Far From Home

dirty one:thirty LIVE in South Beach, Baby!

If you are going to be down in South Beach, Miami this weekend for Winter Music Conference 2009, then you are required to come check out at least one of the two gigs I am playing this year:
I think these times are somewhat subject to slight change, but they are, as of now, confirmed:
- Friday, March 27th - 9pm - 11pm - Xenoc solo set.

- Saturday, March 28th : 1pm - 5pm - dirty one:thirty LIVE.

Feel free to help me spread the word!  And please let me know if you plan to attend so we can meet up!
I will be in Miami from Friday morning to Tuesday morning.


Professional Inquiries:
Xenoc: info @ xenocmusic.comdirty one:thirty: booking @ dirtyonethirty.com

Dropbox - Sync Made Simple

Dropbox is, as stated on the official website, "the easiest way to share and store your files online."

In no way is this an exaggeration.  For quite some time, my DJing partner and I have been wishing we had a way to not only transfer files between eachother easily and without size limitations, but to do it passively.  In other words, I want to be able to drop files on his computer whether he is around or not, and vice versa.  Whenever he gets around to sitting down at his PC, they'll be there.  

Now, this isn't a brand new concept, just by far the most brilliant execution I've seen.  There's plenty of replication / syncronization technologies that could resolve this on some level or another, but without the online-storage aspect that Dropbox provides, only partial solutions remain, many of which are extremely expensive.

I have no doubt that there are other services like this, and I'm sure some of them are probably good, but given the fact that within minutes, Dropbox was up and running and working precisely as intended... well, you could say I'm impressed.  

It may initially seem like you have little need for something like this, but I'll bet if you think about it, you will probably be able to identify some creative ways to get value out of this app.  If nothing else, this is a stupid-easy way to keep your data backed up externally, and if you've never lost your data to a harddrive crash, you'll be certain to eventually in this technologically charged day and age.  Better safe than sorry.

Best of all, Dropbox provides accounts with 2GB of available storage for free!  If you want more space, you can upgrade to 50gb for $9.99 a month.

To download Dropbox, visit the official website.  Or alternatively, for more insight into what this app can do, check out the numerous Dropbox-related posts on lifehacker.com.

Apple is Charging for DRM Removal... Goddamnit.

Well, any props that I had reserved for Apple as a result of their decision to remove DRM from iTunes downloads are now getting the shaft.  Turns out they are going to charge 30 cents per song for the removal of DRM copy-protection from anything downloaded from the iTunes music store prior to this decision.  

So, basically, they clearly have decided that DRM was a poor business decision, and clearly admit this. Why is it, exactly, that Apple customers are paying to reverse the mistake that inconvenienced them in the first place?  It makes no sense, but it's a very "Apple" move.

Lame.  Lame.  Lame.  Apple always manages to be almost cool, but then undeniably lame at the last second.  Their new pricing model has some decidedly lame points to it as well.

DRM-Free iTunes?!?

It's official... Apple has announced some major changes to the iTunes Music Store... The biggest of which is the removal of all Digital Rights Management (copy protection) from purchased music.  They are also providing a means of converting any existing DRM-enabled songs in your library.  

This is potentially a huge step towards the music industry of the future, as iTunes is definitely the 800-pound gorilla of the online music store industry, and their decision to remove DRM from their downloads could prove quite influential throughout.  We shall see.

More information after the jump.

[Gizmodo Macworld 2009 Coverage]