Posts by John Holley
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Things seem a bit better with the Herald site on Safari but both Safari and Firefox error consoles clearly show some faults with the JavaScript (much more detail from Firefox).
Not surprisingly they both give the same set of errors for the Herald and Stuff sites e.g. the unsafe Javascript in Safari's case.
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Well if we needed further evidence of the problems DRM legislation can cause, we only have to look at a case from Australia in the last few days where their Appeals Court has said that linking to copyright material at another site, without permission, can be illegal.
This goes back to the problems, from memory around 2000, when commercial organisations, not understanding one of the raison d'etres for the Web and why linking is so important, took umbrage at other sites linking to them.
Well, they lost that battle but now we are seeing modified copyright/DRM laws being used to criminalise folk who haven't done anything beyond linking to copyrighted material.
So, in the future, when I post a link on my personal website at a NZ Herald article which they hold the copyright for, can I see letter coming from their lawyers?
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Well they seem to have fixed, for me, the main URL loading but I still hit problems as soon as I follow a link off the main page or try one of the links from the RSS pages.
Also, I don't think they have followed accessibility guidelines - and certainly the tools for checking accessibility (W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0) seem to confirm this which is disappointing for those with vision impairment or blindness. A search of the web site turned up nothing.
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As an interesting background to this, and for anyone who thinks Microsoft is involved in most high-tech conspiracies, have a read of the Roughly Drafted article, The iTunes Vendor Lock In Myth.
It gives one cause for thought. We may all be aiming at RIANZ, and rightly so, but there are other significant players with real commercial interests in seeing this bill gets through.
Microsoft, if you weren't aware, has made it illegal to use any virtual technology for Vista machines if DRM technology is required. So you can have a couple of VMware/Wine/Parrallels etc. instances of Vista machines but if the apps you use need (do you know?) Microsoft DRM then you are prohibited from doing so.
From the Vista license agreement :
Use with Virtualization Technologies.
You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system. If you do so, you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management services or use BitLocker. We advise against playing or accessing content or using applications protected by other digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other rights management services or using full volume disk drive encryption.
There is more at stake here than just legal access to different forms of media.
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There seems to be a range of JavaScript errors that may be causing the problems for us Safari users. Safari logs unsafe JavaScript which relates to interaction between the Herald site and the Doublclick (ads) site.
Firefox lists several warnings and errors. I suspect that Firefox is a bit more "brutal" in skipping past faulty code. <shrug>
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I've also discovered that music you may want to buy that is highlighted in the NZ iTunes section of the Apple iTunes web pages is often unavailable in New Zealand. <sigh>
iTunes suggests, in the case of "The Saints are Coming" (Green Day and U2) of changing to the US store as the item is not available in the NZ store. It doesn't help the customer experience when stuff they highlight on the NZ web page ain't available in NZ!
Still, being able to get stuff like Fat Freddy's Drop Hope for a Generation means I can put up with the teething problems!
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Two things. One, for Mac users, have a look DRM Dumpster which, according to their blurb is :
the legal way to convert DRM tracks your iTunes music library to standard files. DRM Dumpster uses a CD-RW and iTunes itself to convert all of your DRM music files to files that you can use with any music player. With DRM Dumpster you can create MP3, AAC, Apple Lossles, AIFF, or WAV files from your DRM files. (At least in Europe)
On the store in general, it's annoying that the content is restricted e.g. TV and Movies, and that you have to know how to search to find podcasts from the rest of the world e.g. Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American, which is a favourite of mine which I discovered via the US iTunes store.
I know we are not the USA and there are copyright issues (can't seem to get free JPL podcasts) but we also are not Australia! :)
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Here is the NZX announcement :
Renaissance would like to advise that following Apple's launch this morning of the Apple Online Store and iTunes Online Store, Renaissance will no longer be responsible for maintaining the web site and online store on Apple's behalf.
As a result of this change, New Zealand will now come under Apple's worldwide pricing model.
Renaissance expects this to help increase overall demand for Apple products across all channels in the country.
While this change means Apple will have a direct online presence in New Zealand, Renaissance will continue to manage the distribution of Apple products in New Zealand. There are no changes in the contractual agreement between Apple and Renaissance.
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The other thing of course is that www.apple.co.nz now redirects you to www.apple.com/nz. I feel a bit sad about this being the person who set up the apple.co.nz domain years ago :(
But the good news is there is a chance to win a MacBook or one of 5 iPod Nanos each day!
We now can also have:
1) Build to order Macs
2) Free iPod personalisation
3) Free shipping
4) Online discounts for students and teachers
5) Mac and iPod experts via 0800 for support (interesting to see how that works)In way of price comparison, the new 17" MacBook Pro is roughly $350 more expensive in NZ than the US store. This is around 7% more expensive. (Which, as I have said elsewhere ties into our market size and currency hedging)
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And the RSS feed from Apple has this (as of 6:50am)
Apple Launches iTunes & Online Apple Stores in New Zealand
Today, 06:50 AM
Apple today launched the iTunes Store in New Zealand, giving New Zealanders access to outstanding local music and the same innovative features, breakthrough pricing and seamless integration with iPod that have made iTunes the most popular music jukebox and online music store in the world. Apple today also opened the online Apple Store New Zealand, where customers can quickly and conveniently purchase Apple’s complete lineup of innovative products. Read more…The link Read more... doesn't currently work. <shrug>