It was recently pointed out to me by a few comments on this site and an email or two that some people are reluctant to donate money, effectively cash, to a college student who may just be looking for beer money. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. There are escrow services for things like paypal but they take a big chunk as far as I can see and they are usually for large transactions only and I haven’t found an escrow type thing for services. Every one so far who has donated either has done it on good faith (thank you BTW) or after contacting me to see if I would return the $ if things fall through.

Here is how things are currently set up:

All the donations go into a paypal account. Paypal charges a fee for every credit card transaction, check payment and such. Paypal to paypal accounts are free of course. That fee hasn’t ever cost me, that I can remember, more than a dollar. So when you donate $3 about $2.70 or so goes into the account.

Now, I don’t know how I can convince people that I am serious about this project so I don’t want anyone who isn’t comfortable with this to donate. A quick note though, instead of giving me birthday presents I had a few friends donate to this project. They didn’t ask me about it but know how serious I am about this project. I have the donate suggestion over to the right set at $3 because if I were to find a site doing this I could donate $3 bucks and not notice it but still feel like I am contributing.

For the record, my real name is on the facebook group “save ourtunes” that I started. Some of you may not deign to  be on facebook though so here it is

cue drumroll

Justin Stanley. No I am not the Justin Stanley who is Austrialian and a musician. Sorry to disappoint you all but I am just a college student with a passionate hatred for DRM and any restriction on how I manage and listen to my music. I live in Georgia and attend UGA.

Like I said, if you don’t feel like I am trustworthy and dont what to donate $ or whatever dont think twice. Go with your gut. I won’t even notice because there is no pressure, sure I want people to support this project but supporting this project is more than just donating $. If you like what  I am trying to do just spread the word. Getting this site on the front page of Digg or just emailing a friend about this project is a way of donating your time and effort. I appreciate everyone who has put this site on forums and web pages that I have never even heard of.

Lastly, I would like to say Thank You to the people who have donated their time, effort and money to this project so far. I am amazed.  This site went live right around November 19th. Not even three months later and I have had 10k or so unique hits and over $600 dollars donated. Admittedly I donated $150 myself and am gonna try to put more from my tax return into the project.  Under three months. Damn. All I can say is lets keep spreading the word!

This weekend we broke the $600 dollar mark for donations! Not only that but work was started on the ourtunes, or Our2unes as I think of it, framework being updated. Nathan Anderson has joined the project and has started working to clean up the old OurTunes code. We still need developers so please keep spreading the word!

Up until about September 12 back in 2006 I used OurTunes daily. I was still in the process of ripping all the cds I found when I moved. My campus network was rife with iTunes users allowing me to find new music. Then came iTunes 7. I updated my work computer and Macbook because I sync my iPod and my girlfriends iPod with those computers (both 5th gen) and there were some nifty new features for video iPods. Immediately I was overcome with grief as I couldn’t move a Badly Drawn Boy ripped disc from my laptop to my work machine.
I was torn. Use the new video features and *ahem* games that iTunes 7 gave me access to or be able to sync my music on my computers. Over the wireless network on my campus.

OurTunes, the program that allowed any music from an iTunes shared music to be downloaded permanently onto my computer no longer worked. Sure, I *could* go find the new stuff in the folders and move them over to my other systems. What a pain in the ass and I always miss something. I used to just have a smart playlist that kept all my new stuff in it until I synced between my systems.

Being the optimist that I am I decided that if I waited my problems would vanish as soon as a new solution appeared. I tried everything out there that worked with iTunes 6 to see if it would work with 7. Being the techie that I am I started reading all the forums lamenting the lack of ourTunes compatibility. I hoped someone would launch a project to update the software or one of it’s other branches.

Much like Newton I was hit on the head, not by an apple (I am not that lucky but I do have a terrible sense of humor) but instead by the underside of my desk as I plugged in my laptop power cord. I realized that for each and every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sadly when the ringing in my ears subsided I recalled that we have known that for about three hundred years or so. Then I realized that while I am no great physicist *I* could start the opposite reaction to iTunes 7 and revive OurTunes.

But I am not a java programmer so I started this site.

And now I am in contact with a few Java developers, one of which has reverse engineered (cracked) apple’s authentication/encryption protocols for iTunes before.

Totally worth whacking my head on my damn desk.