Spamless.

Ugh. It would have been ok had it been an April Fools Joke.  But no. 

I woke up this morning to discover almost 4,000 emails in my inbox.  Thinking I had been hit by some super-spammer, I got even more annoyed when I discovered the mail had all come from me. 

Some backup software I’m trying out went postal overnight. 

It’s set up to send me an email when it finishes a task, but last night, while trying to back up my documents, it hit a snag, and started sending notices out to me, it looks like one message every 5 seconds. 

In all, I got 3993 messages, each one saying the same thing…

Doh.  I got it the first time, thanks. 

Task number 1 for the day: uninstall my ‘communicating challenged’ software.  Bye.

Tapeless.

CHUM Limited keeps showing the world how to do it. They’re officially tapeless in Toronto. While this may seem like a yawner to most people, it’s a big deal in the broadcast world where tape (even if it is digital) is still a big deal. 

This was one of my goals at CBC Radio 3 when I was still there – we were early adopters of integrated chip recorders so that we could eliminate the time spend ‘dubbing’ (copying) audio from mini-discs to hard drive for editing.  Certainly no-one else at the CBC was doing it back then, and I’m happy to say I’ve been tapeless in my production studio for years. 

Topless.

Meanwhile, the porn industry is introducing Download and Burn technology.

The idea is that you order online, download via high speed, and burn to DVD without ever leaving the comfort of your home. 

Then you can play your, um, films, on any DVD player in the house. 

Apparently the resulting DVD is just like the store-bought version, complete with menu and extras.  The trick is in the digital rights management software that only lets you burn ONE DVD (though I don’t know what would stop you from using easily available DVD copying software after that).

If this works, it could usher in a whole new model for DVD sales of all kinds.  Maybe.