I always had a real issue with the whole Pokemon concept, especially in its animated incarnation. I mean, essentially what we have is kids training their "animals" to beat the crap outta each other with various attacks.
How is this crap different than training pit bulls to rip each other apart, or roosters to kill each other?
I always wonder what the big "hassle" is about Apple's DRM? I mean, seriously. I burn as many CD's as I want. I use the downloaded music in my DVD projects. I copy the music to my iPod and listen to it there. I listen to it on THREE of my computers.
The only inconvenience I have run into is getting the music onto a crappy MP3 player that I sometimes use. But that is a minor nuisance, so I gotta drop a quarter and three minutes on making an interimn CD and rerip as MP3.
Regardless of this technology, AT&T Wireless has got to concentrate on some very basic services, such as area coverage, quality of signal, and most importantly, customer service.
AT&T will happily sell a phone to its customer that will not work correctly in the customer's service area, and then refuse to replace the phone with a different model WITHOUT charging an additional fee.
AT&T's GSM network is incredibly spotty, and the signal quality is so poor as to be unlistenable.
AT&T has the worst customer service department. For a detailed diatribe on my personal experiences with this terrible company, see: Why I Hate AT&T Wireless
If you wish to escalate your service request or complaint, this must be done in writing, via SNAIL MAIL.
This company loses some 49% of its customers each year, after their contract is up. They should concentrate less on gimmicky technology, and more on these issues.
I just ran a System Profile on my iMac flat panel with the DVD burner. These puppies DO use the affected drive. Take care as to which media you buy, at least until the firmware upgrade comes out.
I am wondering if it will be packaged with the 10.2.1 update scheduld out this week?
Well, as usual, Yahoo gets it wrong. Check out the original IBM Press Release: http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/B079 11 7A83E6270985256C25005F885C
IBM is merely providing a service of transaction authorization hosting and web hosting to USA Technologies, who developed the technologies.... or rather they BOUGHT the technology in the form of an acquisition of Stitch Networks of Kennett Square.
It is a shame that the "journalist" had a basic problem in reading comprehension from tranlating a press release to a news story.
This crap that IBM developed this is NOT due to any fault of IBM... if you look at their press release, it spells out who did what, and what service IBM is offering. Chalk this up to an idiot cut and paste media, as usual.
http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/B07911 7A83E6270985256C25005F885C
Hey former Stitch guys, a.k.a. e-vend... would have been nice if the company had held together long enough for this deal to come through while WE were working there, huh?
Methinks that IBM must be "partnering" with USA Technologies on this one, and then being somewhat creative in their press releases.
Apparently they are providing authorizations, inventory tracking and other server services.
Actually READ IBM's press release. It says USA Technologies (purchaser of Stitch) developed the technology. IBM is hosting the transaction authorization server and websites.
http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2002/09/032.html
Here is an Apple tech note on the problem.
http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/kba se.woa/29/wa/query?searchMode=Expert&type=id&val=K C.106882
When I had this happen to me, ejecting in Open Firmware was the solution, but it took quite a while for the eject to occur after sending the command... the drive's firmware had it thrashing around to pay any attention to the firmware or OS requests.
Actually, the Mac WILL eject an unreadable CD,or a damaged CD, and the OS will notify the user as such. There is something else going on with these copy-crippled disks that confuses the hell out of the CD drive itself, due to the device firmware. The drive ain't listening to the CPU for eject requests because it has its own confusion going on.
It doesn't always have to be taken back to get the disk out of the tray.
On restart, though, the crippled disks will often so confuse the CD drives, that they continually thrash on the disk. Apparently they continually bang either disk inserted or drive busy messages back to the OS, because in OS X, it will get hung up on a gray screen, and go no further in the boot process. It doesn't even get to the point where a mouse button eject works.
Sometimes, if you hold down X during a restart, you can bypass the problem, and get it into OS X. The other option is to drop the machine into open firmware before it tries booting, and eject the disk from there.
Alas, there are situations where even this won't work, and the data integrity and convenience of CD eject under software control becomes a liability, and the machine has to be opened up to get the CD out.
I've got one of the new iMacs, and the CD eject hole is nowhere to be found.
Actually, these copy protected CD's can sometimes so confuse the Mac, that even holding in the button at reboot won't cause the thing to eject. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago.
I had to reboot, drop the machine into Open Firmware, and ask for an eject at the command line. Even this took some time to accomplish, as OF has to wait for the CD drive to quit thrashing on the disk, long enough to get an eject request in.
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Uh, duh. My comment was made with tongue firmly in cheek.
I always had a real issue with the whole Pokemon concept, especially in its animated incarnation. I mean, essentially what we have is kids training their "animals" to beat the crap outta each other with various attacks. How is this crap different than training pit bulls to rip each other apart, or roosters to kill each other?
I always wonder what the big "hassle" is about Apple's DRM? I mean, seriously. I burn as many CD's as I want. I use the downloaded music in my DVD projects. I copy the music to my iPod and listen to it there. I listen to it on THREE of my computers. The only inconvenience I have run into is getting the music onto a crappy MP3 player that I sometimes use. But that is a minor nuisance, so I gotta drop a quarter and three minutes on making an interimn CD and rerip as MP3.
Regardless of this technology, AT&T Wireless has got to concentrate on some very basic services, such as area coverage, quality of signal, and most importantly, customer service. AT&T will happily sell a phone to its customer that will not work correctly in the customer's service area, and then refuse to replace the phone with a different model WITHOUT charging an additional fee. AT&T's GSM network is incredibly spotty, and the signal quality is so poor as to be unlistenable. AT&T has the worst customer service department. For a detailed diatribe on my personal experiences with this terrible company, see: Why I Hate AT&T Wireless If you wish to escalate your service request or complaint, this must be done in writing, via SNAIL MAIL. This company loses some 49% of its customers each year, after their contract is up. They should concentrate less on gimmicky technology, and more on these issues.
Well, it IS idiot proof. Just not SUPER-IDIOT proof.
I just ran a System Profile on my iMac flat panel with the DVD burner. These puppies DO use the affected drive. Take care as to which media you buy, at least until the firmware upgrade comes out. I am wondering if it will be packaged with the 10.2.1 update scheduld out this week?
a-ron, you rock.
This link might work better: http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/B07911 7A83E6270985256C25005F885C
Well, as usual, Yahoo gets it wrong. Check out the original IBM Press Release:9 11 7A83E6270985256C25005F885C
http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/B07
IBM is merely providing a service of transaction authorization hosting and web hosting to USA Technologies, who developed the technologies.... or rather they BOUGHT the technology in the form of an acquisition of Stitch Networks of Kennett Square.
It is a shame that the "journalist" had a basic problem in reading comprehension from tranlating a press release to a news story.
This crap that IBM developed this is NOT due to any fault of IBM... if you look at their press release, it spells out who did what, and what service IBM is offering. Chalk this up to an idiot cut and paste media, as usual. http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/B07911 7A83E6270985256C25005F885C
Hey former Stitch guys, a.k.a. e-vend... would have been nice if the company had held together long enough for this deal to come through while WE were working there, huh?
Methinks that IBM must be "partnering" with USA Technologies on this one, and then being somewhat creative in their press releases. Apparently they are providing authorizations, inventory tracking and other server services. Actually READ IBM's press release. It says USA Technologies (purchaser of Stitch) developed the technology. IBM is hosting the transaction authorization server and websites. http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2002/09/032.html
Here is an Apple tech note on the problem. http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/kba se.woa/29/wa/query?searchMode=Expert&type=id&val=K C.106882
When I had this happen to me, ejecting in Open Firmware was the solution, but it took quite a while for the eject to occur after sending the command... the drive's firmware had it thrashing around to pay any attention to the firmware or OS requests.
Actually, the Mac WILL eject an unreadable CD,or a damaged CD, and the OS will notify the user as such. There is something else going on with these copy-crippled disks that confuses the hell out of the CD drive itself, due to the device firmware. The drive ain't listening to the CPU for eject requests because it has its own confusion going on.
It doesn't always have to be taken back to get the disk out of the tray. On restart, though, the crippled disks will often so confuse the CD drives, that they continually thrash on the disk. Apparently they continually bang either disk inserted or drive busy messages back to the OS, because in OS X, it will get hung up on a gray screen, and go no further in the boot process. It doesn't even get to the point where a mouse button eject works. Sometimes, if you hold down X during a restart, you can bypass the problem, and get it into OS X. The other option is to drop the machine into open firmware before it tries booting, and eject the disk from there. Alas, there are situations where even this won't work, and the data integrity and convenience of CD eject under software control becomes a liability, and the machine has to be opened up to get the CD out. I've got one of the new iMacs, and the CD eject hole is nowhere to be found.
Actually, these copy protected CD's can sometimes so confuse the Mac, that even holding in the button at reboot won't cause the thing to eject. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago. I had to reboot, drop the machine into Open Firmware, and ask for an eject at the command line. Even this took some time to accomplish, as OF has to wait for the CD drive to quit thrashing on the disk, long enough to get an eject request in.