At least, that was what was supposed to happen. See, most iTunes Plus early adopters got stuck with only partial conversions, leaving them with many songs stuck in the jailed FairPlay format. And unlike iOS, the only jailbreak was to downsample and burn to a CD-R audio disc, finally reconverting it back to an AAC.

Thankfully, that is now over with via iCloud & iTunes In The Cloud. Here’s a quick step-by-step to remedy the issue.

Step 1) Find your iTunes Library folder in Mac OS X Finder or Windows Explorer.
Step 2) Do a file search for files within the folder ending in .m4p
Step 3) Make a list of all the audio files listed. Then, drag those results to the Trash / Recycle Bin.
Step 4) Go to iTunes Store > Purchased and enter each song name in.
Step 5) Re-download those songs.
Step 6) Empty the Trash / Recycle Bin.

The result will be your songs have been replaced with iTunes Plus, DRM-free versions of the content. Keep in mind that this may leave some references to the deleted un-Plus versions of the song, but it’s also much faster to upgrade the way I described.

Note: Some songs are still indeed stuck in .m4p. Some record labels never signed onto iTunes Plus, and are still downloaded in FairPlay-encrypted .m4p format.

Right now, the vast majority of Linux utilization of Flash comes through the Flash plug-in itself. Not AIR.

Putting it bluntly, most Linux users don’t appreciate, let alone need AIR. It costs Adobe a ton of time to support an AIR runtime that the Linux community simply does not need. Why? Because Adobe’s AIR runtime has to support every app, and stay secure. That’s a huge effort.

That does not mean AIR on Linux is dead however. Adobe is simply offering the same code base up to Open Screen Project developers to morph into their own needs. Thus, if you really want to ship an AIR app on Linux, you’ll have the same APIs and code base that other platforms have… you’ll just have to get your AIR runtime from a third party.

This is a good thing, in my opinion. Great innovations in Flash will continue on Linux, with more effort being put into making the Flash plug-in run awesomely. And, developers who need AIR on Linux will be able to network and build better relationships with Adobe, thus making AIR on Linux stronger.

And by keeping the code in-check on Linux behind the scenes, when demand does rise (and I’m betting at some point it will), Adobe can return.

This isn’t the first time Adobe has done this. Look at Flash on Windows Mobile. Adobe is still trying to re-emerge that on Windows Phone 7, despite usage of Flash on Windows Mobile cratering completely.

Unfortunately, Lion appears to be progressing much faster than OpenJDK for Mac OS X. Apple just announced Lion will ship next month…

… But OpenJDK has much more work ahead at this point. It does not appear likely at all that OpenJDK will even hit alpha-grade release quality by July, and I doubt a release will even be available within three months following Lion’s release.

Some hackers will probably find a way to cobble together the Snow Leopard binaries and execute them on Lion. For those that want to play it safe though, my suggestion is to partition your drive and install a second copy of Snow Leopard.

Best of all, you can do that right now, so that when Lion ships, Java can be just a reboot away.

This was a quick, pre-alpha demo to show how to use Factual’s POI database in a way that encourages humans to add and expand it… and have fun in the process.

In a nutshell, you check into a location, and you get to build a series of blocks… along with your friends, and anyone else that checks into that location. Photos (or augmented reality markers… your choice) are then used to give you a backdrop to create 3D building blocks… and basically make works of art that center around the location you check in to.

The timing was well-placed, as our way is a non-intrusive manner of avoiding locationgate, while still building a reliable and detail-oriented outline of POIs, in a database that anyone can download (seriously… you can pull down the entire gazillions-large POI database that Factual has).

Many thanks to Hackers & Founders, Hacker Dojo (for the event space), as well as Factual, for putting on the event… it was a blast.

Here are the slides (PDF) if you want to know more.

For the sake of the developers, I’ll call them Team X. Team X had a great product on the market, it was great at updating Mac software. I wanted to take that to another level, and add App Store functionality, get funding, and make a software marketplace that would transcend Mac and Windows.

I’d been watching the iPhone (now iOS) App Store, and saw its potential. Mind you, this was circa 2007-2008, when Cydia was impressive before it took a single jailbroken App Store purchase.

So, what killed the project off? I listened to Steve Jobs. No, not the way normal people do. I listened for his commentary on a Mac App Store when someone asked him about its potential. He said bluntly that there were no plans for one.

When you hear something that blunt from an Apple leader, you should know, then and there, that it’s the exact opposite of what you were just told. Just like nobody wants to watch videos on their iPod, the screen after all is just too small. When I heard that, I knew it was inevitable that Apple would leverage the iTunes Store infastructure, combine it with digital signatures (which at the time were brand new to Mac apps), and roll out their own App Store.

What’s next? I suspect Apple will continue the burn and roll out a Windows App Store. You might think this is insane. After all, Apple wants to ship Macs, not convince people to stay with Windows.

I however would argue there is a lot of merit in a Windows App Store, fueled by the largest commercial digital content distribution store ever (iTunes).

First, it’s a product that Microsoft has failed in completely. The Windows Marketplace was so much of a dud that Microsoft had to kill it off to give Windows Phone Marketplace a fighting chance… the desktop version paled in comparison.

Plus, Apple wants to show users the “Apple experience”. They want to prevent people from buying into the “Google experience”. Those two factors drive Apple to be okay with distributing Windows apps, so long as it takes place inside of Apple’s systems and Apple’s rules. It convinces more and more people to use iTunes on a daily basis, and that will fuel the additional sale of more iPhones, iPods, and iPads… all of which are successful because they are Windows-friendly.

Take Safari. Apple’s brilliant web browser was ported to Windows in order to ensure people could get a taste of the Apple browsing experience. It wasn’t needed for iTunes, despite what many think.

And, let’s not forget QuickTime for Windows. Many (too, too many) forget that QuickTime existed on Windows a good decade before Apple shipped iTunes. Some have screamed at me in postings that QuickTime only exists for iTunes, a laughable assertion. The reason QuickTime existed on Windows was the same as all the above examples; to get people to like Apple.

If people are buying, downloading, updating, and maintaining their their Windows software, the Apple way, it will be pure profit for Apple, and pure sting for Microsoft. I’m not interested in getting into a product fight with a company that has billions in the bank, hence why you can rest soundly that I won’t be building a Windows App Store right now.

It’s actually quite impressive, especially considering Apple won’t let folks author QuickTime X plug-ins.

I do have to take this moment to warn Apple that 2014 could very much be like 1984, and Flash Video could easily unseat QuickTime at this rate… when app makers like VLC cry foul, you know something is on the wrong track.

A great torture test for FLV GPU Acceleration is the 2010 Cadillac SRX commercial…

Google Chrome and Android share a common browser platform and screen drawing API.
Google Chrome OS uses the same on-screen drawing system as Chrome and Android.
Google Chrome OS is Linux combined with Chrome.
Android’s Dalvik apps can run on any Linux OS.
Google Chrome OS could easily run Android apps.

Yes, people have ported Android for netbooks. But, Google doesn’t care… either way, Dalvik gets onto people’s desktops, and Google’s home team is being called up to the plate (instead of Microsoft or Apple). And, as long as Google remains the driving force behind the platform (read: cash infusions)… it doesn’t matter if you use Android, Android Netbook Edition, or Chrome OS.

Google 101: Dalvik is the application platform that Android apps run on. It’s a modified version of Java. Contrary to popular beliefs, Android apps typically are not Linux applications. Linux is primarily used behind the scenes, to load the Dalvik environment for applications.

Really, Google wouldn’t care if you ran Ubuntu with Android support. Why do you think Google keeps encouraging Ubuntu contributions, and helped write the prototype Android compatibility layer for Linux?

Eventually, they’ll all be one and the same. Enjoy, from your friends/enemies at Google.

I was installing the betas in a random pattern across the machines, to find out which one would give me the most headache. And, we have a winner!

Long story short, some of my phone modification tools were declared hacking malware, and instantly quarantined. But wait, there’s more! The antivirus software then filled up my hard drive with multiple copies. Then, it went into the zip files, and flagged those as infected too (and by zip files, I mean web site backups… gigabytes in size).

Long story short, I probably have another half hour to go to undo the mess. Trend Micro, you’ve come a long way from the ActiveX scanning tools of long ago… and not in the right direction. If an antivirus software is going to start quarantining several gigabytes of data… it should at least prompt the user and check. This is no different than a computer receiving a request to open all email… Mail is smart enough to say “whoa, do you really want to do this?”

The only difference here is, these were false-positives, I didn’t do anything to warrant this action from Trend Micro. Hopefully Microsoft’s Morro won’t be as abusive…

With that in mind, I returned to my office this morning to back up my main workstation using Vista Complete PC backup. The backup hung. So, not giving up, I went to install Acronis True Image 2009 (my preferred backup tool when not using a backup server). Installation failed. Oh, and on the reboot, my user profile data doesn’t load.

This brings me to one of my biggest complaints about Vista… the inevitable corrupted user profile problem. It seems that every Vista install I have used, has wound up needing to be formatted and reinstalled. The problem surfaces where the user profile fails to load, and the default profile is loaded on reboot. Naturally, one runs chkdsk to fix this. And, that works… until the next reboot, where it corrupts all over again.

So much for self-repairing NTFS file systems… I now have a backup server that is probably fried throughly, and now my workstation PC is too unstable to do anything but pull the hard drive out to rescue the data (on the less-than-off chance that either Vista or the drive itself is failing).

Anyways, what was the point of this post? Well, with two systems down in the office, I’m calling off plans for the Cyber Monday launch of our latest MechaWorks web site. I’m re-setting the launch date to some time next week. We really wanted to get this site off the ground on Cyber Monday… and it will make a lot of sense why when you see it.

Well, there are a few reasons. First, and foremost, Live Mesh is really the first tech preview that the public can see, for Windows 7. From interface to targeted features, Live Mesh is a taste of things to come.

What’s so Windows 7 about Live Mesh? Let’s start with the interface. Gone is the constant reliance on glass-style graphics. In fact, even when using it with Vista, Live Mesh doesn’t use a drop of glass. Next up, is Windows Live is now actually part of the Windows platform. It’s not some array of me-too features to answer Google. Actually, Live Mesh doesn’t touch one of Google’s features. But, the point is, Live Mesh will be pre-installed on every Windows 7 system (along with all the other Windows Live suite apps).

And, then there’s the cloud. Windows Live Desktop (part of Live Mesh) is the first version of Windows that exists purely online. From the server, to the AJAX graphics being drawn, it’s all Windows. So, will you someday boot Linux and log into Windows online? Probably not, but Microsoft wants your desktop to be portable… and Live Desktop is building that infastructure.

Finally, Live Mesh is updated dynamically. There’s no “CP1, RC0, RC1, RC2, RTM, SP1, SP2… yadda yadda”. They’re using version numbers and releasing automatically. It’s almost like, dare I say, a Mac.

Did I mention that Live Mesh is coming to Mac (eventually)? Microsoft is following Apple’s lead, and is going to match apps on multiple platforms. Silverlight started this, but Expression apps and Live apps are going to continue that commitment.

So, as you can see, LogMeIn and Live Mesh are similar feature-wise. However, the goals and promise for the apps are on completely different parallels. Live Mesh shows the future of Windows, and that future actually isn’t pointing towards a quiet drift into the night.

And yeah, I do use LogMeIn alongside Live Mesh. I find LogMeIn to be better in terms of cross-platforming, but Live Mesh has the better growth potential. Oh, and when you’re using two Windows machines… Live Mesh works much better too.