For.99, I'd rather be able to download the album in their shiny new lossless format. Then when I burn CDs with the files, I know I'm getting actual CD quality.
128k AACs may sound adequate, but they are NOT the equivalent of a 256k MP3, no matter what Apple claims. Though this is a subjective assessment, of course, there have been enough complaints about the quality of the files to let me know that I'm not the only one who notices the lack of quality.
With a lossless file the problem can't exist because there's no difference between the original and the compressed file.
Until Apple starts either selling lossless files or sending me the actual CD when I buy an album on the iTMS, I won't be giving them any of my cash.
I'm 100% certain no-one cares at all, but what the hell.
I am currently subscribed to Cook's Ilustrated and Cuisine at Home. I occasionally will buy Saveur, Gourmet and Good Food (a UK mag-I love Borders). If it's around I'll paw through the latest National Geographic and laugh when they blither on about global warming and evolution as if they're established, proven facts. If someone I like is on the cover, I'll pick up Maxim or FHM, but generally those magazines seem like they're made for guys who never matured beyond the fourth grade.
I also like Macworld OK, MacAddict more and Mac Design most of all. PC Magazines are all the same: how to make your PC faster, defend against viruses/trojans/worms, how to tweak windows to make it faster/crash less/take out the garbage/satisfy your woman better than you could ever hope to/whatever. So I read them for comic relief.
Apart from the 64 bit processing, it sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Oh well, I'm happy with 10.3 on my iMac for now. Seeing as I won't be buying a new Mac until long after Tiger has been released, I'll just content myself with Panther until then.
Well, it's the university's network, no matter if the government or the students' collective tuition helps pay for it.
Seems reasonable to require precautions on the part of anyone who wishes to connect to the network. To that end I figure they should provide at minimal cost an anti-virus and firewall package to help keep infections and intrusions to a minimum. But installing software which monitors the individual computers...I don't like that idea at all.
Seems like from there it's just a short hop to "We have to monitor your computers to make sure you don't have any MP3s or videos or (insert potential copyright violation here) so we can avoid lawsuits."
Maybe-and this is a big maybe-but MAYBE the universities should work a little harder to educate the students (say, a required class during freshman orientation?) on the importance of running a firewall and a/v software. Set up a live demo with a honeypot on stage, and show them how quickly it can happen. Sort of a digital "scared straight".
Subject really says it all. I'm 100% for faster DL/UL speeds as long I don't have to pay $300/month for them. I don't expect to get these speeds for $30-$40 a month, but I won't pay much more than that.
There is no privacy anymore. In the coming years they'll find more and more ways to advertise to you. Remember that episode of Futurama where they beamed advertising into peoples' dreams? If they could do that today they would, and they'd hide behind the first amendment if anyone complained.
Eventually you'll wake up in the morning and have to watch an ad to get out of your bedroom, watch an ad to get food out of your refrigerator, watch another one to cook your food, another one to use the bathroom...and the people responsible will say you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy-the SCotUS apparently thinks you don't-and that there's no legal reason why they can't do what they're doing. They'll keep on hiding behind the first amendment until they die.
Heh...reminds me of the time I saw a woman driving, talking on her phone and eating an ice cream cone at the same time. I got as far away from her as possible. Not that we men aren't guilty of similar offences. We're not slathering our faces with goo, but we have other bad habits.
Like we don't have enough moving hazards out there on the streets as it is. Now we're going to have women putting on makeup AND talking on the phone at the same time? Lord have mercy on us all.
Download SP1 and as many critical updates as you can, then burn them to a CD. Do this on a Linux box or a Mac, or on a known-safe Windows PC. Install everything, including SP1 and all critical updates. THEN get online. Alternatively, you could also put the PC behind a hardware firewall, such as a router, and then try the updates. Then install BlackIce or Panda and let the script kiddies do their worst.
Amen, brutha! I do have a PC here, which is used (mostly) for watching videos (you know, divx and the like...shh! don't tell Jack Valenti!) and for games. (I don't pay for the games either)
I suppose it might go without saying that one of the first things I installed was an anti-virus, even before it put it online.
The Mac is in my router's DMZ. It's been attacked I don't know how many times, and it's repelled every attempt. I even have my FTP service turned on, and I hear that's pretty vulnerable. Mind, I don't have guest access enabled, so that's probably made it safer.
I loves my Mac, yes I do. It's four and a half years old now and still going strong. Just needs more RAM and a new hard drive, and it'll be right as rain.
Spymac may claim to be the first to offer 1gb email, but it was only in reaction to Google's announcement.
In any event, Spymac's servers are tremendously overloaded and are therfore sluggish. I've also had problems with Spymac email never arriving, whether incoming or outgoing. Probably something to do with how overloaded they are. I've got a couple addys there, as backup, but I don't (can't?) actually use them at the moment.
I'm looking forward to Gmail. If it's as good as it's claimed to be, I'll probably switch to using that for my primary email, and use my ISP-provided address as a spamcatcher.
Anyone who's ever owned a dog could tell you they're pretty darn smart. Some breeds are smarter than others, mind, but they're none of them stupid like cats.
(and to all of you cat lover out there, don't worry, I like cats just fine, I just don't think something with a brain the size of an almond can be terribly intelligent.)
Our poodle (a standard, mind, not one of those horrid little toys) was a very bright dog. I never did any kind of tests, but at a guess I'd say she had a vocabulary of at least 100 words. What a sweet natured dog, too.
Who said anything about the gov't? This is between the consumers and the RIAA/RIAA authorised retailers.
Mind you, the RIAA is a gov't mandated monopoly, so it's possible they might step in and say you can only pay with credit card or whatever, but I just don't see that happening without some sort of major upheaval in the financial world, or without a serious legal challenge.
And again, you don't HAVE to buy the product. You could choose to save your money for something else. I know American's minds are programmed from an early age to buy, buy, buy, but it's not etched in stone, not codified anywhere. You have the choice to walk out of the store without having purchased anything.
Slashdot Mirror
He's probably one of those people who used to make fun of Mac users because we didn't have a command line, which meant our computers were inferior.
For .99, I'd rather be able to download the album in their shiny new lossless format. Then when I burn CDs with the files, I know I'm getting actual CD quality.
128k AACs may sound adequate, but they are NOT the equivalent of a 256k MP3, no matter what Apple claims. Though this is a subjective assessment, of course, there have been enough complaints about the quality of the files to let me know that I'm not the only one who notices the lack of quality.
With a lossless file the problem can't exist because there's no difference between the original and the compressed file.
Until Apple starts either selling lossless files or sending me the actual CD when I buy an album on the iTMS, I won't be giving them any of my cash.
I'm 100% certain no-one cares at all, but what the hell.
I am currently subscribed to Cook's Ilustrated and Cuisine at Home. I occasionally will buy Saveur, Gourmet and Good Food (a UK mag-I love Borders). If it's around I'll paw through the latest National Geographic and laugh when they blither on about global warming and evolution as if they're established, proven facts. If someone I like is on the cover, I'll pick up Maxim or FHM, but generally those magazines seem like they're made for guys who never matured beyond the fourth grade.
I also like Macworld OK, MacAddict more and Mac Design most of all. PC Magazines are all the same: how to make your PC faster, defend against viruses/trojans/worms, how to tweak windows to make it faster/crash less/take out the garbage/satisfy your woman better than you could ever hope to/whatever. So I read them for comic relief.
Told you you didn't care.
Doesn't take long, does it? Anybody got a mirror yet?
Apart from the 64 bit processing, it sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Oh well, I'm happy with 10.3 on my iMac for now. Seeing as I won't be buying a new Mac until long after Tiger has been released, I'll just content myself with Panther until then.
Stupid! You're so STUUUPID!
--
Next up on Wheel of Fish....
Well, it's the university's network, no matter if the government or the students' collective tuition helps pay for it.
Seems reasonable to require precautions on the part of anyone who wishes to connect to the network. To that end I figure they should provide at minimal cost an anti-virus and firewall package to help keep infections and intrusions to a minimum. But installing software which monitors the individual computers...I don't like that idea at all.
Seems like from there it's just a short hop to "We have to monitor your computers to make sure you don't have any MP3s or videos or (insert potential copyright violation here) so we can avoid lawsuits."
Maybe-and this is a big maybe-but MAYBE the universities should work a little harder to educate the students (say, a required class during freshman orientation?) on the importance of running a firewall and a/v software. Set up a live demo with a honeypot on stage, and show them how quickly it can happen. Sort of a digital "scared straight".
I've played with Mandrake a bit, and it seems pretty decent. I'll have to check out knoppix as well.
Thanks to you both for your suggestions!
I'm curious to know what benefits Slackware offers vs Mandrake, Fedora, etc. I haven't heard much of Slackware since its early days.
Will this clueless n00b be able to pick it up and use it, or would I be better off with Fedora or (insert other distro here)?
Subject really says it all. I'm 100% for faster DL/UL speeds as long I don't have to pay $300/month for them. I don't expect to get these speeds for $30-$40 a month, but I won't pay much more than that.
There is no privacy anymore. In the coming years they'll find more and more ways to advertise to you. Remember that episode of Futurama where they beamed advertising into peoples' dreams? If they could do that today they would, and they'd hide behind the first amendment if anyone complained.
Eventually you'll wake up in the morning and have to watch an ad to get out of your bedroom, watch an ad to get food out of your refrigerator, watch another one to cook your food, another one to use the bathroom...and the people responsible will say you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy-the SCotUS apparently thinks you don't-and that there's no legal reason why they can't do what they're doing. They'll keep on hiding behind the first amendment until they die.
Damn straight it won't. How astute of you to recognise the fact. 8^)
Heh...reminds me of the time I saw a woman driving, talking on her phone and eating an ice cream cone at the same time. I got as far away from her as possible. Not that we men aren't guilty of similar offences. We're not slathering our faces with goo, but we have other bad habits.
Like we don't have enough moving hazards out there on the streets as it is. Now we're going to have women putting on makeup AND talking on the phone at the same time? Lord have mercy on us all.
Download SP1 and as many critical updates as you can, then burn them to a CD. Do this on a Linux box or a Mac, or on a known-safe Windows PC. Install everything, including SP1 and all critical updates. THEN get online. Alternatively, you could also put the PC behind a hardware firewall, such as a router, and then try the updates. Then install BlackIce or Panda and let the script kiddies do their worst.
Amen, brutha! I do have a PC here, which is used (mostly) for watching videos (you know, divx and the like...shh! don't tell Jack Valenti!) and for games. (I don't pay for the games either)
I suppose it might go without saying that one of the first things I installed was an anti-virus, even before it put it online.
The Mac is in my router's DMZ. It's been attacked I don't know how many times, and it's repelled every attempt. I even have my FTP service turned on, and I hear that's pretty vulnerable. Mind, I don't have guest access enabled, so that's probably made it safer.
I loves my Mac, yes I do. It's four and a half years old now and still going strong. Just needs more RAM and a new hard drive, and it'll be right as rain.
Spymac may claim to be the first to offer 1gb email, but it was only in reaction to Google's announcement.
In any event, Spymac's servers are tremendously overloaded and are therfore sluggish. I've also had problems with Spymac email never arriving, whether incoming or outgoing. Probably something to do with how overloaded they are. I've got a couple addys there, as backup, but I don't (can't?) actually use them at the moment.
I'm looking forward to Gmail. If it's as good as it's claimed to be, I'll probably switch to using that for my primary email, and use my ISP-provided address as a spamcatcher.
Does the 28 include Windows XP? Because I'm pretty sure that product activation would qualify as "spyware".
Anyone who's ever owned a dog could tell you they're pretty darn smart. Some breeds are smarter than others, mind, but they're none of them stupid like cats.
(and to all of you cat lover out there, don't worry, I like cats just fine, I just don't think something with a brain the size of an almond can be terribly intelligent.)
Our poodle (a standard, mind, not one of those horrid little toys) was a very bright dog. I never did any kind of tests, but at a guess I'd say she had a vocabulary of at least 100 words. What a sweet natured dog, too.
Would this be the same food for oil scandal which explains why so many people on the UN Security Council didn't want the US to invade Iraq?
Boy, it's obvious the UN isn't in the pocket of the Big Corporations, yessiree!
Will they outlaw ink and paper next?
mmm...inexpensive power...
I *LOVE* my 2500+. I am so happy I didn't settle for a celeron or have to sell a kidney for a P4.
Now if you'll excuse me, the CPU and I would like to be alone.
Well, it's the plural form.
And damn you for beating me to it, you bastard!
You are correct, it is a cartel, not a monopoly (though for all intents and purposes they sure act like one, don't they?).
And I believe, though I may be wrong, that it does have a government sanction to act as such.
Who said anything about the gov't? This is between the consumers and the RIAA/RIAA authorised retailers.
Mind you, the RIAA is a gov't mandated monopoly, so it's possible they might step in and say you can only pay with credit card or whatever, but I just don't see that happening without some sort of major upheaval in the financial world, or without a serious legal challenge.
And again, you don't HAVE to buy the product. You could choose to save your money for something else. I know American's minds are programmed from an early age to buy, buy, buy, but it's not etched in stone, not codified anywhere. You have the choice to walk out of the store without having purchased anything.