My sacrifice!

I was innocently downloading some music from PSMN today, when I’ve noticed that there is one file is being downloaded but was not visible on that particular site. As you can imagine, I was quite confused. Sure, it’s a nice song, but I already have it and don’t really want to download it over and over again.

So, I set of to make some corrections to my podsafe_dl2.sh script. I’ve just added some statements, checking if current file is that particular file I don’t want and simply skipping it. And it works like a charm.

But, it made me wonder. Where is the reference/link to this file, if is nowhere to be seen on page? And why is it appearing as every other file on my list? I’ve opened the source of the page and started looking. And I found it. And at that very moment quite a few facts fell into place. :)

The following was the first to caught my eye:
1. The link to this file is not like the others (a relative path to the file) but rather a absolute link to some other site.
2. The DT where the link resided was hidden thus not displaying the link.

Why would they have hidden links to some other site?

So, I’ve used a feature in Safari that makes so much sense that I really can’t imagine why Firefox hasn’t got anything similar - live editing of page’s source and applying the changes so you can directly see the effect on the page. And using this feature I’ve made those links visible! :)

What revealed was basically the same table of songs with flash player, but with additional column - with unhidden links. And /me wouldn’t be /me if I wouldn’t click on one of those links. ;)

It was a Click&Buy page wanting me to become a customer so I can buy the song to which the link pointed.

And remembering what Adam Curry said in his DSC a few days ago everything made perfect sense. Adam commented the progress Podshow Inc. is making towards turning PSMN into a “Web based iTunes Music Store - for PodSafe music. And cheaper.”. And in his comment he mentioned that the first transaction was successfully made - with this song that was bugging me!

From here on it was obvious that they are close to opening the store! They made necessary changes on the site, they are just not showing it yet. This will enable non-podcasters to download songs (like we can’t do it already :) and PodSafe artists to get something in return for letting crazy podcasters using their music for evil things. :)

Meanwhile, the new podsafe_dl2.sh is even better and it still works. I just hope that they’ll keep the current flash player on site, so my script can continue to bring me good music for free for a long, long time. :)

EDIT: I’ve removed the podsafe_dl2.sh script from the server, because I realized I don’t want anyone to missuse it and cause any damage to PodShow delivery network.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at 03:59 and is filed under PodSafe, Programming, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.