Why are blank CDs so expensive?

Post ImageI never thought I’d write something like this, but blank CDs are freaking expensive! It wasn’t long ago that I could care less about turning a CD into a coaster, but now I do care. I don’t know what changed, but for some reason CDs have become incredibly expensive relative to DVDs.

Here is the current pricing at Futureshop.ca for a brand I quite like:

More than double the price! And it’s not just Maxell either:

It’s ridiculous! Heck, you can get a 50 pack of Memorex Dual Layer DVD+Rs for only $59.99. I suppose I should point out that both the Maxell DVD and Memorex Dual Layer DVD prices are after an instant rebate, but don’t be fooled – that spindle of 100 Maxell DVDs has been $32.99 for at least six months. That’s for both DVD-R and DVD+R. This isn’t specific to Futureshop either…I’ve noticed the same trend at all computer stores here in Edmonton.

I’m obviously not an expert on this topic, but aren’t CDs and DVDs made from pretty much the same stuff? The main difference between the two seems to be the wavelength of the laser that is used, not anything with the physical discs themselves. Even if there are some differences, surely CDs shouldn’t be twice as expensive as DVDs to manufacture!

You might be thinking that this isn’t a big deal – DVDs store more data anyway. That’s entirely accurate. In fact, I really only use CDs for two reasons: burning audio CDs for my car, and burning CD images. Still, the price shocks me.

Perhaps the high price of CDs is just a reflection of marketplace pressures? These days, almost everyone has a portable media player (like an iPod) and almost all new cars have an auxiliary jack (including mine), so there’s less of a need to burn audio CDs. And on the data side, DVDs are just far more useful due to their larger capacity. All new computers come with a drive that will burn both DVDs and CDs, so it’s easy to pick DVDs over CDs.

Are CDs dead?

I don’t think CDs will be disappearing any time soon, but I do think they are on the way out. Newer technologies like DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray have made the CD seem ancient and have certainly reduced its usefulness. And I think it’s safe to say that the CD will be the last physical media form the music industry will ever sell. Digital tracks over the web is the way of the future.

So long compact disc…it was nice knowing you!

Get your @live.com address now!

Microsoft opened up registration for their @live.xx domains today! You can head over to the Live.com site to register for your local address (in Canada that would be @live.ca). Of course, if you’re like me, you want an @live.com address too. You can sign up for that one here (click the “Get it free” button).

I can’t imagine how much Microsoft spent on the “live” domains, but they’ve got a ton of them. You can sign up for many more by following the links here, if you’re so inclined. The new “Linked IDs” feature will definitely come in handy now!

I just registered mastermaq@live.com and mastermaq@live.ca and linked them. Wicked!

Also, if you’ve got a Hotmail account that you want to transition to Live.com, check out this page. You’ll have to do a bunch of migration steps, and not everything can be transferred. Personally I like the @hotmail.com address, so I’m keeping mine.

There you go, enjoy!

Read: LiveSide

Notes for 11/5/2007

Obviously, I didn’t get around to posting my weekly notes yesterday. I got home pretty late and was exhausted after a long day of office moving! Yes, we’re finally getting stuff out of the office. Yesterday we took apart all the furniture and loaded up the van we rented from Budget. Tonight we finally got everything put away in storage. All that remains is the stuff that used to be in the desks and on the shelves, which is quite a lot. The office looks like a disaster area right now! Hopefully it won’t take us long to clean up.

In The Crosshairs: Facebook

Post ImageThe tech industry really amazes me sometimes. Everyone knows that it moves fast, but I don’t think the average person realizes just how fast. The status quo can change overnight. I’m guessing Facebook knows this better than anyone or any company right now:

Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle. MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative.

Here’s the big question – Will Facebook now be forced to join OpenSocial? Google says they are talking to “everyone.” This is a major strategic decision for Facebook, and they may have little choice but to join this coalition.

Essentially what Google is trying to do is make something like Facebook’s Platform available across the entire web. If you build an application for Facebook today, it only runs on Facebook. If you build an application for Google’s OpenSocial, it will run on any site that supports it – and so far, that’s almost every social networking site except Facebook.

Erick Schonfeld is absolutely right – the ball is in Facebook’s court now. They could handle this very well and come out on top, which is what I think they’ll do. My guess is that they will support OpenSocial eventually. Or they could handle it very poorly and screw up everything they’ve got going for them.

OpenSocial has been the hot topic for the last couple days, and there’s a ton of stuff up on TechMeme if you want to read more about it. This post from Dare Obasanjo will definitely make you stop and think, so make sure you read it:

In thinking about the Google OpenSocial Announcement I realized how much some of Google’s recent moves remind me of Microsoft of old [for some undeclared definition of old].

The five reasons Dare suggests all make sense to me. Still not sure what to make of that.

UPDATE: After thinking about this some more, it occurred to me that the headlines streaming across the web today would probably confuse the average Internet user. I mean, the average user probably uses both Google and Facebook in a (mostly) mutually exclusive way. Google is for search, Facebook is for wall posts. A headline like “Google vs. Facebook” would seem somewhat strange to that user. Or am I not giving the average user enough credit?

Read: TechCrunch

Blast from the past: hard drives

The computer industry changes so rapidly that it’s easy to forget about the hardware and devices we had just a few years ago. I’ve been cleaning up the office, getting rid of some junk that we’ve had lying around for years, and I’m amazed at some of the hardware I’ve found. Hard drives best demonstrate the difference between then and now – they’ve had the same form factor for years, but the capacities are vastly different.

For instance, the hard drive from an old Toshiba T4900CT laptop is only 810 MB! Technically that’s 770 MB I believe, yes megabytes. I don’t know why I’ve kept this laptop for so long, it hasn’t worked for years. I guess I’m a bit of a digital pack rat. It was the first laptop I ever used. My family used it at the pet store back in Inuvik when I was a kid, and it worked great. I even took it on a field trip back in high school (Dickson reminded me that we played Grand Theft Auto on the bus).

I found this description on the Toshiba Europe site:

The T4900CT and its 75 MHz Pentium processor will give you such speed and power when you’re out on the road that you’ll really move along the data super-highway. Back in the office, there’s hardly a desktop that can keep up with it.

How times have changed! Not only does it weigh about 15 pounds, but it’s a good four inches thick! The last thing that processor makes me think of is speed and power.

Here are a few photos I took tonight: the 810 MB hard drive, a 9.1 GB SCSI hard drive, and a 20.5 GB IDE hard drive.

810 MB hard drive 9.1 GB hard drive 20.5 GB hard drive

I wouldn’t consider buying anything smaller than a 300 GB SATA II hard drive now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that seems tiny in a couple years. Hard to imagine that a hard drive with only 770 MB was ever actually usable!

Notes for 10/28/2007

It feels to me like October has come and gone very quickly! I can’t believe that Halloween is on Wednesday. Oh well. Here are my weekly notes:

Speeding just isn't what it used to be!

Post ImageNormally when I hear someone talking about GPS, I think directions. You know, the gadget you have in your car that tells you where to turn left. Like most electronics however, there are cheap GPS units and top-of-the-line GPS units. Like the one Shaun Malone’s parents installed in his car:

GPS tracking systems like the one in Malone’s car are becoming an increasingly popular way for parents to keep tabs on their kids, an outgrowth of the initial use of such devices in car fleets and trucking. Many consumer-oriented GPS navigation systems also have these capabilities, but Malone’s was hardcore: the system would even e-mail his parents in the event that he drove too fast.

Try explaining that one when you get home! Your parents would know you’re speeding before you do!

Anyway, the great part about this story is that Shaun and his retired sheriff father are using data from the GPS unit to contest a speeding ticket:

While many GPS systems don’t log travel details extensively enough to be used as a defense against a moving violation, Malone’s car was outfitted with a device that could do just that. According to Rude, all recorded plots on Malone’s route show him to be driving under the speed limit.

Kinda takes the fun out of speeding, doesn’t it? I don’t really care if they win their case or not, but I do like it when new technology challenges the status quo!

Who knew GPS units could do so much?!

Read: ArsTechnica

Facebook Day – $15 billion!

Post ImageTo my knowledge there is no "Facebook Day" but that seems like a fitting label for today. Until the company eventually goes public, today is probably the most important day in Facebook’s (incredibly short) history. Today Microsoft announced that it would pay $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, which means:

The investment values the three-year-old Facebook, which will bring in about $150 million in revenue this year, at $15 billion.

“We are now stepping outside what is typically a business decision,” said Rob Enderle, the founder of the strategy concern Enderle Group. “This was almost personal. I wouldn’t want to be the executive that’s on the losing side at either firm.”

Yes, Facebook is officially worth $15 billion. I wrote in February that Facebook missed the boat by not selling to Yahoo, but also pointed out they’d get another shot. Turns out I was wrong on the first part, and right on the second. All of a sudden Mark Zuckerberg looks like a genius for saying "no thanks" to Yahoo’s paltry offer of $1 billion.

Microsoft and Google were said to be fighting over the deal to the very end, with Microsoft having the slight advantage thanks to a previous ad deal with Facebook. This deal is all about positioning – Microsoft couldn’t afford to let Google cozy up to Facebook’s growing network of eyeballs.

There’s a ton of commentary on this story in the blogosphere, so I won’t rehash that here, but there is one thing that seems odd to me: the amount. No doubt $240 million is a lot of money, but I was expecting an announcement in the billions today. Something more in line with Google’s purchase of YouTube or Microsoft’s purchase of aQuantive.

On the other hand, a smaller piece of a big pie is better than no pie at all.

Read: NYTimes.com

Five Geeky Things I Want To Learn More About

Like lots of other netizens, far too much information passes across my virtual desk in a day. With blogs, TechMeme, Twitter, and dozens of other sites and services, there’s far too many things to process all at once. At the same time, I don’t like missing anything. Usually what I do is bookmark things with del.icio.us, and then review them later. Sometimes those links are unrelated, other times they are part of a larger topic or subject. Here are five such topics:

  1. Silverlight
    Microsoft’s platform for Rich Internet Applications. I’ve checked out demos, examples, overviews, and other general information, but I need to get my hands dirty. I need to create something using Silverlight.
  2. F#
    Another Microsoft item on this list shouldn’t surprise anyone. F# is a functional and object-oriented programming language. I’ve heard many developers say that you should learn one new programming language a year, and F# seems to be worth looking into. Especially since Visual Studio will have full support for it!
  3. SOCAN
    Society of Composers, Artists and Music Publishers of Canada. The link is an Engadget article talking about the SOCAN push for a tax on music downloads here in Canada. I’ve been reading tons about the music industry lately, especially since the Radiohead experiment, but I want to know more about how Canada specifically is affected.
  4. OpenID
    A decentralized, single sign-on system that seems be all the rage these days. I’ve actually played with some code on this one, but I need to devote more energy to it. I want to know how it works with other systems, and where the system is going in the future.
  5. APML
    Attention Profiling Markup Language. Possibly the geekiest thing on this list. Essentially it’s an XML format for sharing your “attention” or “interests”. It enables you to rank your likes and dislikes, and to share that information with other services and applications. I think it could enable some really interesting scenarios if it was used widely enough.

There are dozens of other things I could have mentioned, of course, but these five are particularly interesting to me.

Notes for 10/21/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Went to see We Own The Night this evening. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.
  • Is piracy destroying the music industry? Hardly. Only sales of CDs are down, everything else is looking up.
  • Edmonton Code Camp was on Saturday! I missed a couple sessions, but the ones I did see were pretty interesting. Here are some photos. I also learned about Launchy from Bil Simser…it’s a nifty little utility! I’ve only had it installed for a little while, but I think I’m really going to like it.
  • Live in Edmonton or Calgary and dying to get an iPhone? Hugh can hook you up.
  • This is hilarious. Inuvik, the small town in the Northwest Territories where I used to live, received 1200 litres of buttermilk by mistake. That’s more than the store, NorthMart, sells in three years!
  • I have a friend who loves fall, a season we don’t usually get for very long here in Edmonton. This year has been pretty good so far, but I’m not sure I like this weather. It’s freezing in the morning, and warm in the afternoon. Kind of annoying.
  • This is an excellent post from Doc Searls on the future of news/newspapers. Definitely worth a read.