The good news is that I have a dsl connection at home. This is will make it a lot easier for me to work on this blog – and keep up with other blogs. Tying up the phone line has been a bit of an issue and impediment lately, and now I won’t need to worry about that. The bad news is that this is broadband connection is on an IBM (literally), not my iBook. Later on, I should be able to get the iBook on the dsl connection, but for the time being, I am content to use the web on this IBM.
This means that I’ll be taking a break from Net NewsWire as my news reader and will be giving Bloglines a shot. It was very easy to get started – just importing my OPML file (exported from Net News Wire). So far I’m impressed and I’m only just beginning to explore it. If you're curious, you can see the feeds which I'm reading.
Now I need a spam filter for my email. I had been using SpamSieve on my Mac, which had been working very nicely with Entourage. Well, I’ll worry about that another day.
I’ve been trying to break into the iTune Music Store – no, not to steal anything. I just want to be able to waste my money on them from Australia. The key is an US address and credit card. I still have an American credit card, but it’s now associated with an Australian address and so won’t work for iTunes. Amazon is more than happy to mail me an audio CD over the Pacific so that I can rip it into mp3 format, so why is it such a controversial thing for a non-American to buy DRM-protected music from the iTunes Music Store? I’ve just tried the BigPond downloading service. As much as I like to support things Australian, its interface doesn’t hold a candle to iTunes. Its collection has a few more Australian artists, which is welcome, but overall it doesn't compare with iTMS. BigPond only supports WMA. I guess I’ll be able to burn a playlist to a CD and then rip them into iTunes. I'll lose some sound quality, but I’m not an audiophile.
