Monthly Archives: February 2007

Multimedia, New Media, New Paradigms

DRM days numbered

Steve Jobs’ already famous Thoughts on Music probably marks the end of DRM.

Certainly it will take time, but when a major force like Apple iTunes’ boss suggests that the world would be better off without DRM you can be sure they are also working behind the scenes to promote this vision.

The statistics on the percent of DRM protected content found on the average iPod are a strong argument for the futility of the DRM approach. Apple iTunes has done everything by the book, as the media industry demanded, and DRM has been a spectacular failure, to judge from the figures Jobs quotes.

Jobs musings are entitled Thoughts on Music, but with a video iPod and videos available through the iTunes store it seems clear that the lessons learned about music DRM will also carry over to video DRM; same lessons, but I would guess it will take longer for the MPAA and similar industry groups to learn them.

The features incorporated in Microsoft’s Vista to protect so-called “premium content” have been said to threaten the new OS’s stability – and they certainly will raise the cost of many computer components, according to Peter Gutmann’s Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.

Gradually the industry will realise that there is no ROI to justify these measures.

-pmh

Grumbles, Reviews

PowerToGo finally powers up!

My PowerToGo Update (Cont’d.)
By this morning The Portable Consultant had received a response to his complaint to Lexar with regards to the failed update crashing his Lexar Lightning PowerToGo apps on a stick (see previous post).

The tech support response was amusing.

It suggested that I backup my data and re-install. In technical circles this is known as the Microsoft Solution for Everything, or MSE.

It was particularly humorous in the light of the fact that the only way to backup and restore the Lightning is with the Lexar software which I never installed because I felt it should have been free with the device. (I have since changed my mind about this).
Ok, so having a technical bent I understand these things and chose to ignore the standard advice and try to re-install the update again. Nothing to lose, right? After all, perhaps someone -unbeknownst to technical support- had fixed the update.

Sure enough, the update ran fine (although it looked different this time) and Power-to-Go powered up at last.

Yes, I have now purchased the Backup utility.

InstallAnything disappears
That’s not all, however!

I had purchased the Lexar InstallAnything utility. When the new PowerToGo utility started up I noticed InstallAnything was gone. In fact, I can no longer find it on the Lexar software site.

In its place is something called Argo. No one bothers to tell the users, but it appears that Argo has replaced InstallAnything.
Before I found that out I sent Technical Support an email asking where InstallAnything went. I’ll be interested to hear their response to that one.

Hi Ho!
-pmh

Grumbles, Reviews

Lexar PowerToGo crashes after update

One of my annoyances with the Lexar Lightning with PowerToGo was the lack of a free backup utility. With Lexar, it is a $10 USD download.

As a result, I hesitated to make the purchase… and now I’m sorry that I didn’t just consider that cost as part of the cost of the device!

Last week Lexar released an update to the PowerToGo system that enables you to run Windows programs from their Lexar Lightning memory stick. My PowerToGo booted this morning with a request to update the software. Foolishly -and I say ‘foolishly’ because I did not have any backup- I agreed and pressed ‘OK’.

The rest you can guess. The process generates two error messages about the software certificate being different and after installing the Lexar Lightning is effectively dead in the water. Files in My Documents are accessible by those in the secure vault are not and none of the installed apps will run properly.

Lexar Support online chat is unresponsive, no doubt due to the volume of complaints, and you are directed to leave an email.

I’ll let you know what happens when I get a response from Lexar Support.

-The (Foolish) Portable Consultant