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Is it a Unicode Font?

To determine if your font is Unicode-compliant, with all its characters coded and mapped correctly, choose the Font in any program (or in Font Book, set the preview area to Custom (Preview > Custom), and type Option-Shift-2.

If you get a euro character (a sort of uppercase C with two horizontal lines through its midsection), it's 99.9 percent certain the font is Unicode-compliant. If you get a graphic character that's gray rounded-rectangle frame with a euro character inside it, the font is definitely not Unicode-compliant. (The fact that the image has a euro sign in it is only coincidental: it's the image used for any missing currency sign.)

This assumes that you're using U.S. input keyboard, which is a little ironic when the euro symbol is the test. With the British keyboard, for instance, Option-2 produces the euro symbol if it's part of the font.

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Published in TidBITS 756.
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22 Nov 2004 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

GarageBand.com Inks Deal with MSN Music

by Geoff Duncan Send Email to Author

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In an interesting move, GarageBand.com has inked a deal with Microsoft's MSN Music whereby top-rated GarageBand artists will be featured on MSN Music services, and (eventually) artists will be able to distribute or sell their music via MSN Music. The deal marks the first time one of the major online digital music services (okay, a potentially major service; right now nothing compares to the iTunes Music Store) has dipped into the vast pool of independent and unsigned musical talent available via the Internet. It also marks the first time a (potentially) major music distribution channel has created an option whereby featured artists are primarily selected by music listeners, rather than by record labels, producers, advertisers, and marketing machines.

<http://www.garageband.com/news/msn_music.html>
<http://www.music.msn.com/garageband/>

The basic idea is that featured artists are selected from GarageBand.com's top-rated artists in a variety of genres; those ratings are derived from GarageBand's listener review process, in which anyone can participate. The listener ratings act as a filter to highlight the strongest (and/or marketable) artists in each genre. MSN Music will launch a new "GarageBand Radio" channel on MSN Music which will stream tracks from GarageBand.com top-ranked artists; MSN Music will also enable GarageBand.com artists to submit music for distribution either for free or as paid downloads - the first time a (potentially) major online music store has opened up a direct channel to independent artists. MSN Music will also apparently carry "hundreds of thousands" of GarageBand.com songs as free downloads; some of these tracks will at least in part be comprised of participants in the original MP3.com's TruSonic program, which GarageBand has acquired and is working to restore.

<http://www.garageband.com/bbs/showflat.pl?Cat=& amp;Board=announcements& amp;Number=156321&page=0& amp;view=collapsed&sb=5>

This move - for the time being - makes MSN Music the only major player in the online music scene making any direct effort to connect with independent, unsigned, and emerging artists. Something of an irony, considering the source!

 

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