Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

I must be off Scoble’s list

I’ve been wondering how come none of my posts have shown up on Robert Scoble’s blog or his link blog in, like, forever.

It can’t be because I’m not writing about stuff that Scoble is intensely interested in. It can’t be because I wrote something that pissed him off (that’s actually the best way to get a link from Scoble). I put full posts in my RSS feed. It can only be … technical difficulties.

And sure enough, my RSS feed is on Scoble’s Bloglines blogroll, but it never made it to his NewsGator blogroll. I suspect that, like me, Scoble is using NewsGator a lot more than Bloglines these days, and we’re not alone. According to my Feedburner stats, the number of people who subscribe to this site’s RSS feed using a product from NewsGator (Outlook and online editions combined, plus FeedDemon, which NewsGator acquired last month) is nearly equal to the number who view it using Bloglines. That’s remarkable, because ony a few months ago nothing was close to Bloglines in my stats.

So, Robert, you need to add this feed to your NewsGator blogroll. And you’ve got some catching up to do!

Microsoft trying to undo iTunes lock-in?

Well, this is an interesting idea. According to CNET News, Microsoft is working on some serious changes to its online music service, including this doozy of a feature:

The tentative features of the new service–which is still under development–include advanced community aspects and playlist-sharing. But sources say Microsoft is also considering a more direct attack on Apple, seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version of any song they’ve purchased from the iTunes store so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod.

OK, now I want the recording industry to really, really think about the implications of this. If I pay a digital music provider to download a track, I’m actually paying two fees. One is a royalty to the artist and the publisher, which is passed through the music service. The other is a fee to the music service for providing the media to me. In this case, Microsoft is apparently arguing that you and I should only have to pay once for the digital rights to a song, regardless of the format it comes in. If iTunes passed along a payment on my behalf, then I have purchased the rights to play that tune, and Microsoft or Rhapsody or Yahoo or whoever should be able to provide that track to me as well. All they have to do is establish that I have already paid for the digital rights to that song.

Here’s where the argument gets sticky. Right now, when I buy a CD, I have the right to rip a copy of it to my hard disk for my personal use. I can make a backup copy of the CD media. I can make a custom mix of tracks, burn it to a CD, and play it in my car. I can copy all those tracks to my personal music player. Using the logic of this rumored Microsoft proposal, I already paid for the digital rights to this song when I bought the CD; my payment was passed to the publisher and artist by the record company from whom I bought the CD. So why can’t I get Microsoft-format digital copies of any music in my CD collection, just by proving to Microsoft that I own the original CD?

Can any of the copyfighters out there tell me what’s wrong with this idea?

(Thanks to Digital Media Thoughts for the pointer)

Mark Cuban gets it, the New York Times doesn’t

In the New York Times’ “What’s Online” column, Dan Mitchell takes aim at Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and blows a hole in his own foot:

[W]hen [Cuban]’s not talking about himself the pervasive theme is money, and why it is good. In a recent entry about a proposal to sell ad space on N.B.A. players’ uniforms, he makes a decent financial case for the idea, but he does so as if finances were the only consideration.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for the N.B.A. to monetize the lead we have built in making the N.B.A. an international game and brand,” Mr. Cuban writes. “The time for the N.B.A. to seize this opportunity is now – for the right price, of course.”

It is as if it had never occurred to him that many fans might object. Baseball fans already have to try to enjoy the national pastime at places with names like Cellular One Field. Now they may see their basketball heroes turned into sweaty, panting human billboards. Mr. Cuban’s readers are left to comment.

“I am sick and tired of advertising,” Peter Wallroth writes. “It is creeping into everything, and it is driving me insane. If my sports teams start becoming advertisements I am going to have to really consider not watching them anymore.”

News flash, Dan. Every owner of every major league sports team is thinking about money all the time, and how to make more of it. If other NBA owners are thinking of putting together a plan to sell advertising on player jerseys, we’ll never know about it unless one of them decides to leak the story to a reporter. By the time the plan is implemented, it will certainly be too late for fans to object.

By contrast, Cuban puts his ideas out there in public on blogmaverick.com, for fans to read and react to. He allows reader comments. So if it hadn’t yet occurred to him that fans might object, he’ll get a chance to hear directly from the fans. Wow. Communication! Imagine that!

Ironically, Dan’s newspaper doesn’t allow readers to comment directly on an article Dan posts. It is as if it had never occurred to Dan that readers of his newspaper might object to his opinions about Cuban. So the only way I can tell Dan he’s full of crap is to post this note.

“What’s online,” indeed.

Update: Tim O’Reilly noticed Dan’s column also and comments, “These ‘blogs’ must be quite threatening, for the Times to devote a whole column to slamming them!“

You want a really, really big external drive?

Forget USB and FireWire. I want one of these Terabyte Hot Drives from Evergreen Technologies:

The TeraByte HotDrive is based on the latest Serial ATA RAID technology. By incorporating this new data transfer technology, the HotDrive delivers the large storage capacity demanded by today’s data intensive computing at speeds that will support your productivity requirements. Evergreen’s HotDrive storage products are the ideal answer for audio and video production studios, cad design, database management, and small home and office networks.

Our four bay drive enclosures measure 10″ High x 7″ Wide x 15″ Deep.


The entry-level 1000 GB (1 terabyte) drive array is under a grand. Thomas Hawk, this might be the solution for your massive music collection!

Tip of the day: Back up your entire user profile

A few weeks ago, I explained how to relocate the My Documents folder. I’ve had lots of positive feedback to that tip, so it seems like a good time to talk about (in my best Paul Harvey voice) the rest of your data.

If you only back up your My Documents folder, you’re in for a rude shock if you ever have to restore that backup. Any files you had saved on your desktop will be gone. Your e-mail files (Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird, for instance) will have disappeared. Your address book will be missing in action, as will the settings for most programs. And your Internet Explorer Favorites and your Firefox bookmarks. And your Word document templates. And so on and on and on.

To learn where these “other” data files are stored, it helps to understand how Windows XP organizes your personal data. Everything starts with your user profile, which consists of a set of subfolders within a folder in the Documents And Settings folder. Your user profile folder normally has the same name as your logon name. Two exceptions: First, if you’re creating a domain profile, your name and the domain name are both part of the folder name, with a dot separating the two elements. Second, if your Documents And Settings folder already contains a folder whose name is the same as your user name, Windows will tack a number onto the end of your profile folder.

Inside your user profile folder are a number of subfolders whose purpose is to store data that you and only you will use. The two most important are Application Data and Local Settings\Application Data, both of which are hidden by default. (For details on how to work with hidden folders, see this tip.) Well-written Windows programs store user-specific data in these locations, which is why you’ll find your Outlook data files in Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. Your Outlook Express folders are in Local Settings\Application Data\Identities, with each identity getting its own subfolder and a cryptic 32-character alphanumeric name. And your Mozilla Thunderbird mail files are in a randomly named subfolder of Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles.

Confused? Your best strategy is to back up your entire user profile folder. If you use the Windows XP Backup program (click that link to learn how to install and use this great hidden utility), this option is the default choice in the What to Back Up screen when you start in wizard mode. If you use any other backup program, be sure to point it to the top-level folder for your user profile.

An alternate strategy (one I don’t recommend) is to configure your most important programs to store their data in the My Documents folder rather than in your user profile. This process is cumbersome for most programs, and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it right.

Update: If you’re looking for advice on how to actually use the backup program after it’s installed, see this article I wrote in 2003, which is still accurate: Windows XP Backup Made Easy. Thanks to Frank for the comment suggesting I add this information.

MSN toolbar adds tabs to IE6

I just installed the new MSN Search Toolbar, which includes an updated version of the Windows Desktop Search utility and adds tabbed browsing capabilities to Internet Explorer 6.

First reactions: The search tool absolutely rocks, and the degree to which you can customize it is very, very impressive. For now, at least, it’s going to replace Copernic Desktop Search on my machine.

Tabbed browsing is promising, although not nearly as smooth or configurable as Firefox or Maxthon. My biggest complaint so far is that new links I open from an external source (like NewsGator Outlook Edition) open in a new window. That kind of defeats the purpose of tabbed browsing, and I can’t see how to override that behavior. I’m sure there’s a way; if anyone’s found it, drop me a note in the comments.

Also, I’d really like to be able to close an open page by double-clicking its tab (or open a new blank tab by double-clicking in the empty space of the tab bar). Both Firefox and Maxthon do this, and the IE add-on should do the same.

Biggest benefit is that I can return to using IE with several of my favorite add-ins that aren’t supported elsewhere: BlogJet, Fiddler, and the Send To OneNote PowerToy are three that come immediately to mind.

Asa Dotzler of the Firefox team tried the MSN Toolbar “for about 15 minutes” last night and posted his capsule review: “It sucks.” Today, he says he tried it for another 15 minutes: “I’ve revised my opinion some; it _really_ sucks.” Underestimating the competition is always a bad idea, Asa. This version of the toolbar appears less than four weeks after the original version shipped. As Google has already shown, you can incrementally improve and deliver a browser toolbar component very quickly.

Update: After spending a few hours with the MSN add-in, I think I’ll turn off the tabbed browsing function and go back to using Maxthon. The Windows Desktop Search capability is slick and polished, but the tabbed browsing add-on feature is very poorly implemented. As Asa points out, there are some serious bugs in this portion of the code that render it unusable. If you switch to full-screen view (press F11), all other tabs close. That sucks.

Hey, MSN, are you listening?

Tip of the day: Cut the Recycle Bin down to size

By default, the Windows Recycle Bin sets aside 10 percent of the space on each disk partition in your system for storage of deleted files, up to a maximum of 3.99 GB. If you have a 400GB hard drive divided into four partitions, the Recycle Bin could be using up 16 gigabytes of storage. To adjust its appetite to a more manageable level, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The resulting dialog box contains a Global tab and an additional tab for each hard disk partition that has a drive letter.

Recycle_bin

Use the slider controls on the Global tab to decrease the percentage of space allotted to the Recycle Bin for all drives on your system. Unless you routinely work with very large files, setting aside a maximum of 1 GB per drive letter should be sufficient to prevent waste and still allow you to recover a file you delete accidentally.

Why you should send those error reports to Microsoft

When a Windows program crashes, Windows XP gives you the opportunity to send an error report to Microsoft. The process is called Online Crash Analysis. My advice: Do it. Here’s a perfect example of why it’s good for you and for your fellow PC users.

For years, I’ve encountered a sporadic problem with Word. The conditions that lead to the error are easy to identify, although I’ve never been able to reliably reproduce it. Basically, if I cut large blocks of text from a specific type of document (something I do fairly often when writing a book), I run a serious risk that Word will crash with an error message that points to “stamp 424d964d.” I’ve Googled the error and found that other people have it too. But I’ve never found an answer, and I’ve learned to be extra careful when doing mass cut-and-paste jobs. (The good news is that Word always recovers my documents perfectly, and I don’t lose any data – only some time as I reopen and repair each one.)

Today I encountered this error several times, and on the last time I decided to send in an error report. I’ve done this a hundred times or more before, but this time the response I got was different. After the error report finished sending, I was greeted with this Web page:

Word_error
[Click image to see a larger view.]

Some engineer, using the great big bucket of error reports sent in from all sorts of people all over the world, found the problem, which turns out to be a bug in Word 2003. A fix is in the works. When the fix is ready, the Online Crash Analysis page will offer to install it for me when I bump into this error and send in a report. Imagine that!

Update: Turns out others have been talking about this lately as well. Read this, and this, and this, for instance (thanks, Nicholas). And this informative post from Chris Pratley (thanks, Zaine).