More Places to Read Jonzo's Rantings

I am now also publishing this blog at http://my.opera.com In doing so this will give me the chance to upload an entry to my blog via the Opera Mini browser installed on my mobile phone! So even if I am not near to a computer, I can still upload posts to my blog for you to read.

You can view my blog at My Opera using the following web address (entered in to your web browser, or Opera Mini): http://my.opera.com/jonzo247/blog/ When you access this address, not only can you read all my latest entries, but you can also read entries right back from when I started blogging, as Opera had an option to import a blog from Blogger! You can also read my blog at my MSN Space as well at http://spaces.msn.com/members/jonzo247 or in your e-mail by using the subscribe button on my blog, when you read it at my website.

It doesn't matter where you read my blog, all the entries will be the same. I'm simply publishing to several locations in order to get a nice big readership. Enjoy reading my blog, and thanks for visiting it.

More iTunes / Legal Music Downloads

Well having used iTunes for a few weeks, it has opened my mind. I have started listening to new artists, something that a month ago I would not have thought about doing! My music collection now includes songs from: Rachel Stevens, Sugababes & Madonna. I suspect that over the coming weeks my collection will grow with more new artists! Since iTunes has a feature that suggests tracks I should purchase, and has just recommended I get a track called Love Generation by Bob Sinclair feat: Gary Pine, which having heard the 30 sec clip does sound rather catchy.

I think Digital Music Downloads are the way forward, as you can have the music where you want it - on your Mobile Phone, Portable MP3 player on burnt on to a CD. In the future we will probably buy HiFi's with connections for MP3 players to be connected to them so we can hear our favourite music any way we want to!

The only thing now that has to be solved with Digital Downloads is the following:

1. Record labels must ensure that all their artists are available on at least 1 digital music store, ideally on them all, and artists should not be able to say I don't want my music available digitally
2. Artists / Record Labels should promote legal downloading
3. A full back catalogue of an artist should be available where possible, along with rare and hard to find tracks.
   
4. Exclusives should be offered to digital downloaders to encourage them to buy full albums digitally rather than on CD (if I wanted an album by an artist that was available digitally I would still buy it on CD, as I have no incentive to get the digital version, and can rip the files from the CD for use in my PC, MP3 player etc), such as bonus videos with albums, or exclusive mixes, something that iTunes does with some artists.
   
5. Once you have paid for and downloaded a track you should be able to use that track in whatever device you want, as long as you don't share the file.
   

Once those few things have been solved digital downloads will in my opinion be perfect, and the day will come, I think when you can go in to a record store, select the digital tracks you want, and have them burned on CD, thus giving you the tracks you want, and not those you don't.

iTunes

I have recently joined iTunes, and I think it is a fantastic service - the best place to go to get legal music downloads, partly because there are many exclusives on the service, for example Madonna's new album is available for download complete with video for her new single, and a digital book, whereas on other download services you just get the songs. You can also download music videos, at twice the price of a song, and Podcasts for free.

If you have not got iTunes I recommend that you do. You can download it from http://www.itunes.co.uk. Not only is iTunes a good music store, but it is also a good media player for your PC, and uses Apple QuickTime to play videos. It also features a Party Shuffle mode, which plays your favourite songs in a party mix style, and can create a playlist based on what you want in it, such as 15 minutes of music by x artist

I have one gripe with this service though. I recently purchased Hung Up by Madonna, and decided that I would to have the song on my mobile phone's music player my Sony K750i can be used as an MP3 player, and take removable memory cards to boost the memory available to the phone. Unfortunately iTunes will only let you use music you have bought on an iPod, an iTunes phone or burn it to CD, which is no good for users of other digital music players or non iTunes mobile phones (many high end mobile models are coming with built in MP3 players). I think it is time that iTunes supported more digital MP3 players, as I think if they did that they could sew up the market for legal music downloads!

Opera Mini

Recently I have found a wonderful piece of software for my mobile phone. Made by Opera Software, the people behind the Opera web browser, they have released an internet browser for Java compatible mobile phones called Opera Mini. I have been trying this software package for a few days and I must say it is excellent. It allows you to surf the internet on your mobile phone, by using a special processing system to make the pages work on a small screen. I tested the browser with the BBC News page and my GMail account, and both pages worked well.

What I also like about the browser is that can also be used to access WAP pages as well (sometimes faster than your phones built in WAP browser), and you can store bookmarks, complete with bookmark icons, just like in PC browser such as Firefox and IE, so you don't have to type in where you want to go. If the web site supports cookies then you can store usernames and passwords, making access even quicker. When Opera Mini loads it comes up with a start page that can be customised with the addition of your favourite bookmarks.

Opera have created I believe an essential tool for mobile phones, and I believe that it should be included on all Java compatible mobile phones that are released in the future as it is a very good way of accessing the internet, and when it comes to having a 3G phone, it will become an essential piece of software, as full blown websites will be able to be seen on your phone, in a quick way, making access to webmail such as Hotmail or GMail a reality for many phone users.

If you would like to try Opera Mini, go to http://my.opera.com/community/ and follow the Opera Mini download instructions from there. You will need to download the software via your phone, rather than PC.