Excerpt from the CNET report (emphasis mine):

The songs will be with Windows Media DRM and this isn’t a surprise to Claudio Checchia, research manger for Consumer Markets at IDC Asia Pacific.

Checchia told CNET Asia in an email interview: “Although music labels have started to warm up to the idea of testing the waters selling DRM-free music, at least on a limited basis in many US- or European-based online music stores, DRM is still deemed a necessary evil in APEJ.

“Bottom line, there was no way the record labels would have agreed to the launch of Nokia’s music store without DRM.”

Each track will cost S$2 and users can sync the songs via Windows Media Player 11 from their desktop to their mobile device for an unlimited number of times. Burning songs to CD, however, is restricted to 10 copies, depending on the agreement regarding fair use policies with the labels involved.

Thank you for assuming that your customers, who are willing to pay good music for their music, will act like thieves. So you sell your music crippled with these ridiculous restrictions.

Thank you, I’m flattered.

And despite the slap in the face, I tried to access the store only to be greeted with this friendly message.

The credit card went right back. Thanks Nokia, you just saved me from a hefty bill.

So here it is, a Flickr InfoWidget that lets you link a Flickr photo ID to your Zooomr photo. Once linked, you can synchronise Title, Description and Tags from Flickr into Zooomr. As always, Firefox and Greasemonkey are needed. Get the script here .

Check out the demo once you’ve got the script installed. You will only be to synchronise the metadata if you’re logged in as the owner of the photo in Zooomr.

If you’re interested in writing InfoWidgets as well, take a look at the sample Mood InfoWidget source or mine. Happy coding!

• Zooomr Enhanced Thread Paging – adds another row of paging links at the start of a thread [script link]
• Zooomr Buddy Icon Reply – adds a reply link to each comment which will generate the buddy icon code or bold username code in the add post textarea [script link]
• Zooomr Fanmail Compose Fix – fix for a Zooomr bug where the “To” field doesn’t get auto-populated properly [script link]
• Zooomr Zipline Sidebar Plus – adds a couple of extra links in the Zipline sidebar [script link]

I wanted comments and trackbacks for Asides to be closed for now, so a quick hack was in order. I suppose I could have added new options to make this configurable but I was too lazy. :p

Steps:
1. Backup your original copy of twitter-tools.php.
2. Open up twitter-tools.php in the plugin editor.
3. Look for this snippet , 'post_status' => 'publish' and add these 2 lines after that. I had to add the lines twice, once for the function do_tweet_post and another time for the function do_digest_post.
   
, 'comment_status' => 'closed'
, 'ping_status' => 'closed'


Example for function do_tweet_post (additions at lines 10-11):

The code is provided as-is, with absolutely no warranties, so please don’t blame me if something disastrous happens. Backup backup backup.

I’m sure this sounds a wee bit ridiculous but this is from the perspective from an old skool Zooomr v2 user looking at Flickr for the first time. Flickr is obviously THE photosharing site for alot of people for long time and has lots of time to refine their features. Zooomr, on the other hand, is really the new kid on the block who’s a little wet behind the ears but tries to make up for it with buckets of enthusiasm (and very little sleep).

What I Really Like in Flickr

1. Search is great. Zooomr’s search is currently limited only to tags, maxes out at 5000 results, and to be honest, really really basic. I also prefer Flick’s search result display. Flickr Clusters, showing photos from commonly grouped tags, are very useful.
2. Sets work perfectly. Although not quite as “smart” as Zooomr’s, I can’t say I’m dreadfully disappointed. Zooomr’s SmartSets have been really a hit-and-miss for me. I like Flickr’s Collections too; being able to group your sets into Collections. I can see this working well for organised freaks people.
3. Tags are flawless. You can replace tags, delete tags across your entire collection very easily. I hate that the tag cloud in my profile page in Zooomr shows all photos instead of just my photos with that tag.
4. Photo management. Flickr scores a knockout when trying to work with batches of photos. The ease at which you can edit multiple photo attributes, put them into sets, etc, is awesome. Fantastic user experience.
5. EXIF information is more complete. Hi ISO, I missed seeing you in Zooomr and it’s nice to know that 0.003 sec is really 1/400. EXIF info is also retained in the high-res download from Flickr.
6. Navigation is intuitive. I like the fact that Flickr retains the context of your navigation path, i.e. when you’re in a set, the previous/next links points to the previous/next photos within the set. Zooomr previous/next links always points to the previous/next photos within the main user photo stream. A real pain to navigate through sets this way.
7. A gadzillion groups. Groups are not available in Zooomr v2 but are slated to show up in v3.

What I Really Like in Zooomr

1. Geotagging with Google Maps. Too bad Flickr is Yahoo property so I don’t see any hope of ever using Google Maps in Flickr. Google Maps kick Yahoo Maps butt big time for now.
2. Localisations. I’ve only used Zooomr in English and so it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference for me, but knowing that Zooomr takes cares of that warms my geeky mushy heart. I’m not sure what to make of Yahoo’s intentions to launch a Chinese version of Flickr just yet. Hmm.

There are of course dozens more feature differences between David and Goliath Flickr and Zooomr but these are just some of the ones that jumped out at me. I like Zooomr, really I do. Look at how much I written about it. But is Zooomr still Flickr on Steroids? Not v2 for sure, but maybe Mark 3… when it arrives. I’m going to explore more of Flickr while waiting for Mark 3 to get out the door. Can’t wait.

[Edit]: Had to fix the post title, which explains the weird post slug. I meant Flitting, not Flirting. Doh.

More information can be found on Rebekka’s Flickr post. I feel terrible for the photographer. This really really sucks.

Spread the word. Digg it here.

EXIF viewing/editing in Mark III?

Marketplace Tagging

A few interesting points to note:

• New Logo Colours
• Site is now predominantly white
• Upload link is now directly accessible, next to the ZMail link
• Thumbnail navigation finally gets backward and forward links
• More language options: “Arabic”?
• New disclaimer: “User-posted content, unless otherwise implied, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.” – WOW, great for the commons but what would the users think?
• InfoTags for MarketPlace?
• Tags are now Labels?
• Zipline
• Groups

Looking good! But when will it all be released?

There are currently 3 blogs on the site:

• The Heart of Business – Musings on corporate social responsibility
• Inside the Box – A computer enthusiasts view of Lenovo computers
• Design Matters – What a global product design team thinks about good design

Of the three, I enjoy Design Matters most. I particularly like the posts that give you glimpses of the design process. For example, in Moore’s Law and Grey Velcro, David Hill, Executive Director, Lenovo Corporate Identity and Design, shares the rational behind the recent change in the Thinkpad’s power adapters specifications. Engineering reasons aside, it’s interesting to note how Lenovo has used design to “ease” in the change.

1. Error-proofing: Changing the new power connector so that it will not physically fit in the power jack on an older generation ThinkPad
2. Feed-foward: Using a new colour (grey) for the power connector and velcro straps so that users can easily identify the correct adapter set when plucking one from the common office pool

The devil really is in the details isn’t it?

It’s a fine line between sharing and giving away trade secrets, but I do wish more companies will open up with their corporate blogs like what Lenovo has done. I may be a little too easily impressed, but reading about how even the colour of the velcro strap was a conscious design decision made me appreciate the quality of the Thinkpad.

How to get an invite from yours truly: I’m a bit of a closet foodie, so if you’re interested in scoring an invite for yourself, recommend me a makan place in the WESTERN side of Singapore (sorry eastern peeps, I’m so sick of all the posts raving about the good food on your side of the island and also to the rest of world, sorry).

It doesn’t have to be upmarket (the cheaper the better!) and I have no dietary constraints. Chinese, French, Greek, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, whatever; it doesn’t matter as long as it’s yummy and you’re willing to give it your ringing endorsement.

I’m looking for recommendations to places that hopefully haven’t been featured to death in the media already. So leave a comment on this post; if you’ve got your own blog post about it, all the better!

I’ll do a random pick and invites will be sent out by Saturday. That’s assuming I actually get more than 1 response to this!