If you want a difficult time trying to get into the US, make sure that you leave your guitar unattended.

If you want an example of a really non-intuitive user interface, try loading a Program into a free slot in Halion 3.

After spending the best part of one hour trying to decipher the PDF manual, I ended up trying drag-and-drop. Which worked fine, except, there’s a bug which means that where Halion thinks your mouse is, isn’t where it actually is. So your drag-and-drop operation has to be tentative, and generally ‘in the right direction’ until the correct part of the GUI highlights. And, if you move the Halion window, your drag and drop behaviour will change too, or not work at all.

And, why do I have to continually (once on each launch of the Cubase project) tell Halion where to find project-specific samples? Why doesn’t it remember? Even if they’re in the presets of the Halion installation? Actually, it does remember… But, if you have multiple sound banks in one folder, don’t select them all when ‘locating’ Halion content, because Halion only loads the first sound bank. You have to select just the one, for Halion to load them all.

Apple should make setting up a Mac more difficult; more of an experience. Getting a new Mac and making it work the way you want it to should be an achievement. It shouldn’t be as underwhelming as going to Tesco. But it is.

Earlier this week I received the Dell 2405FPW display for my new studio. It comes with the obligatory installation CD, on which is a manual. Naturally I ignored all the instructions and left the display alone, awaiting the Mac.

Yesterday the Mac arrived: the lowest spec Dual G5 Power Mac. I already had some extra memory to install, which I got from Crucial. So I was all ready to go. Here’s my thoughts on how things went..

“Blimey, it’s heavy. Let’s open the box. Oh, a keyboard and mouse. Well, I don’t need the mouse, but I need the keyboard. Ah. Here’s the Mac. Blimey, it’s huge. Take it out of the box. Hmm.. now to install the memory. There’s the documentation. Let’s put that to one side. I’ll not need that. How do I open the Mac? Look – a latch on the back.. what’s this.. funny little T-shaped thing with an Airport symbol. Must be the antenna. Anyhow, open the latch.. and that comes away.., then there’s this clear panel that lifts off. Where do I stick the memory? It must be there.. but there are two fans in the .. oh, they just slide out.

“Put the memory in… done. Now the fans go back like this, and the clear panel.. and the casing. Snap the latch back. Done. Connect all the cables up. I can put the keyboard and mouse through the display’s USB connector. Pop in the Airport antenna. Turn everything on.

“Bonggg!

“Blah, Blah.. Airport password.. Do I want to move stuff from.. another Mac; this Mac.. etc. Nope. Registration – nice that it knows me already.. Some software updates.. go on then.. Restart..”

And that was it. Need I say more?

The British Phonographic Industry has today described advertising legal music download services on sites that promote illegal file-sharing as a ‘sick joke’.

Now, let’s think about this. Apple, Sky, O2 and others knowingly or unwittingly have advertisements on these sites. They all advertise legal services. So surely, for example, if someone uses or visits an ‘illegal’ site then decides to use Apple’s iTunes Music Store, this is a good thing, because it’s actually reducing the use of ‘illegal’ services.

Perhaps the BPI are more concerned that the advertising is being exploitative? That is, companies are taking advantage of an illegal service by using it as a platform to promote their own merchandise. But does it really matter? The bottom line is that the message is ‘getting out there’, and that message helps sell music legally, which helps the companies that the BPI represents.

Yesterday, Apple launched their new iPod that plays videos. iTunes was also updated, including music videos and TV shows which can downloaded to the iPod. Currently, only the US has TV shows, but I was more interested in the music videos.

Music videos were designed to promote music.

Think about this. Their purpose is to sell you music. You see the video, then go buy the music. Music sells on the iTunes Music Store for £0.79 per track. But get this: Music videos sell for £1.89 per video.

It costs £1.10 more to buy something designed to sell you music than it is to buy the music. If you want the music itself, that’s another £0.79 please.

Or, put it another way. You can buy Madonna’s videos on the store for £1.89 each. You get 320×240 resolution, which is way worse than TV quality. Alternatively, visit Amazon and get The Video Collection DVD for £12.97 + P&P. For 12 videos. Okay, so you can’t watch it on an iPod, but then who wants to?

Joel Spolsky writes:

There is another way: you build a relationship with your customer, essentially making yourself part of their company. You find out in minute detail why they do what they do, acting both as custom developer and business consultant then, using agile development techniques, give them a ‘look-see’ at appropriate points in the development.

Later: “So if you want to get things done, you positively have to understand at any given point in time what is the most important thing to get done right now and if you’re not doing it, you’re not making progress at the fastest possible rate.”

Yes, indeed. That’s how come I work less hours than I used to, but end up with a better relationship with our customers, delivering better software that more closely meets their needs. Oh, and forget about specs.