Well the natural progression seems to be towards digital archiving... Why store boxes and boxes of photographs when you can fit the high quality original source on a DVD? (not talking about your incoming photographs, but in today's world, when digital photography has vastly replaced film, it is only natural). Papers and documents will be stored in say a PDF or some such format on a DVD as well. What we really need for archiving this is a way of managing and organizing these documents. We're getting there.
And by the time you described the polaroids in such great detail you could have scanned them and had something that would last much longer.
Okay, decided I would give this a shot to see what there was to it...
I am from Canada, so that wasn't an issue. I run Linux, so Windows only would be a problem.
So I went to the website, and had no trouble at all browsing music. Some is available in MP3. Majority seems to be WMA only. There is a MP3 section though, so I took a browse through it. I found a Canadian artist that is fairly well known (Sarah Mclachlan) and pretty popular (has had hit singles). Added to my cart.
Didn't have an account, so I signed up for that. You get one free track when you sign up, and apparently one free track every week if you sign up for a newsletter. Well, that's kind of cool.
So I went to check out, everything went smooth. Then I went to download. Well, the standard installer was a no-go. It was trying to load an Active-X component to download it.
Then I noticed a link below that said "Alternative download method". So I tried that. It was actually a link to an exe file which it downloaded.
wine had no trouble running the exe. It asked where I wanted to download the file. No problem.
Well, when I opened up the terminal to find the file, it turned out that the file had a wma extension. Hmmm.... don't like that.
When I play it with mplayer, I get: Requested audio codec family [mp3] (afm=mp3lib) not available. Enable it at compilation. Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 24000->176400) Selected audio codec: [ffmp3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio decoder)
So I'm guessing that WMA is a wrapper format around specific codecs, which in this case is around mp3 (or the file has just been renamed).
Bottom line, I successfully downloaded the file and played it on my linux box, and mplayer is detecting it as wma (I haven't had luck with other wma or wmv files - I don't think I have the codecs installed). So I see no reason that a Mac user (at least an Intel Mac user) shouldn't be able to use puretracks (they can use wine on Macs, right?). May have to get the browser to fool puretracks, but shouldn't be too much of an issue.
okay...
so why don't you go and buy the DRM version, and then download the non-DRM version? That way you can do whatever you want with the music, but you are still paying for it?
I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?
Original Post:
Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored.
And to everyton else please make sure you reply to all such posters with a question" How many puretracks recordings do you own"?
Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...
This post wasn't directed at everybody. All the poster was saying is that for those that are stealing music on principle because it is not available non-DRM. Then they say, well, I would like to buy, but I don't want to buy DRM. When that when that music becomes available without DRM, they had better go and buy it, or else they are being hypocrits.
I, personally, don't see how you could argue this. The question he wants to ask is wrong though: it should rather be, how many songs do you have that have not been paid for but are available DRM free from puretracks? I think this is what the OP intended.
If people can find music they like on puretracks, they should support it. When children learn to walk, we don't criticize them when they take their first step because they aren't running. We applaud them. If people truly want to see DRM free music being sold, we need to encourage the industry to do so by rewarding efforts that are being made to move in this direction. It is like teaching lab rats to walk through a maze. Corporations are stupid - the only stimulus that really works is the dollar.
I don't listen to a lot of music. But I just might wander over to puretracks and buy a track or two of DRM free music. I don't think anybody should be obligated to do this, but I think it is a good thing and will move us technologically in the right direction.
Well... they are not forced now... but the time will come when XP will no longer be supported. But there will still be security flaws that are discovered. Nobody was 'forced' to install SP1, but you probably should because MS doesn't support and security updates are no longer released.
We're somehow stuck in the idea that because computers keep getting better we need to upgrade. Computer improvements have been a great thing to get us where we are. Should we still innovate? Absolutely. But I fail to see why business users who use an Office program, a web browser and an email client need anything close to the latest and greatest of today. I'm running Linux on a P 1.7M notebook w/512 MB of RAM and it runs everything pretty smoothly. I was running XP until recently, and it even didn't really run that much slower. People writing letters should be limited by the speed at which they can type rather than speed of other needless things at this point. We get so focused on new that we don't spend any time on better.
When voice recognition improves to the point that people no longer need to type, or there is some really novel feature added to an Office app that improves productivity and needs the extra juice, then businesses ought to upgrade. There is a sense in which there is a 'forced' upgrade to Vista because new machines only ship with Vista, and the more that IT departments have to support, the more expensive.
come on...
he asked a 'genuine question'... your tone wasn't exactly pleasant there. You coulda just explained the differences.
Something more like:
well, the differences I've found between Ubuntu/Beryl and Aero are that Aero has non-tearing movement of windows (which means?), the clipboard works better and you can play two separate streams at the same time form different applications and blend them.
There, now that wasn't hard, was it? Common courtesy, people!
(don't mean to pick on you specifically, but I've found myself wanting to plug my ears and repeat 'I will not become a Linux jackass... I will not become a Linux jackass... I will not become a Linux jackass', and I think sometimes it is easy to forget that we're talking to real people here)
And while I'm at it... people... stop bringing up the 'Are you sure... are you really sure' crap about Vista... it gets tiring to see it in every single discussion. I mean, honestly!
I say, let people try out Vista. If it doesn't work for them, or they think it sucks, then give them other options. Same way, let me run my Linux and don't try and shove Apple or Windows down my throat. I'm happy with what I'm using, I can speak to many positive things about it, and yes, there are limitations. So back off!
right, but the fact that we're seeing OSs constantly eat more and more resources, and for what? Yes... there have been huge advances in the kinds of computations that computers could do.
But usability doesn't have to take gigs and gigs of ram... There are GUIs that have a smaller footprint than Windows.
Usability is important, but in many cases we've gone past usability to putting on a cheap facade to make something look better.
If we got organized, we could do a lot of useful things with spare CPU cycles... pick a research project and donate the cycles.
Provide a good reason that Vista's system requirements have to be more than XPs.
You don't have a sound card in your computer? The difference between on-board sound and an expansion card is only semantic. Either way, you need drivers.
RAID controllers are probably on-board as well in many machines.
Well... considering the article in the Toronto Star a few months ago which analyzed statistics for home alarms. Between 95-99% of calls the police receive from Home Alarm systems are false. This has resulted in a slower response time. Home alarm systems seems pretty pointless anyway, don't they?
Possibly valid for 911 though.
I don't see the connection to space necessarily either... it seems to me it would be used more effectively on earth... It may be a small amount of energy, but that small amount X 6 billion might be able to make some sort of a contribution, no?
Then we could also have clothes that mended themselves. That would be cool. If it means we burn extra energy, all the better - this is would be very good (at least in NA, the rest of the world might not be as out of shape as we are:) )
well... the pope doesn't represent all of Christianity. Actually, a declining portion of it. But I wouldn't say that evolution is incompatible with Christianity, if you can accept that God had a hand in guiding evolution.
A (Christian) scholar named Alister McGrath wrote a book called Reality that posits a scientific theology. He embraces the search for truth through various means, including science, claiming that "All truth is God's truth."
For somebody to truly believe something to be true, this must include the belief that the opposite is false. If one were to claim that God was real, one could not accept as true God not being real.
At least years ago they used to sell different hardware... now they've moved to x86 land... hardly innovative to me. I wasn't aware of any hardware that the Mac had that was innovative... please share.
Mac differentiates by limiting their hardware scope and writing decent software for it, and marketing it really well.
Easy to write configuration apps, because there are probably only a dozen different video cards to write for. All the chip addresses, BIOS versions, chipset versions, etc... are controlled and regulated. No guessing games. No trying to sit and detect hardware capabilities.
Apple's differentiation point is their software (well, and the image that they sell - it is not about the experience of using, but the experience of 'being' a Mac user). There is little hardware innovation. There is nothing stopping them from providing the same 'experience' on a limited set of non-Apple hardware (i.e. certifying components).
The problem isn't vmware, in my mind. The problem is OSX.
If you look above you will see posts by people who have tried OSX or whatever it is on non Macs, and hardware support has been missing. That's because the OS doesn't have drivers for the hardware.
I take your ad-homium as a concession.
I think you mean ad-hominem, not homium. But I think you've missed the point of what he was trying to say. He was essentially saying that one person stands little chance in fighting against a corporation - they can sue you for brushing your teeth side to side instead of round and round and leave you penniless.
Court = law fees - advantage Apple over single user
So I guess the question is why did Apple pull a Microsoft and create its own new standard rather than building in something that would work with something that is already there? Based on discussions here (I know little of it), there is no shortage of distributed models. What makes Apples special? Have they innovated in any special way? Or did they create a new standard for the sake of creating a new standard?
A significant reason that Linux hasn't gained more market share?
Hardware support.
I suspect that if Apple decided to support running OS/X on other hardware, they would find themselves years behind where Linux is. They could no a lot of scrounging for Linux drivers, but you wouldn't have the 'experience' that Apple is going for.
Apple handing out demo osx'es with the free vmware player would run into the same problems that Linux Live CDs have - invariably, some sort of hardware doesn't quite work (especially on notebooks). That and the fact that I'm not sure there would be that much that would be compelling to run OS/X for, if you already had Windows (I doubt they would sell OS/X for free, would they? And people probably wouldn't want to have to purchase another license for their Office...) It would be little more than a toy, IMO.
Keyphrase being: a site that we really want to access
When I used to run Windows all the time (I do less and less now), if there was a site I really wanted to access, yes, I would use IE.
But sometimes I'm not convinced I really want to access a site until I'm on it. An extra step is an extra step. If Walmart wants to do this, more power to them. I don't think it is smart, but that is their prerogative.
I might load up IE to view the site, but what if I found something else about the site that was inconvenient? This is just one more barrier that will move people away from, rather than towards, a site.
hmmm... I think claiming conspiracy is jumping to conclusions. More likely, lazy web developers, who don't want the hassle of testing to make sure their site looks and acts properly in other browsers.
Solution is correct though - don't buy. Maybe, send feedback, I dunno.
But the issue in discussion isn't the loss of virginity... it is the sending of photos over the Internet that is the issue... Something that could potentially have repercussions that are quite serious.
For any of the reasons stated in TFA, what if the photo ended up in the wrong hands? How would the 16 year old girl feel when she walked into school to find pictures of her self pinned up all over? The point is that this wouldn't even be that difficult... as was mentioned... what happens when they break up? Can she trust the guy (or he trust her) not to use the photo for mal intent?
Great, so how do I run unmodified OS X in virtualization software running under say.. Linux or Windows?
More importantly... why would you want to? There is nothing written for Mac that most would go to the trouble to run virtualization software for...
Not to mention... PCs can be upgraded in pieces... need a new soundcard? Pop it in. Want to add another TV card? Stick it in the expansion slot. Video cards, hard drives, DVD writers, you name it, you can add it...
Which is why Microsoft's task is a pain in the butt - many many devices to develop drivers for.
Now that hardware is leveling out - I mean, the main difference used to be the hardware, well... can't claim that anymore... The mere fact that Apple users run Parallels has to say something, right?
Slashdot Mirror
Well the natural progression seems to be towards digital archiving... Why store boxes and boxes of photographs when you can fit the high quality original source on a DVD? (not talking about your incoming photographs, but in today's world, when digital photography has vastly replaced film, it is only natural). Papers and documents will be stored in say a PDF or some such format on a DVD as well. What we really need for archiving this is a way of managing and organizing these documents. We're getting there.
And by the time you described the polaroids in such great detail you could have scanned them and had something that would last much longer.
Are they still releasing security patches for W2K?
My experience...
Okay, decided I would give this a shot to see what there was to it...
I am from Canada, so that wasn't an issue. I run Linux, so Windows only would be a problem.
So I went to the website, and had no trouble at all browsing music. Some is available in MP3. Majority seems to be WMA only. There is a MP3 section though, so I took a browse through it. I found a Canadian artist that is fairly well known (Sarah Mclachlan) and pretty popular (has had hit singles). Added to my cart.
Didn't have an account, so I signed up for that. You get one free track when you sign up, and apparently one free track every week if you sign up for a newsletter. Well, that's kind of cool.
So I went to check out, everything went smooth. Then I went to download. Well, the standard installer was a no-go. It was trying to load an Active-X component to download it.
Then I noticed a link below that said "Alternative download method". So I tried that. It was actually a link to an exe file which it downloaded.
wine had no trouble running the exe. It asked where I wanted to download the file. No problem.
Well, when I opened up the terminal to find the file, it turned out that the file had a wma extension. Hmmm.... don't like that.
When I play it with mplayer, I get:
Requested audio codec family [mp3] (afm=mp3lib) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 24000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio decoder)
So I'm guessing that WMA is a wrapper format around specific codecs, which in this case is around mp3 (or the file has just been renamed).
Bottom line, I successfully downloaded the file and played it on my linux box, and mplayer is detecting it as wma (I haven't had luck with other wma or wmv files - I don't think I have the codecs installed). So I see no reason that a Mac user (at least an Intel Mac user) shouldn't be able to use puretracks (they can use wine on Macs, right?). May have to get the browser to fool puretracks, but shouldn't be too much of an issue.
okay... so why don't you go and buy the DRM version, and then download the non-DRM version? That way you can do whatever you want with the music, but you are still paying for it?
I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?
Original Post:
Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored. And to everyton else please make sure you reply to all such posters with a question" How many puretracks recordings do you own"? Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...This post wasn't directed at everybody. All the poster was saying is that for those that are stealing music on principle because it is not available non-DRM. Then they say, well, I would like to buy, but I don't want to buy DRM. When that when that music becomes available without DRM, they had better go and buy it, or else they are being hypocrits.
I, personally, don't see how you could argue this. The question he wants to ask is wrong though: it should rather be, how many songs do you have that have not been paid for but are available DRM free from puretracks? I think this is what the OP intended.
If people can find music they like on puretracks, they should support it. When children learn to walk, we don't criticize them when they take their first step because they aren't running. We applaud them. If people truly want to see DRM free music being sold, we need to encourage the industry to do so by rewarding efforts that are being made to move in this direction. It is like teaching lab rats to walk through a maze. Corporations are stupid - the only stimulus that really works is the dollar.
I don't listen to a lot of music. But I just might wander over to puretracks and buy a track or two of DRM free music. I don't think anybody should be obligated to do this, but I think it is a good thing and will move us technologically in the right direction.
Well... they are not forced now... but the time will come when XP will no longer be supported. But there will still be security flaws that are discovered. Nobody was 'forced' to install SP1, but you probably should because MS doesn't support and security updates are no longer released.
We're somehow stuck in the idea that because computers keep getting better we need to upgrade. Computer improvements have been a great thing to get us where we are. Should we still innovate? Absolutely. But I fail to see why business users who use an Office program, a web browser and an email client need anything close to the latest and greatest of today. I'm running Linux on a P 1.7M notebook w/512 MB of RAM and it runs everything pretty smoothly. I was running XP until recently, and it even didn't really run that much slower. People writing letters should be limited by the speed at which they can type rather than speed of other needless things at this point. We get so focused on new that we don't spend any time on better.
When voice recognition improves to the point that people no longer need to type, or there is some really novel feature added to an Office app that improves productivity and needs the extra juice, then businesses ought to upgrade. There is a sense in which there is a 'forced' upgrade to Vista because new machines only ship with Vista, and the more that IT departments have to support, the more expensive.
come on... he asked a 'genuine question'... your tone wasn't exactly pleasant there. You coulda just explained the differences. Something more like: well, the differences I've found between Ubuntu/Beryl and Aero are that Aero has non-tearing movement of windows (which means?), the clipboard works better and you can play two separate streams at the same time form different applications and blend them. There, now that wasn't hard, was it? Common courtesy, people! (don't mean to pick on you specifically, but I've found myself wanting to plug my ears and repeat 'I will not become a Linux jackass... I will not become a Linux jackass... I will not become a Linux jackass', and I think sometimes it is easy to forget that we're talking to real people here) And while I'm at it... people... stop bringing up the 'Are you sure... are you really sure' crap about Vista... it gets tiring to see it in every single discussion. I mean, honestly! I say, let people try out Vista. If it doesn't work for them, or they think it sucks, then give them other options. Same way, let me run my Linux and don't try and shove Apple or Windows down my throat. I'm happy with what I'm using, I can speak to many positive things about it, and yes, there are limitations. So back off!
right, but the fact that we're seeing OSs constantly eat more and more resources, and for what? Yes... there have been huge advances in the kinds of computations that computers could do. But usability doesn't have to take gigs and gigs of ram... There are GUIs that have a smaller footprint than Windows. Usability is important, but in many cases we've gone past usability to putting on a cheap facade to make something look better. If we got organized, we could do a lot of useful things with spare CPU cycles... pick a research project and donate the cycles. Provide a good reason that Vista's system requirements have to be more than XPs.
hmmmm... really 'cool'... I bet the other passengers on the plane didn't find it so... Ian
You don't have a sound card in your computer? The difference between on-board sound and an expansion card is only semantic. Either way, you need drivers. RAID controllers are probably on-board as well in many machines.
Well... considering the article in the Toronto Star a few months ago which analyzed statistics for home alarms. Between 95-99% of calls the police receive from Home Alarm systems are false. This has resulted in a slower response time. Home alarm systems seems pretty pointless anyway, don't they? Possibly valid for 911 though.
I don't see the connection to space necessarily either... it seems to me it would be used more effectively on earth... It may be a small amount of energy, but that small amount X 6 billion might be able to make some sort of a contribution, no? Then we could also have clothes that mended themselves. That would be cool. If it means we burn extra energy, all the better - this is would be very good (at least in NA, the rest of the world might not be as out of shape as we are :) )
well... the pope doesn't represent all of Christianity. Actually, a declining portion of it. But I wouldn't say that evolution is incompatible with Christianity, if you can accept that God had a hand in guiding evolution. A (Christian) scholar named Alister McGrath wrote a book called Reality that posits a scientific theology. He embraces the search for truth through various means, including science, claiming that "All truth is God's truth." For somebody to truly believe something to be true, this must include the belief that the opposite is false. If one were to claim that God was real, one could not accept as true God not being real.
Hardware innovation?
Come on... you gotta be kidding me!
At least years ago they used to sell different hardware... now they've moved to x86 land... hardly innovative to me. I wasn't aware of any hardware that the Mac had that was innovative... please share.
Mac differentiates by limiting their hardware scope and writing decent software for it, and marketing it really well.
Easy to write configuration apps, because there are probably only a dozen different video cards to write for. All the chip addresses, BIOS versions, chipset versions, etc... are controlled and regulated. No guessing games. No trying to sit and detect hardware capabilities.
Apple's differentiation point is their software (well, and the image that they sell - it is not about the experience of using, but the experience of 'being' a Mac user). There is little hardware innovation. There is nothing stopping them from providing the same 'experience' on a limited set of non-Apple hardware (i.e. certifying components).
The problem isn't vmware, in my mind. The problem is OSX. If you look above you will see posts by people who have tried OSX or whatever it is on non Macs, and hardware support has been missing. That's because the OS doesn't have drivers for the hardware.
I take your ad-homium as a concession. I think you mean ad-hominem, not homium. But I think you've missed the point of what he was trying to say. He was essentially saying that one person stands little chance in fighting against a corporation - they can sue you for brushing your teeth side to side instead of round and round and leave you penniless. Court = law fees - advantage Apple over single user
So I guess the question is why did Apple pull a Microsoft and create its own new standard rather than building in something that would work with something that is already there? Based on discussions here (I know little of it), there is no shortage of distributed models. What makes Apples special? Have they innovated in any special way? Or did they create a new standard for the sake of creating a new standard?
Perhaps almost a brainstorming session? I wonder how seriously such an idea was considered...
A significant reason that Linux hasn't gained more market share? Hardware support. I suspect that if Apple decided to support running OS/X on other hardware, they would find themselves years behind where Linux is. They could no a lot of scrounging for Linux drivers, but you wouldn't have the 'experience' that Apple is going for. Apple handing out demo osx'es with the free vmware player would run into the same problems that Linux Live CDs have - invariably, some sort of hardware doesn't quite work (especially on notebooks). That and the fact that I'm not sure there would be that much that would be compelling to run OS/X for, if you already had Windows (I doubt they would sell OS/X for free, would they? And people probably wouldn't want to have to purchase another license for their Office...) It would be little more than a toy, IMO.
Fair enough... then let's see... lazy developers incompetent managers lacking insight Sad state of corporations today...
Keyphrase being: a site that we really want to access When I used to run Windows all the time (I do less and less now), if there was a site I really wanted to access, yes, I would use IE. But sometimes I'm not convinced I really want to access a site until I'm on it. An extra step is an extra step. If Walmart wants to do this, more power to them. I don't think it is smart, but that is their prerogative. I might load up IE to view the site, but what if I found something else about the site that was inconvenient? This is just one more barrier that will move people away from, rather than towards, a site.
hmmm... I think claiming conspiracy is jumping to conclusions. More likely, lazy web developers, who don't want the hassle of testing to make sure their site looks and acts properly in other browsers. Solution is correct though - don't buy. Maybe, send feedback, I dunno.
But the issue in discussion isn't the loss of virginity... it is the sending of photos over the Internet that is the issue... Something that could potentially have repercussions that are quite serious. For any of the reasons stated in TFA, what if the photo ended up in the wrong hands? How would the 16 year old girl feel when she walked into school to find pictures of her self pinned up all over? The point is that this wouldn't even be that difficult... as was mentioned... what happens when they break up? Can she trust the guy (or he trust her) not to use the photo for mal intent?
Great, so how do I run unmodified OS X in virtualization software running under say.. Linux or Windows? More importantly... why would you want to? There is nothing written for Mac that most would go to the trouble to run virtualization software for...
Not to mention... PCs can be upgraded in pieces... need a new soundcard? Pop it in. Want to add another TV card? Stick it in the expansion slot. Video cards, hard drives, DVD writers, you name it, you can add it... Which is why Microsoft's task is a pain in the butt - many many devices to develop drivers for. Now that hardware is leveling out - I mean, the main difference used to be the hardware, well... can't claim that anymore... The mere fact that Apple users run Parallels has to say something, right?