This is a guest post from Adam Ford of theDigitalLifestyle.tv.

How do you make the Zune better? Well, naturally you add the ability for it to police your content for anything pirated. What’s so wrong with that? You shouldn’t be pirating music or videos, has the RIAA not taught you anything!?!

The story goes that NBC abandoned ship because of Apples tight leash on pricing and their unwillingness to police pirated material. Apparently Microsoft is okay with NBC selling their content for the same price as Apple would have just as long as Microsoft absorbs the difference in cost between that price and the price NBC wants to sell it for. Lets look at that for a moment. If Apple was going to sell an episode of Heroes for $1.99, and NBC wanted to sell that same episode for $6.99 then Microsoft is basically paying NBC $5.00 for each download. I really can’t imagine why Apple wouldn’t want to do that . . . seems like a GREAT business deal.

As if that decision wasn’t confusing enough, Microsoft is working on what I can only assume will be an update to it’s desktop software, to detect bootleg media and disallow it from being transfered to the device.

My question: How does it know? This is the age old question of the thermos. The thermos keeps hot stuff hot and cold stuff cold . . . but how does it know? When I go out and purchase a DVD and use good old handbrake to make a legitimate backup how is the software going to recognize this as being legitimate and allow me to put it on my Zune (DISCLAIMER: I don’t have a Zune, don’t want a Zune, and this whole thing seems like a giant disaster)?

As you can see the move to police your library raises all kinds of concerns. I don’t see how this approach really sells more of anything for Microsoft. It seems like they’re going to lose money on each download AND push the Zune in a less desirable direction (as if poop brown wasn’t enough). I think I’ll just keep my iPod.

theiLife is proud to announce that we served an AJAX based liveblog during WWDC with no issues- and saw over 40,000 unique visits to the website. More stats coming soon.

Check out some articles about WWDC.

This week is yet another normal week for me, so you should see the site full of content all week. My school is ending on Friday- this means I will be officially done with school for the summer. In Apple related news, last week, Apple officially ran out of iPhones online (and in most retail stores). This should certainly foretell future events with the second generation iPhone and it’s upcoming release. Finally, last Friday, I received an invitation to try out Schmaps for the iPhone. After playing around with the private beta, I recommend you check out the now public beta here. Schamp is a great service and the implementation on the iPhone is slick. Have a great day!

The latest Get a Mac commercial by Apple, about Microsoft Office 2008. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Macs new Microsoft Office 2008 program has just come out. In the box that PC gives him, is a stress toy for Mac to use when he gets stressed from doing lots more work, which PC begins using as he complains that Microsoft Office is too compatible with Mac and that he wants to switch his files over and he is getting less work then Mac, eventually breaking the toy.

One of the latest Get a Mac commercials which is about the flaws of Vista. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Mac is watching PC have a yoga session where the yoga instructor (Judy Greer) is coaching PC in “expelling bad Vista energy” and forgetting Vista’s problems, but when the yoga instructor goes on to complain that Vista screwed up the yoga billing, PC considers switching to pilates.

This week is another normal week for me, with little interuptions to keep content from coming- you should expect articles everyday this week. Now that I am getting more time to spend on the site, The Daily iLife is getting needed attention, among other things on the site. Once Sidney works out his schedule at his new job, podcasting (both video and audio) should resume as well. WWDC looks like it is going to be focused around the iPhone, at least according to the rumors over the past few weeks. Have a great week, and Happy Cinco De Mayo!

The latest iPod commercial has recently been posted online by Apple this week, after airing on a number of prime time television spots. The advertisement, called Gamma features the usual silhouettes dancing to upbeat music, but also introduces a very colorful world of spinning shapes. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

iPod commercial with music by The Ting Tings (Shut Up and Let Me Go).

Apple is constantly expanding its retail presence. With over 200 locations worldwide, in 37 of the 50 states, New Jersey will be getting its 11th store this holiday season.

Apple Retail Job Offering

According to ifoAppleStore and job postings by Apple, New Jersey will be receiving yet another retail store in the Willowbrook Mall.

Willowbrook Mall is a two story mall located in Wayne, New Jersey. The mall has over 1.5 million square feet of retail space and is located about 25 miles from New York City. The location in Willowbrook has not been revealed yet, however the store will be opening for the 2008 holiday season.

Apart of the latest in the series of Get a Mac commercial, Apple has recently posted the “Breakthrough” ad. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

Mac and PC’s therapist (see “Counselor” below) suggest that PC’s problems are simply a result of software and hardware coming from various places, whereas Mac gets all his hardware and software from one place. “It’s not my fault!” PC keeps repeating with support of Mac and the therapist. Then PC concludes, “It’s Mac’s fault, it’s Mac’s fault,” with Mac and the therapist disappointed in PCs conclusion. Mac ends with the comment: “What a Breakthrough!”

Continuing a series of reviews on how to save space, today we are looking at another valuable piece of software for Mac OS X. Today’s review is about Xslimmer from LateNiteSoft.

The Xslimmer Main Interface

When Steve Jobs announced the transition to Intel Processors at WWDC in 2005, the Universal Binary was born. Applications that were Universal Binary were natively compatible with both Intel and PowerPC architectures, and any application that wasn’t Universal Binary could be translated on the fly using Rosetta (like Classic; for Mac OS 9) on the new Intel architecture. So depending on the complexity of the application, by being a Universal Binary, the file size is increased; hence the nickname of ‘Fat Binaries’- a term left over from Apple’s transition from 68K to PowerPC.

Xslimmer is an application that scans through the code of your Universal Binary applications and determines, based on your computers architecture (be it Intel or PowerPC), what is unnecessary, and removing it. The unnecessary code Xslimmer removes would otherwise do nothing but take up space on your computer! By going through all your applications and removing the Universal Binary code, you will start seeing a significant amount of space coming back. For example:

Logic Pro 8: 335MB
Slimmed to: 95MB
Garage Band 3: 179MB
Slimmed to: 60MB

However, Xslimmer does more than just removing the unnecessary binary code- it can also remove unnecessary languages. Applications like Adium can have up to 20 differnt languages bundled within. This takes your applications on a strict diet- and for someone who has upwards of 300 applications, the difference can be very noticeable- especially if space is tight.

Xslimmer makes the process amazingly simple. When you launch it, you simply drag the application (or applications) you would like to slim down and it begins to analyze the amount of space it can save. When you are ready to slim your list of applications, simply press the “Slim!” button in the lower right hand corner; and wait while Xslimmer does the work for you.

Xslimmer can, however disrupt some applications and make them potentially unusable. However, the Xslimmer developers have created and maintain a blacklist of known applications that are effected by slimming. If you end up slimming an application that isn’t on the blacklist, you can simply report the application and reinstall it, which is why you should always back up your computer before slimming your applications (and is generally a good practice)! Or you can use Xslimmers built in backup system that will let you restore an application that you suspect has been damaged by Xslimmer.

i i i i (4/5)
Xslimmer is a very powerful application that will help you save space. Its simplistic design makes it easy to use and a must have for anyone wanting to free up every last megabyte on their hard drive. Xslimmer has recieved 4/5 i’s from theiLife.com; and is worth the $12.95.

Thank you to the Xslimmer team for letting theiLife.com staff try out Xslimmer for free!