David Berube’s OLD Blog

I got an iPhone, disregard my last post….

I bought it this morning and my battery was dead by 8pm. Not sure if this is because I was playing with it all day and didn’t originally charge it for too long or if the battery just sucks. I hope it’s not an issue.

I’ve only been playing fantasy football for 3 years now (this is going to be my 3rd) and I love it.

Our draft is tomorrow and I’m just now getting prepared for it, but I’m doing A LOT of work. Last year I purchased some draft day software that worked perfectly.

That was on my PC laptop. I no longer own a PC laptop, I’ve since switched to a Mac. I come to find out that there is NO fantasy football draft software for Mac OS, which sucks. I could just use Excel, but how cool is that? Not very.

So what I’m doing today is building my own draft software for me to use tomorrow at the draft. That’s right, complete draft software in PHP using MySQL and Javascript.

Seems like a lofty task in such short-order, but since I’m the only one who will be using it, I don’t have to worry about intuitiveness, user-interface or any of that mumble-jumble, I can just make it. Knowing myself however, I’ll probably end up making it look as nice as possible, and I won’t be done until 2am…

Anyways, in the meantime, if anyone knows of any fantasy football draft software for Mac OS let me know so you can give me the day off!

draft software, fantasy football, fantasy football draft

Today will be the day when DRM, Digital Rights Management, died.  Apple and record label EMI announced today that they will begin selling music from it’s catalog on iTunes for $1.29 with no DRM. This means the music that you legally purchase from iTunes will truly be yours to do as you wish with.

And it’s about freaking time. If I pay for a song, it should be mine, and I should be able to do as I wish with it. As of right now I can only listen to it in iTunes and on my iPod.  I can’t put it on my Windows Mobile device(cell phone), or burn it to a CD (in some cases).

I’m expecting other major labels to follow suit in the coming months. CD sales are plummeting, and the executives need to come up with some new, fresh ways to make a buck. They need to adapt to the internet and not fight it.

apple, digital rights management, drm, emi, itunes, record label

For those of you who use Windows but really like the Mac dock feature I recommend RocketDock from Punk Software.

It acts just like the Mac dock, but it’s obviously for Windows and best of all it’s 100% free. I’ve been using it for some time now and it has definitely helped my productivity, making it easy for me to access my most used applications.

I will be recommending software that I use periodically. Usually software that helps me be more productive or creative.

apple, mac, microsoft, punk software, rocketdock, rocket dock, windows, xp

So, Apple just released it’s Apple TV and I’m not too impressed.

It’s aesthetic and it physically looks great, as you would expect from Apple, but it doesn’t do much more than let you play your media files on your computer on your television. Nothing new here in the form of technology.

A cheaper Windows Media Center extender will do the same thing, but it will allow you to use it as a digital video recorder (DVR), or a TiVo for those who are more familiar with the term. And that’s where Apple comes up short here. I would have bought one if it allowed for recording of cable or satellite television, but it doesn’t, so I’m not impressed.

Also worth noting, Amazon and TiVo have teamed up to allow you to purchase movies online from Amazon and play them directly on your television through TiVo, really eliminating the need to leave your house to purchase or rent a DVD.

My final verdict is too stick with Windows Media Center, and get a much cheaper extender for your television, you won’t be disappointed. And you can find a cheap Linksys version for about $150 less than the $299 tag on Apple TV.

amazon, apple, apple tv, digital video recorder, media center extender, tivo, windows, windows media center, windows media center extender