Fast Forward: iTunes Turns 1

Rob Pegoraro (The Post)

Personal tech columnist Rob Pegoraro was online to talk about his column on the first anniversary of the launch of Apple's iTunes Music Store. He also discussed computer security issues that were raised in his recent interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

A transcript follows.

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Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon--a lovely April day which I, of course, am unable to appreciate except maybe via Webcam, cooped up in my office. But at least I've got this chat to distract me instead of real work :)

In my last two columns I've taken first Microsoft, then Apple, to ask; I can assure y'all that this is a fine way to get some really, um, interesting e-mail in response! I hope to get some interesting questions too... let's go to the first batch.

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Washington D.C.: I wanted to make sure I understood something from your column Sunday. With iTunes, I am NOT able to burn a CD of songs that can play in any CD player? The ONLY way I can listen to any iTunes music is through an iPod? That seems very short-sighted, if I'm understanding you correctly. I though you could at least create a playlist that could be burned to a CD and played anywhere.

Rob Pegoraro: No no no... as I wrote, you can burn your iTunes purchases to audio CD just about as often as you want, and those CDs will play on any device that accepts CD-Rs (which means just about anything manufactured in the last decade).

My objection to the otherwise quite good iTunes store is that you can't take the song downloads themselves--the copy-protected AAC files--anywhere beyond iPods and compatible computers.

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washingtonpost.com: Restrictions and Price Remain iTunes Turnoffs (April 18, 2004)

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Georgetown: 2 iTunes questions:

- how does one go about taking a song of off, say, Real networks and putting it on an iPod? This is the reverse of your column's situation -- playing AAC on a non-iPod player -- but I only own an iPod and am trying to fill in some gaps on party compilations with songs not available on iTunes.

- what is the best way to back up my iTunes database? I've spent countless hours organizing the mess, and am deathly afraid of losing it if someone steals my laptop, or a fire, etc.

Rob Pegoraro: 1) Easiest way to do that is to burn the song you purchased off Real (or Napster or Musicmatch or Wal-Mart or whatever) is to burn it to CD, then re-rip it as an MP3. The one downside of this is that you'll have to re-enter all the tract, title and artist data.

2) Just copy the whole iTunes folder to a rewriteable CD or DVD. There aren't any hidden files to fuss with; if you back up that folder, you're set.

In other news, I'm pleased to report that the Red Sox just beat the Yankees 5-4.

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Alexandria, Va.: Why wouldn't Steve Jobs be open to working with Real Networks?

Rob Pegoraro: Jobs' position, as he's said many times, is that iTunes, the no. 1 digital-music store, supports the no. 1 digital-music player, so why bother with no. 2 (or, in Real's case, no. 4 or 5). I.e., why spend money supporting devices that the majority of people are not buying?

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Arlington, Va.: I saw your article on iTunes. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my iPod but there is no way I would pay a higher price that $9.99 for a CD through them. Especially not $16.99 because I don't think the quality is that fabulous. When I scan a CD in - it is much better quality. I don't really care if its format isn't compatible. I can take my iPod to work, play it in my car, and hook it to my stereo. My friend DJs with his. It is a great thing and they made me a believer.

Rob Pegoraro: The pricing experiment, or game or whatever it is that's going on iTunes really puzzles me. Arlington is right that CDs do have higher sound quality overall (although in my experience, the difference can be really hard to hear in most listening environments). I've had people with record labels tell me that, well, being able to buy your album only as a portable digital-music file has advantages of its own. My answer: WRONG! If I buy the CD, I get the MP3 version of it anyway with five minutes of "work" on my computer.

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Bowie, MD: Yikes!; I read resounding praise for the iPod Mini, so I ordered one (just arrived today). Main attraction was the iTrip, so I could finally play my own music in my CD-less and cassette-less car stereo. Now I read your column, where you imply that there are better, less restrictive choices.

Being an MP3 moron (seriously--this is my first foray into non-CD music), how much does this matter? I've been busily loading iTunes with my CDs in AAC format. I now understand that I can only play them on my PC and my iPod--I can't make CDs that will play on anything else. That's a pity, but what's the real impact of this on a novice user like me?

Rob Pegoraro: There are two kinds of AAC files--the ones you make yourself, which have no copy controls at all, and those bought off the iTunes store, which are copy protected (and can be identified by their ".m4p" file-name extension). The AACs you've ripped with iTunes can be played on any computer and on some (but not most) digital-music players. The MP3 format still offers an overwhelming compatibility advantage in that respect.

However, all the formats in question--MP3, AAC, WMA (Windows Media Audio), Ogg, whatever--allow you to burn tracks to audio CDs. So in that sense, everybody has universal compatibility.

What I tried to do in yesterday's column was look towards the future, when we'll have even more devices capable of playing digital-music files like MP3/AAC/WMA, and when we'll be buying many more songs in these forms. At that point, you want to know that you can take these files around without having to burn them back out to audio CDs.

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Washington, DC: You highlighted a SACD "better-than-CD sound" disc at a store costing the same as the iTunes MP3 version as an example of people getting gouged by Apple's service. Due to the additional MP3 "lossy" compression aren't all iTunes albums inferior to the CD quality (to varying degrees depending on the amount of compression.) Shouldn't this point be made more often and more clearly? I understand a buyer willing be stuck with an inferior quality iTunes album only playable on their iPod rather than buying the CD (playable anywhere) then burning their own MP3s from it (at whatever bit rate/for whatever platform they want) clearly wouldn't appreciate the difference SACD brings to the audio quality. But maybe it's not that the public doesn't care, maybe they don't know. Why is there such press detailing the inferior quality of compressed MP3s in the media, and none in your last column? Isn't it your job to educate the public about new technologies rather then let people unknowingly slip backwards to inferior quality, while the few audiophiles are the only ones to get the "good" sound? Since most of the media, and all the sales hype fails to do so, shouldn't this column clearly remind people about how much less they are getting when they spend their money on iTunes (or their competitor's) songs rather than buying the CD at about the same price.

Rob Pegoraro: First, the iTunes store--along with all the other online stores selling major-label titles--doesn't use MP3 as its format. It uses AAC, which in the tests that I've seen does quite well (along with WMA) at coming very close to the quality of CDs.

Realistically, a lot of people don't have the hardware or the interest in getting the last margin of audio quality out of their music. They listen to music while jogging, while driving around or while they're doing other things (vacuuming, eating dinner, at a party, etc.). And I'd bet that the sales figures for SACD or DVD-Audio versus AAC or WMA downloads would show that the marketplace has cast a pretty decisive vote in one direction.

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Vancouver, BC: Is it true that ipod has a dirty little secret....that the ipod batteries wear out after about 18 months and it costs almost as much as a new ipod to replace the batteries?

washingtonpost.com: Check out this feature story from December.

Rob Pegoraro: Oy vey. This story just will not die... the iPod has no more of a problem in this regard than every other digital gadget with non-replaceable batteries.

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Satellite Beach, FL.: Your recent article on I Pod restrictions is the very reason I don't trust Apple and will never buy a Apple product or recommend to others.

Rob Pegoraro: In that case, I assume you're also not buying anything from Microsoft, which has repeatedly used lock-in designs to require the use of its own products.

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Baltimore, MD: Periodically, I get a pop-up that says something like "If you are seeing this ad, it is because we have detected that there is spyware on your computer ...."; and then there is a follow-up, of course, to buy some anti-spyware. I get this on Macs and Wintel.

It is safe to assume that these are bogus? Or have they actually detected spyware?

Rob Pegoraro: Sounds like BS to me. This is a regular Web pop-up ad, right?

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Washington DC: You neglected to mention that iTunes has a significant edge on its competitors with 70% of the marketshare for legally downloaded music or that the AAC format is better than MP3. But if you assume that Steve Jobs was telling the truth when he claimed that iTunes is not generating a profit for Apple, itunes exists merely to sell iPods. Do you think that iTunes will sell MP3 at some point in the future? What factors would influence Apple to make iTunes sell MP3s?

Rob Pegoraro: Actually, Apple says it made a slight profit on the iTunes store in its last fiscal quarter.

I don't think the store will ever sell MP3s--the record labels just don't want that, even though there's such overwhelming demand. They're too worried about selling a product without any built-in copy protection (notwithstanding these shiny discs they sell called Compact Discs).

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College Park: This is not an iTunes question. Last week or the week before we were pummeled at work with different viruses with PIF files. I was surprised because our government firewall is usually pretty good. Moreover, I received them in my personal yahoo account which I NEVER give out to anyone except very close friends. A few would get through a year but this last assault was pretty extraordinary. I didn't hear about the attack with PIF attachments at all in the news. Was it not a big deal?

Rob Pegoraro: I don't know. One of my coworkers was complaining about how much spam he'd gotten over last week, but I don't remember seeing much extra myself. OTOH, I'm already getting so much junk in my inbox... it's hard to tell what would count as "unusually high"

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California: Regarding your answer to the first question: you can still only play those CDs that you burn from songs downloaded from the iTunes store on computers though, is that right? I can't take that CD and play it in my car? If that's right, it makes me regret some purchases from the iTunes store.

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, you can take that audio CD and play it in your car. This is a really important distinction, which I guess some folks have gotten confused about. With *any* digital-music file, you can burn it to a recordable CD in two ways:

1) An audio CD, which will contain full-size versions of the songs and therefore can't hold more than 15-16 tops. Advantage here is maximum compatibility--any new stereo, car or home or portable, should play it.

2) A data CD, with the original computer files left intact--meaning you can store 120 or 150 songs per disc. I.e., no more need for a CD changer... so long as your stereo supports the format in question. Many support the MP3 format, for instance.

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New York: If I've already imported (ripped) a bunch of CDs onto iTunes (in the AAC format), is there a way to convert them to mp3 within iTunes itself?

In other words, I don't want to re-rip the CD in mp3 format, I want some software to convert the AAC files I already have on my iMac into mp3 format to load onto a non-iPod player.

Rob Pegoraro: Yes--there's a "Convert selection to MP3" command under the Advanced menu in iTunes

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Ann Arbor, Mich.: Microsoft has a well-documented twenty year history of stealing products, beginning with parts of CP/M and including code from STAC. When you recently interviewed Steve Ballmer and "asked if he saw anything worth imitating in competing products, Ballmer was succinct. 'No,' he said, calling other companies' work 'less sophisticated' than Microsoft's. However, in this month's Wired magazine, Steve Jobs, speaking about Microsoft's "new" operating system Longhorn, said, "Microsoft's copying us again. It feels great." What think ye?

Rob Pegoraro: I'll simply focus on that last quote, from Jobs, and say that I am simply shocked, shocked to see one tech CEO denigrate another's products.

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Chicago, IL: Rob, you say that with 50 million downloads, iTunes Music Store has done "outrageously well." Yet at $1 per song, that revenue represents a drop in the bucket for Apple. How can you characterize a service that has earned only a fraction of Apple's payroll costs for a year an "outrageous" success?

Rob Pegoraro: Considering that there was *no* business in major-label downloads before, and that Apple has done from five to 10 times better than any one competitor--if not all of them combined--yes, I'd say that's doing outrageously well. There just aren't many times where one company can plausibly claim credit for creating an entire market singlehandedly, but Apple can fairly take that credit.

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Bethesda, Md: I suspect that Apple's strategy is to fill all the available hardware and software niches in digital music with 'Apple'-branded solutions. The one big hole, so far, is a low-cost player. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $99 Apple player that holds 100 songs.

Rob Pegoraro: I don't think that'll happen. I expect the iPod mini will drop to $199 within six months, and I keep hearing that Apple will introduce some kind of wireless media receiver that will--finally--let you stream your iTunes purchases to your stereo.

But that still leaves many possible uses uncovered by iTunes. I think the car is a big one: Unless Apple is going to start making aftermarket car stereos, the only way to take iTunes purchases on the road will be as audio CDs, or on iPods plugged into one adapter or another. As Steve Jobs might put it, we can do better than that.

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Princeton, N.J.: When our PCs are hijacked or slammed with junk e-mail, those instituting the hijacking or plastering us with pop-up ads are usually trying to sell us something that we don't want or need. Can't we launch a DOS attack on these services so that they can't do business? Kind of like what goes around comes around. I know this is wrong in the end but it would be nice to serve them some of the same medicine.

Rob Pegoraro: It would. So would finding these people, keying their cars, drinking their beer and running up a ton of late fees on their Blockbuster cards. Alas, it would all be illegal.

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Inwood WV: RE: DSL / Broadband access vs. Dial-up

Out this way, there are many many holes in the coverage for DSL or Cable broadband. My boss lives further out of town, but in a newer development and can get cable access. Very frustrating. Verizon and Cingular don't have DSL available either. The industry is going to have to grow their networks if they expect broadband to become a household standard.

Rob Pegoraro: DSL has some hardware limits--you can't provide service over more than 18,000 feet of wire, as measured from each central office. That means it's always going to be more of a city-centric service, pending some kind of breakthrough. I'd tell your boss to go with cable now, as annoying as that might be, and keep his/her fingers crossed that fixed-wireless technology comes of age.

That's different from WiFi; it works over several miles, as many as 10 or 20, while still offering broadband speeds. I was surprised to see how many vendors were pitching fixed-wireless solutions at the ISPCon trade show last week... there's some kind of future in this, I think.

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Bethesda, Md.: Please folks, let's not confuse matters by bringing in SACD and DVD-Audio. These two formats are intended to be listened to in a full 5.1 or 6.1 surround environment, and have no inherent advantage over plain old stereo cds for listening outside of that environment. I like both formats, and love listening to their surround remixes when I'm at home in the living room. But to talk about them as if they have ANYTHING to do with portable audio is foolish.

Rob Pegoraro: Good point. Bethesda correctly notes that both of these higher-fi formats are largely designed for listening over six or seven-channel surround-sound systems. ("5.1" and "6.1" mean five and six speakers, respectively, plus a subwoofer). The online-music services all provide traditional, two-channel stereo tracks.

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Prince Frederick Md.: How does Wal-Mart's security scheme work regarding songs? (i.e) You must play it from the PC that you downloaded it from first, you only have a limited number of burns, you can only back it up to two PCs. How is this enforced? I've downloaded about 20 songs from their site and i want to move them to a linux box that is currently serving as my household jukebox, and I'm also interested in converting them to MP3 so that I can create a CD with more songs. Are there hidden files enforcing this security and will these restrict prevent me from converting the file?

Rob Pegoraro: Wal-Mart, like Napster and Musicmatch, uses Windows Media Audio as its file format. Each downloaded file contains copy-restriction rules that Windows Media Player has to obey. Unless somebody's reverse-engineered this copy protection (I don't believe this has happened yet), you won't be able to play the files at all on your Linux box.

You can, however, burn them to audio CD and then re-rip them as MP3s. You can also use some specialized audio software to make the conversion right on your computer (without getting too deep into technical detail, some programs can intercept the audio on its way to or from your PC's sound card, then save it in the format of your choice).

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Georgetown again: On the car stereo question, Alpine's about to release an in-dash unit that works with the iPod -- controls it, shows the same display, etc. I'm on the waitlist at Myer-Emco for one.

Meanwhile, I can back up my entire 30 gig iTunes folder on one disc? I'm not much of a techie, but that seems like an awful lot of data to fit on one disc...

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, Apple pointed that Alpine unit out to me as one way to play iTunes purchases in a car without burning them to CD. But then you have to buy one iPod *and* one Alpine unit per car in the family. I can accept buying a new stereo, but I'd rather just be able to take a data CD with 150 AACs on it. The math--one 20-cent CD-R versus one $250 iPod mini--seems pretty compelling to me.

As for your 30 gigs: At that point, I'd only back up purchased music. The rest you presumably have on the CDs you originally ripped; those CDs are your backup. Otherwise, I'd get an external hard drive.

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Alexandria, Va.: Which online music downloading service boasts the biggest library of artists?

Rob Pegoraro: It's close to a tie between iTunes and Napster, both of which make the same claim: "over 500,000" tracks.

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Washington DC: Rob,

In the past, I have always had Intel Processors in my PC. Now I am considering AMD for my next. Is there any reason not to make the switch and will I notice any difference if I do?

Rob Pegoraro: No, no reason at all not to make the switch if an AMD processor will offer a better value. (I didn't say "if AMD will be faster"; unless your needs are very specialized indeed, you won't notice any difference at all)

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Alexandria, VA: Rob:

Quickly on your MS column from two weeks ago. While I understand the enormous pressure that Mr. Ballmer must feel to not admit to any sort of failure or flaw in previous MS products, his arrogance on the subject and unwillingness to believe that other companies might have products or ideas that MS could implement on security was breathtaking (I could use the word "doobie" here again as an explanation, but will refrain...sort of). I'm sure, among all the flames from Appleheads for your unmitigated gaul to criticize the center of all that is good and right in the Universe, you'll get some comments on that.

However, your article yesterday on iTunes, file formats, etc., leads me to inaugurate, in celebration of the weather, what I hope will not become an annual rite of spring: Has there been any movement towards consolidation of formats in the DVD industry, or are they still blazing their way down the Beta-VHS trail?

As for why so many different formats exist, whether DVD, CD-ROM, or music files...do you think that the driving reason for so many formats, and the inability of the entertainment industry to learn from previous experiences (again, Beta vs. VHS) is not, as some might say, all about securing the product and more, as you started to touch on in yesterday's column, all about profit? I mean, if you are the company whose format wins out, I can only imagine how great the profits must be from licensing that format to the rest of the industry. For example, if Apple makes ACC stick, I assume that the other music sites and the industry as a whole would have to license that technology from Apple, assuming that they own it.

Ok, that was really long, but thanks for glancing over it anyway.

Bob

washingtonpost.com: No-Regrets Microsoft May Restore Security, but Not Trust (April 11, 2004)

Rob Pegoraro: Long but informative post from Bob in Alexandria--thanks! All three points you make (and, for that matter, my last two columns) focus on the same point: The habit of the computing and electronics industry to seek profit through exclusivity.

Given the choice, few people in the business want to play in a commodity market, where customers buy only on price; the longer you can avoid that, the longer you can collect extra rent (in the Econ 101 sense) on your product. But just because that makes short-term sense doesn't mean we as customers need to like it. About recordable DVDs: Most of the momentum I'm seeing is towards DVD+RW, with a little momentum going the way of DVD-RW as well. DVD-RAM remains almost exclusively a Panasonic deal. If I had to buy a DVD recorder today--a real possibility, given how much I hate VCRs--I'd get a DVD+RW unit.

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Manassas, Va.: Rob, I feel super-lame for submitting this question during your chat, but I don't know where else I can get an answer: why do I have to keep signing in every time I go to the Post's website? I'm using a Mac and IE 5.2, I'm not doing anything with the cookies and I click on "remember me"....but still every time I have to sign back on. It's annoying, and it wasn't like this until y'all switched to the more extensive survey. I didn't mind filling out the survey -- I was even truthful -- but this repeated necessity to sign on all the time is bothersome.

washingtonpost.com: More information on washingtonpost.com's registration system can be found online here. Check out question #3.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for that link. One other question coming up about my Steve Ballmer interview (something I really thought I'd get more questions about, given the intensity of some of the e-mail I received after that piece... hmm).

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Princeton, N.J.: What was it like interviewing Steve Ballmer? My opinion of him, formed from what I've read over the years, is that he can be over the top, bombastic, a showman, etc. Was he actually nice? Approachable? Likable?

Rob Pegoraro: I won't pretend that sitting down for 40 minutes with anybody allows me to crawl in their head and see what makes them tick, but I can tell you that Steve was a pleasure to meet. A really nice guy; friendly, energetic, optimistic about his company. I mean, if I were working for a startup, I'd want somebody like that at the top.

The traits that work for a startup may not be the best for a company with the quasi-regulated-monopoly status of Microsoft, though.

I'll say this much: It gave me no pleasure to write that column--to realize, looking over my notes and listening to my recording of the interview, that this pleasant chat had yielded so little admission of error or responsibility.

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washingtonpost.com: Here is some more information for Manassas, Va. This problem is typically corrected when washingtonpost.com cookies are deleted and the user tries to sign in again. Here are the delete instructions:

Internet Explorer (Mac)

1. In Internet Explorer select "Explorer" then "Preferences"

2. Under "Receiving Files" select "Cookies"

3. Delete all washingtonpost cookies (there could be several)

4. Close the "Preferences" box

5. You should now be able to register or sign in (using "Already Registered")

Hope this helps.

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Washington, DC: Not an ipod question but I have friends who are passing around an XP disk that they have burned from an original. I thought Microsoft put an end of this stuff with some kind of code needed. They are all passing around the one code also. Will they all get the updates, etc. when there are patches to be had?

Rob Pegoraro: Your friends may have a burned copy of the CD with one of the activation codes that were cracked and posted online--something that's supposed fixed by Service Pack 1 to Windows XP.

Hate to sound like a nag, but, y'know, if you can afford a computer you can afford to pay for the operating system for it. And if you can't, there's Linux.

One other note: After his speech on computing-security issues at CSIS two weeks ago, Ballmer took some questions from the audience, one of which was about this point--will Microsoft continue providing free bug-fix updates to pirated copies of Windows? Ballmer's answer was, basically, "yes, tha's what we've done, because a hacked copy of Windows is equally dangerous to other computer users whether or not it was paid for."

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Downtown D.C.: I'm resubmitting this since I'm not sure if you got my original question because -&%_-%& Explorer crapped out on me after I hit the "submit" button.

I've subscribed to eMusic for several years, mainly because it's so cheap, especially when compared to iTunes' ninety-nine cents a song model. Do you know how it's doing in wake of the iTunes onslaught? eMusic fans always praise its selection, but then we're jazz fans and otherwise like more "offbeat" (depending on how you define the term) music than the latest hits, so I would imagine the two services appeal to different audiences. However, you're the pro and I'm not, so I'd like to know what you think.

By the way, do you know why the Post website is inaccessible using Apple's Safari web browser? I have to pull up Explorer, with its attendant onslaught of popup ads, if I want to read articles or take part in the web chats. That is, if Explorer deigns to let me.

Rob Pegoraro: EMusic seems to have taken a few hits--it used to offer unlimited MP3 downloads with a subscription, but now there's a quota attached. (Just about all of its catalogue is from minor and independent record labels, despite the site itself being owned by a major-label conglomerate, Universal). I'm not sure that eMusic has had a fair chance in the market; I'd like to see how it could do against iTunes if it ditched the subscription deal--which discourages people who don't buy music at a constant rate--and charged, say, 50 cents a song or $5 an album.

I've been using Safari--1.0, 1.1 and 1.2--to browse washingtonpost.com for the last year and have never had any kind of trouble getting through, so I don't know what's ailing your copy. Sorry...

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Arlington, Va.: It sure would be nice if I could DOWNLOAD songs from my iPod. Sometimes I visit friends and grab songs from their collections for my iPod. When I want to move the songs to my wife's iPod, I can't do it. If I CAN do this, could you tell me how?

Rob Pegoraro: Some third-party authors have released software for that task--visit ipodlounge.com sometime and browse through their list of downloads.

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washingtonpost.com: As mentioned above, answers to frequently asked questions (including supported browsers) are available online here.

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Oxford, OH: You talked about the price increases of certain albums in the iTunes store. What about the fact that record companies are unhappy with the prices of online music stores and want to raise the price? Essentially, they think that consumers should pay a hefty sum for online music because apparently, the money they earn is not enough to feed their families. Why are companies so greedy? Don't they realize that they could sell more songs and are turning off people who want a genuine way of buying music legally? What kind of price would you advocate if you owned a record label? Is 99-cent a lot for a song?

Rob Pegoraro: You're asking all the right questions here. I think that 99 cents a song is fair (and have the credit-card receipts to prove it). 75 or 50 cents might be more fair, but I guess I'm not buying enough music for the difference to really matter. I also don't mind paying $10 an album, provided I actually get a real discount off the real-world price. Most iTunes downloads do meet that criteria, but I'm worried about the trend of price escalation continuing--history suggests that the record labels will use early success with a few titles to get "creative" with pricing on many more new releases.

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Greenbelt, MD: Hi Rob,

This is slightly off-topic, but what's your initial reaction to the new Apple Powerbooks released this morning? I'm struggling to decide whether I should buy one of the new models now or wait for Apple to put the G5 in the Powerbook. I don't have any pressing need for a new computer right now, but I've really been wanting to switch to a Mac for a long time and am not sure if another 4-6 month wait for the G5 (just a guess) is worth it. Any thoughts would be appreciated!;

Btw, I love your column.

Thanks!;

Rob Pegoraro: The news was a bit of a yawner. The speed increases are certainly nice, but many people won't notice the difference between the old and new ones. I was pleased to see that AirPort Extreme is now standard on all PowerBook models; OTOH, what is Apple thinking in only including 256 megs of memory on a model advertised for professional use? It should make 512 standard on all its PowerBooks.

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Georgetown: My Itunes folder has over 1,000 songs and beginning to hog the 128 meg in my Dell Dimension 8100 - and I have been told that I should upgrade with an additional 256 - but Dell tells me I have to buy 2 256 chips - I cannot just buy one. Is this true and should I be able to go elsewhere to buy more memory?

Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Why does Dell say you need to pair your memory modules? That can be necessary with an "interleaved" memory architecture, but I wasn't aware of such a design being used by anybody recently, at least not in a home PC.

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Washington, DC: I love my iPod and iTunes, but I recently purchased a song that stopped playing. I double checked that it's playing on an authorized machine. How can I go about getting a new copy of the song from Apple? I tried their service site, but I didn't see the answer to this question.

Rob Pegoraro: Try copying the song to another computer. I haven't heard of this problem myself, and unless you've had a disk crash, I don't see how it happened. Unfortunately, if the song file really is hosed... so are you. Apple's position is that it sees itself as a record store--it only sells the song once, and replacing it afterwards is your problem, not theirs.

(I should note that one nice thing eMusic does is allow subscribers to re-download their purchases if they do lose them.)

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Adelphi, Md.: The issue that I have with ITunes is that my CD-R drive is not supported, so I cannot, in fact burn a disc of my downloaded songs. Any idea if Apple plans to expand the supported CD-R's? Any idea if the barrier to supporting all CD-R drives is a technical one or a political one (i.e., do the manufacturers have to pay a fee to be supported or something like that?)

Rob Pegoraro: It's mainly a technical issue; developers don't want to have to write drivers for every model of hardware ever built. Apple has expanded CD-RW drive support with earlier updates to iTunes, but if your model is old, I'm not sure that they'd get to it later on if they haven't by now.

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Falls Church, Va: I bought a new copy of Symantec Systemworks 2004 and sent in my rebate slips for a total of $60.00. Getting a fresh copy of SW is an annual event for me as well as waiting months for the rebates and making numerous calls about it. This time I have both rebate checks before the credit card bill arrives. Rebate processing must be improving.Tina

Rob Pegoraro: A rare bit of good news about rebates from one of our regulars!

(FWIW, the last rebate I put in for, a $10 offer from Amazon, was processed on the promised schedule. But I was also ultra-attentive to saving all the packaging from my order until I'd double-checked what I'd need to send in with the rebate form.)

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Georgetown Dell followup: Thanks for the response - Bought my Dell in 2001 - that may not be "recent" in computer years - but Dell did not say anything to me about interleaving (SP?) Should I be able to find memory chips at CompUsa for my Dell?

Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Finding the right memory module is a little like finding the right inkjet cartridge for your printer--a lot of fine print has to be read. I'd visit a memory-retailers' site--for instance, www.crucial.com--where you can plug in the make and model of your PC and see exactly what kind of memory you need. Then you can do a search for the lowest price at a site like pricegrabber.com.

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NoLo, DC: Have you seen audiolunchbox.com? It's another site for purchasing music at $9.99/album. You don't get the option of buying individual tracks like you do with iTMS, but on the other hand the music is DRM-Free and you can download as either (or both) MPG (192k!;) and OGG. They also throw, if available, liner notes and cover art into the downloadable zip. I've bought a couple of albums from them and have been very pleased...

Rob Pegoraro: Hadn't heard of this one. What kind of labels do they carry?

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Atlanta: Rob, I've been working with my iPod since Christmas, and the most discouraging thing is the inability to use it to synch my music between home and work. As I understand it, this inability was one of the negotiated elements of iTunes with the music industry. Do you think that future versions of iTunes will allow you to use an iPod more like a PDA and sync your music to any of your three authorized computers?

Rob Pegoraro: Apple left out that feature because it would make it too easy to share music with strangers. What you can do is either switch your iPod into hard-drive mode (it's an option within iTunes), then drag the MP3s you want onto the thing, then copy them from there to the second machine. This won't, however, happen automatically, nor will it let you play those songs on the iPod itself.

Plan B would be to download a third-party iPod file-transfer utility, as I mentioned in an earlier answer.

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Reston, Va.: Hello Rob - not an iTunes question this but a couple of iMac security questions. MANY Thanks for the heads a week or two ago about virus writers targeting OS X!

#1 I saw reported elsewhere that a new worm wrinkle involves using a virus signature-free email to trick IE into going to a website to download the actual virus. The dangerous aspect of this is that the virus itself isn't exposed to antivirus software protection. So - since OS X machines come with IE, does this make them vulnerable to that?

#2 Is there OS X spyware so far as anyone knows, and if so is there OS X spyware removal software?

Rob Pegoraro: Well, I wouldn't say that virus writers are "targeting" Mac OS X; the only thing that's happened thus far is that somebody has written a proof-of-concept application that shows you can make an executable look and act like an MP3, following which one anti-virus vendor, Intego put out a somewhat breathless press release. Many people in the Mac-security business have come down pretty hard on Intego for over-hyping the situation since then.

Answers to your other questions:

1. I haven't heard of any viruses, ever, affecting IE for the Mac, nor any that can infect an OS X machine just by arriving as an e-mail. It would be quite difficult, if not impossible, to write such a thing--incoming executable attachments aren't allowed to run at all, AFAICT.

2. I have yet to hear of any OS X spyware either.

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Washington, D.C.: Rob- I saw that Rob Glaser from Real and Will Poole from Microsoft are both giving presentations at the future of music policy summit at lisner in a few weeks - any buzz on this conference? Is it worth attending?

Rob Pegoraro: The people at the Coalition For the Future of Music (www.futureofmusic.org) are making some important points about how individual artists get treated in the current music business. These points, IMHO, deserve a wider hearing. Unfortunately, many of the folks who should be listening--i.e., at the major labels--show few signs of paying much attention.

(Full disclosure: FMC's executive director, Jenny Toomey, wrote a few personal-tech reviews for the Post back in the day.)

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Search for Dell Dim 8100 memory on crucial.com - Answer:: We're Sorry!;

No products are currently available for the system you selected. Your system may require proprietary or non-standard parts.

Can you believe this answer for such a popular and widely sold home computer?

Rob Pegoraro: No! That's really, really odd. I'd double-check with Dell; maybe you really do need to buy the Dell Super-Duper Exclusive Memory (tm)

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College Park MD: Ballmer interview (something I really thought I'd get more questions about, - given the intensity of some of the e-mail I received after that piece... hmm).

What were the reactions to that piece? I can see their legal reasons not to admit to any fault but I agree that they have made lots of wrong "default" decisions that leave Windows machines too vulnerable.

Bruce

Rob Pegoraro: The reactions were all over the place, but mostly disappointing--in the sense that, among people who chose to write me, none showed any sign of having thought much about the piece. The Mac/Linux zealots wanted to know why I didn't just say "buy a Mac/install Linux" in the story. The Microsoft defenders, meanwhile, generally threw out vague, generic insults--c'mon, if you don't like the article, say what the hell you don't like about it! It's not that hard!

I also heard from a number of people who strongly objected to me alluding to Richard Clarke's apology at the end of the column. I hadn't though that would be read as anything more than me citing an example of an unsolicited, public acceptance of responsibility--but I was wrong in that.

I've been writing those people with this reply:

If that doesn't sit right with you, feel free to substitute any other example of similar conduct--say, Ronald Reagan's remarks after the attack on our Marines in Lebanon, when he said, "If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good."

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Reston, VA: For College Park, MD, who wrote

Last week or the week before we were pummeled at work with different viruses with PIF files. I was surprised because our government firewall is usually pretty good. Moreover, I received them in my personal yahoo account which I NEVER give out to anyone except very close friends.

Two reasons why he or she has been getting them on his or her personal account

1 A friend was infected - The worm may be the type that digs through all of the email addresses it can find among the friend's old emails and the friend's address book, and sends itself to those addresses. This unfortunately includes the private yahoo.com email address.

2 Dictionary attack - The worm is generating all possible alphanumeric combinations and College Park's address just happens to be one of them.

Rob Pegoraro: Good theories there. Thanks, Reston.

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Raleigh, N.C.: I have been converting some iTunes files onto CDs and then ripping them to mp3. The other night I tried using a CD-RW and it wouldn't work. Can you only make an audio cd from a CD-R?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, but most audio devices *won't* read any kind of CD-RW. CD-R is your best bet for making audio CDs, unless all the CD/DVD players you own specifically say they're CD-RW-compatible.

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Silver Spring, MD: I am happily one of the minority; I bought and love my Dell digital jukebox, which in addition to saving me $150 over Apple's price is absolutely indestructible.

I don't use any file download service - I've tried them all and none of them produce tracks that are high enough quality for me to waste my money on. Until they start making some high-quality VBR files available, they aren't going to see a penny more of my money.

I do like iTunes software, though; its streaming capability is really nice, and it handles MP3 files just fine. I only wish they and Dell would cooperate to allow iTunes to work directly with the DDJ, to rip, synch, etc.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for sharing your experience with the Dell DJ MP3 player (FYI, it does not work with the iTunes store but should function with all the Windows Media stores--Napster, Wal-Mart, Musicmatch, etc.)

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Rob Pegoraro: That's it for today--got a day job to attend to here. Thank you all for a lot of interesting questions. I'll be back here in a week to talk about WiFi, the subject of the next Sunday Business section in the Post.

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