this is great.
it’s hard to keep up with all the stuff that comes out.
this is "old". was released 3 weeks ago, and i only discovered it today…

i am now officially a fan of Dan Meth

just as i was complaining about the torture of DRM Amazon launched their DRM-free MP3 music store.

i can play the music i buy there everywhere i like.
it is in better quality than iTunes DRM tracks.
most of the tracks are cheaper than iTunes.
the interface is easy and straight forward.
it integrates seamlessly with the crappy iTunes software (that i must still use to manage my iPhone).

already bought a couple of Albums… my only "complaint" is that it is too easy for me to spend money in this store…

i first saw Shannon Elizabeth (and learned to appreciate her many talents..) when i saw American Pie. a few weeks ago i was channel surfing on the radio when driving (didn’t have my iPod kit with me) and heard her talk about her new movie Deal.

then she said that first 50 people to call the show will win a trip to Vegas to the premier of the movie. and very out of character for me, i called. to my surprise i was one of the 50. the prize is a bit dubious, since i have to go see a resort that is being built while i am there, or i’ll have to pay $129. no way i am going to the resort..

still its 3 nights in Vegas, $200 to spend in the Casino, show tickets and some other stuff. we’re also invited to the premier of the movie, with the red carpet and everything. but we decided to pass on the premier and just go to Vegas later in the year.

overall this is kind of a sleazy promotion, since Shannon didn’t mention the caveats. but i forgive her.

DRM should be abolished. it makes no sense for many reasons, but one reason is that the consumers that are really being hurt by DRM are those who are actually paying for content.

my most recent experience of buying a movie was a great example of how to piss off a customer. i rented an HD version of "The Lookout" through my Xbox360 (don’t ask me why this specific movie. i was desperate and the content selection was poor… due to DRM).

it was a progressive download (4.5Gb file), so after a few minutes it told me that i could start playing the movie. 30min into the movie it stopped. the download speed did not keep up with the movie playtime… i gave it a few more minutes to buffer and tried again. i was able to watch a few more minutes before it stopped again.

we went to sleep.

the day after (at about the same time in the evening) we sat to continue watching the movie. we were able to watch about 10min before the movie stopped and said the license has expired (it is a 24hr rental from the time you start watching the movie, and they don’t care if the download finished or not).

this really pissed us off.

i wrote an email to the company explaining the situation and asking for either a refund or that they give me more time to watch the movie.. after a couple of days i got a semi-automated response, suggesting i call customer service.

calling customer service proved be a disappointing (yet expected) waste of time. the service rep did not understand what my problem was, kept wanting to connect me to the "network and connectivity" department, and said that they don’t give refunds.

i gave up. doesn’t worth the waste of time and aggravation.

when we have some spare time between writing code and giving demos we come up with corporate policies.

one such recent policy has to do with the cars we drive. we agreed that the company will reimburse employees for certain car-related expanses. the only condition is that in order to qualify for the reimbursements the car must be an hybrid.

we’ll do our best to be a socially and environmentally aware company.

i thought this is an important enough matter for me address it on the official company blog. for the past week i have been listening to both albums.

i think Graduation is one of the best hip-hop albums ever. don’t know who will come on top in terms of album sales (they should also count illegal downloads..), but to me it’s very clear that Kanye’s album is better. the first 3 tracks made it to the Top Rated Playlist on my iPhone iPod with spotty cellular reception.

their inspiration for lyrics seems to be very similar. money, Louis Vutton, bitches and ‘hos. i just think is Kanye is doing a much better job with the limited material.

we reached a significant milestone in our short history. we now have a version of the software that we can go around and show people.

pretty raw.
not too stable.
some hiccups.
but overall great.

it does the job and delivers the message. it’s fun to be able to get to the ‘demo’ slide in the presentation and actually have a demo

we are in San Francisco this week. yesterday when we finished our meetings we passed by the Scientology church in downtown. they advertised a free stress test and the guy at the entrance invited us to check it out. being in a good mood and curious we entered..

after a tour of the lobby we were taken to take the test.
idan tried it first. after a short calibration of the machine he was asked to think about something. the alien designed stress-o-meter immediately detected a serious stress situation (see below)

idan was taken for consultation to see if the answer to his stressful life can be found in the church of scientology.

i took the test next.
i was asked to think about my family, friends, work, home.
the dial did not move.
i was asked to concentrate. the machine was re-calibrated.
nothing.
next i made a conscious effort to become stressed, i tried thinking about running out of money… about marketing boxee… about talking with VCs… about having another baby…
still nothing.
either i am one cool cucumber or the machine’s ‘randomize’ function didn’t work.

so the guide asked me what I think would be a cause for stress in my life. i said "work". she said she is sure they can help. and sent me to speak with a counselor about my work situation.

my counselor asked me what i do for work. and i was surprised that given the fact that we were in downtwon San Francisco she still didn’t know what a start-up is.. i explained what boxee does (figured there is no need for an NDA in this case). she asked what are the potential sources for stress in boxee. and i explained about the raising the money stuff, the marketing challenge, competition, etc.

she mostly nodded. i think i kind of bored her. but it was good to spill it out.
she thought several of their work-related booklets can do magic for me. $5 for each booklet, and that sea of knowledge written in big fonts, short sentences and illustrations could be mine. i decided to pass. said i’ll check their website.

before i left i saw they have a Celebrity Worship Center in NYC. i asked whether i could go there (given that celebrity spotting is a hobby of mine). she said celebs need their own private space and that i will have to go where everyone else is going.

after careful consideration of the Church of Scientology i have decided to wait until i become a celebrity, get addicted to drugs, sex or both and then check these guys out again.

you know how it is in relationships. when the passions and excitements of the first days are over, and you settle into the routine. still from time to time there are these spurs. rush of emotions. and you re-live some of those early emotions.

such is my relationship with the Internet. we’ve been together since 1994. it is one of the first things i do each morning, and one the last things i do each night. we settled into a routine.

but today is one of these days when it got me excited.

i disconnected from cable, so i only get a few channels at home. usually i don’t care. but today i wanted to watch the US Open Tennis matches, and unfortunately i don’t have USA Networks who broadcast the competition..

so i turned to Google for help. asking if there is a site where i can watch it online.
Google returned irrelevant results.. after a little more digging Yahoo! Answers came to the rescue. someone else was having the same trouble, and the answer contained a link to a site that broadcasts EuroSport from France in surprisingly good quality.

i love the Internet.

i just came back from a 10 days vacation in Italy. at my first start-up i would not have dared to take a vacation at this stage of the company, but being a bit older and with a bit more perspective i didn’t think twice before taking these days off.

i checked my emails daily (though not thanks to my iPhone, which after a few days decided not to connect to the local EDGE networks), do a couple of conference calls, but mostly i was able to clear my head and recharge my batteries (to the extent you can recharge anything when you are traveling with a 3yr and 1yr old..).

eating so much good food and drinking the local wines we agreed that we should seriously consider opening our first European branch in Tuscany.

a note re GPS:
tom brought his PDA/GPS thing. i must admit i am biased against his GPS. i hate her. she spends most of her time recalculating routes, telling you you’re driving too fast, suggesting U-turns and picking the worst possible path between point A and B.

the second car we took had a built-in GPS. it took us a while to get it going since the default language was German, and it was almost impossible to find how to change the interface to English (a big UI mistake). once we had it working it was a pleasure. she was much more polite (the British accent helped), she connected to the network to get traffic updates and changed course accordingly, a real treat after the abuse we got from Tom’s GPS in the first week.