Blue Sky On Mars

• 16:34 argh. Nose is attempting to import modules that have nothing to do with tests and aren’t even imported in the code being tested. #

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For just $510 with a T-Mobile contract, you can “Buy a Apple iPhone”. Of course, once you get it and set it up, you’re likely to update to the latest iPhone software. At which point, #

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Amazon.com has launched their awaited MP3 Download service. I don’t know if eMusic has such a thing, but one important feature that Amazon has is their song downloader tool. This tool automatically adds the new song to iTunes, which makes the experience of buying from Amazon as close to the seamless iTunes experience as possible.

Amazon wins points in my book for shipping DRM-free MP3 tracks. A couple of the major labels signed on with Amazon, but some of them held out on the foolish belief that DRM was actually doing something useful for their businesses.

I quickly discovered that Amazon has tracks in MP3 format that iTunes only offers in DRM-protected format. For example, Fall Out Boy’s Thnks fr th mmrs is only available as a standard iTunes track, not an iTunes Plus track. K.T. Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” is available in iTunes Plus format for $1.29, but Amazon sells the same track for $0.89 in MP3 format.

Amazon’s catalog is reportedly a bit over 2 million tracks, whereas iTunes is at 6 million. Depending on the kind of music you buy, you’re likely to find some gaps in Amazon’s selection.

Right now, Amazon seems more likely a big new competitor to eMusic, the #2 download service. If Amazon manages to build out their selection more, it could pose a threat to iTunes domination (70%-plus in market share, from what I’ve read).

Update: John Gruber has similar praise and more detail about Amazon’s MP3 launch.

• A List Apart: Articles: If I Told You You Had a Beautiful Figure…
  Introduces FigureHandler which applies consistent (and smart) formatting to figures.
  (tags: css design javascript prototype webdesign layout images)
• macosxhints.com - Keyboard Maestro - App switcher, macros, and more
  Keyboard Maestro sounds neat. shame their site is down.
  (tags: mac software)

The October meeting of the Michigan Python Users Group is coming up next week. Thursday, October 4 at 7PM, once again at SRT Solutions’ office in downtown Ann Arbor.

This month, Jay Wren is going to be giving a talk about Boo, a very heavily Python-inspired language for .NET/mono. Though it’s not Python, I asked Jay to give this talk because Boo looks a lot like Python, but it’s statically typed (!) and incorporates some other .NET specific features.

It only just now occurred to me that having Boo as a topic for October is doubly appropriate, though the 4th is still a bit away from Halloween.

• 09:26 On Writing Well is… written well. #

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• Quicksilver in Real Life on Vimeo
  (tags: funny quicksilver mac geek)

• 13:24 terracotta.org annoys me, because it doesn’t list any downsides. #
• 22:08 @sillyevar check out CamStudio camstudio.org/ #

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• TuneCore
  This site publishes music to the major online music stores. You pay them a fee and keep all of the royalties.
  (tags: music marketing)
• Quercus: PHP in Java
  Interesting… an implementation of PHP in Java (apparently sophisticated enough to run Drupal).
  (tags: java php programming OpenSource software)