This guy ran it and seems to think it's just a vb wrapper to the PearPC application. To quote:
I immediately was suspicious of the software when I noticed it was installing various OCX files and other Visual Basic dependencies, and upon inspection of the software's installation directory, it functions as follows: There's an EXE file called MainCherryOS.exe, which is the VB App they're using as a 'wrapper' to give their PearPC 'booty', if you will (joke), a Virtual PC-like feel. Normally, PearPC needs to be compiled and run from the command-line. Their wrapper then takes the output from PearPC and displays it as if it were actually being generated by MainCherryOS.exe! A creative solution, but I'm not impressed.
Ah, interesting, but yeah, too restrictive for my tastes. You'd think they'd offer that as an option and still allow files manually copied onto the mapped/mounted drive to be played, too. Annoying, and further support for my resolve to resist the iPod.
Check out Anapod Explorer from RedChair Software. It allows you to use your iPod as a removable drive and comes with a host of other (rather nifty) features.
My guess is that it'll be the required usage of SonicStage.
Damn, I should have read the press release (emphasis mine):
The new Network Walkman models easily play back both MP3 and ATRAC3®/3plus(TM) music files, as well as support WMA and WAV formats. They are compatible with Sony's Connect(TM) online music store and include SonicStage® software to import, manage and transfer music collections.
Personally, I think it looks like a pretty good competitor. It definately looks good, it has a display, charges from USB and comes with a decent battery life.
However, as we all know, Sony are a music company too which means that however great this is, they'll crippled or fudge it up in some spectacular way meaning that, yet again, it'll be a flop.
My guess is that it'll be the required usage of SonicStage.
Allofmp3 gives you noncompressed downloads, ogg downloads, mp3 in any bitrate you want. No DRM at all. Quick downloads. Now that's something I call customer choice and quality service. Compare that to the louse bitrate of iTunes - 128.
Having worked with the music industry, I can tell you now that any distribution company that proposes music downloads with no DRM will never ever get the rights to distribute the labels content.
It is that simple as far as the music industry is concerned. No DRM, no go.
Based on that, I found it very difficult to understand how AllOfMP3 managed to get the rights legitimately.
They wanted to cut through the near-religious arguments about which system is better from a security standpoint.
Yes, but will it matter?
One of the key issues with "near-religious" people is that they will never listen let alone agree with test results that prove them wrong, however fairly conducted.
(as an aside, I have no opinion on the testing methodology and hence am not commenting on that)
The DRM wasn't cracked, simply the output of the file was redirected back into a WAV (or MP3) without any DRM - akin to doing a tape to tape copy.
Napster have already responded on their site (link in top right) and basically said the same thing. They also rightly pointed out (i think, as i've not tried) that this would be a 1:1 copy, so a 60 minute album would take you the same amount of time to copy - which isn't going to be much fun to do lots of.
Apparantly rumour has it that Steve Jobs contacted music executives, pointing them to the site and the Napster CEO countered by pointing out several sites which showed you how to do the same with iTunes files. I'm not sure how true this is.
Interestingly enough, the Winamp plugin required to do this - Output Stacker - was pulled from the winamp site. Which I find a little odd, since there are perfectly legal uses for the plugin - so I don't understand why they're playing censorer (to be safe?)
If anyone knows where to get it from, it would be appreciated since Googles cache shows no homepage and a Google search of the author gives only a set of links to a non-working winamp.com URL.
Of course, once you have resorted to using raw apt-get, what's the point of Click-N-Run?
Nothing.
Unless, of course, you are in that 90% of the population that would rather gouge their eyes out with spoons than use the command line:)
Don't forget the target audience for CNR is probably not the sort of people who hang around here or OSNews. For that, it does what it does pretty well.
To take or remove property without the owner's consent with intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession.
Theft also covers obtaining a money transfer by deception and dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit - yet they don't involve removal of property.
Lets try this one: I'm in a bank and you're in the same bank. You manage to illegally transfer funds from my account to your account but you don't remove any of the money. No physical property has moved, it's just a bunch of numbers changing hands, the bank is the same so it's not paid anything to anyone else and you haven't removed the money so its still there. So, nothing has disappeared right?
However, under UK law you can and will get charged with obtaining money under deception, something related to unauthorised usage of computer systems and to top it off... theft.
I was talking to a bunch of lawyers about this. In short the UK law over theft is incrediably vaigue - you can pretty much use the term and sucessfully prosecute to mean anything that infers that something was removed, duplicated or obtained without lawfully paying for it.
Often cited case is British Rail against a ticket tout, they took him to court claiming theft of revenue because he was re-selling their tickets. Despite the fact he wasn't removing any physical property (after all, the tickets had already been bought once) he was still sucessfully prosecuted.
The advice I was given is never argue a case using a definition in a dictionary, apparantly it doesn't go down too well:)
I'm tired reading this sort of stuff again and again. They always forget to mention that it is illegal only in the USA. For example it is perfectly legal to download music or video for personal use in the EU, even with file sharing application where you make it avaliable for 3rd party temporarily. I found even those living in the EU are not aware of this situation, probably due to the continuous MPAA/RIAA threathenings.
Distributing copyrighted content is a different issue even in the EU, but I'm not familiar with the legal side of that. All I know my movie downloads fall in the "fair use" category according to the current EU copyright law.
Thank god that someone else recognises the fact that the world does not adhere to the laws of the USA.
In addition, it is worth pointing out that in the UK (and other European countries) "theft" does not have to mean the removal of physical property... irrespective of what an American dictionary says.
So when the BPI (UK equivilant of the RIAA) tell you that downloading music is theft, they're actually correct in the eyes of UK law.
No, theft is when you take something away from someone.
Actually that isn't true.
The definition of theft is what the laws of your country define, not what US law states.
In the UK for example, the act of theft does not have to be the removal of a physical object.
I appreciate the majority of Slashdotters come from the USA and therefore, for them, theft != copyright infringement but don't assume that holds for everywhere in the world.
ps. Interestingly enough, there is no concept of "fair use" in the UK either - so if you haven't bought your iPod music off iTunes, you're technically breaking the law. Strange, but true!
It is well known (and more importantly demonstrated) that Microsoft's platform quality is below par to that of other providers.
This is evident by the fact that many reviews of Microsoft products (and not just Windows) complain about stability - more specifically, applications hanging, crashes and bugs. Examples have been in the media centre and the pocketpc and smartphone series. Even today, I had to reset my PocketPC because the SIP stopped showing when I tapped the icon.
What is it that is so unique about the development process at Microsoft that means that these poor implementations are considered "market ready"?
When Microsoft compares the number of security related incidents, it always uses figures for Linux that includes the applications that come pre-installed.
Because of this, the figures for Linux always look as bad, if not worse, that that of Windows without the pre-installed applications included.
Why does Microsoft continue to fight this line of attack with false statistics rather than concentrate on other areas of interest?
He'd only been there a month. The general rule for all new starters is "impress your new company". I hardly see how writing a blog about what you do there is going to immediately impress them.
If he'd been there for several years, then I would appeal for a bit of leniency - but he was still within his trial period.
Well, let's see..... I at one time did have shares of HP, but sold them after a series of decisions HP made under Fiorina including:
It is worth pointing out that nobody here will really know how those poor decisions came about. Personally I very much doubt that Carly came up with them and everyone else jumped up and down to do her bidding.
What I'm trying to say is that if someone else was proposing the decisions (and driving them) then it probably wouldn't have mattered who was at the top.
We're never going to really know how much control she actually exerted.
Everything that people bitch about Microsoft being and doing, would now be directed at IBM.
Remember, a long time ago IBM was considered "evil". The only reason they're considered "good" now is because they support Linux - but in reality they're only doing it because they see a way to make money out of it.
If that way ever disappears, then IBM will drop their support faster than you can possibly imagine.
Simply put, Netscape sat on their laurels and watched as Microsoft yanked the rug out from under them. Yes, there was underhandedness involved, but at root, Netscape shoulders most of the blame for having lost the browser war.
Exactly. Let us not forget that a very large number of geeks actually moved from Netscape to IE not because it came bundled but because IE 3 (or 4, I can't remember) was actually better than Netscape 4.
I don't work in IT so it generally means that I spend more time in meetings than quite a lot of people here - as such, I heavily rely on a diary, something that syncs with Outlook, can be easily modified on the go and means that my secretary can access and modify the information on it.
Therefore it isn't much of a surprise than standalone PDA's are dying when my current pda/phone combo is nearly the same size as a Nokia 7610 and comes with a decent input method (which always was the killer issue with using a standard phone pad to enter details), sends and receieves phone calls/sms/mms and works as a PocketPC with a large base of useful applications. A Nokia simply doesn't cut it and the SonyEricsson P9xx is only discounted because it's syncing with Outlook isn't particulary great (especially with the categorisation of tasks and notes).
A friend of mine is selling his iPaq after getting a Blackberry from work. Sure it doesn't have a NES emulator, PocketScumm and a few other of the niceties - but it does everything he needs.
I'm going to really hate having to give this back.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out Anapod Explorer from RedChair Software. It allows you to use your iPod as a removable drive and comes with a host of other (rather nifty) features.
It isn't free though.
Damn, I should have read the press release (emphasis mine):
Oh well, never mind Sony. Better luck next time.
However, as we all know, Sony are a music company too which means that however great this is, they'll crippled or fudge it up in some spectacular way meaning that, yet again, it'll be a flop.
My guess is that it'll be the required usage of SonicStage.
They don't contain any Sony, Universal, Warner, EMI or BMG content.
Admitidally, when I said "music labels", I was referring to the big five. I have no doubt that the smaller ones are more flexible.
Having worked with the music industry, I can tell you now that any distribution company that proposes music downloads with no DRM will never ever get the rights to distribute the labels content.
It is that simple as far as the music industry is concerned. No DRM, no go.
Based on that, I found it very difficult to understand how AllOfMP3 managed to get the rights legitimately.
There are no additional fees from the ISP and most give you POP3 email, a couple of email aliases and sometimes a small amount of web space.
Not totally free, but pretty close to it (and no adverts either).
Since the site is dead, you can read a transcript of the site anonymously posted to Slashdot the last tine we killed the server.
Fat chance of that :)
You forgot singing about the London Underground too!
(warning, don't play the link on speakers if you're in an office full of easily offended people)
Yes, but will it matter?
One of the key issues with "near-religious" people is that they will never listen let alone agree with test results that prove them wrong, however fairly conducted.
(as an aside, I have no opinion on the testing methodology and hence am not commenting on that)
Napster have already responded on their site (link in top right) and basically said the same thing. They also rightly pointed out (i think, as i've not tried) that this would be a 1:1 copy, so a 60 minute album would take you the same amount of time to copy - which isn't going to be much fun to do lots of.
Apparantly rumour has it that Steve Jobs contacted music executives, pointing them to the site and the Napster CEO countered by pointing out several sites which showed you how to do the same with iTunes files. I'm not sure how true this is.
Interestingly enough, the Winamp plugin required to do this - Output Stacker - was pulled from the winamp site. Which I find a little odd, since there are perfectly legal uses for the plugin - so I don't understand why they're playing censorer (to be safe?)
If anyone knows where to get it from, it would be appreciated since Googles cache shows no homepage and a Google search of the author gives only a set of links to a non-working winamp.com URL.
Nothing.
Unless, of course, you are in that 90% of the population that would rather gouge their eyes out with spoons than use the command line :)
Don't forget the target audience for CNR is probably not the sort of people who hang around here or OSNews. For that, it does what it does pretty well.
To take or remove property without the owner's consent with intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession.
Theft also covers obtaining a money transfer by deception and dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit - yet they don't involve removal of property.
Lets try this one: I'm in a bank and you're in the same bank. You manage to illegally transfer funds from my account to your account but you don't remove any of the money. No physical property has moved, it's just a bunch of numbers changing hands, the bank is the same so it's not paid anything to anyone else and you haven't removed the money so its still there. So, nothing has disappeared right?
However, under UK law you can and will get charged with obtaining money under deception, something related to unauthorised usage of computer systems and to top it off ... theft.
Often cited case is British Rail against a ticket tout, they took him to court claiming theft of revenue because he was re-selling their tickets. Despite the fact he wasn't removing any physical property (after all, the tickets had already been bought once) he was still sucessfully prosecuted.
The advice I was given is never argue a case using a definition in a dictionary, apparantly it doesn't go down too well :)
Distributing copyrighted content is a different issue even in the EU, but I'm not familiar with the legal side of that. All I know my movie downloads fall in the "fair use" category according to the current EU copyright law.
Thank god that someone else recognises the fact that the world does not adhere to the laws of the USA.
In addition, it is worth pointing out that in the UK (and other European countries) "theft" does not have to mean the removal of physical property ... irrespective of what an American dictionary says.
So when the BPI (UK equivilant of the RIAA) tell you that downloading music is theft, they're actually correct in the eyes of UK law.
Actually that isn't true.
The definition of theft is what the laws of your country define, not what US law states.
In the UK for example, the act of theft does not have to be the removal of a physical object.
I appreciate the majority of Slashdotters come from the USA and therefore, for them, theft != copyright infringement but don't assume that holds for everywhere in the world.
ps. Interestingly enough, there is no concept of "fair use" in the UK either - so if you haven't bought your iPod music off iTunes, you're technically breaking the law. Strange, but true!
Except that, for Yahoo, it's not on them by default - but their main competitor.
This is evident by the fact that many reviews of Microsoft products (and not just Windows) complain about stability - more specifically, applications hanging, crashes and bugs. Examples have been in the media centre and the pocketpc and smartphone series. Even today, I had to reset my PocketPC because the SIP stopped showing when I tapped the icon.
What is it that is so unique about the development process at Microsoft that means that these poor implementations are considered "market ready"?
Because of this, the figures for Linux always look as bad, if not worse, that that of Windows without the pre-installed applications included.
Why does Microsoft continue to fight this line of attack with false statistics rather than concentrate on other areas of interest?
If he'd been there for several years, then I would appeal for a bit of leniency - but he was still within his trial period.
It is worth pointing out that nobody here will really know how those poor decisions came about. Personally I very much doubt that Carly came up with them and everyone else jumped up and down to do her bidding.
What I'm trying to say is that if someone else was proposing the decisions (and driving them) then it probably wouldn't have mattered who was at the top.
We're never going to really know how much control she actually exerted.
Remember, a long time ago IBM was considered "evil". The only reason they're considered "good" now is because they support Linux - but in reality they're only doing it because they see a way to make money out of it.
If that way ever disappears, then IBM will drop their support faster than you can possibly imagine.
Exactly. Let us not forget that a very large number of geeks actually moved from Netscape to IE not because it came bundled but because IE 3 (or 4, I can't remember) was actually better than Netscape 4.
I moved from IE to Firefox for the same reason.
Therefore it isn't much of a surprise than standalone PDA's are dying when my current pda/phone combo is nearly the same size as a Nokia 7610 and comes with a decent input method (which always was the killer issue with using a standard phone pad to enter details), sends and receieves phone calls/sms/mms and works as a PocketPC with a large base of useful applications. A Nokia simply doesn't cut it and the SonyEricsson P9xx is only discounted because it's syncing with Outlook isn't particulary great (especially with the categorisation of tasks and notes).
A friend of mine is selling his iPaq after getting a Blackberry from work. Sure it doesn't have a NES emulator, PocketScumm and a few other of the niceties - but it does everything he needs.
I'm going to really hate having to give this back.