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The only problem with these new Vista typefaces is that they’re only distributed with Vista. So, I have two simple requests:

  1. Microsoft, please distribute these new Vista typefaces for older versions of Windows, especially XP. Perhaps include them with the release of Internet Explorer 7 and future Office updates?
  2. Apple, please license this set of fonts from Microsoft and include them with Mac OS X.
Making good on these two simple requests would go an incredibly long way towards improving the state of typography on the web — and should cost each company next to nothing.
JeffCroft.com: An open letter to Apple and Microsoft - This letter is three and a half years old now, but it’s never too late to stop hoping Microsoft and Apple will arrange an agreement to provide Microsoft’s ClearType Font Collection to OS X users for free (similar to the Core fonts for the Web).
IEBlog : An Early Look At IE9 for Developers - What’s Direct2D, you ask? Well, from the looks of it, the salvation of type on Windows. Truly remarkable improvements. Can’t wait for all Windows browsers to start supporting this API. Via Thomas Phinney. Correction, 3/1/2010: It’s not actually Direct2D that enables beautiful text on Windows. Rather, it’s a different, but related API new to Windows 7: DirectWrite. Direct2D provides hardware acceleration, but it’s DirectWrite that provides the improved text drawing system. My bad.

IEBlog : An Early Look At IE9 for Developers - What’s Direct2D, you ask? Well, from the looks of it, the salvation of type on Windows. Truly remarkable improvements. Can’t wait for all Windows browsers to start supporting this API.

Via Thomas Phinney.

Correction, 3/1/2010: It’s not actually Direct2D that enables beautiful text on Windows. Rather, it’s a different, but related API new to Windows 7: DirectWrite. Direct2D provides hardware acceleration, but it’s DirectWrite that provides the improved text drawing system. My bad.

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If a small startup can build the Litl, why couldn’t a big company like Dell or Sony? People today still love HP calculators made 30 or even 40 years ago. Has HP made anything this decade that anyone will remember fondly even five years from now? Inkjet printers?

These PC makers are lacking in neither financial resources nor opportunity. What they’re lacking is ambition, gumption, and passion for great software and new frontiers. They’re busy dying.

Daring Fireball: The OS Opportunity : Essays like this one are the reason why I read John Gruber’s Daring Fireball every day.

Bing logo looks toothless

I’ve been looking at the bing logo that some have criticized, and I have something to add: I think it’s the “g.” The g looks like it got punched in the mouth and lost a tooth.

I’ve never thought of a “g” having a tooth before, but something about this one makes it look like it’s trying real hard to smile, but can’t quite do it.

Your thoughts?

Microsoft Math

So, someone at Microsoft apparently had one of these moments and now I’m beginning to see those Zune Pass ads about it costing $30,000 to fill up your iPod everywhere. They have employed a very clever technique to persuade you that you’re wasting money on music when you could just pay $15 a month for music you will never own. It’s called math.

But I have a problem. See, they’re claiming that if you filled up your iPod with music from iTunes it would cost you thirty grand. Which makes sense. Wait, sorry, make that “not at all”—it makes no sense.

The thinking is this: You’ve got a 120 GB iPod. That’s 120,000 megabytes. Now, if by some divine knowledge we say that an average song is 4 minutes long, and if the same divine knowledge says that each minute of music takes about 1 megabyte of space to store it, that’s 4 megabytes (MB from here on out) per song. Dividing 120,000 MB by 4 MB leaves us with 30,000 songs. The iTunes Store is known far and wide for pioneering the $1 a song business model, so therefore, 30,000 songs = 30,000 bucks. And now Microsoft has a whole website dedicated to this fact.

The problem I have with this stems from a very simple fact: the 1 MB per minute principle? Not so much anymore. If you remember correctly, the iTunes Store switched to DRM-free 256 kbps AAC-encoded music a short time ago. From the iPod classic features page, in the fine print, we read:

Music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding.

Emphasis in there is mine.

Now that the bitrate of all songs on the iTunes Store has doubled, it’s not hard to say that the size of the “average” song on iTunes has doubled as well. Instead of the average song being 4 MB, it’s now closer to 8 MB. (Maybe a little less since they may be using variable bit rate encoding, but hey, we’re talking Microsoft Math here.)

Therefore, the new, real math would be something more like $15,000 to fill up your iPod at $1 a song. For those not real good with math, that’s half of 30,000, and also, half what Microsoft uses a whole advertising campaign to claim.

All this based on the premise, of course, that:

  1. you actually pay for all your music on a song-by-song basis,
  2. you have nothing else on your iPod besides $1 songs from iTunes, and 
  3. you actually manage to fill up a 120 GB iPod classic… completely with songs from the iTunes Store… bought on a song-by-song basis.

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Not to mention that you will actually own these songs forever, of course.