Today it has hit the news that EMI has agreed to remove digital locks from its tracks which will now be sold on iTunes and other download websites.
Well it’s not completely black and white. How it is going to work according to the
BBC is that they are going to continue selling DRM locked tracks for the usual 79p. But now they are going to introduce the downloading of unlocked tracks is with a “premium” format for 99p which is a higher bit rate (better quality. 256kbps compared to the DRM tracks which are 128kbps). Albums will be sold without DRM at the usual price.
Now the consumers have a major record label unlocking its tracks it will start to put pressure on the other labels to follow their example.
Is this to the end to the evil that is DRM. Well not quite… They are still men in suits with moths in their wallets who will want to try to keep DRM as they think it reduces piracy and increases their profits. But DRM is actually driving people to download via illegal means.
This is how it works:
Piracy is always going to be around and there is very little anyone can do about it other than using laws and policing which is hard to do with the internet’s infostructure. The music needs to keep it’s customer base happy and in return they will give them their money. Open format music is the way forward as all the law abiding citizens and the people who have respect for the artists and the music will be more than happy to pay money for the music they want to listen to. DRM pushed us back as it annoyed customers and drove people to other less legitimate sources.
DRM was a cancer to the downloading world. EMI and Apple have made a major breakthrough on a potential cure. Lets just hope it encourages the other labels to remove the locks off, what we should have the right to listen to on any device we see fit.
Like everyone nowadays I have a MySpace profile. I liked the idea of being able to customize it to your own appeal. This was until I tried to write my own CSS styling for it rather than just using a code generator.
I’m good at what I do and I am very fluent in HTML, xHTML and CSS (and many other things but I’m not going there today) but when I took a look at the source it looked like something spat out by Frontpage when a 3 year old has been put in front of it. We all know Frontpage can do a bad enough job by itself but this was a whole new level of bad code.
My first issue was with nested tables. I know HTML allows you to nest tables but just because you can do something it doesn’t mean you should. Nesting tables is something which should only be done when showing some form of mathematical data which is more advanced than anything I have done up to date. It isn’t to help layout your website. Tables shouldn’t be used for layouts full stop never mind nested tables.
My next issue was with the naming of the CSS styles for instance “.orangetext15”. I know its supposed to help everyone style their MySpace, but in my personal opinion style names should describe the type of content not what part of the styling is. What would happen if you changed the colour to red? The name would be meaning less.
Another problems I came across is the lack of thought which has gone into marking up/styling the page. Major block areas have no class to apply styles to so you have to use levels of styling for instance:
table table table{background-color:#000;}
These levels are also something which I had to work out as well and whilst doing this I found that other areas have the same level of relationship which effected areas I didn’t want to style.
It didn’t stop there either the more I trawled through the code the more problems I found. The next thing I bumped into was HTML styling. This is one of the biggest websites on the internet and there still using HTML styling as an organization they have no consideration for accessibility, standards or the people trying to use the system.
Systems are supposed to be invisible to the end user there just supposed to work and help the user. This is not something MySpace does and it’s shocking considering it’s the biggest thing to come out since Google.
We live in a web 2.0 world which MySpace is supposed to be a part of. I think it has a long way to go before I would let it into the web 2.0 club
Yesterday I was in a discussion with one of the people on my course and we went into talking about Object Oriented coding and Frameworks. It has been on my mind for a while about how inefficient me coding in a procedural method is. When I got home I dived onto Amazon and decided to update my development library to be.
I ordered 2 books (I would love to order more but student loans don’t stretch that far) both PHP based as it’s the language I am most proficient in.
+ PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, Practice
+Essential PHP Tools: Modules, Extensions, and Accelerators (Expert’s Voice)
They both have very good reviews and one person on my course has the Objects, Patterns and Practice book.
My current to do list contains:
+ Learn to use the Cake PHP framework
+ Become proficient in Java Script and the Document Object Model
+ Add an AJAX powered interface over the foundations of this website
+ Finish the LGBT website when they get their funding through for their hosting
+ Finally take a look at the Microsoft Web Technologies such as the .NET Framework.
I know it’s a big list and within all of that I have a huge workload from university assignments.
Currently my moral of my University course is low as I don’t feel like I’m learning anything new and that the course is a hindrance to my progression in the technologies within the web. But I am just here to prove that
web technology students do produce quality work. As there is a feeling within the course school that web technology is a second rate course (Media Technology with a bit of PHP as some people have said).