovers rejoice! Today Minn Post has an excellent profile about Chank Diesel, Minnesota designer and font guru. In the article Jake Nassif talks to Diesel about typography, design, and art. I especially loved this quote from Diesel:

“I’ve always been about getting non-professionals involved. 95-percent of users are recreational, and I try to reach as many of them possible,” says the self-dubbed American Alphabetician. “I give people the tools to design things differently. If I’m lucky, they keep coming back.”

Read the full profile on Minn Post. Oh, and speaking of fonts you should watch the Font Conference video on College Humor. I can’t read or write about typography without thinking of this video.

AND, one more font related link I found during my Web travels this morning. Flipping Typical, that quickly displays all the fonts on your computer. Sweet.