Have you ever made a copy of a CD or DVD and then forgotten what it was later or worse, just set it aside without a case and let it get scratched up? Maybe not too often, but it happens and who wants to take the time to go hunt down the album or movie artwork, copy the track listing, etc.?

Dan Wilson at Liquid Mongoose emailed me today to tell me about a free solution he came up with. It’s called, simply enough, Paper Case, and it’s just a script that re-arranges the album page from music.aol.com or the DVD listing from NetFlix into a format fit for printing. It looked pretty cool, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

Find your Music / DVD info page
The first step is to find the information page for your album or DVD. I get a lot of promo CDs via digital download, so I decided to look up Ayria’s album, Debris. (Really, check out Ayria when you get a chance.)

Prepare the page and print it
This was simple enough. I just clicked the little Paper Case bookmark and got a pop-up informing me that my paper case was ready to print. Then I told FireFox to print it.

Learn Oragami… I mean fold the paper case
The folding part seems a bit involved, but I didn’t let that deter me. It can’t be all that hard, can it? It’s actually not that hard, but you’ll want to pause the video a couple times. Also, be sure to center that CD or DVD on the paper before the first folds or it will come out uneven, as I found out.

Here’s what I ended up with:

I’ll be honest. When I watched the above video the first time, the amount of required folding looks like it provided a lot of room for error, but it’s a lot easier than it looks. Thanks go out to Dan for the free DIY sleeve kit.

This is pretty cool. Think Geek has announced a new shirt that features a picture of a drum set. When you tap the drum set pieces, they make the expected sounds. Watch the video. It’s pretty cool.

From ThinkGeek:

We could do what those other supposedly geeky apparel companies do, and print a regular t-shirt with a cool looking picture of a drum kit on the front because it looks fashionable. We then would tell stories about how it was trendy, make a few Rock Band references, tell you it will make you look hot and basically try to convince you to buy it. But we don’t roll like that. At ThinkGeek we know you expect innovative new products and we’re here to pony up the goods. So, how about an electronic t-shirt with both a cool picture and an actual playable drum kit on the front? That’s right. Hit the drums on this shirt with your fingers and they play through the built in speaker… simple but amazing. With 7 different drum sounds you’re ready for a personal drum solo on your chest.

Now you just have to keep your drunk from bruising you up every time you wear it.

Because I run a Gothic and Industrial internet radio station, I get regular mailings and promos from a variety of labels and other sources, including the artists, themselves. A few days ago, my inbox contained an email from beatwire.com with the subject, “Austin label announces “pay what you want” for Mp3s”. I figured I’d save it to read later and I tagged it “important” and moved on.

We all heard about when Radiohead decided to let fans pick their own price for their new album, In Rainbows. When that happened in October of last year, it created a huge buzz and shook the music industry. Many even speculated that this could be the shape of things to come. Those speculators may have been on to something.

Texas Music Forge makes their own rainbows
Today, I was reminded to look back at that email from BeatWire, a music industry press release distributor. The email was about Texas record label, Texas Music Forge’s decision to allow the consumer to choose what to pay for an MP3 purchase from the relatively new label, and said, in part:

AUSTIN, TEXAS–March 12, 2008–Austin, Texas-based publisher and record label Texas Music Forge announced today that it has begun a “pay what you want” policy for its mp3 downloads. The concept of allowing customers to download music and set their own price for it has been a topic of intense controversy in the music industry.

TMF really just opened up their mp3s for download and threw a PayPal “donate” button on the page, but how they are doing it isn’t what’s important. The important part is that they decided to grab on with both hands to the concept of giving the consumer the power to decide how much to pay for music. They’re not the only ones putting music in our ipods while keeping cash in our wallets, either.

Trent toes the free music waters
Fellow blogger, Malin recently wrote about Industrial staple Nine Inch Nails‘ move to make their new album, Ghosts, available for only five bucks. With a huge following, NIN has no real need to lower album prices, but why not when you can afford to. Trent Reznor has always had his game face on when it comes to leading the industry and marketing himself and NIN, so this is really no surprise to me. I’m actually a little shocked that more artists haven’t leaned toward the consumer in an effort to attract more people back to actually BUYING music.

The future of music online
The before YouTube choked all the bandwidth out of the internet, there was mp3.com, which CNET bought and all but ruined (but that’s for another article). Mp3.com opened the flood gates for new and unknown artists to get a lot of exposure very easily by just producing good music. It also gave them a platform through which to sell digital copies of their music. Then we saw the birth of iTunes and the 400 companies that have tried to unseat it. I have a feeling that the next progression for music online is individual artists and labels all stepping up to the plate to offer very cheap or donation-based digital album downloads until such a practice becomes nearly mandatory to compete in the industry.

I buy and sell domains from time to time. I’ve been a GoDaddy customer for a long time. Most of my clients are GoDaddy customers as well. As such, I often have a need to call GoDaddy for support.

For at least a few years, the ONLY hold music seems to be the looping album, Hot by Squirrel Nut Zippers. I have been a SNZ fan for quite some time, so when I first heard it, I was happy about it and even when I’ve been on hold for over an hour (which was a rare once or twice), I didn’t mind listening at all. It’s a great album if you’re into that kind of music.

Today, I had to call again and in my short time on hold, I was able to listen to most of track 11, Blue Angel. It was just after I got off the phone that I began to wonder a few things:

1. Will there ever be anything else playing when on hold with GoDaddy? Not that I mind SNZ. You can keep playing that forever as far as I’m concerned.

2. Are the Squirrel Nut Zippers being payed handsomely for the past few years of hold time, or are they just appreciative of the free publicity and just enjoying it (as I hope they are)?

3. How about an autographed 8×10 of Candice Michelle mentioning how much she’s in love with Joe Tech? Hey. I have to try, right?

Leave it to China. The new IMOBILE Flying C1000 is a wrist watch that includes a GSM cell phone, a touchscreen PDA, Bluetooth support, 60MB of RAM, a video / audio player, a mini USB jack, and possibly a camera. The C1000 also appears to be both 2G- and 3G-ready, thus allowing you to browse large, image-heavy webpages on the tiniest screen ever made.

I haven’t found any pricing yet, but I’ll bet it won’t be cheap when we see them state-side.