AC/DC comes to iTunes

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One of the last major iTunes holdouts is now available for download. AC/DC is finally on the iTunes Store. […]

Apple Specialist Sam Sung

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The Loop reader sent me this business card today. Sam Sung was helping his wife’s aunt. […]

Igloo’s Fall update, Q, is here

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Many thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring this week’s feed on The Loop.

Q brings over 25 new features ­installed, tested and managed ­as a free platform update to all Igloo customers.

Igloo users can now post blogs, wiki articles, documents and status updates right from their email. Igloo has also developed a brand-new calendar that integrates with your intranet and your desktop calendar applications. Q also adds a smart search that finds relevant content and displays it instantly and inline. Igloo has also introduced the ability to find and @mention users from any content entry field.

Igloo is trying to make work a better place. A recent IDC report states “… Igloo had the best overall solution capability rating from respondents.” IDC placed Igloo in the Major Players category for enterprise social software. You can download a complimentary copy of the report from Igloo.

Get an intranet you’ll actually like. Try Igloo.

The new Twitter

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Matt Buchanan:

The message from Twitter over the last year has been consistent about one thing: Change is coming. It’s building a new Twitter. We sort of joked it would look like this — essentially, more like Facebook — but the new features Twitter rolled out last night show just how true that will be.

The other consistent message is that they’ll screw their developers.

The cost of a click

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Horace Dediu:

The bottom line is that an individual click is not as valuable as it used to be. Would a larger volume of mobile usage be a reason? Google won’t say.

With operating margins falling, Google must be very concerned.

No need for patent system overhaul, says Microsoft

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Bart Eppenauer, Microsoft’s chief patent counsel:

“There are a lot headlines about the patent system being out of control and major changes being needed,” Eppenauer says. “While certainly there are areas for improvement in the patent system — in terms of what the U.S. Patent [& Trademark] Office can do and what the courts can do and what companies can do — this doesn’t mean you need, at least from our point of view, some sort of radical overhaul of the system or a complete change in the approach to certain technologies.”

Why am I not surprised.

Tattoo for cancer

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TechCrunch’s Drew Olanoff recently celebrated his 33rd birthday (Happy Birthday brother), but instead of getting gifts, he asked people to donate to help fund research on children’s cancer. In exchange, he did some unique — I’ll let you read for yourself.

Much respect Drew.

You have got to be fucking kidding me

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Tired of the bold, yet unsubstantiated claims of financial analysts, the L.A. Times turns to a bastion of data analysis for its latest story… CouponCodes4u.com.

On Thursday, the folks behind CouponCodes4u.com made a bold prediction: They say the Kindle Fire HD will outsell the iPad mini by 2 to 1.

To back up that claim, the coupon clearing house website cited data collected from its website that shows nearly twice as many searches for the words “Kindle Fire HD” compared with “iPad mini” in the last three weeks.

Pathetic.

Here’s an analogy I posted on Twitter:

Equivalent of @latimes iPad mini/Kindle story is asking Ferrari club how many will buy a Corolla, then concluding Ferrari will outsell them.

Google, Dish may launch wireless service

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Dish has been in talks with several companies, including Google. While everything is in the early stages, it would be very interesting if Google did move ahead with this plan given its relationship with existing carriers.

Here is a Google Cache link of the WSJ article.

Musicians unite to fight Pandora

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MusicFIRST, an organization that represents musicians and their rights, in collaboration with SoundExchange on Wednesday announced that 125 artists, 40 of which are Grammy award winners, have opposed the bill. Artists include Common, Dead Kennedys, Missy Elliot, Vince Gill, Don Henley, Billy Joel, Maroon 5, Martha Reeves, David Sanborn, Michael W. Smith and Roger Waters, among others.

I always believed musicians should be paid for their music. Perhaps it’s because I know so many of them that rely on it for their livelihood, but whatever the reason, if you want to use their material, they need to get paid.

A trophy of design and a failure of engineering

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Shawn Blanc on his new Hidden Radio:

The device is little more than a giant volume knob with a speaker inside, and yet, ironically, it’s the most difficult-to-use volume knob in my home.

Great review of a kickstarter project he backed last year. Reading the review, I felt bad for Shawn because he didn’t seem to have any unreasonable expectations for the device, but yet it still failed.

vjay for iPhone

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vjay transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into a cutting-edge mashup machine, directly integrated with the media libraries on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Another great looking app from Algoriddim. They have an iPad version too.

Microsoft has failed

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Charlie Demerjian:

In the end, the death spiral for Microsoft is in full effect, and management is expending a lot of effort to speed it up. Anyone who dares point out that the entire system is collapsing, or worse yet suggests an alternative, gets Sinofsky’d. Or was it Guggenheimer’d? In any case, Microsoft is unwilling to change, and that is very clear. Even if they wanted to, they are culturally far beyond the point of being able to. What was a slow bleed of marketshare is now gushing, and management is clueless, intransigent, and myopic. Game over, the thrashing will continue for a bit, but it won’t change the outcome.

You may think that this is kind of harsh or maybe even an improbable outcome, but as you read through the story, you see that he is exactly right.

The best job in the world

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I laughed repeatedly when reading this comic. The part about the guy and his pants reminded me so much of Peter Cohen. Kind of frightening really.

Tips on using the UA Precision K-Stereo Ambience Recovery Plug-In

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While there’s still no substitute for a great mix or good microphone technique, the Precision K-Stereo Plug-In is a simple yet powerful new ambience recovery tool that can actually enhance the depth and imaging of a recording during mastering without adding artificial reverberation or changing the ratio of center elements to side elements.

This is Universal Audio’s latest plug-in and as you can see from the description, it can really help with the subtle characteristics of your song. The tips come straight from the company and is well worth the read.

HP: Surface is ‘slow’ and ‘kludgey’

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Todd Bradley, the head of HP’s PC business:

“I’d hardly call Surface competition,” Bradley said in an interview with IDG Enterprise. He listed several reasons, “One, very limited distribution. It tends to be slow and a little kludgey as you use it …. It’s expensive. Holistically, the press has made a bigger deal out of Surface than what the world has chosen to believe.”

This coming from one of Microsoft’s partners.

Ballmer is batshit crazy

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Ballmer last night during an interview with Reid Hoffman: Ballmer called the Android ecosystem “wild,” “uncontrolled” and susceptible to malware. This coming from the man that’s in charge of the most virus- and malware-infected operating system in the world. Perhaps … Continued

Now this is a picture

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I stared at this picture of an eye for quite a while before I finally saw what it was. Freaky.

Windows 8 released, one-third of users consider Apple

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Most Windows users in the U.S. know about Windows 8 but few have immediate plans to upgrade to Microsoft’s newest operating system.

What’s more, about one-third of Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP users who are ready to buy a new personal computer say they intend to switch to an Apple product.

Fascinating numbers for me, but they must be frightening for Microsoft. Imagine that one-third of your customers — 350,000 people in this survey — decide that your product is so bad, they are switching to the competition. Microsoft has run out of goodwill from its users.

Markdown Apps for the Mac

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Stef Gonzaga put together a great roundup of Markdown apps on AppStorm. I’m really late to the Markdown party, but I really like using it. I started with Markdown last year and it’s incredibly versatile.

Kurt Cobain’s top 50 albums list

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It won’t be new to anyone who owns a copy of Kurt Cobain’s Journals, but for the rest of us, the late Nirvana frontman’s hand-scrawled list of his all-time favorite albums is a sight to behold. It’s always interesting to … Continued

Adobe support site hacked

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News of the intrusion surfaced late Tuesday, when a hacker claiming to be from Egypt claimed the hack and proved it by releasing 644 records from the site, including emails, saying that the release was done to prove that Adobe … Continued

Amplified: Chairman of the Beard

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Jim and Dan discuss Sinofsky’s departure and it’s affect on Microsoft, US iPhone sales by outlet and the success and importance of the Apple Store, the desperate future of RIM, allergic reactions to the Blackberry, the iPad mini and Apple’s … Continued