Fresh off the press: IBM announces “killer”office software for free. It includes Word Processing, Presentation and Spreadsheet applications. Free for all; individual, educational and business.
With a name like IBM, I wonder what this will do to the price of MS Office products in the future?
I just learned about this software about 30 minutes ago while reading Pete Whitfields’s Blog. I have to admit it’s cool, easy and pretty amazing software. You can make 30 second clips and share them with your friends or you can pay for unlimited full length videos for at $30 U.S. a year! You can even share these with your friends and post them on your MySpace and FaceBook accounts. Here is a video that I made in 10 minutes of the Grove City College Marching Wolverine band at a night game:
Spiral Frog provides an “almost free” online music service…
The registration was quick, the download for the manager took 7 seconds, the active X install took 14 seconds, all the music you could ever want to listen to… PRICELESS -err…. AD-SUPPORTED. Since it officially opened for business yesterday, Spiral Frog has become the new internet ”buzz” and latest rage. You can tell it has become popular because their current server speeds are less than “stellar” due to the large amounts of Internet traffic that is now being directed to them. Navigation of their site has been slow lately…
After registering for free and logging-on , I noticed that I had 29 days left to ???? After clicking on the link, I found that in order to keep my membership active I will have to “answer a few easy questions” every 30 days to keep my membership. This amounts to a hassle in my book and I guess I’ll see what that’s all about in 29 days…, onward.
The first advertising you will notice is the large banner ad placed across the top of the screen, the one I saw asked me if I was “having fun” yet. Nope not yet. Down the right side of the Spiral Frog web site is a rather large vertical advertisement. So far, these are easy to “tune” out (get the pun?). These two advertisments constantly change every time you click a link on their page or wait long enough.
Upon searching for “miles davis” with their search tool, I was very disappointed to iniatilly see only two albums by him, Workin’ and Steamin’. Further digging yielded a few more results for Miles. When I pulled up one of the tracks and pressed play to stream it, I only received a preview of the track (no advertisements). So, I choose to download it (it prompts you for a code to prevent unnecessary downloading of songs that doulc devour bandwidth by bots). As far as I can tell you can’t actually stream the full song direct from the site, you have to download it. Perhaps this limitation will change in time.
Upon entering the code, my “Spiral Frog” download manager kicked open and after a couple of minutes told me it had finished downloading. I inspected the downloaded track. Sure enough it downloaded a 128 kbps, wma file with encryption. I was not able to get iTunes (PC version) to open and convert the file. Sorry Mac guys!
As far as audio quality it’s an average mp3 at 128 kbps. Although it’s not a great quality it is good enough for casual listening, especially with an unimpressive pair of headphones or from a laptop. As far as what licenses are you granted there are a number of restrictions and stipulations:
The right to play the file for one month from contact with their servers
Collaborative play for this file is not allowed
The file cannot be burned
The file can be synchronized 2 more times (with device that can play subscription files)
The media usage rights cannot be be backed up
These limitations are similar to those on services like Napster and Rhapsody there is not anything really new or different about these type of restrictions. To give you an idea of what is offered, here is a list of the Top Names and Downloads so far:
MakeMusic has released Finale 2008, complete with a host of new features, including an exclusive Audio Recording feature. The new Garritan sounds are a welcome and much needed addition in my opinion. Here are the highlights:
*New Garritan Sounds Included:
Saxophones
Jazz Bass & Drums
Trumpet & Trombone Mutes
Marching Percussion
World Instruments
Acoustic Guitar
Upright Bass
Choir Sounds
Gamelan
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