MySpace has joined the recent crowd of iTunes wanna-be's. MySpace announced Friday that before the end of 2006 it will give unsigned, independent bands a place to sell their music. Musicians will be able to sell tunes on their own MySpace pages and on fan pages. And here's the best news--the MP3's sold at MySpace will not be shackled by DRM and will work on the iPod and other music players. Prices will be set by the individual bands, who will pay a "small" distribution fee to MySpace.

MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe told Reuters: "The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there. Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."

Whether a MySpace music store is a real threat to iTunes Music Store is anybody's guess, but I'd say it's unlikely. On the one hand, independent, unsigned artists, no matter how good they are, are not direct competition for established musicians who have the backing of the powerful music industry. And iTMS is so entrenched as the place to go for music downloads that it will be hard to unseat.

On the other hand, in its favor, MySpace has a huge potential customer base for indie music. It's been ranked as the #1 most visited site on the Web and is wildly popular with teens, who are a great market for undiscovered bands. It will have lots of music to offer from three million independent bands. MySpace differs from other iTunes challengers, like Microsoft Zune, and the newly announced Samsung music subscription service, because its offerings won't be locked up by DRM, and MySpace is not controlled by the recording industry (although it is backed by powerful parent company News Corporation).

Should Apple be watching its back? What do you think?

Ambrosia Software has released Snapz Pro X 2.0.3, an Intel Mac-compatible upgrade to its top-notch screen recording app. Other improvements include a tune-up to make Snapz Pro run smoothly on single processor machines, and a fix to ensure control over whether the cursor appears in your recording.

I use Snapz Pro almost every day to make static screenshots for TUAW and for print publications, and to make movies of my screen for video podcasts. I love, love, love this program. Sure you can use the built-in screenshot capability in OS X, but Snapz Pro offers much more control over static screenshots and the added bonus of recording movement on your screen. Snapz Pro X 2.0.3 is a free upgrade for registered users of Snapz Pro X 2.0.x. New users pay $29 for the static version and $69 for the movie version.

Everyone, including the New York Times, is talking about the novel suggestion from GigaOM's Robert Young that Apple buy YouTube. Young threw out the following reasons for Steve to get out his checkbook and snag YouTube:

• It would give Apple a place (well, another place) among the top 50 web properties. YouTube was ranked as 40th top-visited site in July by comScore Media Matrix.
• It would be a way for Apple to tap into the growing online ad revenue market.
• It would empower the video iPod. "The online video phenom can be to the video iPod what iTunes was to the audio iPod. It's not difficult to imagine mass consumers, especially tweens, downloading their playlists of YouTube 'video snacks' and viewing them on the go with their video iPods."
• The promotional synergy between YouTube and iTunes could be significant, especially if YouTube is able to get music videos from record labels and offer them for free.
• It would make Steve a social media mogul (as if he weren't already).

What do you think? Is an Apple-YouTube deal sci-fi or possibility?

If you've gone to the trouble of creating a podcast, you're probably going to want to have it listed at iTMS. Whether and when that might happen is anyone's guess. Be prepared for some anxiety time as you wait a week or so to see if your podcast is accepted. Even if it is accepted, it won't necessarily show up on iTunes right away.

I just went through the process myself. It took six days from the time I submitted to iTunes to the time my video podcast (iTunes link -- finally) appeared on the iTunes Music Store. During that time, I wasn't sure if there was some problem with my RSS feed, whether I'd used the right tags, or whether the delay was just part of the iTMS submission process. I finally got a form email from Apple telling me that my submission had been accepted, but it took another day after that for the podcast to show up in an iTunes search.

If you're going through the iTunes submission process, the iTunes tech specs and the Apple Discussions Forum for podcast producers may help you figure out the process. But be prepared to wait.

8/23/06 Update: After reviewing my records, it looks like there were fewer days than I'd originally figured between my submission to iTunes and the day I got my approval email. It came down to one business day because there was a weekend in between, with another day before the podcast came up in an iTunes search. My apologies to the good folks at iTunes. More news since I wrote this post -- my stats show that the majority of my podcast's hits have come through iTunes. So I'd say it's definitely worth submitting your podcasts to iTMS.

Since it's a lazy summer Sunday without a lot of ground-breaking news, this story about a Dublin man's "walk of shame" may give you a chuckle. Frustrated iMac owner Karl Hayden plans to show Apple up by demonstrating that it will take him less time to walk to the nearest Apple repair center -- about 156 miles away in Cork -- than for Apple to pick up the computer for a promised replacement.

After some failed repair attempts through AppleCare, Apple apparently promised on August 14 to replace the computer. Four days later, Apple hadn't shown up to retrieve the broken iMac before shipping out the new one. Four days doesn't sound like much of a delay to me, but I guess Mr. Hayden's fuse had been burning for a while. He plans to leave Monday morning and carry his iMac with him. Want to take bets on whether he makes it to Cork before the pickup?

I've done it again -- sent an email that mentions an attachment, and then forgot to attach the file. It's always embarassing. Here's a way to save yourself from similar humiliation.

Download this free Attachment Scanner plugin for Mail.app, and install it following the directions on the developer's site. Now when you type "attach," "attachment,", "attaching," or similar words in an email, if you hit Send without actually attaching a document, you'll see a warning like this one: "Message Has No Attachment. Your mail appears to refer to an attachment, but none exists. Do you wish to continue?" If you don't mention an attachment, you won't see anything different than usual. I've been using it all day, and really appreciate getting a second chance to save face thanks to developer James Eagan.

[via macosxhints]

iTunes Music Store has added more free TV show episodes:

• Sacrifice episode, Blade: The Series, Season 1 iTMS link
  
• Episode 1, Who Wants to Be a Superhero, Season 1 iTMS link
  
• Four episodes (8/14, 8/15, 8/16, 8/17), Passons iTMS link
  
• Road to the Runway (casting special), Project Runway, Season 3 iTMS link
  
• Making a Scene (short), Prison Break: Season 1 iTMS link
  

The Stargate SG-1, Season 10 iTMS link and Stargate Atlantis, Season 3 iTMS link series have also been added to iTMS, but no free episodes there.

The CEO of Lions Gate Studios, a small movie studio that specializes in independent films, let it slip this week that his studio has made a deal with Apple to deliver full-length movies through the iTunes Music Store. Lions Gate studio president Steve Beeks confirmed to Apple Insider that the iTunes movie service will probably launch before the end of the year, hedging that: "We know when [Apple is] planning on launching, but since they have not announced it publicly, I do not think it is our place to say anything more about that."

[via DV Guru]

I lost my lighter to airport security the other day. So I was resigned to being unprepared for the inevitable flame tribute to the bands at the Lyons Folks Festival tonight. That is, until I came across this post at Cult of Mac about the iScorch. I'll just hold up my iPod Video and let this video be my torch. There's also an iScorch for the Nano and the iPod Photo.

If you're waiting for Leopard, you'll have to cool your heels until Spring 2007, when Apple officially promises the release. To wet your appetite, Apple previewed 10 Leopard features at WWDC today:

• Time Machine - a new built-in backup system that will back up your entire system and allow you to restore the whole thing or just selected files.
• Enhancements to iChat -- including a tabbed interface, custom still or video backdrops for your video iChat, iChat Theater (which lets you show iPhoto pics or a Keynote presentation during an iChat), and Photo Booth effects to make yourself look silly during a chat. Other iChat enhancements that were mentioned but not demoed include video recording (yes!), invisible mode, and animated buddy icons. The Apple site also shows the ability to share your desktop during an iChat. Now just let me figure out how to use these features to do screen recordings and machinima -- hmmm.
• Two dashboard additions -- Web Clip, which allows you to build dynamically updating widgets from any Web page (examples -- a cartoon or bestseller list that updates every day); and DashCode for widget development, complete with modifiable widget templates (for RSS, podcasts, and more), and a library of parts to pop into your widget.
• Additions to Mail.app -- a To-Do list made automatically from emails and that ties into iCal and other apps; Stationery (rich HTML email templates); and Notes (to replace those reminder emails you've been sending yourself).
• Universal Access features - natural sounding voiceover, closed captioning in QuickTime, and braille support.
• Core Animation - with features like keyframing and tweening to help developers create animations.
• Spotlight enhancement - Spotlight will be able to search other machines on your network, do Boolean search, and will launch your applications for you.
• Virtual desktop Spaces - letting you combine task-based applications into separate logical desktop configurations. That means you can have one group of apps running for Web design, another for print production, and yet another for podcast creation and editing. You'll be able to drag items between Spaces.
• Complete package - of built-in apps, including Boot Camp, Front Row, and PhotoBooth.
  
• 64 bit processing.
  

Yesterday Washingtonpost.com posted a video of a couple of hackers allegedly launching a security attack against a MacBook. The video and the accompanying story by reporter Brian Krebs received tons of criticism from commenters. That prompted Krebs to post a follow-up defending his reporting -- which prompted even more criticism. I don't pretend to be a hardware or security expert, so I can't tell you whether the video is a fake or not. What I do find interesting is how the blogosphere policed this "story," proving once again that you can't get away with much out here.

I just finished speaking on a panel -- Primp Your Blog -- at BlogHer '06. The audience was mostly women -- for a change. And here's the really good news: a cheer went up when I introduced myself as a Mac user, and a majority of hands went up when I asked how many in the room were Mac users. Women Mac geeks rule! I've always wondered how many women are out there in the TUAW audience. Make yourselves known.

This week's ScreenCastOnline is a video tutorial on Elgato's eyeTV2. The tutorial shows how to edit your TV recordings to remove ads, make DVDs of your TV recordings, convert recorded programs to iPod format and export to iTunes for syncing with your iPod, and more. It also offers a look at the new eyeTV for DTT device (Digital Terrestrial Television) launched by Elgato in Europe, which Scott mentioned recently.

ScreenCastsOnline is also giving away an eyeTV for DTT to a lucky new subscriber to the free iTunes version of the ScreenCastsOnline video podcast.

Want a free copy of your favorite Mac app? The crazy kids at macZOT are offering just that if you're the first person to suggest an app you'd like to see on macZOT, and they do cover it.

They post a long list of apps that have already been suggested, so you'll have to find something relatively obscure. But hey, there's always something new on ye olde Web 2.0. It looks like you have to download their Suggest-A-ZOT 1.0 software to enter your suggestion.

Thanks, Brady.

I've been trying out Flock Beta 1(v 0.7) which, as we told you last month, has been released as a free beta download. First, I've got to tell you that I'm really loving Flock. My favorite features are the built-in blog editor, to which you can drag and drop text snippets from any web site or photos, and the easy-on-the-eyes built-in RSS reader. I also like the developers' approach, which is to try to make the social dimensions of the web (like sharing photos, sharing bookmarks, accessing RSS feeds, blogging, and searching) easier for mere mortals to discover and use.

But back to the point of this post, which is to point you to an excellent movie at ScreenCastsOnline in which Don McAllister demos Flock's features. McAllister does a great job, as usual, of explaining how things work and what they do. I like this screencast and others so much that I sprung for the $25 to become a member of ScreenCastsOnline, so that I could view its extra, members-only content. If you don't have $25 to spare, there's still plenty of good stuff to see for free at ScreenCastsOnline.