Microsoft's Online Music Store

jamshedji noted a short story that talks about Microsoft's Online Music Store. The market is already getting quite crowded, so it will be interesting to see what affect the monopoly's entrance makes when this goes down in the 2nd half of this year.

Comments

Re:I have one question...

[Joe U]

Please don't attribute that song to Wierd Al, he didn't write or sing it.

I have heard it several times and it's not anywhere near Wierd Al's level of quality, how someone thought it was him is beyond me.

I believe it was done by Bob Rivers at twistedtunes.com, but I could be wrong about that.

Re:Affect, effect, this is why we need editors

[slamb]

Am I the only slashdot reader who rankles at our editors' lack of good English?

It bugs me, too. I saw this one in the subscriber-only preview, but I did not point it out to them because the idea of paying to be a proof-reader does not sit well with me. So I'd rather publically mock them later.

Ferchrissakes, folks, read Strunk and White -- it's online these days.

I hate that guide. They should have followed their own rules, particularly "Omit needless words". Look at this paragraph:

In general, however, it is best, in writing, to avoid using so in this manner; there is danger that the writer who uses it at all may use it too often. A simple correction, usually serviceable, is to omit the word so, and begin the first clause with as:

The same thought could be much more clearly expressed by:

Avoid overusing so. Consider omitting it and beginning the first clause with as:

They also seem comma-happy:

Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation

Why is that comma there? There's no parenthetic expression, "in" is not a conjunction, and there's no "when" in that sentence. I'm also intuitively suspicious of it because when I say the sentence, I don't pause there. I assert that it's wrong.