It’s a slower news day so time for a trip down MacOS memory lane.

I have been a Mac user since OS 6, and when you have been a Mac user as long as I have you get to know and love the old alert sounds. With every new OS release Apple eliminates a swath of their old alert sounds, from System 6 to System 7 we lost Clink-Clank and who could forget the hysterical Monkey noise. Over the other OS changes we lost ChuToy, Submarine, Laugh as well as the dearly missed Wild Eep to name a few.

Some alert’s even have their own back story – for example “Sosumi.” The sound’s unusual name was coined during a trademark dispute with the Beatles. The sound’s name also exists currently in an inside joke on Apple Computer’s website, where it marks the CSS class denoting a copyright notice #.

Anyway, might as download all these alert sounds and bring your modern machine back to the good ol days. Windows users don’t fret, they are encoded a WAV’s so you can join in on the fun.

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Time for a trip down MacOS memory lane.

I have been a Mac user since OS 6, and when you have been a Mac user as long as I have you get to know and love the old alert sounds. With every new OS release Apple eliminates a swath of their old alert sounds, from System 6 to System 7 we lost Clink-Clank and who could forget the hysterical Monkey noise. Over the other OS changes we lost ChuToy, Submarine, Laugh as well as the dearly missed Wild Eep to name a few.

Some alert’s even have their own back story – for example “Sosumi.” The sound’s unusual name was coined during a trademark dispute with the Beatles. The sound’s name also exists currently in an inside joke on Apple Computer’s website, where it marks the CSS class denoting a copyright notice #.

Anyway, might as download all these alert sounds and bring your modern machine back to the good ol days. Windows users don’t fret, they are encoded a WAV’s so you can join in on the fun.

Download Now

Thanks to a little glitch in iTunes, Apple is treating you to a free download of the movie “Hitman.” All you have to do is open iTunes, click iTunes store, look for the “Browse” on Quick Links in the right hand side. Than, select “Movies” and then “Thriller”. Look for the title “Hitman”. You will see it is free. Just click “Get Movie” and you can download the whole version of Hitman for free.

Also, this download can work in any country by creating a free US iTunes account. Don’t say we never gave you anything :)

Nothing like waking up in the morning with something free! Apple has begun issuing credits and refunds to iTunes TV Season subscribers because of the Writes Guild of America Strike, and notifying users via email.

As you may have heard, the Writers Guild of America, the union representing TV and movie writers, has settled its strike and its members have returned to work. Because of the strike your season pass for [Season Name] may have fewer episodes than were scheduled by the network at the time of your purchase.

We will make all additional episodes which are broadcast during the 2007-08 season available to you as we receive them. If the season does end up with fewer episodes, you will receive a partial refund to make up for the difference.

For now, I have granted two free video credits to your account which you can use to purchase any two TV episodes, music videos, or short films on the iTunes Store.

Your video credit balance should display in the upper-right corner of iTunes next to your account name. If it does not, please sign out and sign back in to refresh. The sign out/sign in functions are found under the Store menu of iTunes. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for being an iTunes customer.

I really think it’s neat that Apple, although not required to, is helping to compensate the user because of a situation out of their control. Any other iTunes season subscribers getting these messages?

If you are sitting on a stack of HD-DVD’s odds are you are a geek that is a early adopter and have some money to burn. Before you even try to read on you must have a HD-DVD Rom drive form your computer (my choice is the XBox HD-DVD addon) and a Bluray burner. If thats not enough, you will also need to buy a program that strips the DRM from HD-DVD’s (Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD for $115) as well as purchase Bluray media for $15-$25 a disk. If you aren’t scared away yet, read on.

This means getting the rip ready to burn to Blu-Ray disc: transcoding refers to changing the file format and size, while authoring refers to preparing and arranging the files so that players may properly understand them.
If you just want to keep the file on the computer as a backup, you can stop here. Even if no one is making physical HD DVD players, there’ll always be software to play the files themselves.
If you’re targeting Blu-Ray, however, you’ll need to get your hands dirty fixing your files to the required specs. You’ll run the ripped HD DVD disk through a bunch of different programs, in the following order:
1. EVOdemux to “demultiplex” the ripped files and pick exactly what you need to keep.
2. H264Info or vc1conv -— which one you need depends on whether the format of HD DVD movie you ripped is h.264 or VC1.
3. eac3to to compress the audio, often necessary to fit movies onto cheaper 25GB Blu-Ray disks.
4. tsMuxeR and TsRemux to get the video streams ready for burning.

This isn’t for the faint of heart, but hard core geeks – have at it!

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Figures, I sided in the HD-DVD camp. Today Toshiba, the primary backer of HD-DVD, has announced it will no longer produce drives that read HD-DVD’s paving the way for Bluray to be the next gen DVD successor.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Bummer. I really thought the HD-DVD standard was better, picture was clearer and players were faster. Thankfully now I can start building up my HD movie collection!

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The writers stick has really taken a toll on NBC. First Jeff Zucker hints he may return to iTunes, now he is killing show pilots.

Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, said Tuesday the broadcaster was moving to save as much as $50 million a year by reducing its reliance on expensive pilots of new series on the NBC television channel.

The decision to eliminate most pilots was made as the company looked for ways to cut costs in response to the Hollywood writers’ strike and the slowdown in the economy, Mr. Zucker said. “It’s clear we are in a recession in the United States, and we’re going to have to manage our business accordingly,” he said.

Networks like NBC have long relied on big-budget pilot episodes of television series in an effort to attract advertiser support for the rest of the season. But Mr. Zucker said the pilots, the first episode of a show and whose production cost has shot up to $7 million for an hour from about $3 million three years ago, were a poor indicator of the future success of a series and many never move beyond the pilot stage.

“So you’re spending money on programs you’re not going to get,” Mr. Zucker said.

He said NBC might still commission “one or two” pilots a season, but would not do so as a matter of course.

The strike has given internet video and independent publishers to shine and I feel that this strike is showing that Podcasting is a viable publishing platform.

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This weekend HBO will begin trials in Green Bay Wisconsin, which will roll out during the year to the whole country, that will allow free online streaming access to over 400 hours of movies and original programming each month – for FREE.

There are some sticking points. It will be made available only to people already subscribing to HBO, and it will be marketed and delivered through cable operators.

While most networks have embraced browser-based streaming video, HBO’s programming is to be watched in a separate computer application that downloads shows to the hard drive. It may face several hurdles: the program is available only on Windows PCs initially; the downloaded content cannot yet be transferred to portable devices; and the content expires four weeks after being downloaded.

I’m not too sure how they will verify you subscribe to HBO but I sure think this is interesting and its only a matter of time until this service goes web based.

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Certainly worth a watch, you get a good chuckle or two about how Bill Gates plays off his dorkiness.

Sony, you’ve come a far way! After root kitting your CD’s – you are now offering limited DRM free tracks.

In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Now, I wonder how “limited”, limited is.

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