Re-kindling an interest in reading

kindle-2009

I was a relatively early adopter of the Kindle, thanks to a birthday gift of the Kindle 2 in 2009. It has been a transformative device for me; I’ve read more since I got the Kindle than I had previously, and I pretty much read every day with it.

Sadly, the Kindle 2, which had been in service for so long, has recently decided it had enough. My screen effectively began to divide in two and reading on it became nearly impossible. The time had come to replace it. Continue reading

Streaming economics revisited, thanks to Taylor Swift

pandora-streaming

Earlier here on the blog, I featured some thoughts about streaming music and the economics behind it. It’s come up again recently, thanks to Taylor Swift pulling her music off of Spotify as a protest over the streaming rates paid, and Sony Music was reportedly evaluating whether it might do the same. Continue reading

Mourning the death of the iPod Classic

ipod-classic

I’ve been using various iPod Classic models for more than a decade now; I prefer the controls, especially when driving or commuting, as I don’t have to look at the device to perform certain actions – it’s intuitive thanks to the four buttons on the scroll wheel. The iconic scroll wheel was even parodied by The Onion in a viral video. Continue reading

A decade later: iTunes and digital downloads

itunes-icons

Somehow in the midst of everything, I failed to post on a subject I had been waiting awhile to because an anniversary was coming.  Well, it passed, but it still was a game changer for me and how I shop for music: The launch of iTunes and the iTunes Store for Windows, which happened in October of 2003. Continue reading