I once accidentally hit the 'white balance' button on my digital while I had it pointed at the (blue) sky. When I copied all the pictures to my computer, the half after I hit that button were HORRIBLE. It was incredible the color balance difference.
A little color balance editing in Photoshop, and they were back to (somewhat) normal. In my case, I took the picture from right before I hit the button and the one right after, (which happened to be two pictures of almost the same thing, about 70% overlap) and used those two to figure out the difference. (I didn't have any auto-color balancing plug-ins.)
I'll greatly appreciate both the iPhoto upgrade (I can finally add all my pictures back in! I had taken 80% of them out becuase it was too damn slow,) and the fact that I can run iDVD on my non-SuperDrive Mac (I like to edit movies on my Combo-drive sporting 12" PowerBook on the road, so I'd like to go all the way and get the whole DVD ready to go.)
Garage Band I'll never use, other than to goof around. (I'm not a musician, nor do I have any illusions of being one.)
The iPod mini has me torn, though. I was waiting to buy a new iPod until today specifically to see what they came out with. I love the form factor of the new mini, but at 4GB, even my 'lite' music library is 50% too big. (My whole library, including crap I never listen to, is 11.5GB, so I had been planning on getting a 20GB model.)
At $250, it's too much. Just too much. At $199, I would have seriously considered it, at $149, I would have been a first-day buyer. But I have also today found out that I can't afford the 20GB model right now. (Ah, gotta love ice storms!) By the time the mini comes out, I should have enough. But by then, I'll actually be able to see a mini, and it will taunt me. I bought the 12" PowerBook because it was so small, giving up usability. Will I make the same compromise with my iPod? I just don't know. (And the aluminum/silver one is so purty...)
And in Oregon, if you send a letter to the prosecutor saying simply "I am innocent of these charges, please drop them." they are legally required to drop the charges!
Sorry, dist.net uses integer math exclusively, while GPUs use vector floating point math almost exclusively. (That, and dist.net likes a hardware 'rotate' function, which I don't know if any modern GPUs have.)
But, I'm sure you could get a few extra cycles out of a GPU. Just not as much as you'd hope.
WebCriteria (now defunct, bought by another company,) did research on this along with Reed College back in 1999-2000. We had a much larger sample than three daily newspaper websites, and used all sorts of fancy tech to do it. (Cameras linked to computers doing eye-tracking, combined with screen capturing, to match exactly what they were looking at. They were allowed to surf whatever websites they wanted, but we tried to keep them viewing 'commercial' websites.)
We used this data to write a program that would analyze websites using this data. (So a website that had lots of side menus would be ranked lower, because people tended not to look at side menus that were too long.) Great idea, had lots of big-name customers (Intel, IBM, Microsoft, GM...) but in the end, trying to add extra services killed the company.
If you are using voice mail (phone co-provided, not a box at your house,) then you're pretty much out of luck. Because in order to detect a fax call from a voice call, you have to answer it. If you have a device (like one of those silly 'Catch-A-Call's,) pick up the line to detect what kind of call it is, then the phone company provided voice mail won't pick up.
If you use a physical answering machine in your home (digital or old-fashioned tape,) then you're in luck. You can set your fax machine to 'TAD'. (Or 'External Answer') This sets it to passively listen to the phone line, but not pick up the line ever. Then, if someone faxes in, and either you pick up and answer, or your answering machines picks up the fax machine will detect the incoming fax, and pick up. (That's how I have my multifunction machine set up.)
Unfortunately, I can't find such a 'TAD answer' setting in Panther. Panther only seems to support having itself answer after 'x' rings.
So, for having PANTHER do it, you're out of luck period. If you're using phone company voice mail, you're out of luck. If you're using an answering machine and a separate fax machine, use 'TAD'.
I'm not a big fan of most IP laws anyway, so I tend to get them confused. (Considering I actually have intellectual property that I should be protecting, I really should learn more about it.)
Personally, it looks to me like MS is trying to capitalize on these patents now, after many years of not enforcing them.
Are patents like copyright? In copyright law, if you don't enforce your copyright (a.k.a. 'a xerox machine',) you lose the copyright. Something can just 'fall' into the public domain if the copyright holder doesn't actively protect their copyright.
Can patents go into the public domain the same way? MS hasn't truly enforced this patent, ever. Floppy disks, hard drives, MP3 players, flash media, etc, have all come with FAT formatting pre-applied as long as you've been able to buy them. (I know I had 5.25" floppies that came pre-formatted in FAT back in the mid-'80s.) Because they never chose to enforce their patents before, can these patents just be declared void?
To me, this looks like MS trying to force everyone to NTFS, to lock out other OSes. (For example, if my new digital camera uses NTFS on its flash memory, my Mac will have problems with it.) As far as I can tell, MS still isn't licensing NTFS, though. It wouldn't surprise me to see another licensing announcement soon, licensing NTFS either at no cost, or for less than FAT.
While I was happy with the actual cell service Sprint provided, they were both expensive, and the support PEOPLE were not at all helpful. So, I switched to Qwest. (Qwest is soon going to switch over to the Sprint network, so I'll get the same good network, but what I thought were the better Qwest people.)
So, I opened up a Qwest account, and on the 24th, called to have the process started.
I've gotten a few calls telling me of 'unknown' delays, then last Friday I was told it would be all switched over by yesterday (Tuesday) at 3:00 PM.
As of right now, (Wednesday at noon) my Qwest phone still doesn't have service, and my Sprint phone is still using it's old number. I haven't gotten any updates since Friday.
I'm an on-site computer technician. Probably 25-33% of my business is fixing spyware/adware-related issues. Out of my four jobs today, running Ad-Aware fully fixed three of them. The fourth also had a virus. (Yet spyware was causing more problems than the virus.)
I say more power to them. Heck, I love Microsoft. Without all the security holes in Windows XP, I wouldn't have much business. (I even got to be on the local TV news as an expert on computers when blaster hit. My recommendation, on the air, was to buy a Mac, or run Linux.)
No, this post is not a troll. MS' bad security is good for me. Dell's new decision is good for me. Heck, anything that is bad for the user is good for me. (Although my PowerBook, which I carry with me to appointments, and tend to pull out at least once per appointment to make notes, or look things up, is probably bad for me. People see that I use a Mac, ask me which is better, and I flat out tell them. I wonder how many ex-clients are using a Mac now, and haven't called me because of it?)
HP has 'DesignJet' branded inkjet 'plotters' that do 1200x600dpi at 60-inch widths, basically unlimited length. Printing the gigapixel image 'sideways' at 600x600dpi would be 44-2/3" by 68". They have a 42-inch width model that will do 2400x1200, which would produce a good 22-1/3" by 34" print. I've seen technical drawings printed out at 1200x1200 on one of these on large-format paper, and it was impressive.
Hell, they've got a large-format scanner that will do scans of 33,600 pixels (42 inches at 800 pixels/inch) wide, unlimited length. That could easily scan a 'gigapixel' image. (Yes, you'd have to have one insanely large source...) And that's optical resolution. Using hardware interpolation (usually better than just photoshopping up,) it can do scan 100,800 pixels (2400 pixels per inch, 42") wide. (A mere 42 inch by 4.2 inch page would produce a gigapixel image at that scanning resolution.)
The big one in the D&D rules is that gods get both 'perfect initiative' (meaning, they ALWAYS go first against anyone that doesn't also have 'perfect initiative',) and 'divine strike' or something similar. Basically, a god's attack roll and damage roll are always maximum. You only roll to see if the god gets a successful critical hit, (which, with +50s to hit, is also pretty much guaranteed.) Then, of course, they always score maximum damage.
That makes a god pretty darned potent. (Plus the fact that gods cannot be surprised, so you'll never even get a sneak attack on them, they will ALWAYS get the first swing.)
I dumped Sprint because of billing disputes, but it was a tough choice, because I had become addicted to the Vision service. (I switched to Qwest, who is about to switch from their own network to Sprint's, so I figure I'll be back on Sprint's 3G network soon enough, only with someone else doing the billing.)
I hooked up my PowerBook to my Sanyo 4900, and it was very simple. Just plug it in, OS X showed it as a 'SANYO USB PHONE' modem, and I had it dial #777 (as has been mentioned elsewhere.) Instant 70-120kb/s connection. The connection was fast enough to use Apple's iChatAV over it! (Albeit with some heavy latency, 500-800ms makes video conferencing very disorienting.)
If AT&T's new service really is that fast, and if it has an unlimited data plan, I may get it as a second plan to go with my Qwest voice service.
Unfortunately, because the iTunes Music Store terms of service forbid the use of these files on any mp3 player other than an iPod, and they limit it to 3 Macs, it is *NOT* a legitimate use, because you have to violate the terms of service to do so. It's a catch-22. If you want to 'legally' bypass the DMCA, you have to violate the terms of service. If you want to stay within the terms of service, you'd have to be violating the DMCA. (To de-DRM.)
(Standard disclaimer: IANAL either. This is based on my dangerously small amount of knowledge learned in a college law class.)
First, by the terms of service for the iTunes Music Store, you cannot do this. Attempting to circumvent the DRM renders your license to use iTunes null and void, and violates the terms of the Music Store, letting Apple cut you off. (Not that it matters to those who do this sort of thing.) Likewise, attempting to circumvent DRM violates the well-respected and highly loved DMCA, which could land you in jail.
Second, I feel that I have purchased this music, Apple phrases it as me purchasing it (rather than 'renting' it,) so I should be able to do whatever I want with it. The same as I can do whatever I want with a CD. As long as it doesn't break copyright law. For example, what happens if, god forbid, Apple closes its doors five years from now. It's very conceivable that I could still have my current Mac in 5 years, with all my purchased music. What happens when, two months after the doors close, I get myself a nice new G7 system at fire-sale prices? I obviously wouldn't be able to authorize that computer. And the RIAA wouldn't let Apple 'unlock' all music upon closure of Apple. So they only way to get my music to work on this new computer would be to use un-DRMed copies. So I can see a perfectly legitimate use for this.
As a note on my ethics: Once upon a time, I downloaded music off the internet. I downloaded movies off the internet. (And pr0n. LOTS of pr0n...) I downloaded software off the internet. (I also used Windows, which, to me, was the worst of my transgressions.:-) Nowadays, I don't. I don't agree with the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA, but I don't feel right violating copyright laws, either. I couldn't care less about my neighbors/friends/relatives/customers. If they feel like using an illegal copy of Windows, fine. (I'm a computer consultant, so it usually means more money for me fixing their computer.) But, I have ripped all my CDs to my computer, I have backup copies of all my software CDs (with the originals stored in a waterproof box in the basement,) and I often copy DVD-Videos to my hard drive so they are easier to watch later. So I like the ability to do what I want with my data, but I won't use those means to break any copyright laws. (Other than the DMCA, because I see the circumvention of DRM as a basic 'fair use' right, not as something that should be illegal.) One recent example is that I rented "Finding Nemo", but didn't get around to watching it before it was due. So I copied it to my computer, watched it the next day, then deleted it. That is considered fair use. I paid for the right to watch the movie for a limited time. I watched it, then 'returned' it (by both returning the DVD, and deleting the copy.) So I was within my fair use rights.
In closing, I will probably download this utility (or a final, fully functional version,) and just keep it on a disc somewhere, for the 'just in case'. Since everything I want to do with my purchased music falls within the limits of what Apple's DRM lets me do, I have no reason to use it. But, as in my example, if I ever have a need to move my music to a new computer, and the ability to authorize computers has gone away, I would want the ability to get around it. (Look at what happened to those Divx users. Some people purchased the 'unlimited' versions, and they're worthless now that the Divx service has closed. Not very unlimited.)
P.S. Yes, this violates the iTMS terms of service. Period. The terms of service say that doing ANYTHING to circumvent DRM revokes your rights. Even burning to Audio CD, and re-ripping into MP3 (or AIFF, or AAC...) can be considered a 'circumvention', because you did something expressly to rid the music of DRM. So all of you trying to justify it by saying that it isn't technically removing DRM need to re-read the terms of service (and the DMCA, for that matter.) ANYTHING you do that ends up with a non-DRMed file is circumventing DRM.
The thing I like is how some MOVIES are cheaper on DVD than music CDs.
There's NO WAY a DVD is cheaper to make than a music CD.
Yes, the movie makes money at the box office, but artists tour and make money that way.
I fully understand that audio recordings are the primary source of money for most artists, but still... The RIAA and the record labels seem to be taking a much larger profit than they should, especially compared to movies.
I had ADT call me when I bought my new condo. I finally asked to be placed on the do-not-call list. A week later, one more call. I was feeling generous, so I only ripped the guy a new ass hole, and didn't actually press charges. No calls after that. I got rid of my landline altogether a few months later. About a year after my landline was gone, I found a business card from ADT on my door, apologizing for [me] missing our scheduled appointment, and I should call him to reschedule. I called, and calmly asked what was up. He said he had called a week ago, and I had agreed to have him out to talk about his products! I asked what phone number he had called, and he gave me my old landline number. I was furious! I hung up on the spot and decided to call my old number. It was a hispanic gentleman who didn't speak a word of English. In my broken Spanish, I asked if he got a confusing phone call the week before, from a cheery-sounding gringo. He said yes. I apologized for the inconvenience, and told him that he had what used to be my phone number. He said I had received one other phone call once, ironically, from one of only a couple people I know that also speaks Spanish, that I hadn't seen in years.
I called the ADT guy back, and told him that he was very lucky that not only was that not my phone number any more, but also that he missed me being home. I informed him that if I ever heard from their company again in my entire life, I would sue them under the fullest extent of the law. (I also ripped him a new one for apparently scheduling an appointment with someone who couldn't speak English. I even started the phone call to him in Spanish just to see if he could speak it, he couldn't.)
It's only 'sexual harassment' if you can cause them physical or monetary harm by it, and they have no way out of it. For example, it's sexual harassment if your boss says 'fsck me now.' It is *NOT* sexual harassment if the UPS guy does it, because the UPS guy doesn't threaten monetary harm. (Obviously, if the UPS guy threatens physically, that gets caught under other laws.)
As for feel sorry? Yes. A good friend/roommate of mine was unemployed for a very long time, and finally gave in and got a job at a telemarketing place. (They have those 'No Hassle' credit cards, I can't even remember the name of the company.) Ironic that they telemarketed a product that one of the major features of was an end to telemarketing. But it was a horrible place to work. Every day when he got home from work, I'd ask him how work was (I was also unemployed at the time!) He would always respond "This was the worst day of my life. Where's the whiskey?" And every day, from the expression on his face, and the physical stress that was obvious, I believed that THAT day had been the worst of his life. His favorite part of the job was the fact that even if someone hung up on them, they still had to read the paragraph-long closing spiel. To a dead line.
He finally got fired for ad-libbing (as in, asking how their day was, commenting about the dog he could hear in the background, you know, being HUMAN.) Even though he had the most sales in the building that very month. He hated the job even more for the fact that he was good at it. (They gave him a $50 bonus, a pen, and a plastic star-shaped rainbow-colored slinky as a reward for getting almost 50% more sales than anyone else.)
He must not be in Portland, OR. An MCSE is only useful here as toilet paper.
And I don't mean that Portland hates Microsoft. just that the job market here is so flooded with MCSE's (and more,) that certs don't mean jack here anymore. I knew a guy who was CISCO certified and was working as tech support for an ISP. Yes, call-center tech support. For $11/hr. The previous year, he had been making $95k/yr as a Cisco tech. (With, of all companies, Enron. He sold a bunch of Enron stock to buy a house, and the stock tanked a week later. He got laid off two weeks after that. He's struggling to hold on to the house, because he can barely afford just the tax payments. But, he's in his 50s, and he really doesn't want to have to sell his 'dream' house. It's not perfect, either, it's a fixer-upper, just an expensive fixer-upper.)
Thank you for the simple hack. I know that this is exactly what *I* have been looking for for awhile now. Although the original poster I think wants something that also works in Windows.
I thought HP had this on their Journadas a couple years ago. And I could SWEAR it was called the exact same thing, direct from Microsoft and all.
I remember shopping around for a PDA (I ended up getting a used Newton,) in late 2000/early 2001, and seeing an HP that advertised that it had voice recognition. I saw one at a store, but its battery was dead, and I could only find one mention of it on HPs website. I went back a couple months later, and couldn't find it at all anymore.
But I could swear that it was called "Microsoft Voice Command for PocketPC." I wonder if the HP was an early beta, and it's only now considered 'usable' by MS?
Okay, fine, so my example is only valid in the U.S. (Not many American's even know about the Imperial Gallon, much less think of it on a regular basis (like when someone says 'gallon'.)
Unfortunately, metric is already so well designed that I couldn't make a good example out of the metric system.
Slashdot Mirror
I once accidentally hit the 'white balance' button on my digital while I had it pointed at the (blue) sky. When I copied all the pictures to my computer, the half after I hit that button were HORRIBLE. It was incredible the color balance difference.
A little color balance editing in Photoshop, and they were back to (somewhat) normal. In my case, I took the picture from right before I hit the button and the one right after, (which happened to be two pictures of almost the same thing, about 70% overlap) and used those two to figure out the difference. (I didn't have any auto-color balancing plug-ins.)
I'll greatly appreciate both the iPhoto upgrade (I can finally add all my pictures back in! I had taken 80% of them out becuase it was too damn slow,) and the fact that I can run iDVD on my non-SuperDrive Mac (I like to edit movies on my Combo-drive sporting 12" PowerBook on the road, so I'd like to go all the way and get the whole DVD ready to go.)
Garage Band I'll never use, other than to goof around. (I'm not a musician, nor do I have any illusions of being one.)
The iPod mini has me torn, though. I was waiting to buy a new iPod until today specifically to see what they came out with. I love the form factor of the new mini, but at 4GB, even my 'lite' music library is 50% too big. (My whole library, including crap I never listen to, is 11.5GB, so I had been planning on getting a 20GB model.)
At $250, it's too much. Just too much. At $199, I would have seriously considered it, at $149, I would have been a first-day buyer. But I have also today found out that I can't afford the 20GB model right now. (Ah, gotta love ice storms!) By the time the mini comes out, I should have enough. But by then, I'll actually be able to see a mini, and it will taunt me. I bought the 12" PowerBook because it was so small, giving up usability. Will I make the same compromise with my iPod? I just don't know. (And the aluminum/silver one is so purty...)
Sorry, only works for photo radar speeding tickets and photo red light tickets.
Gotta find Johnny Cochrane to get you off that murder wrap.
You're right.
And in Oregon, if you send a letter to the prosecutor saying simply "I am innocent of these charges, please drop them." they are legally required to drop the charges!
Sorry, dist.net uses integer math exclusively, while GPUs use vector floating point math almost exclusively. (That, and dist.net likes a hardware 'rotate' function, which I don't know if any modern GPUs have.)
But, I'm sure you could get a few extra cycles out of a GPU. Just not as much as you'd hope.
WebCriteria (now defunct, bought by another company,) did research on this along with Reed College back in 1999-2000. We had a much larger sample than three daily newspaper websites, and used all sorts of fancy tech to do it. (Cameras linked to computers doing eye-tracking, combined with screen capturing, to match exactly what they were looking at. They were allowed to surf whatever websites they wanted, but we tried to keep them viewing 'commercial' websites.)
We used this data to write a program that would analyze websites using this data. (So a website that had lots of side menus would be ranked lower, because people tended not to look at side menus that were too long.) Great idea, had lots of big-name customers (Intel, IBM, Microsoft, GM...) but in the end, trying to add extra services killed the company.
If you are using voice mail (phone co-provided, not a box at your house,) then you're pretty much out of luck. Because in order to detect a fax call from a voice call, you have to answer it. If you have a device (like one of those silly 'Catch-A-Call's,) pick up the line to detect what kind of call it is, then the phone company provided voice mail won't pick up.
If you use a physical answering machine in your home (digital or old-fashioned tape,) then you're in luck. You can set your fax machine to 'TAD'. (Or 'External Answer') This sets it to passively listen to the phone line, but not pick up the line ever. Then, if someone faxes in, and either you pick up and answer, or your answering machines picks up the fax machine will detect the incoming fax, and pick up. (That's how I have my multifunction machine set up.)
Unfortunately, I can't find such a 'TAD answer' setting in Panther. Panther only seems to support having itself answer after 'x' rings.
So, for having PANTHER do it, you're out of luck period. If you're using phone company voice mail, you're out of luck. If you're using an answering machine and a separate fax machine, use 'TAD'.
Yeah, trademark. My mistake.
I'm not a big fan of most IP laws anyway, so I tend to get them confused. (Considering I actually have intellectual property that I should be protecting, I really should learn more about it.)
Well, well.
Personally, it looks to me like MS is trying to capitalize on these patents now, after many years of not enforcing them.
Are patents like copyright? In copyright law, if you don't enforce your copyright (a.k.a. 'a xerox machine',) you lose the copyright. Something can just 'fall' into the public domain if the copyright holder doesn't actively protect their copyright.
Can patents go into the public domain the same way? MS hasn't truly enforced this patent, ever. Floppy disks, hard drives, MP3 players, flash media, etc, have all come with FAT formatting pre-applied as long as you've been able to buy them. (I know I had 5.25" floppies that came pre-formatted in FAT back in the mid-'80s.) Because they never chose to enforce their patents before, can these patents just be declared void?
To me, this looks like MS trying to force everyone to NTFS, to lock out other OSes. (For example, if my new digital camera uses NTFS on its flash memory, my Mac will have problems with it.) As far as I can tell, MS still isn't licensing NTFS, though. It wouldn't surprise me to see another licensing announcement soon, licensing NTFS either at no cost, or for less than FAT.
While I was happy with the actual cell service Sprint provided, they were both expensive, and the support PEOPLE were not at all helpful. So, I switched to Qwest. (Qwest is soon going to switch over to the Sprint network, so I'll get the same good network, but what I thought were the better Qwest people.)
So, I opened up a Qwest account, and on the 24th, called to have the process started.
I've gotten a few calls telling me of 'unknown' delays, then last Friday I was told it would be all switched over by yesterday (Tuesday) at 3:00 PM.
As of right now, (Wednesday at noon) my Qwest phone still doesn't have service, and my Sprint phone is still using it's old number. I haven't gotten any updates since Friday.
I'm an on-site computer technician. Probably 25-33% of my business is fixing spyware/adware-related issues. Out of my four jobs today, running Ad-Aware fully fixed three of them. The fourth also had a virus. (Yet spyware was causing more problems than the virus.)
I say more power to them. Heck, I love Microsoft. Without all the security holes in Windows XP, I wouldn't have much business. (I even got to be on the local TV news as an expert on computers when blaster hit. My recommendation, on the air, was to buy a Mac, or run Linux.)
No, this post is not a troll. MS' bad security is good for me. Dell's new decision is good for me. Heck, anything that is bad for the user is good for me. (Although my PowerBook, which I carry with me to appointments, and tend to pull out at least once per appointment to make notes, or look things up, is probably bad for me. People see that I use a Mac, ask me which is better, and I flat out tell them. I wonder how many ex-clients are using a Mac now, and haven't called me because of it?)
HP has 'DesignJet' branded inkjet 'plotters' that do 1200x600dpi at 60-inch widths, basically unlimited length. Printing the gigapixel image 'sideways' at 600x600dpi would be 44-2/3" by 68". They have a 42-inch width model that will do 2400x1200, which would produce a good 22-1/3" by 34" print. I've seen technical drawings printed out at 1200x1200 on one of these on large-format paper, and it was impressive.
Hell, they've got a large-format scanner that will do scans of 33,600 pixels (42 inches at 800 pixels/inch) wide, unlimited length. That could easily scan a 'gigapixel' image. (Yes, you'd have to have one insanely large source...) And that's optical resolution. Using hardware interpolation (usually better than just photoshopping up,) it can do scan 100,800 pixels (2400 pixels per inch, 42") wide. (A mere 42 inch by 4.2 inch page would produce a gigapixel image at that scanning resolution.)
No, it'll only be 2-3 years late. Come on, give them more credit than that. It'll come out in 2066, 2067 tops!
The big one in the D&D rules is that gods get both 'perfect initiative' (meaning, they ALWAYS go first against anyone that doesn't also have 'perfect initiative',) and 'divine strike' or something similar. Basically, a god's attack roll and damage roll are always maximum. You only roll to see if the god gets a successful critical hit, (which, with +50s to hit, is also pretty much guaranteed.) Then, of course, they always score maximum damage.
That makes a god pretty darned potent. (Plus the fact that gods cannot be surprised, so you'll never even get a sneak attack on them, they will ALWAYS get the first swing.)
I dumped Sprint because of billing disputes, but it was a tough choice, because I had become addicted to the Vision service. (I switched to Qwest, who is about to switch from their own network to Sprint's, so I figure I'll be back on Sprint's 3G network soon enough, only with someone else doing the billing.)
I hooked up my PowerBook to my Sanyo 4900, and it was very simple. Just plug it in, OS X showed it as a 'SANYO USB PHONE' modem, and I had it dial #777 (as has been mentioned elsewhere.) Instant 70-120kb/s connection. The connection was fast enough to use Apple's iChatAV over it! (Albeit with some heavy latency, 500-800ms makes video conferencing very disorienting.)
If AT&T's new service really is that fast, and if it has an unlimited data plan, I may get it as a second plan to go with my Qwest voice service.
Unfortunately, because the iTunes Music Store terms of service forbid the use of these files on any mp3 player other than an iPod, and they limit it to 3 Macs, it is *NOT* a legitimate use, because you have to violate the terms of service to do so. It's a catch-22. If you want to 'legally' bypass the DMCA, you have to violate the terms of service. If you want to stay within the terms of service, you'd have to be violating the DMCA. (To de-DRM.)
(Standard disclaimer: IANAL either. This is based on my dangerously small amount of knowledge learned in a college law class.)
First, by the terms of service for the iTunes Music Store, you cannot do this. Attempting to circumvent the DRM renders your license to use iTunes null and void, and violates the terms of the Music Store, letting Apple cut you off. (Not that it matters to those who do this sort of thing.) Likewise, attempting to circumvent DRM violates the well-respected and highly loved DMCA, which could land you in jail.
:-) Nowadays, I don't. I don't agree with the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA, but I don't feel right violating copyright laws, either. I couldn't care less about my neighbors/friends/relatives/customers. If they feel like using an illegal copy of Windows, fine. (I'm a computer consultant, so it usually means more money for me fixing their computer.) But, I have ripped all my CDs to my computer, I have backup copies of all my software CDs (with the originals stored in a waterproof box in the basement,) and I often copy DVD-Videos to my hard drive so they are easier to watch later. So I like the ability to do what I want with my data, but I won't use those means to break any copyright laws. (Other than the DMCA, because I see the circumvention of DRM as a basic 'fair use' right, not as something that should be illegal.) One recent example is that I rented "Finding Nemo", but didn't get around to watching it before it was due. So I copied it to my computer, watched it the next day, then deleted it. That is considered fair use. I paid for the right to watch the movie for a limited time. I watched it, then 'returned' it (by both returning the DVD, and deleting the copy.) So I was within my fair use rights.
Second, I feel that I have purchased this music, Apple phrases it as me purchasing it (rather than 'renting' it,) so I should be able to do whatever I want with it. The same as I can do whatever I want with a CD. As long as it doesn't break copyright law. For example, what happens if, god forbid, Apple closes its doors five years from now. It's very conceivable that I could still have my current Mac in 5 years, with all my purchased music. What happens when, two months after the doors close, I get myself a nice new G7 system at fire-sale prices? I obviously wouldn't be able to authorize that computer. And the RIAA wouldn't let Apple 'unlock' all music upon closure of Apple. So they only way to get my music to work on this new computer would be to use un-DRMed copies. So I can see a perfectly legitimate use for this.
As a note on my ethics: Once upon a time, I downloaded music off the internet. I downloaded movies off the internet. (And pr0n. LOTS of pr0n...) I downloaded software off the internet. (I also used Windows, which, to me, was the worst of my transgressions.
In closing, I will probably download this utility (or a final, fully functional version,) and just keep it on a disc somewhere, for the 'just in case'. Since everything I want to do with my purchased music falls within the limits of what Apple's DRM lets me do, I have no reason to use it. But, as in my example, if I ever have a need to move my music to a new computer, and the ability to authorize computers has gone away, I would want the ability to get around it. (Look at what happened to those Divx users. Some people purchased the 'unlimited' versions, and they're worthless now that the Divx service has closed. Not very unlimited.)
P.S. Yes, this violates the iTMS terms of service. Period. The terms of service say that doing ANYTHING to circumvent DRM revokes your rights. Even burning to Audio CD, and re-ripping into MP3 (or AIFF, or AAC...) can be considered a 'circumvention', because you did something expressly to rid the music of DRM. So all of you trying to justify it by saying that it isn't technically removing DRM need to re-read the terms of service (and the DMCA, for that matter.) ANYTHING you do that ends up with a non-DRMed file is circumventing DRM.
The thing I like is how some MOVIES are cheaper on DVD than music CDs.
There's NO WAY a DVD is cheaper to make than a music CD.
Yes, the movie makes money at the box office, but artists tour and make money that way.
I fully understand that audio recordings are the primary source of money for most artists, but still... The RIAA and the record labels seem to be taking a much larger profit than they should, especially compared to movies.
I had ADT call me when I bought my new condo. I finally asked to be placed on the do-not-call list. A week later, one more call. I was feeling generous, so I only ripped the guy a new ass hole, and didn't actually press charges. No calls after that. I got rid of my landline altogether a few months later. About a year after my landline was gone, I found a business card from ADT on my door, apologizing for [me] missing our scheduled appointment, and I should call him to reschedule. I called, and calmly asked what was up. He said he had called a week ago, and I had agreed to have him out to talk about his products! I asked what phone number he had called, and he gave me my old landline number. I was furious! I hung up on the spot and decided to call my old number. It was a hispanic gentleman who didn't speak a word of English. In my broken Spanish, I asked if he got a confusing phone call the week before, from a cheery-sounding gringo. He said yes. I apologized for the inconvenience, and told him that he had what used to be my phone number. He said I had received one other phone call once, ironically, from one of only a couple people I know that also speaks Spanish, that I hadn't seen in years.
I called the ADT guy back, and told him that he was very lucky that not only was that not my phone number any more, but also that he missed me being home. I informed him that if I ever heard from their company again in my entire life, I would sue them under the fullest extent of the law. (I also ripped him a new one for apparently scheduling an appointment with someone who couldn't speak English. I even started the phone call to him in Spanish just to see if he could speak it, he couldn't.)
It's only 'sexual harassment' if you can cause them physical or monetary harm by it, and they have no way out of it. For example, it's sexual harassment if your boss says 'fsck me now.' It is *NOT* sexual harassment if the UPS guy does it, because the UPS guy doesn't threaten monetary harm. (Obviously, if the UPS guy threatens physically, that gets caught under other laws.)
As for feel sorry? Yes. A good friend/roommate of mine was unemployed for a very long time, and finally gave in and got a job at a telemarketing place. (They have those 'No Hassle' credit cards, I can't even remember the name of the company.) Ironic that they telemarketed a product that one of the major features of was an end to telemarketing. But it was a horrible place to work. Every day when he got home from work, I'd ask him how work was (I was also unemployed at the time!) He would always respond "This was the worst day of my life. Where's the whiskey?" And every day, from the expression on his face, and the physical stress that was obvious, I believed that THAT day had been the worst of his life. His favorite part of the job was the fact that even if someone hung up on them, they still had to read the paragraph-long closing spiel. To a dead line.
He finally got fired for ad-libbing (as in, asking how their day was, commenting about the dog he could hear in the background, you know, being HUMAN.) Even though he had the most sales in the building that very month. He hated the job even more for the fact that he was good at it. (They gave him a $50 bonus, a pen, and a plastic star-shaped rainbow-colored slinky as a reward for getting almost 50% more sales than anyone else.)
He must not be in Portland, OR. An MCSE is only useful here as toilet paper.
And I don't mean that Portland hates Microsoft. just that the job market here is so flooded with MCSE's (and more,) that certs don't mean jack here anymore. I knew a guy who was CISCO certified and was working as tech support for an ISP. Yes, call-center tech support. For $11/hr. The previous year, he had been making $95k/yr as a Cisco tech. (With, of all companies, Enron. He sold a bunch of Enron stock to buy a house, and the stock tanked a week later. He got laid off two weeks after that. He's struggling to hold on to the house, because he can barely afford just the tax payments. But, he's in his 50s, and he really doesn't want to have to sell his 'dream' house. It's not perfect, either, it's a fixer-upper, just an expensive fixer-upper.)
Thank you for the simple hack. I know that this is exactly what *I* have been looking for for awhile now. Although the original poster I think wants something that also works in Windows.
I thought HP had this on their Journadas a couple years ago. And I could SWEAR it was called the exact same thing, direct from Microsoft and all.
I remember shopping around for a PDA (I ended up getting a used Newton,) in late 2000/early 2001, and seeing an HP that advertised that it had voice recognition. I saw one at a store, but its battery was dead, and I could only find one mention of it on HPs website. I went back a couple months later, and couldn't find it at all anymore.
But I could swear that it was called "Microsoft Voice Command for PocketPC." I wonder if the HP was an early beta, and it's only now considered 'usable' by MS?
This is talking about Windows-powered PocketPCs, not the desktop Windows OS. (Which still won't have an integrated voice recognition system.)
;-)
And while OS/2 had it 7 years ago, the Mac OS had it 11 years ago. (So THERE!
Okay, fine, so my example is only valid in the U.S. (Not many American's even know about the Imperial Gallon, much less think of it on a regular basis (like when someone says 'gallon'.)
Unfortunately, metric is already so well designed that I couldn't make a good example out of the metric system.