I had just barely gotten out my board, in other words my MacBook, and was surfing some fine waves around the World Wide Web, and somehow I suddenly found myself reading an article on Slashdot about Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg. I’ve already mentioned Digg.com in a couple of the posts since the re-opening of my blog, and my fascination for the concept is anything but a secret.

While reading the mentioned article, I was able to catch a nice wave which took me to among other things this, this and of course this, which is Digg founder Kevin Rose’s reply to some of the “accusations” being made. Coincidentally right now as I am writing this, the clock is 9:11 (conspiracy theory time!), but I tried to make a simple search at Digg for Digg Censorship and Digg Conspiracy, just to see what popped up. The results were so-and-so, meaning that I even though I searched for as for back as their archives go there were no results on what I was looking for.

Coincident? Perhaps, since articles on Digg that are marked as lame or just reported are removed from the search database. And just that is one of my main beefs with Digg. It’s a great concept, but surely a policy of completely removing any article that just a few users dislike for one reason or another can only be characterized as censorship? I don’t know what Digg’s current going ratio of Diggs and Negative Reports for an article to be removed altogether is, but I have a feeling that one of the reasons they don’t have a firm policy on this is so that the people sitting behind the steering wheel can remove articles at their own discretion.

The only way that they can get closer to achieving what they are aiming for, a democratic user-driven system, is to open up on this area. Set a ratio for what’s acceptable and not, because if the majority finds an article interesting a select few shouldn’t be able to deprive the rest from reading it just by reporting it as “lame”. Of course it then becomes a given that it must be completely in the open how many “negative diggs” an article has, and the articles that are deemed useless must still be accessible so that people can still see it and form their own opinion and thereafter digg it or mark it as lame.

I’m actually quite surprised that steps haven’t been taken already by the people in charge of Digg, as it is an obvious flaw with the current system, and one that has only become more highlighted as they have grown in popularity. With the current setup a select few people are given too much control over what’s hot and not at Digg, and their self-imposed goal of being a democratic source for news controlled by the readers is without any shed of a doubt neglected.

Please note that I am not posting this because I in any way feel victimized or targeted by Digg, but simply because I felt the need to point out the obvious flaws in the way Digg is currently operated. I do however question the music taste of Digg’s visitors, seeing how this article is dugg into the heavens, while the news of a free Jack’s Mannequin EP doesn’t get any attention! That’s a completely different matter though. I am also going to post this on Digg of course, to see what kind of reaction I get.

I’ve updated the About page with some up-to-date information about myself for those who are interested in knowing something about the author of this blog, and added a Contact Me page in case any of you would be interested in knowing how to get in touch with me.

I like my iPod. Some might even go as far as to say that I love my iPod, and that just might be the truth. After I got my 1st generation iPod Nano 4GB, my life has taken a turn for the better. Sounds drastic? Sure, but it’s true nevertheless. Today I can’t imagine what sitting on the bus, trying to sleep, or driving would be like without a reasonable size of my music library easily available in my pocket would be like. Though I’m almost certain it would be less enjoyable!

I’ve had other MP3-players before, but none of them managed to bring music into my life to the extent that my iPod has. I can’t really explain why, but fortunately that’s really irrelevant at this point. What I want to talk about is how when something makes you feel happy, you want to share it with others, so that they can feel the same joy. Similar to how when you eat food you like, and would like others to taste it as well, I have reccomended the iPod to family and friends, because of the impact it had on myself. And guess what, this fall and holiday season it seems that my reccomendations have gone through, because all of a sudden practically everyone in my social circle has gotten an iPod one way or the other.

Unfortunately, as I will explain, this isn’t all good. Because it seems that the iPod, like I previously thought, isn’t the ideal music-device for everyone. As a result of this I have become the friendly neighbourhood iPod support and guy to go to if you have any complaints, and quite frankly it’s annoying! For all the same reasons I love the iPod, other people are complaining at it, and I’ll outline those reasons now.

iTunes. Most people who haven’t owned an iPod aren’t familiar with iTunes and how it works. The typical first-time-Windows-iTunes-user seems to find iTunes very hard to work with, and they don’t understand that an iPod isn’t just a standalone device, but a part of a package from Apple that requires the use of iTunes to function at all. All they want to do is to open Windows Explorer and cut-and-paste their songs on to their music player, and as everybody knows, that’s not a part of the iTunes experience.

To me, iTunes is the ideal tool for all the needs I have when it comes to managing my music library, and obviously the iPod as a result of this rises in the ranks for me personally. But imagine iTunes being the shoes that don’t fit, but you have to wear it to complete your outfit. It doesn’t feel great, but you use them still, mainly because you’re forced to. Unless you want to buy a new outfit with a pair of shoes that fit better to go along with it. I imagine that’s the feeling iPod owners who are uncomfortable with iTunes have, but they don’t really want to buy a new player, since this most often costs money.

Tags. This point has to do with the way Apple sets up their software, and hardware for that matter. Most of the people I know aren’t aware that the iPod doesn’t support a hierarchical system of folders like they are used to from Windows, but rather the same system of tags that iTunes sports, and it’s definately something that’s hard to adjust to for many.

Now this might make me sound like I’m the center of an organized crime syndicate, but the fact of the matter is that most people I know adds to their musical collection by using various illegal channels of acquiring it. The problem with this in relation to iTunes and the iPod is that more often than not, songs are not properly tagged. This of course makes the iPod more or less useless, since you have no way of navigating through your music unless it is tagged with the proper tags. Of course you can always spend the time necessary to rectify this, but needless to say it’s a daunting task. Or you can improvise like my sister did, who just listen to the songs, and puts them in a playlist which she transfers to her iPod. That way, she can still find the songs she wants to listen to, but it’s not an ideal solution to say the least.

Other Reasons. Those aren’t the only problems people have complained about to me when it comes to the iPod, there are a multitude of things people don’t seem to like about it, some more viable than others. For instance, some people somehow finds the iPod interface difficult to navigate with the click-wheel. I don’t really consider this a valid complaint, since for most people it takes a minute and a half to get familiar with, and after that it is only pure joy.

Also, with the first generation Nano, a few people I know had problems with scratching. As I mentioned before I have one of those myself (am I the only who who thinks it looks better than it’s younger and slightly slimmer brother?), but thanks to a marvellous silicon skin, there isn’t a single scratch in it. I like to take care of my stuff, especially the things that I use and value.

Some have also had a bad experience with the iPod, and encountered the pleasures of dealing with Apple’s support. It’s really not my place to comment on this, since I have been lucky enough to never have to make as much as a phone call to Apple, despite owning a MacBook, the most bug plagued laptop ever, I heard someone say, and an iPod which has been labelled the least durable electronic device ever made, by the same people who don’t like the MacBook. From what I’ve heard though, Apple could profit from changing the policy of their support and take a more customer-friendly approach.

Those are the main complaints I’ve been getting over the past few months about the iPod, and quite frankly, in this Windows-dominated word of ours, despite the fact that it is perfect for my own needs, I am having a hard time seeing how the iPod became one of the most successful commercial products since sliced bread. And I will also think twice before reccomending the iPod to anyone in the future, and I’ll definately have them give iTunes a go before they decide on purchasing an iPod. Because like I mentioned before, if you’re not comfortable with iTunes, there are most likely better alternatives for you out there.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve finally managed to fix the problem with paragraphs not being properly spaced. It took me a whole lot of time searching around the web trying to find the answer, and of course when I found it, it struck me as completely obvious. Go figure!

If you take a good look around though, you’ll see I have made some additional changes, or upgrades if you will, to the theme. Most importantly, I have changed the look of the comments. Not one hundred percent happy with it still, but it sure looks better than it did before. Also you should see that little Digg-man at the top-right of every post. I added a little extension that was supposed to show if an article had been dugg, but it doesn’t work with the latest version of Digg, so I’ll probably de-activate it again until they come out with a working version, which shouldn’t be too hard to create.

And finally, it seems people really liked the mock-up cover I for Jack’s Mannequin’s Holiday EP (see my previous post), because the post resulted in a lot of attention towards my blog. A lot more than normal, to say the least! Always nice to see that a post is interesting, and what would be even better was if someone took a liking to the blog and decides to come back to read my future articles!

Edit: I de-activated the Digg-script-thing, but I found a nice way of including JavaScript in posts (with the help of a plugin called adsense-delux), so at least I can show the cool Digg badge for the articles that are worthy!

I know I said I would be closing down my blog, but what can I say, I can be a fairly undecided person. This leads us up to today, not only the great re-opening of my fabulous blog, but also Christmas Eve! Now Christmas will be twice as fun, because I decided to get my blog back online. Don’t worry, you don’t have to thank me.

As your bright eye probably already catched, my blog now sports a brand new design. I’m not completely satisfied with it just yet, but I feel that it is a good place to start building, and until I find those little details that make me really happy, it’s still a work-in-progress. My intention was to fulfil one of the things that I think is important for blogs in general, and that’s to have a simple, yet easy-to-look-at design that allows for the content to be the main focus. And as I said I’m quite satisfied, but I don’t feel that I’m there just yet, so keep watching.

Some of you may wonder what inspired me to get my blog back online. Well, I won’t give you the full scope of it just yet, but one of the main reasons is that I’ve found inspiration to start doing some online work again, and if all works out the way I’m hoping, then I’ll be spending a lot more time online than I’ve done over the past year and a half.

I’ve said most everything of importance already, but yet I feel that this post is somewhat lousy, with it being the grand re-opening at all. It might be that it’s 8AM and I haven’t slept yet, who knows? Anyways, be sure to watch this space to find out what will be going on here in the future. It could be quite a bit