Sachin Agarwal: October 2005

I just found out Stanford and Apple have put a whole bunch of audio content on the iTunes music store for free. You can download lectures by faculty, speeches by guest speakers, and much more. There's a lot of interesting content to listen to. Make sure you click on all the tabs at each page (for example, "Human Health" and "Environment" under "Global Issues").

Click here to go to the iTMS page

Or click here so see a list of some of the stuff I've already downloaded

Update: I guess it's all official now, with more audio and video content coming! Click here for the content

I updated my Miata homepage with new info and pictures. In particular, I wrote a review of the Kenwood headunit with iPod control. I had to buy this blindly as there were no reviews explaining how it worked, what it could or couldn't do.

The review is basic with no pictures. Maybe I'll add more later. Let me know if you want more info!

1. Apple released new Powerbooks, quad processor desktops, and a new professional photo application called Aperture. If you're into photography, you should check out the sample videos, especially the compare and select tools. This application is amazing. I can't wait to start using it! Aperture quick tours

2. Had dinner at Foreign Cinema. Possibly my favorite restaurant in San Francisco now.

3. Drinks at Medjool. Great drinks, awesome view of SF. Highly recommended.

Gary visits SF: Gary visited SF for a week. Lots of fun, remembering old times. We even had dinner with Jason Ross, our other freshman roommate who I hadn't seen in years!

Weekly dinner: Our weekly dinner, at Celia's

Fleet Week: Saw the airshow from Coit Tower. Really amazing to see the Blue Angels flying around the Bay, through San Francisco, and around Alcatraz.

SF Wednesdays: Pictures from the Red Room and Tonga Room

Green Day Warfield: The Green Day show at the Warfield. Video coming too!

At presentations, Steve often says that the work Apple does "is all about the music." Music brings so much joy in our lives. It really is something that makes me very happy, and I'm glad it's becoming a bigger part of my life thanks to iTunes and the iPod. The new iTunes commercial is so amazing I hope everyone sees it online or on TV this weekend. "Lose Yourself" to the music.

Last weekend I went through every one of my physical CDs and made sure I had ripped them to my computer. I found plenty of great artists and albums that for whatever reason, I had never ripped to my iPod, and therefore hadn't heard in years! I rediscovered incredible tunes that I had loved in high school and college. It was a great feeling to listen to those albums again.

Speaking of music, I saw Green Day last night at the Warfield. I saw them a couple weeks ago at SBC and they are an amazing band live, and I couldn't pass up the chance to see them in a 2k person venue. Tickets sold out in about 15 seconds. I was hitting refresh a million times at ticketmaster, got the screen to buy tickets, mistyped the word verification, and missed!

Avi and Paul were also buying tickets and of course, between the three of us we got two tickets. The show was super strict on trying to avoid scalping so it was 2 tix per person max, pick up in person, will call only, pick up tickets and go DIRECTLY into the show. Basically, there was almost zero scalping.

Avi is totally awesome and let me go to the show with Paul. I owe him BIG. Thanks Avi! I guess Green Day decided to do this Warfield show at the last minute because they wanted to film it for a DVD or something. The whole show was being captured by several cameras, and they played for THREE HOURS. It was incredible!

The Warfield is the best venue I've ever seen, and Green Day is the best band I've ever seen live (even when I saw them three years ago, it was the best show I had ever seen).

Maybe we'll be able to buy the concert on the iTunes movie store. One day :)

Yet another HUGE product announcement from Apple this morning. First of all, it's just so incredible to watch Steve on stage presenting these products. He's just so good at it! It gives me goose bumps every time to see all the amazing stuff Apple whips out, time and time again. I really can't work anywhere else.

This announcement was advertised as "One more thing" indicating there was something else after the very recent announcement of the Nano and ROKR. "One more thing" was something Steve would often do at the end of a keynote to bring out once last surprise product. Today's announcement was a 3 part "Act" after which he said he had "one more thing." Who would have expected it!? One more thing at an event that was itself "one more thing." I just can't handle all this excitement :)

Act I
iMac is revved. Besides the basics of it being faster and thinner, the main features are:

Built in iSight camera. This is huge. Now people like my dad will buy a mac, open the box, and they are SET for worldwide *free* chat, audio, and video conferencing. They have the computer, the account (free AIM or .Mac), the software, the camera, and everything else ready to go out of the box. This is the first step in making video chat much more common.

Front Row: You have to see this one to believe it. They did a home media center RIGHT. It's so simple. A tiny 6 button remote for your imac. Hit one button and in a cool 3D whoosh your desktop is gone and you have 4 icons for music, movies, photos, and DVDs. Hit music and you have an iPod like interface to select what you want. From movies you can select from all the movie trailers online by clicking on a movie poster. It's really amazing when you see it in person. If this moves down to the Mac mini, you have the PERFECT home media center.

Act II
The ipod. New hard drive based ipods. 30 and 60gb, significantly thinner, huge screen, and it plays VIDEO. There are two new commercials including an AWESOME half color half sillouette feating Eminem, one of the best we've ever done.

Act III
iTunes: New version of iTunes that supports downloading videos to the iPod. You can buy music videos and Pixar shorts for 1.99. There's also a new recommendation system called Just For You. Apple fell into the Beta craze and released this as beta. It's the first time (in my memory) we have done this. I hope it's a one time thing :)

One More Thing
The fun couldn't stop there. Besides watching music videos on your ipod, you can watch TV SHOWS. Apple got a deal with ABC/Disney for 5 shows to start including Desperate Housewives and Lost. $1.99 per episode, available the day after it airs. So awesome. I wasn't planning on buying a TV after I moved from my current apartment, and if they add the 2 shows I watch (Scrubs and Arrested Development) I definitely won't get a TV.

Of course, all this is high quality, commercial free.

Encore: Wynton Marsalis plays for the audience

I'm sure these are all just a start to much bigger things. Apple has started the move to get mainstream content available for purchase, and i'm sure more and more people will jump on the wagon. Maybe one day we'll be able to buy all the TV shows and movies we want right online!

Steve is really incredible at creting all these products, making the deals, and presenting them to the world. His keynotes are really amazing and my summary here doesn't do justice to the excitment and fun of watching it happen. You can watch a stream of it here

Steve announces iPod Video

I added pictures from the San Francisco ski jump last Thursday on Fillmore Street. Totally ridiculous. They trucked in tons and tons of snow and jumped along Fillmore, over Vallejo, overlooking the beautiful Bay.

Ski jump on Fillmore

Also added more pictures from SF Wednesdays. Last Wednesday was another great event at Bambuddha Lounge.

SF Wednesdays pics