It seems that there’s a large variation in people’s experience with iCloud and iTunes Match, Apple’s recently introduced service for making your entire music collection available across all your devices. At the risk of making things worse — since I have nothing conclusive to add — I thought that I’d add my anecdote to the collection.

Like most software — and especially Apples — it works best when you work in a particular way. It’s often difficult to tell how close your expectations are to the real thing until after you’ve handed over your credit card. But what I will say is that iTunes Match works pretty well if you want to do what I do. So if you read nothing else in this post, you should look at the next few paragraphs.

• The BBC Micro turns 30 – Pretty much every Brit around my age will remember the Model B. It felt so… professional after using the Sinclair Spectrum!
• Thanksgiving Is Un-American – Socialism and illegal immigration… Why thanksgiving is un-American.
• Coders are creatives too: Where’s our love? – “How did a person whose greatest educational achievement is crayoning without going over the lines get termed ‘a creative’, when the people who built our world are dismissed as geeks and bottom feeders?”

• Coders are creatives too: Where’s our love? – “How did a person whose greatest educational achievement is crayoning without going over the lines get termed ‘a creative’, when the people who built our world are dismissed as geeks and bottom feeders?”
• Happy 40th birthday, Intel 4004! – In a way this stated the whole microcomputer… I hate to say “revolution” but I can’t think of a better word.
• Steve Jobs: The parable of the stones – “It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people ‘here’s this great idea,’ then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product.”

• Happy 40th birthday, Intel 4004! – In a way this stated the whole microcomputer… I hate to say “revolution” but I can’t think of a better word.
• How the BBC’s HD DRM plot was kept secret … and why – Your licence money going to benefit rights holders at your expense…
• The Real Cost of Patent Trolls – “They conclude that the loss of billions of dollars of wealth associated with these lawsuits harm society and state.”

• Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support – I think this is one of Androids biggest failings.
• John McCarthy — Father of AI and Lisp — Dies at 84 – Really not a good month for IT or Computer Science.
• The original iPod, 10 years later: a re-review – The original iPod is ten years old and, actually, stands up pretty well.

• C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead – It’s a sad week for the IT industry.
• Alma telescope opens its eyes – Awesome. In the original sense of the word.
• Mercury’s Explosive Volcanic History – Both beautiful and fascinating.
• Apple’s iPod: ten years old – Is it really a decade since the first iPod?

• Lytro — light field sensor photography – This “light field sensor” sounds amazing but I am a little skeptical. I’ll believe its potential more when I hear about it being used by “real” people rather than in controlled situations.
• QuickLook Plugin For Mobile Provisioning Files – If you understand the title and develop iOS apps you need this plugin!
• C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead – It’s a sad week for the IT industry.

I’m very pleased to announce the new version of www.cut, a major release including an almost complete rewrite of all the UI code and a bunch of stuff under the hood. You don’t care about that, but it does bring you iPad support, the ability to lengthen already shortened URLs and the ability to sync your settings between devices using iCloud.

The iCloud bit, as with lots of stuff under the hood, means that it will only work on devices that run iOS5.

I’m 75% of the way to becoming a dad for the first time. What better way of displaying that progress — for a programmer at least — than as a Mac application? (Not currently available in the App Store.)

• Don Norman: Google doesn’t get people, it sells them – “But in fact the advertisers are the users and you are the product.”
• The Problem With Online Ads – This is why I tend to buy apps I like, even those with free versions. I prefer being a customer to being a target for advertisers.