The Sound-O-Mat

PayPal "Buy Now" vs. Google Checkout: Goggle Wins!

So having wasted a bunch of time writing "test" code for a job interview recently, and not having heard back from them since, I've been working a freelance job creating an "e-commerce" (in quotes since I really hate that term) Web site for a former client. Having done PayPal integration in the past: directly, and within several "shopping cart" systems like Joomla, I figured that would be the easy part, and since this would be my first experience with Google Checkout, no doubt that'd be a headache.

Part of my thinking was that I've been using PayPal since about six months after it started, some eight-ish years now, whereas Google only won me over with Gmail about two years ago, and I've had no luck with their online shopping site "Froogle", which has been "Beta" for, well, forever it seems, and I'm really not a fan of the company, whose employees and devotees are as vocally arrogant and annoying as Microsoft fanatics were during the 90's (note to those folks: so, has the fact that their stock hasn't moved in almost a decade clued you in yet?)

Well, once again, I have to say that Google has proved me wrong and made me a convert. I've spent about two full days trying to get PayPal gift certificates to work, without luck, but I was able to set up and add Google "Buy Now", gift certificates, and other purchases in just a few hours. Their site is blindingly fast, using lots of AJAX to avoid reloading or jumping to new pages, and their interface is typical Google: simple, fast, easy to understand, linear, and very much Web 1.0 - no flash, minimal graphics, etc.

I recently had a friend send me her updated resume and portfolio, and it required Flash to even see the main page. Her argument that since she does "customer-facing" front-end UI work, her potential employers expect to see Flash might hold some credence - but not if she's serious about the Google job she was going to apply for.

But the usual asides aside, while I still think Google's stock is highly over-valued (I mean, look at even the forward-earning P/E ratio!) - they do know how to build a decent Web site. I expect Google is going to eat PayPal and Ebay's lunch very soon, if only because clients like mine are thinking that they might just stick with Google Checkout and stip the PayPal stuff because they frankly don't want to pay me a lot of $$$ just to get PayPal's crappy system to work right.

While I expect to make a lot of $$$ having shorted Google the day they miss their earnings by a couple of cents, I'm also sorry that I'm stuck with Ebay stock, left-over from what I didn't sell off when they bought PayPal. I don't know whether to dump it and take a tax loss or hope it makes it back up to the break even point before they tank and get bought out or go bankrupt. But after this experience with working with Google Checkout, at least on the technical side, I'm on a convert. Both my clients and I have better things to do with our time than try to figure out PayPal problems for the umpteenth time.

Music Industry Tries To Shoot Self In Foot: Two Toes Remain

So first off, let's do the math:

The average CD of an average big label band, not huge but selling enough, might cost between USD $100-200K to record, produce, master, etc. before sending it off for duplication. Say the record label decides it will sell OK so prints 100K copies. Industry reports indicate that an average CD costs about $0.33 to produce, and with all the overhead of shipping it to stores and that crap, about $0.65 total to get to where it can be sold for an average retail price here in Portland of USD $20-22 per CD.

Now let's look at the movie industry. An average "popular" movie put together by a movie house costs about USD $100 MIL (that's right, 1000x, that's "one thousand times") as much to secure rights, actors, film, edit, print film (which is still extremely expensive) for theater shows, but ultimately ends up on DVD where people will pay $1.99 to rent it for three days, and usually $20 to buy it, with almost all but the most popular titles dropping to about $10 price per DVD, which costs, by latest industry numbers, twice as much to manufacture and distribute as a CD.

And the music industry blames piracy for their woes, while the film industry sucks it up, accepts that the video game market grosses more $$$ than they do, and they write deals with those same video game makers for film rights.

But the music biz continues down its cocaine-laden path, unflinching unwilling to accept that copying CDs has been easy as hell for over a decade, and tries to charge double the retail value for something that costs 1000x less to make. Huh?

Their latest blunder has been to go after Internet radio, in particular Live365 and SOMA FM in S.F. Live365 has been losing money although not doing too bad for years, and SOMA FM gets by on donations and has never been about nor will turn a profit. But these addled coke-addicted burnt-out never-beens are so desperate to find $$$ for their next fix that they decide to sue Internet radio broadcasters, most of whom do not make $$$ and have no advertising, and have little by way off assets, but who have been keeping the music biz alive by introducing new artists by producing focused, genre-specific, commercial free radio, thus creating a new and rapidly growing fan base, many of whom go out and buy CDs (at least half of the CDs sold on my own tiny label are from people who heard the music on Internet radio.)

At the last minute, they come up with some sort of pseudo-reprieve, giving people who have no $$$ until 2010 to pay up millions or even billions of dollars of fees, with tacked on fines and interest. Here's the latest news from Wired on it.

Um, earth to coke-heads, come in music biz coke heads. Suing people who don't have any money will not do anything but waste everyone's time and money, as well as shut down one of the few positive things going on in the music field that has produced actually sales.

Like the old saying says, "You can't squeeze blood from a stone", but these old-school 1970's losers are still trying any way they can, not realizing that they're just digging their own grave deeper and faster.

What's the solution? Give artists more independence, sell CDs for $5 a pop and still make probably a 200% profit per CD sold, and make it easier for people to buy CDs than pirate them. By the way, some nice packaging, like the old gatefold LPs with a poster - ever think of maybe adding a little value? With two point font lyrics and three mini-pages of thank yous (always starting with "God", 'cuz, you know, the creator of the universe really gives a shit if Eminem makes USD $10 or $15 MIL this year, yeah?) - well, damn, just how stupid can you get?

After this latest move, I think I have no problem comparing myself to the Founding Fathers and calling for a revolution (esp. since every other white person around seems to compare themselves to Rosa Parks or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for any reason they can think of) in suggesting the following:

1. Buy music, shirts, and see shows directly from the bands themselves. Avoid buying any music on a major label.

2. Support your LOCAL record store, and stay away from the big ones. Tower's gone, let's see the rest crumble.

3. Pirate all the music you want. That's right, steal it. Steal the stuff on my label. Go for it. Until the business changes, keep hitting everyone until it hurts.

4. Refuse to buy anything with DRM (Digital Rights Management). Sorry iTunes fans, but hold out and find MP3 copies, or use software to strip that crap out of there until they stop adding it.

5. Keep going to the theaters and buying DVDs. Show that the film industry has it figured out, and support them. Pay for your MP3s and anything that isn't protected and is reasonably priced. Support Internet radio and send $$$ to the stations that cater to your tastes, and let the free market decide who lives and dies.

I hope to be starting a new full-time job soon, and I'm sending 50% of my first paycheck, gross, to the following:

http://somafm.com
http://stillstream.com
http://live365.com
http://last.fm
http://kmhd.org (Portland Jazz)

"You say you want a revolution, oh well, you know... we all want to change the world..." - and we can, if we all pull together right now.

(My apologies to The Beatles for dragging them into this.)

The DOD FX90 Delay Pedal

Out of all the companies or subdivisions that have made guitar effects pedals, esp. those with a long list of them as a main product, by far the the worst constructed are made by DOD (although the new Berhinger knock-offs seem to be vying for this title).

But like any company that makes a product line, there's often at least one or two gems that somehow manage to get by. In the case of DOD, one is most certainly the DOD FX90 Analog Delay pedal, usually selling for anywhere from $20-$40 (although some times as much as $70) used these days, which is a great price for an Analog Delay of this quality.

It's got the usual downsides of DOD gear:

• The battery cover tends to eventually break and you have to Duct Tape the battery inside.
• It's hard to find a non-DOD power adapter for it since it needs 10VAC DC with negative tip.
• Although this particular one has both a perfect cover and pedal, the pedal switch itself is junk - even when playing at home, much less out at a gig, in a dark, loud, stinking club, pedals that have a nice, definitive "click" to the on/off switch is definitely what you want.
• Some pedals actually sound "better" when the batteries are going dead - so much so, a company has created a power supply for them that will reproduce this "problem".
• DOD pedals, esp. the analog ones, are known to "eat batteries", so you always need a box of 9-volts about if you don't get wall-warts for them all or a DOD Pedal Board
• The LED is supposed to be "bright when battery power is good, and weak as the battery dies" as if that's a feature, and not just bad design as to how the LED/light is powered and often they just don't work at all.

So how does one live with a DOD pedal, esp. the ones like this that sound really good for the price, give a decent analog sound, and we can modify to really make them even better, as good as anything even 5x the price, or as good or better than Boss pedals (which tend to set the high-bar)?

We contacted the company about buying battery covers wholesale so we could replace our own and our friends' and offer them at local music shops, but all we got was a couple of emails saying either (1) they looked into having them made but it was too expensive (huh? they're still making 4-5 pedals that use those covers) or (2) the covers are made in China where the pedals are also made, and they just come shipped as one unit. We asked why the Chinese company couldn't just make an extra 100,000 covers and ship those to DOD who would easily resell them, and we didn't get a reply. They're obviously not a well-run company.

As far as the switches, those just stink when you're looking for a nice click: you just have to step on it and hope. And those are hard to replace, although getting the LED properly modified and set up helps a lot. But in this case, the DOD FX90, since delay isn't something one tends to turn on/off much if at all (say, vs. distortion) it's not really too much of an issue with this pedal, which you tend to just get dialed in to the settings you want, and then leave it alone.

Oh, and yes, it eats batteries, in part because DOD pedals just seem to suck power, and being analog as well, it's a bad combo. Definitely a pedal you want to find a "wall wart" power supply for if you're going to gig or just don't like piling up landfills with batteries, and if you own three or more, it's worth getting a DOD Pedal Board, which they don't make any more, but also show up on eBay pretty cheap.

All that aside about DOD crap pedals in general, let me go on about the wonderfulness that is this particular one.

First off, it's analog, and having heard at least 4x types of digital delays, rack mount, pedals, you name it... there's just something that even the Line-6 DL-4 "Delay Modeler" pedal, which does OK to pretty good, can't do in comparison to even this cheaply made thing. The schematics are rather simple, being analog, and you can
view them in PDF format.

What's worth noting is that you can open up this pedal, and with some time, parts, and skill, modify this pedal from a decent one (esp. for the price) into a great pedal into one that you'll never part with.

We have started modifying ("modding" or "mod'ing") these and Boss pedals ourselves, and it's been fun and interesting, esp. when you can make them do strange things, or in the case of the DOD FX90, radically improve it, easily doubling its worth but still being a bargain at even twice the price.