Now, I’ll be the first to admit that an entirely instrumental album from NIN threw me off slightly at first, and having listened to all of the tracks, I find it to be an exceptional album, but it’s clearly not going to be for everyone, especially if you’re expecting some high energy rock to trash to. This album is more about the nuance of instrumental composition and clearly a pet project of Trent Reznor, and while still having some clear rock influences the tracks are high experimental and branch out into many different styles of music, but most if not all of the tracks feel very tight, well thought out and will be enjoyable to most people.

But don’t take my word for it. The first 9 tracks are free to everyone who wants them, then if you decide you like it, and I’m pretty sure you will, the entire album is only $5. And honestly, even if you don’t like it, support people when they take risks for positive change and actually trust the fans to support them. Thank’s for “getting it” Trent.

Buy it, enjoy it.

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On the upside I do like Smart Bookmarks which allow you to view your most visited websites as well as your most recently bookmarked, the star, for it’s uglyness is a very nice way to quickly bookmark sites and the new notification system, while a little hard to get used to, is much more functional than the show stopping popup. There are also a mirriad of other features and behind the scenes stuff I’m sure, but that’s what has jumped out at me thus far.

All in all Firefox 3 is a needed and feature rich update that takes what works and does it’s best to make it better. It would be nice to see a little more polish before it ships but I’m not complaining, it’s the best browser available and it’s free.

Download Firefox 3 Beta 4

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The homepage is simple, but usable. Big buttons and quick links dominate the page, no frills, but also no branding. It doesn’t feel like Amazon. I attribute this to their lack of using their signature colors for anything but the logo, which doesn’t even appear on all pages.

The search is probably the best part about the site, which really isn’t saying a whole lot. It lacks the more function drill-down features that Amazon is famous for, but does deliver concise results with just the information you need. The product site is equally as stark without the product research functionality. Really only useful for people who know exactly what they want and need it right then.

The cart is minimally exceptional as is the account interface. Bland bland bland.

I can’t comment about the purchasing portion of the Amazon iPhone website, but I’m willing to bet it is bland too. I applaud Amazon for trying, but their site misses the Apple mobile browsing experience by a mile. It’s not about stripping content and diluting your brand with black on white text, it’s about making rich content fit into the device. It is still in beta and hopefully we’ll see massive improvements before it’s official launch.

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Tracks are .89 or .99 cents depending on their popularity, more popular = less expensive, and the tracks are all encoded at 256kbps, not the 320 that a lot of people had been hoping for, but much better than the alternative 192 from the iTunes Music Store. More importantly, the tracks are not subject to sales tax, at least for me in Texas, as the iTunes Music Store offerings are.

In my opinion the price is still a little high and the bit-rate is still a little low, and I’ll explain why I think so in a future article, but until then here’s a breakdown of the Amazon MP3 purchasing experience.

The first thing you’ll notice about Amazon MP3 is that it’s not iTunes, nor is it a software application that normal DRM laden music purchasers are accustomed to. It’s just a website with all the charm of a normal Amazon.com webpage, everything is easy enough to find and the selection is satisfactory, although I hope that more major labels sign-on to this program in the future.

Amazon MP3 provides the standard 30 second preview when purchasing tracks and provides both an individual track as well as entire album buy buttons.

Amazon MP3 offers 2 ways of downloading your tracks, the first being their custom downloading software, the other being directly from the website, I opted for the direct download by clicking “Skip Installation” located under the big Download Now button.

Confirm your purchase and you’re on your way to DRM-Free bliss.

The moment of truth and uncertainty, the loading screen in which a single failure, a single bug could bring your music buying experience to a complete and complete and abrupt halt…

But no! Success! A flawless download with all the trimmings including album art and a full set of ID3 tags.

And finally we have my liberated, legal, DRM-Free MP3 happily residing in my iTunes.

A- service from Amazon, just knock the price down, up the bit-rate and add some more major labels and we have the future of music downloads.

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First I’ll get the bad out of the way, while there are only a few major problems, they are somewhat serious and may prove to be deal-breakers when selecting between this and other music players.

The first major issue is the capacity, coming in at only 8 and 16GB versions, the iPod touch is light on space, still better than the iPhone and its single 8GB capacity, it doesn’t provide the “Media Library” functionality a lot of people were hoping for. The storage is flash memory, which is good if you’re sweating to the oldies, only, the iPod touch isn’t a device you’d use at the gym, no, the iPod touch is a device you’d use while sitting in a waiting room or on a flight. A hard drive probably would have been a better choice, but I’d guess that it would have pushed the iPod touch past Apple’s target price-point.

The next problem with the iPod touch is that Apple crippled a lot of the software, you can’t add events to your calendar, and they ripped out a lot of the “function” apps like weather, maps, stocks, notes and most importantly mail. Obviously you can still get this information on the web and the main purpose of the applications were to save bandwidth and time because you’re on the 3G network which is slow, so pushing one button to bring up the weather was handy, it still would have been nice to be able to do that on the iPod touch’s Wi-Fi connection. It would have also been cool to have the iPod touch “bing” every time I get a new Gmail, but Apple felt they had to differentiate the product from the iPhone and I have faith that the hacker community will hack the iPhone applications on the iPod touch soon enough.

Lastly, there have been some legitimate concerns about the iPod touch’s build quality, namely the screens. The “Negative Black” effect has been proven by Gizmodo among others. However, it seems to be somewhat hit and miss as my screen is perfect so your mileage may vary and it probably would be a good idea to wait until they address these issues before picking one up. Also, my Home button’s icon is a little off-center, damn shoddy Chinese sweatshops.

Now for the awesome. As always, the entire Apple ownership experience is complete, from the purchase, to the unboxing, to the setup, to your first use, Apple’s designers orchestrate your interaction with the device from the box up. The box is small and compact, every millimeter of space is used and the device is presented for your inspection as soon as you open it, even the inside of the box-top is padded to ensure your iPod touch is flawless when you get it. After that you go through the layers of packaging to find all of the accessories and the quick start guide, you turn on the device it and prompts you to sync it for the first time, perfectly smooth and seamless.

As for the device itself, it’s tiny, but in a good way. As Mad Dog Steve would put it, it’s impossibly thin. (As I would put it, impossibly scratch magnetic, see below) For its size, it has a good weight, feels very solid and sleek, not bulky at all. In contrast to the iPhone, the bezel is matte and dark, a warm gray color, almost brown in certain light, the sharpness between it and the glossy glass display of the iPod is one of the sexiest combos I’ve ever seen, it keeps making me think about car design, specifically Mercedes-Benz interiors. The glass screen is scratch resistant up the wazoo, as you’d expect, the back, however, is not. It scratches like all of the previous generation iPods, meaning it scratches a lot and easily. It’s a shame, I’ve haven’t even taken it out of the house or put it in my pocket and the back already has a few significant scratches and edges look a little scuffed and it’s not like I could have stopped it, due to Apple’s ninja release, cases aren’t even available for it, and won’t be until October.

The iPod touch also utilizes a technology that monitors the ambient light of the area you’re in, adjusting the screen brightness to maximize battery life, this can be disabled in the Settings menu, as well as augmented, meaning you can adjust the brightness while Auto-Brightness is on and it will still adjust to the situation, but your preference, either brighter or dimmer, will be taken into account. Every device ever needs to do this.

The most important feature to me and what inevitably got me to pull the trigger is that the iPod touch has a full version of the Safari web browser, less Flash and Java, however full JavaScript is enabled and a Flash player is purportedly in the works, but knowing Apple, in the works means iPod touch 2G. Gmail works fully; it loads a little slow, but once it’s done you get the full “in-place” Gmail experience. The touch screen works surprising well even with my large/sausage fingers, I have no trouble selecting a link between two others even when the browser is zoomed out. Typing is considerably faster than what I can do on my cell phone. Pinching, double tapping and rotating the device work great for enlarging text to a readable size and the font smoothing is superb. Bookmarking couldn’t be easier, click the plus and save, and the multi-page browsing ability is awesome. However, due to the limited RAM available to the iPod touch you’re limited to the number of pages you can have opened at a time, 8. And if you’re browsing a particularly media-heavy page and switch to a new page, it will unload the media-heavy page from memory to allow the other page to load.

The integrated YouTube application is great but makes me wonder if they can play FLVs why they couldn’t include a Flash player; the iPod touch obviously has the processor for it, being able to decode h.264. The loading time for movies is about what you get from your browser, more the time to actually switch from the YouTube app to the YouTube player with its intolerably sexy animation. I’ve yet to find a video on YouTube that it couldn’t play.

The calendar is crippled, you can’t add new items, and until I find a way to sync it to my BackPack, it will remain useless to me. I was able to create some sample items using Outlook just to test the UI and from what I see it’s pretty sweet, I just wish I could use it. It seems kind of short sighted of Apple to not only break the app, but also not to include syncing of their iCal format from the web. It also doesn’t work with the default Windows Calendar in Windows Vista, lame.

Contacts are simple enough; they sync with the default Windows Contacts in Windows Vista, which I use. It takes all of the data, including picture and syncs it perfectly with the iPod touch. As always the interface is simple and surprisingly, you can add new contacts directly from the iPod touch. If you view a contact and click their website it will open in Safari, but I would have appreciated Apple including the Mail app so I could have the same functionality with email.

The clock, oddly enough, is one of my favorite features of the iPod touch. It has a very nice World Clock allowing you to add a bunch of different labeled clocks to one interface allowing you to flick through as many as you want, but no, the fun doesn’t stop there. It also has a multi-alarm function, allowing as many optionally recurring alarms as you want, a little disappointing is the fact that you can have any of your music play as the alarm, but instead, give you a few random sounds, only a few of which are actually useful as an alarm and none of them are loud enough to wake you up. It also has a Stopwatch with lap function, big surprise there. Finally, and my favorite, or at least second to the World Clock, is the Timer. Never have your eggs pop again! It’s actually a fun interface, allowing you to roll a virtual cylinder around to select the appropriate time, however, I would have liked the cylinder actually rotate to zero, vis-à-vis an actual kitchen timer with a digital display under it, however it just gives you a digital countdown, a little disappointing but far from a deal breaker.

The calculator is criminally simple and a little disappointing. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division is all this calculator is capable of, seeing as how it’s running a trim version of OSX I kind of expected some more advanced functions, but I suppose that would have “soiled” Mad Dog’s interface.

The music functionality, which for me is almost secondary to the web capability, is fantastic, if a little overwhelming, but in a good way. There’s quite a few different ways to find your music, but surprisingly no search! It’s hard to believe that Apple who so proudly boasted about the functionality of their touch-keyboard would have neglected to include the feature in locating your music, a feature that they included in a CLICK WHEEL iPod. But I digress. All of the usual suspects are available to locate your favorite tunes, Playlists, Artists, Songs, Albums and optionally, Audiobooks, Compilations, Composers, Genres and Podcasts from the More… Menu. Oh, and of course Cover Flow, one of the coolest and most useless functions every to be devised by a design team let run wild in idealized urban-hippy bliss. What it lacks in usefulness it makes up for in raw, unbridled sex and awesome… Sawsomex. Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t committed my 500+ album’s artwork to memory, so flicking through, while certainly boner inducing isn’t really helpful to me. But once you find your song its smooth sailing, except for scrubbing, which might just be my fat fingers, but it seems pretty clunky, I don’t seem to be able to move the virtual knob just where I want it, it seems to move in jumps. But hey! Picking another song from the same album is easy as… pushing a button and selecting another song. It’s also important to note that at any time, in any application, you can double tap the Home button and have basic audio controls popup, pretty good idea.

Movie playback is good, that is, if you can fit any movies on there. I’m able to fit all of my music (4GB), last 3 podcasts, and about 3 movies on my iPod touch, but I only keep 3+star music and rarely have full albums. Playback is simple enough, tap a movie, watch it, tap it once to get controls, scrub though (a little clunky as with the music), and fast forward/reverse, double tap to watch it in full-res, easy as pie. If you managed to get one of the good screens, the playback is super-nice, at least as good as my Dell monitor. If you didn’t, black people will look weird and shiny (v. Foreman on House).

Photos are dead simple as well, select photos, open an album, tap a photo and slide your greasy little fingers to your heart’s content, pinch to zoom in, depinch to zoom out. Hit play to start a slideshow and impress your friends by rotating the iPod touch when you get to a landscape picture. You can even set the wallpaper from the picture browser.

Lastly we have the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, also known as the longest store name ever. It works, you can browse, search and download music right from the iPod touch, would have been impressive 3 months ago, but at least they did it. I bought a song; the jumping animation is neat… I don’t see myself buying any more DRM laden music though, perhaps an obscure music video or tune when I can’t get it anywhere else, but that’s really more of an iTunes problem, and don’t even bother telling me about the iTunes Plus business, I’ll pay the “Pirate Tax” when Davey Jones rises from his salty grave and gives me a happy ending.

So all in all the iPod touch is easily the best iPod Apple has ever created. A little crippled, a little light on space and a lot rushed out of the factories, but the interface, screen (If you get a good one) and browser make this a lock for me. I give it a 4.7 out of 5, and suggest you add the iPod touch to your pile of expensive toys you don’t use as soon as you can.

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Price will be judged on cost per print as well as the cost of shipping. Speed will be determined by how fast they get to my door. Quality will be judged the paper quality, print clarity and how well they upsize a smaller than optimal photo. The quality of their website will be judged on ease of use, correction tools and style.

Snapfish

Snapfish is probably going to be your bet for your average user. The website is pretty busy with ads and isn’t quite as snappy as it could but, but they do provide a very good photo correction utility that gets it right most of the time. The cost/value ratio is the best by far, they provided the fastest shipping, 3 days from order to door, as well as the best print quality of any service I tried. The photos have the best color reproduction airing on the blue/white side and the up-scaled photo was crisp and clear almost to the quality of a larger photo.
Price: 4
Speed: 4
Quality: 4
Website: 3
Overall: 4
Cost for 50: $8.95

Shutterfly

I don’t really have much to say about Shutterfly except that they’re the most expensive with below average quality. The website is fine they provide a good photo correction tool. The speed was average, 4 days order to door. You just really don’t get what you pay for. The photos print clear/slightly warm and the up-scaled photo was blurry but acceptable.
Price: 1
Speed: 3
Quality: 2
Website: 3
Overall: 2
Cost for 50: $12.49

Kodak Easyshare Gallery

As you may have expected from their range of digital camera, Kodak is a solid C student, providing nothing exceptional besides a friendly interface, a high ease of use and good-enough correction utility. The quality, speed (4 days) and website are all average with the cost per print being second highest of the companies reviewed. This is probably the site best left for your grandma because of the friendliness of the process and lack of advantage. The photos print clear with slightly warm tone and the up-scaled photo was reasonably clear.
Price: 2
Speed: 3
Quality: 3
Website: 3
Overall: 3
Cost for 50: $11.49

Winkflash

Winkflash is where you get the absolute most for your money. The cost per print and shipping is lowest of any site I’ve reviewed and the quality is higher-end. The website is another matter entirely, it is awwwwful, yes, with four “Wâ€?s, but it’s usable enough to order with and it has a passable photo correction utility if you can find it. Order to door took an average 4 days. This is the site for Je… bargain shoppers. The photos print very clear and on the slightly blue side and the up-scaled photo was crisp and clear.
Price: 5
Speed: 3
Quality: 4
Website: 1
Overall: 4
Cost for 50: $6.99

Image Station

Image Station gets everything wrong but the website. Classic Sony style of having design over substance. As I said, the website is very decent, snappy and easy to use. The problem comes in with the actual prints, it took them the longest time of 5 days to arrive and they were easily the worst of the bunch. The photos looked as if they had been intentionally yellowed, the up-scaled photo was blocky and completely unacceptable and the photo paper was cheap and thin. The only reason they get one is because they exist. Please DO NOT use Image Station.
Price: 3
Speed: 2
Quality: 1
Website: 4
Overall: 1 (Badprints = Bad service)
Cost for 50: $8.83

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Even with the Aero interface, which is delicious, it still preforms about as well as XP did. Installing it only took about 28 minutes and it now lives in harmonious dual boot bliss with XP. I intend to dump my XP install ASAP and live the complete vista lifestyle, with a review and tons of screen shots to follow.

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Most significant of the products released was iTunes 7.0, this update adds full-length movies to their media offerings. Currently the only studios providing content for the iTunes Music store are the Disney affiliated/owned Pixar, Miramax, Touchstone and Disney it’s self. New releases will be $14.99 and older movies will be $9.99.

New iTunes Features:

• Movies — From Pixar, Disney, Miramax and Touchstone
• Free Album Art — iTunes will now download album art from the iTunes music store for all of your music.
• Cover Flow — Browse your albums as you would your vinyl collection.
• iPod Summary — Break down exactly what’s on your iPod. (More info)
• iPod Games — Now you can get games for your new iPod for $4.99 at the iTunes music store.

Screenshots/Movies:

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Now before I start being my usual nit-picky self, I’d like to say I love the idea of this service. A visual representation of where and how often your visitors are clicking could be an amazing tool, the only problem is I’d like to use it, and so far, I haven’t been able to.

I signed up for the launch newsletter about 6 months ago, but I didn’t even get an email from them at launch; I had to hear it from Digg, which is a little bothersome. I mean, I trust you with my email, I expect to hear it from you first, preferably with some sort of discount, not off some news website.

The next problem I can see for them is their completely unrealistic pricing. The least expensive pay plan they offer is $19 per month. A webmaster can’t justify that large of a fee when in all likelihood they pay less than that for hosting. Prices like that are confusing as they are too high for most webmasters but not high enough to target enterprise professionals.

Once I was able to make an account I tried to make a profile for TragicallyNull, but it would error out on the tracking code page. However, it would still take up one of my spots anyway and there is no way to get the tracking code after the first time it shows it to you. So before I knew it I had used up my meager four snapshots with no way to delete them, I eventually had to email support to get them removed.

I have to say that the support was very quick and helpful. But this isn’t a solution for large business because the only way to connect support is though a web form and the website lacks a help system or even a FAQ. It also seems the same person developed, advertised and is doing support for this product, which is not really the way the site presents it’s self.

So after I waited a day, hoping that the Digg storm would have died down and perhaps I could successfully get a profile setup, I try to login and I’m greeted with this unsettlingly casual error message…

“Looks like an egg got cracked…
Yes, there was an error, but fear not! Our brave development team has been alerted immediately of where and how the error occurred and you can be assured that they will be working on a fix ASAP. Thank you for your patience!�?

So here I find myself, waiting to be able login. I’m not impressed so far, but maybe in a week when they (he) get’s their (his) site sorted, I can try it and write a proper review, which in all probability will be shorter than this. Until next time.

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