Each promo will only run for 24 hours, so don’t miss your chance to get some free media from Apple this Christmas season!

This Christmas, we’re feeling very generous and are handing out free gifts galore. From December 23 through January 3, you and your friends can download free music, TV episodes, movies, apps, or books from some of the biggest stars on iTunes.

To get your free gift, simply visit any of our partners below between December 23 and January 3. Each free download will be available exclusively through our partners’ websites for 24 hours only.

SPOILER:
Today’s gift is a TV show, the Christmas special from Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory (The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis). Enjoy!

Apple held its media event this afternoon, and released new iPods, a new Apple TV, and also announced a new version of iTunes, dubbed iTunes 10. My first thought was regarding the version number after the name, as I somewhat expected it to be changed to iTunes X, following the lead of Mac OS X and QuickTime X. QuickTime, of course, jumped from version 7 to version “X”, but the Mac OS made it all the way to version 9.2.2 before being dubbed “X” for version 10. Since SoundJam MP was already a couple of versions in (v2.5.3) when it was purchased by Apple to become iTunes, this is one MP3(!) player that has really gone the distance. Perhaps Apple found that average people get confused by Roman numerals and didn’t want to risk any negative effect?

Taking a gander at what appears to be the new icon for iTunes (upper right image in this post), I noticed that the familiar CD has been removed, with only a round badge adorned with a blue gradient left encircling the beamed pair of eighth notes. Although iTunes will still rip CDs to your computer, it seems as though most people these days are getting their music through online digital music stores, so it makes some sense to remove the CD graphic.

According to a number of sites, Jobs’ words were, “iTunes 10 will be available for download today.” Upon visiting the download site, it becomes apparent that he must have meant “later today”. People in the U.S. are also experiencing this, so it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with being in Canada. Perhaps later this evening it will become available for download.

Update: iTunes 10 is live.

The fact that users can’t connect their Facebook accounts is a big plus in my book, and I am very grateful that Apple isn’t requiring that they be linked. Sure, it may be a hassle to add people manually, but after hearing about Facebook’s “onerous terms” for the deal I’m glad Apple didn’t give in.

Ping itself seems to not “see” the music you have in iTunes that didn’t come from Apple (CD Baby, Jamendo, Amazon, Audio CD, etc.), which is (for me) a major issue that will hopefully be resolved in a software update.

“This is fantastic! I’ve always wanted encryption-software from people who can’t write an uninstaller properly.”

Also, yay for dead software patents!

“The patent that was claimed on turning pictures and colours into music actually expired on December 14, 2009 due to “Failure to pay maintenance fees”. I confirmed it by the bibliographic data of the US Patent Office.
Thanks helping me many people.”

It splits songs into individual files when the next one starts, and offers an option to never record ads. Recorded tracks can be exported as MP3 of AAC, with an option to add the resulting songs to iTunes or simply to export them to a chosen folder. It also provides a non-destructive audio editor and allows modification of a number of metadata fields before exporting. Snowtape goes another step further than most Internet radio recording applications and also assigns album art to each file.

Click to enlarge

It’s unfortunate that Snowtape stores files as AIFF until you click the “Export to folder” button (a 1-click process). It would be much preferred to have them stored as AAC or MP3, especially since they aren’t critical data for most people and therefore wouldn’t need to be exported to a different format other than the one the user has set in their preferences. If there is another reason to keep them stored in AIFF, I’m not seeing it.

Upon checking the Snowtape website, it seems as though the dev is adding features on a regular basis. Recording multiple streams at once would be nice, but it’s not something I’m pining too terribly for.

It costs US$29.00, or US$39.00 for a family pack.

In the Microsoft Windows XP Startup Disk control panel, icons for removable discs such as CDs or DVDs appear even after they are ejected. Why?

In Microsoft Windows XP, removable disc icons remain in the Startup Disk control panel even after they are ejected.

Yes, but why? You’ve just shuffled the sentence around and restated the problem.

They stay there.

I know they do, I’m asking why they stay there.

*points at Startup Disk control panel* They stay THERE.

As noted, the update to SIMBL enables extensions like SafariBlock to continue providing their functionality, provided the plugin developer(s) update their code. However, some extensions may work without updates if the applications they affect are run in 32-bit mode. This isn’t directly stated in John Siracusa’s excellent Snow Leopard review, but this part inspired me to try it.

In this case, provided Safari is run in 32-bit mode, the current version of SafariBlock will function correctly (Quit Safari first):

1. Select Safari in the Finder. (Easy way: hold the Command key and click the Safari icon in the Dock. This will reveal and select Safari in the Finder.)
2. Type Command-i or choose Get Info from the File menu or the right-click menu.
3. Check the box next to “Open in 32-bit mode” and close the Get Info window.

Launch Safari and SafariBlock should be doing its job once again.

If you’re still seeing ads where you normally wouldn’t, make sure to grab the newest (currently a beta) version of SIMBL and install it.

Thanks, Mike!