I have one of Sony's mp3 walkman, like this one.
The good thing about it is that it is small and works well. I only use it when running and the small size is perfect for that purpose. For my use, I don't care if I can't copy the files to another PC, that it counts the number of times that I have uploaded/downloaded to it(so you can't keep downloading to multiple devices I assume) or that it converts it to another format. So that is not a problem for my use of it.
However, I would kindly ask them to go f... themself if they want to track my usage of it. I have paid for my CD's that I download to it, I have paid for the entire product and I they want to get something from me, like collecting information, I want something back, something that would make it worth it.
Yes, I can enroll to their "community" and sample new music etc but that does not cut it.
The included software(OpenMG) was slow like a dog on my 1Ghz P3, even simple meny navigation sucks. I managed to misplace the program CD(stupid me), I still however have the cover with the serial number. It took an entire evening to find a place where I could find a upgrade that didn't require my version to be installed. I also found a version Real Jukebox that worked with my player but now that Real has gone on a extreme nagging crusade to get me to upgrade to their latest sucky Real player One, that too is getting unbearable.
Ok, so what am I saying? The hardware itself works great for me, it even have been covered in sweat(yuck) several times and still works. The small size and low weight is great when I go for that one hour run. But the software simply sucks to the extend that it is nearly unusable and with their latest great idea here, I am seriously considering to dump the bastard and find another player to use.
I got one of those to, seems like they have been "popular" in most of the EU right now. Only I should call a number somewhere in Saint Helena(the place to be if you want to phonescam someone).
Sadly enough, I knew from the message that it had to be a fake.:)
And don't forget with the current rate of holes/bugs found it seems that some upgrade has to be made. But maybe it's just me that so unlucky to run the ones most affected lately. hrmph.:)
yeah, got that a lot. All of the sudden they forgot that I had spent the last year driving around updating people's servers. No wonder everything went bad, people got new computers, you hired everyone who had looked at a computer to a consultant job. I remember going to work, all of Jan, and Feb. was totally DEAD, no phone calls, nothing. Well we HAD also been selling new servers, software etc like mad. All old computers were replaced so no wonder that the bubble burst. heh I did run into a few people who had problems, like someone running OS/2 with their financial DB on it and the backup program(Sytos) thinking there were 100 years to the next backup. heh. Got my OS/2 "skills" digged up again, for the last time. I hope.
If you want to do a bit of testing yourself and you have your own mail server.. Everytime you have to (or want to) enter your email adr. for some site / service, create a alias email adr. for it where the name of the email adr. tells you where you used it. (The alias should of course be to you real email)
Then in theory, you should only recieve mails on that adr. from that company/site. But sometimes it's funny how that adr. ends up getting a lot more mails.
But remember to check your from adr. when replying to those mails to get to your aliased adr.
We still need some techical information to determine if it's a good device.
When talking about streaming audio/video, you can do 2 things.
1) If it's a recorded stream(not live), you can cache the stream it to the users, like a HTTP proxy
2) If it's a live stream you don't cache it. You split the live stream, which means the the box recieves one stream(or two to prevent blackout/ensure quality) and then split it to as many as the box can handle.
There are a few of these types boxes available today, some are kinda reverse engineering the protocols. Those that do it properly, reports back the number of streams that the serve to the origin server(fx. Real). The broadcasting server then sees 2000(or whatever)clients attached but only the bandwith of one(pr. streaming speed). This means that copyright and licence can still be monitored by the broadcaster.
There are many uses for this. One is companies that allow people to listen to net radios etc, watch streams to save outgoing bandwith on their internet connection. Works well here, only problem is with broadcasters that don't allow proxies to split/cache their stream because of some of these boxes, as I mentioned, have rev.eng. it so they don't care about reporting back the streams they are serving and the broadcaster needs to know how many because of copyright issues.
Another usage is that when you got your 100's of servers running. It requires much less maintainance to have these boxes running than adding another server to serve streams.
Big worldwide companies that does broadcasts internally(education, pep talks) has a box on each location to save traffic on their WAN.
Then there is the ISP's that can have these boxes on their POPs. In the age of xDSL, they can put a box on every location where they have their xDSL housed. This helps, again, on the bandwidth on their backbone network. The question here of course is if there is money enough to be saved/earned from this. Those that would really benefit from this would be the broadcasters. Will the ISPs install these boxes so the broadcasters(customers) can save money? Maybe they would need to sign a contract before their steams would be cached/split. And then there's always Akamai.
We have seen with the reality shows on TV, many users running streams from the show. Even though these shows have peaked, I'd say that there's still a lot of potential in streaming services.
Ok I could go on for hours about this.:)
What I see as the biggest challenge is to have all the broadcasters to allow proxies to cache or split their streams. All to often they just deny it because they are concerned about loosing control about the number of viewers, specially on pay per view services. I think we don't really need another cheap box, we need to ensure that these boxes will be used and in order to do this, the trust between the ones making the boxes, those who install them and the broadcasters, are established. Otherwise the boxes will have only be used by the broadcasters themself and if they make deals with ISP's to split/cache their streams, which is a shame. Imagine a internet where every POP has a streaming box installed. The bandwidth recieved by the users in the home could be huge with only little load on the backbone / internet.
When ever the debate about monitoring and privacy comes up, I always say that I truly hate being monitored all the time. And the answer you always get is that you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Well that's really an entire different discussion.
I like turning my cell phone off when I am not working. Often worries friends and family because they can't reach me when I'm not home. What's up with that. 5 years ago one would travel around Europe and the only thing they would hear from you was a postcard. These days where you can bring your phone all over and people can reach you it destroys all the fun.
This brings me back to the part about monitoring. If something as simple as the ability of people to reach you everywhere via your phone has clearly
changed the behavior and our culture. If we were to be monitored all over
inside and outside our house, I am quite sure that it would change our behavior
as well. Now I am no psychiatrist so I can't really give any conclusions about how
we would change, but somehow I doubt that it would be for the better. I would say that
it would generate far more problems than it solve. Well it help that I does not all happens
at once. This is of course often the fear that people are not aware of all the little changes
that ends up in total monitoring of your life and when it does happen, we would all have got used
to it(?) and not worry about it at all because it would happen so slowly that the culture would be
able to change and adapt.
Having read about the amount of servers you have running, I have been wondering how you do
load balancing of databases and on the web servers? Fx. using layer 4-7 hardware switches?
So, the game links to a site http://www.multiproxy.org/ which seems to me to have ad's for that infernal Bonzi buddy, a spyware program.
The site contains a list of open proxies that you can use to anonymize your surfing.
it seems to me that the list is made from a scan and in the end the page reads: "Disclaimer: this list is provided for information purposes only. Use it on your own risk. Legally you need to ask a permission to use any of the proxy servers in this list. I shall not be responsible for any damages of any kind arising out of use of these servers and the list itself."
So, I know that we could start a discussion about people not securing their proxies have really asked for it. But still I think that these things it does not really give the game a lot of credibility. But maybe that's just me.:)
So if I choose Limewire, there is no privacy issues? Audio Galaxy is -25 in score and Kazaa is -40.
The last time I saw Limewire, it was the most spyware infested software I have ever but maybe that has changed?
The end text mentions loss of privacy when using AudioGalaxy and Kazaa, but not Limewire? So what am I missing here. Has Limewire cleaned up their act? Or are their spying just not as bad as the others?
One should think that the "professionel" criminals would be smarter than that. One should think that it was only small time dudes that would blabber away on the phone etc.
Well, that's what they say.:)
From here in Denmark, I have noticed that only people in high density areas are getting a "visit" if they don't pay. My guess is that they take their list of people who have pays their license and compare it to a directory and then pays a visit to those who is not registered since there is a good chance the person has a TV.
Can't remeber if the law regarding computers went through, which would require you to pay TV licence if you had a computer and no TV, sigh.
hmm I remember getting a very expensive 2400 baud modem. Of course most of the time I connected at 1200 because 2400 seemed just too fast and unless I was going to DL something there was really no need to connecting that fast..
And that not all systems were designed for 2400, missed features like a pause/more sometimes.
Then came 9600, it was all my computer could handle, when transferring non-compressed data. I had a hard time keeping up.
Ah those was the days.
hhgttg: "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already happened".
So I guess that since he will be finding the code of the universe, we will soon vanish in a puff of logic and be replaced by something else
that was pretty much the headline for many of the articles regarding the school shooting. At least in the more "colorful" "newspapers" and tv "news" shows. At least the ones I saw here locally. I did find it tasteless.
Maybe that these days there are just so many things you have to opt-out of. Even if you are a/. reader it's beginning to take some time to securing your PC and keeping it that way.
Then there is the deal with the huge amount of people that just don't know about these things and why should they? Wasn't the idea of the PC these days that you don't have to be a geek to operate them?
Personally I spend a good deal of time in front of computers so I am aware of these things, but there's plenty of people who don't really care about the details of how it works and why? Because it is just a tool that they use in a busy day, just like they don't have to know how their car works.
And it is not just a question about incasion of privacy. all those fancy features in different programs, including Flash, has often proved to include security holes. And forget about uninstalling it. After have visited the first 100 sites that prompts you to install the player, it gets really annoying.
If these companies and people truly cared about people's security and privacy, they would all go the opt-in way instead, but what would happen was that only 2% would enable the features because the %98 are not computer people who are aware of these things. So the marketing/power/value of the product/features(flash player) would be a lot smaller.
Well, you could say, if you have done nothing wrong, there is nothing to fear.
So we could place cameras everywhere to monitor people in everything they do. If the are following the laws, there's no problem.
Maybe that is fine by you but it is not the world I want to live in.
I do however admit that a lot of people drive like mad. I see it everyday on my way to work.
You cant even keep a proper distance to the car in front of you. So someone drives to fast that is really just the tip of the iceberg, I like to see someone take care of all those sleeping at the wheel and doing all kinds of crazy stunts. But I have never seen that happen. Which is why I hate those cameras. Some people just drive like crazy and are getting away with it, and it will never be captured by any camera.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn, you beat me to it, Let me see, Team Fortress 2. oh, yeah, that was 2 jobs at dot-com-fakes ago. :)
Sad to see how the time between each news post got higher and higher.
I have one of Sony's mp3 walkman, like this one.
The good thing about it is that it is small and works well. I only use it when running and the small size is perfect for that purpose. For my use, I don't care if I can't copy the files to another PC, that it counts the number of times that I have uploaded/downloaded to it(so you can't keep downloading to multiple devices I assume) or that it converts it to another format. So that is not a problem for my use of it.
However, I would kindly ask them to go f... themself if they want to track my usage of it. I have paid for my CD's that I download to it, I have paid for the entire product and I they want to get something from me, like collecting information, I want something back, something that would make it worth it.
Yes, I can enroll to their "community" and sample new music etc but that does not cut it.
The included software(OpenMG) was slow like a dog on my 1Ghz P3, even simple meny navigation sucks. I managed to misplace the program CD(stupid me), I still however have the cover with the serial number. It took an entire evening to find a place where I could find a upgrade that didn't require my version to be installed. I also found a version Real Jukebox that worked with my player but now that Real has gone on a extreme nagging crusade to get me to upgrade to their latest sucky Real player One, that too is getting unbearable.
Ok, so what am I saying? The hardware itself works great for me, it even have been covered in sweat(yuck) several times and still works. The small size and low weight is great when I go for that one hour run. But the software simply sucks to the extend that it is nearly unusable and with their latest great idea here, I am seriously considering to dump the bastard and find another player to use.
I got one of those to, seems like they have been "popular" in most of the EU right now.
:)
Only I should call a number somewhere in Saint Helena(the place to be if you want to phonescam someone).
Sadly enough, I knew from the message that it had to be a fake.
And don't forget with the current rate of holes/bugs found it seems that some upgrade has to be made. But maybe it's just me that so unlucky to run the ones most affected lately. hrmph. :)
yeah, got that a lot. All of the sudden they forgot that I had spent the last year driving around updating people's servers.
No wonder everything went bad, people got new computers, you hired everyone who had looked at a computer to a consultant job.
I remember going to work, all of Jan, and Feb. was totally DEAD, no phone calls, nothing.
Well we HAD also been selling new servers, software etc like mad. All old computers were replaced so no wonder that the bubble burst. heh
I did run into a few people who had problems, like someone running OS/2 with their financial DB on it and the backup program(Sytos) thinking there were 100 years to the next backup. heh. Got my OS/2 "skills" digged up again, for the last time. I hope.
Nothing is random!
It's just you who can't comprehend/grasp what's going on!
The real future lies in the Octium Chip, created by e-com-con
But I don't need to tell you that.
I think it's:
Inside Slashdot Trolls Roam
If you want to do a bit of testing yourself and you have your own mail server..
Everytime you have to (or want to) enter your email adr. for some site / service, create a alias email adr. for it where the name of the email adr. tells you where you used it. (The alias should of course be to you real email)
Then in theory, you should only recieve mails on that adr. from that company/site. But sometimes it's funny how that adr. ends up getting a lot more mails.
But remember to check your from adr. when replying to those mails to get to your aliased adr.
We still need some techical information to determine if it's a good device.
:)
When talking about streaming audio/video, you can do 2 things.
1) If it's a recorded stream(not live), you can cache the stream it to the users, like a HTTP proxy
2) If it's a live stream you don't cache it. You split the live stream, which means the the box recieves one stream(or two to prevent blackout/ensure quality) and then split it to as many as the box can handle.
There are a few of these types boxes available today, some are kinda reverse engineering the protocols. Those that do it properly, reports back the number of streams that the serve to the origin server(fx. Real). The broadcasting server then sees 2000(or whatever)clients attached but only the bandwith of one(pr. streaming speed). This means that copyright and licence can still be monitored by the broadcaster.
There are many uses for this. One is companies that allow people to listen to net radios etc, watch streams to save outgoing bandwith on their internet connection. Works well here, only problem is with broadcasters that don't allow proxies to split/cache their stream because of some of these boxes, as I mentioned, have rev.eng. it so they don't care about reporting back the streams they are serving and the broadcaster needs to know how many because of copyright issues.
Another usage is that when you got your 100's of servers running. It requires much less maintainance to have these boxes running than adding another server to serve streams.
Big worldwide companies that does broadcasts internally(education, pep talks) has a box on each location to save traffic on their WAN.
Then there is the ISP's that can have these boxes on their POPs. In the age of xDSL, they can put a box on every location where they have their xDSL housed. This helps, again, on the bandwidth on their backbone network. The question here of course is if there is money enough to be saved/earned from this. Those that would really benefit from this would be the broadcasters. Will the ISPs install these boxes so the broadcasters(customers) can save money? Maybe they would need to sign a contract before their steams would be cached/split. And then there's always Akamai. We have seen with the reality shows on TV, many users running streams from the show. Even though these shows have peaked, I'd say that there's still a lot of potential in streaming services.
Ok I could go on for hours about this.
What I see as the biggest challenge is to have all the broadcasters to allow proxies to cache or split their streams. All to often they just deny it because they are concerned about loosing control about the number of viewers, specially on pay per view services. I think we don't really need another cheap box, we need to ensure that these boxes will be used and in order to do this, the trust between the ones making the boxes, those who install them and the broadcasters, are established. Otherwise the boxes will have only be used by the broadcasters themself and if they make deals with ISP's to split/cache their streams, which is a shame. Imagine a internet where every POP has a streaming box installed. The bandwidth recieved by the users in the home could be huge with only little load on the backbone / internet.
When ever the debate about monitoring and privacy comes up, I always say that I truly hate being monitored all the time. And the answer you always get is that you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Well that's really an entire different discussion.
I like turning my cell phone off when I am not working. Often worries friends and family because they can't reach me when I'm not home. What's up with that. 5 years ago one would travel around Europe and the only thing they would hear from you was a postcard. These days where you can bring your phone all over and people can reach you it destroys all the fun.
This brings me back to the part about monitoring. If something as simple as the ability of people to reach you everywhere via your phone has clearly changed the behavior and our culture. If we were to be monitored all over inside and outside our house, I am quite sure that it would change our behavior as well. Now I am no psychiatrist so I can't really give any conclusions about how we would change, but somehow I doubt that it would be for the better. I would say that it would generate far more problems than it solve. Well it help that I does not all happens at once. This is of course often the fear that people are not aware of all the little changes that ends up in total monitoring of your life and when it does happen, we would all have got used to it(?) and not worry about it at all because it would happen so slowly that the culture would be able to change and adapt.
Having read about the amount of servers you have running, I have been wondering how you do load balancing of databases and on the web servers?
Fx. using layer 4-7 hardware switches?
Must be: +transexualnazieskimo +faq
So, the game links to a site http://www.multiproxy.org/ which seems to me to have ad's for that infernal Bonzi buddy, a spyware program. :)
The site contains a list of open proxies that you can use to anonymize your surfing.
it seems to me that the list is made from a scan and in the end the page reads:
"Disclaimer: this list is provided for information purposes only. Use it on your own risk. Legally you need to ask a permission to use any of the proxy servers in this list. I shall not be responsible for any damages of any kind arising out of use of these servers and the list itself."
So, I know that we could start a discussion about people not securing their proxies have really asked for it. But still I think that these things it does not really give the game a lot of credibility. But maybe that's just me.
So if I choose Limewire, there is no privacy issues? Audio Galaxy is -25 in score and Kazaa is -40.
The last time I saw Limewire, it was the most spyware infested software I have ever but maybe that has changed?
The end text mentions loss of privacy when using AudioGalaxy and Kazaa, but not Limewire? So what am I missing here. Has Limewire cleaned up their act? Or are their spying just not as bad as the others?
Just remembered reading a FAQ(Warp Drive, When?) on the Glenn Research Center homepage the other day.
Talks briefly about Gravity Shielding...
One should think that the "professionel" criminals would be smarter than that. One should think that it was only small time dudes that would blabber away on the phone etc.
Well, that's what they say. :)
From here in Denmark, I have noticed that only people in high density areas are getting a "visit" if they don't pay. My guess is that they take their list of people who have pays their license and compare it to a directory and then pays a visit to those who is not registered since there is a good chance the person has a TV.
Can't remeber if the law regarding computers went through, which would require you to pay TV licence if you had a computer and no TV, sigh.
Ina Gada Da Vida, baby!
hmm I remember getting a very expensive 2400 baud modem. Of course most of the time I connected at 1200 because 2400 seemed just too fast and unless I was going to DL something there was really no need to connecting that fast.. And that not all systems were designed for 2400, missed features like a pause/more sometimes. Then came 9600, it was all my computer could handle, when transferring non-compressed data. I had a hard time keeping up. Ah those was the days.
hhgttg: "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already happened".
So I guess that since he will be finding the code of the universe, we will soon vanish in a puff of logic and be replaced by something else
that was pretty much the headline for many of the articles regarding the school shooting. At least in the more "colorful" "newspapers" and tv "news" shows.
At least the ones I saw here locally.
I did find it tasteless.
Yeah, or Rage Against The Machine's "Bombtrack"
Ah, now there's a CD I haven't played in a long time, time to bug my neighbours now.
Maybe that these days there are just so many things you have to opt-out of. Even if you are a /. reader it's beginning to take some time to securing your PC and keeping it that way.
Then there is the deal with the huge amount of people that just don't know about these things and why should they? Wasn't the idea of the PC these days that you don't have to be a geek to operate them?
Personally I spend a good deal of time in front of computers so I am aware of these things, but there's plenty of people who don't really care about the details of how it works and why? Because it is just a tool that they use in a busy day, just like they don't have to know how their car works.
And it is not just a question about incasion of privacy. all those fancy features in different programs, including Flash, has often proved to include security holes. And forget about uninstalling it. After have visited the first 100 sites that prompts you to install the player, it gets really annoying.
If these companies and people truly cared about people's security and privacy, they would all go the opt-in way instead, but what would happen was that only 2% would enable the features because the %98 are not computer people who are aware of these things. So the marketing/power/value of the product/features(flash player) would be a lot smaller.
Well, you could say, if you have done nothing wrong, there is nothing to fear.
So we could place cameras everywhere to monitor people in everything they do. If the are following the laws, there's no problem.
Maybe that is fine by you but it is not the world I want to live in.
I do however admit that a lot of people drive like mad. I see it everyday on my way to work. You cant even keep a proper distance to the car in front of you. So someone drives to fast that is really just the tip of the iceberg, I like to see someone take care of all those sleeping at the wheel and doing all kinds of crazy stunts. But I have never seen that happen. Which is why I hate those cameras. Some people just drive like crazy and are getting away with it, and it will never be captured by any camera.