Droid and iTunes

Just watched this video and learned a few things about copying iTunes music over to the Droid. Watch the video for more details but here are some things I learned:

• Add the "Kind" column to a view to quickly determine what in your library is protected by DRM. If you see Protected AAC then you know it will not play on the Droid. Note: There are illegal ways to unprotect but another is shown below.
• Once you connect your Droid to your computer, you can drag songs directly from iTunes into the music directory on your Droid. Didn't know about that one...
• iTunes has an option for removing DRM from music you purchased from iTunes. If you click iTunes Store, then on the top right click iTunes Plus, that will open up a page that will provide you with the cost for iTunes to remove DRM. I knew you could purchase non-protected music but I was not aware you could purchase an option to remove protection from an existing collection.

Uh Oh, Bad UI Design?

I'll admit to being a Google fan boy but a recent experience with the Google Reader UI on my Droid has my scratching my head. First off, for those of you not using Google Reader... why not? Just do it. I currently have over 150 blogs in my read list and none of this would be possible without a RSS feedreader and Google Reader is my reader of choice. It can be used on most any device and I use it on any desktop PC, my BlackBerry, and my Droid. The navigation using the keyboard is super convenient and allows you to quickly churn through your items.

Now, on to my complaint. On an Android device, maybe an issue on others but I can't speak to those, the Refresh button is perilously close to the "Mark all as read" link. The Refresh button is used to refresh the items in your view. I have my reader set up so that only unread items appear. Any item that has been read will disappear from the view when you hit Refresh, it will also bring into the view any new items. If you click the "Mark all as read" link it will cause every item in the list to be marked as read which means they will disappear from the view....

Yep, since the button and link are so close together when I went to refresh the view my "shot" was a bit off and my finger hit the "Mark all as read" link. Every item that I had not yet read disappeared from view. Bad design especially when you learn there is no undo with that action :-(  Below is a screen shot of the opportunity.