AFAIK "family" and "species" mean different things (the mnemonic "King Philip Cried Out For Goodness Sake" comes to mind - the order is kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species)... they found a new species which is so different they had to make a new family/genus for it?
I initially signed up with Rhapsody about nine months ago when I was trying to fulfill my Freeipods.com requirements (which I did - I did receive a free iPod, for all the doubters)... but anyway, I've kept it because for $10 a month, I can choose to listen to more than a million tracks, out of which I've found most of the albums that I've wanted to listen to. Yes, I need to be online, but as a college student, I always have a LAN or a wireless LAN available. Obviously you don't own the music, but considering how much I've listened to over the past $90 worth of subscription fees, it's more than worth it. If I find an artist I really like, I can go to CDNOW and probably find the CD in their "preferred members club" catalog for $9.99 or less (the "club" is really just buy a CD over the course of a year and you've fulfilled your membership requirements).
And I admit I had been very skeptical of any subscription-based model - I do like own what I pay for - and of course buying the CD and ripping it is the best option, but I must say that Rhapsody just *works*. Glad to see they're doing well for themselves.
I've been trying to convince my dad all these years that the widescreen versions DO contain more of a scene than the fullscreen versions - "they just cut the sides off for fullscreen! it just *looks* like it's less in widescreen!" but apparently he was right (at least in a few cases;)
I don't mean to sound totally naive (I am a Slashdot reader;), but why don't you just do what I did and make a different email address? Best case scenario you get the free goods, worst case scenario, you close down the email account and forget about it!
Plus, I signed up for the RealRhapsody service (I haven't completed all the referrals yet) and stuck with it - it's definitely worth the $10 a month, and my friend (who did receive a free 20GB iPod) signed up with the Columbia House DVD club and has stuck with it... not all the offers are always stupid "Sign up for 9482 free hours of AOL" or "Ancestry.com" or credit cards.
Firefox has a great plugin (Bookmarks Synchronizer 1.0.1) I use to save my bookmarks to my website; it uploads/downloads on exit/start so everything's current, but this takes a few seconds everytime you open or close the browser... a bit annoying, but very functional!
Apple has one of the least restrictive DRM schemes out there... I'm not a big supporter of *any* DRM, but if it's destined to become "mandatory" and/or "ubiquitous" due to whatever forces govern the global economy, I'd rather side with the people who understand that some users don't want such restrictive "terms" of use... granted they still may be too restrictive for some people, but it's at least a step in the right direction, right?
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I did read the article ... it kind of uses family and species equivalently though!
AFAIK "family" and "species" mean different things (the mnemonic "King Philip Cried Out For Goodness Sake" comes to mind - the order is kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) ... they found a new species which is so different they had to make a new family/genus for it?
I initially signed up with Rhapsody about nine months ago when I was trying to fulfill my Freeipods.com requirements (which I did - I did receive a free iPod, for all the doubters)... but anyway, I've kept it because for $10 a month, I can choose to listen to more than a million tracks, out of which I've found most of the albums that I've wanted to listen to. Yes, I need to be online, but as a college student, I always have a LAN or a wireless LAN available. Obviously you don't own the music, but considering how much I've listened to over the past $90 worth of subscription fees, it's more than worth it. If I find an artist I really like, I can go to CDNOW and probably find the CD in their "preferred members club" catalog for $9.99 or less (the "club" is really just buy a CD over the course of a year and you've fulfilled your membership requirements).
And I admit I had been very skeptical of any subscription-based model - I do like own what I pay for - and of course buying the CD and ripping it is the best option, but I must say that Rhapsody just *works*. Glad to see they're doing well for themselves.
I've been trying to convince my dad all these years that the widescreen versions DO contain more of a scene than the fullscreen versions - "they just cut the sides off for fullscreen! it just *looks* like it's less in widescreen!" but apparently he was right (at least in a few cases ;)
I don't mean to sound totally naive (I am a Slashdot reader ;), but why don't you just do what I did and make a different email address? Best case scenario you get the free goods, worst case scenario, you close down the email account and forget about it!
Plus, I signed up for the RealRhapsody service (I haven't completed all the referrals yet) and stuck with it - it's definitely worth the $10 a month, and my friend (who did receive a free 20GB iPod) signed up with the Columbia House DVD club and has stuck with it... not all the offers are always stupid "Sign up for 9482 free hours of AOL" or "Ancestry.com" or credit cards.
I know a friend who received one from them... and I need two more... http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=7804109 ;)
Firefox has a great plugin (Bookmarks Synchronizer 1.0.1) I use to save my bookmarks to my website; it uploads/downloads on exit/start so everything's current, but this takes a few seconds everytime you open or close the browser... a bit annoying, but very functional!
Apple has one of the least restrictive DRM schemes out there... I'm not a big supporter of *any* DRM, but if it's destined to become "mandatory" and/or "ubiquitous" due to whatever forces govern the global economy, I'd rather side with the people who understand that some users don't want such restrictive "terms" of use... granted they still may be too restrictive for some people, but it's at least a step in the right direction, right?