But where does Microsoft's money come from? Mostly from American companies and American people.
Ahem! Europe and Asia individually have much higher populations than the US and probably the same penetration of Microsoft products as does the US.
And whilst it could be argued that in large parts of Asia where the cost of living is lower than in the US, the prices for MS products are probably less than in the US, here in Europe we generally pay *MORE* for everything than in the US - the same in Euros or Pounds Sterling that you pay in Dollars.
So no - most of Microsoft's money comes from outside the US.
Windows dominates because it works better for consumers than other alternatives save OS X
By virtue of your own argument, OS X should dominate because it works better for consumers than Windows - so why does it not do so?
The fact is that Joe Sixpack does not really care one iota for OS X or Macs - let's face it, the only people who do are the same Apple fanbois who will queue outside of a store overnight to pay £200 more for an iPhone than it cost some two weeks later.
No, Joe Sixpack *believes* he needs Windows because all his friends and neighbours use it - but the fact is that as long as he can play the occasional game, write emails, surf the web and play his MP3s, he probably doesn't give a damn about what applications are carrying out those tasks for him.
Apple will not release OS X for any PC because the fact is nobody will buy it.
Aside from big companies that pay support contracts to the likes of Red Hat and Novell, how many people in the home have *paid for* that copy of Ubuntu/Fedora/Gentoo Linux that they run? And how many people walk into their local computer store and buy a boxed version of Windows XP or Vista? In both cases, hardly anyone.
Most people don't give a damn about what OS they use because in most cases it came on their PC when they bought it and it's more than likely to be Windows. End of story.
No, sorry, go to the back of the class and put on your dunces hat - violent games have *NOTHING* to do with violence in society.
Kids are like sponges, they soak up everything around them, including the endless marketing and advertising that is constantly being thrown at them. And when they get to be teenagers, at the time when they're in the most emotional turmoil, the pressure to conform and to not stand out from the crowd is immense.
The counterbalance to all of that pressure is a strong, loving family around kids with attentive, caring parents who are constantly reassuring their kids that all the other stuff around them is the "outside" world. However, broken marriages are at an all time high, houses are so expensive in the Western World that most parents need to go and work full time, and when the parents get home from work they're naturally too tired to bother spending quality time with the kids. Consequently, the kids are thrown in front of their Playstations or left to do as they please.
So whilst I accept that violence amongst teenagers is rising (certainly here in the UK where knife crime is on the increase), so are thefts and muggings for iPods and mobile phones - and you can attribute marketing and advertising as the cause of that in forcing kids to believe these items are "must haves".
And whether kids are robbing from each other, bullying each other or killing each other, whenever it happens you can always ask yourself the same question - "Where were the parents?"
No, clearly some people do want to use Microsoft products, just like some people want to use FOSS or Linux.
But if you take Joe Sixpack in the street, does he *really care* that Windows Media Player is playing his MP3s for him, that he happens to write his letters in Word, or that he browses the web with Internet Explorer. No, of course not - at that level, every software application he uses has to *just work* and nothing more.
And if you don't believe me, use Mozilla Firefox as an example. Quite clearly, Firefox is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer (more standards compliancy, more addons, etc.) yet it is still the minority browser. That's because Joe Sixpack simply does not care about better technology - IE does what it needs to for him so it's not even worth his while doing a 5MB download for Firefox.
Additionally, add to all of that the very clever marketing by the likes of Mcafee and Symantec, as well as Microsoft. Now when Joe Sixpack buys his PC, he has an automatic *expectation* that he is going to fork out good money for a subscription to additional anti-virus, anti-spyware or Internet security products - yet this is despite the fact that he is only having to buy these products because of the OS holes in Windows in the first place.
So please do not confuse better technology with higher popularity. FOSS software does not have huge marketing budgets or a remit to sell so many thousands of copies before it becomes profitable. The fact is that most Joe Sixpacks don't give a damn about FOSS (and why should they when they're happy using Windows and happy handing their PCs to the likes of me to "delouse" when they're so riddled with viruses and spyware) and are taken in by the glossy adverts anyway.
Microsoft knows this and (all credit to them) uses it to their advantage - otherwise how could utter dross like Vista achieve the penetration it is getting?
The cellular companies have been ripping people off for years, good riddance to the lot of them when public wireless access and SIP servers are prevalent enough for everyone to use IP rather than cellular.
And as for my mobile phone, I rarely text on it as it's a tool for people to get hold of me if they have a good reason to or vice versa - it is NOT a device that props of any lack of self esteem on my part because of being so terrified of missing out on anything my friends or family are doing that I have to be in constant contact with them all nattering/texting about total banalities.
Grow up, people! Look up from your 2 inch square screens for a few minutes and enjoy REAL LIFE!
And there was me thinking for all of these years that the whole idea of a capitalist economy is that you stay in business because you remain competitive - ipso facto, when you are no longer competitive or produce products not or no longer wanted by the consumer, then you go out of business.
So before you go and cheer on our new communist rulers take into account that sometimes it's not such a bad idea to drop a few bucks on an Intel chip.
Actually, I think you'll find that it's "traditional" for Communist governments to "shore up" their own favoured industries with subsidies and trade restrictions in order to force the consumer to buy from a specific vendor. This is precisely what you are saying should happen if a Taiwanese company like Via cannot be fairly allowed to compete with an American company like Intel.
Let's just say that games are, quite simply, "entertainment" and leave it at that - rather than having to analyse & re-analyse everything at great depth.
How about we just recognise that since his very dawn, man has filled his life with things he *MUST* do in order to survive (i.e. eat, hunt, have sex, etc.) & things he *LIKES* to do when he's not doing the things he *MUST* do (i.e. eat, play games, have sex, etc.) so that computer games are just another facet of the the things man has always done to entertain himself?
Also, can we make the assumption that any human being with an IQ higher than a sub-normal woodlouse knows that *REALITY* is *OUTSIDE* of his head and *FANTASY* is *INSIDE* it? Therefore , in all likelihood, the online *FANTASY* persona a gamer portrays in a game (or indeed elsewhere online) is probably far removed from the *REAL* person in *REAL* life. Thus, a great "Commander Napoleon Patton" in Battlefield 1942 might well be "Little Mister Sheepman Incarnate" in real life.
I'm also led to believe that peppers have great anti-carcinogenic properties - I'm not sure if it's the capsaicin here or if it is something to do with the outer skin as tomatoes (apparently) also have the same properties.
Peppers are also (surprisingly!) excellent for aiding digestion.
With all respect, I think the main cause of this type of problem is that Linux developers have to backwards engineer drivers on the basis that the hardware people don't issue the specifications or write Linux drivers themselves.
Microsoft has close partnerships with hardware developers so we would be very susprised if this woul happen to them.
With all respect, you are (like me) an experienced computer user who can probably trim down XP to run smoothly on low-spec hardware, I am not denying that.
But, on that basis, if you mean to tell me you have never been approached by a friend or relative to fix a Windows XP machine that is taking several minutes to boot up, not least because it has too little RAM for what it is expecting to run, then you have no idea what you are talking about. Look on any web site or in any PC store and you will find budget PCs with bare minimum spec that run Windows just about okay for a week or two but rapidly grind to a halt the moment you start installing new stuff.
Yep, an experienced Windows user like you or me can keep XP running pretty slickly - but then an experienced Linux user like me can also write a simple script to stop the disk thrashing problem.
Face it, Linux-people, Apple isn't going to open up the platform, defying all the benefits of a closed architecture, for the sake of letting you play with OS X on your 5 year old leftovers box. Not going to happen.
Last night, I hadn't read this comment & slept a solid, undisturbed 8 hours.
Tonight, having read this comment, I will sleep a solid, undisturbed 8 hours.
Then you are a fool who has no idea what he is talking about.
As I said in a previous post on this thread, security is about layered protection, not one single point of potential failure. A sensible person deploys a hardware *AND* software firewall, as well as turning off unneeded services and checking everything is configured correctly.
Given the alternative that Vista is the equivalent of being severely rogered up the rectum by Bill Gates huge, black, barbed member, I for one will be hopping over onto Linus' lap, thanks all the same.
It's probably not for you, either. Since you can't spell "homosexuals" correctly, I wouldn't recommend you try commands like "man" or "ls" in case you get those wrong also.
Perhaps it time to scribble "My First Speak And Spell Computer" in crayon on the bottom of your Christmas list and mail it to your parents so they get in time for their annual visit to you at the "School For The Gifted".
And of course, both of them together are still *NO EXCUSE* for not putting on regular software updates, turning off unneeded services and making sure everything is configured securely...
With all respect, but just how many laptops & desktop PCs have *YOU* seen sold with 512MB (even 256MB) RAM for Windows XP or 1GB (even 512MB) for Windows Vista, all of which are far too little memory for each OS?
And guess what happens when a bloated MS operating system gets used with too little RAM! Yep, huge swapfile, endless disk thrashing. more drive wear and tear...
A single parameter change to the "hdparm" command fixes the cause of this problem - sorry, but just how many of Windows numerous flaws are fixable by editing a single text file?
If it was Microsoft who had committed this "crime", all the Microsoft and Apple users would be up in arms & throwing abuse at them.
However, because it's Apple, all the Apple fanbois think it's just fine and dandy - you're both laughable and pitiful in your devotion.
And before you say anything, I use Windows XP about a fifth as much as I use Linux - and have never owned a single Apple product because I've never yet found a need to own one.
Actually, a good security policy is to take a layered approach & to not simply just trust one device.
Yes, an external NAT/firewall/router is advisable but there's nothing wrong activating the computer's firewall also - especially because firewall activation is usually associated with additional activity logging which, on a computer will be more comprehensive & more likely to be looked at than any logging on the router.
If there's one thing worse than someone who "leeches" off of the foibles of everyone else, it's the person who brags about doing so.
I pity you & maybe when you're on your deathbed dying alone because you've spent your selfish life screwing everyone else over to the point that they don't want to know you, maybe you'll understand what living *WITH* other people is really about.
At the airport the other week, I picked up a gadget "magvertisement" from the UK PC & components retailer eBuyer - a company I've used many times before and never had a problem with.
In the magazine were a couple of pages detailing their ordering & shipping process, most of which is done robotically. When a customer orders a stack of items, the items get placed into a carton which is finally checked by weighing it - since the weight of each inividual item is already known, checking the total weight is a good way of checking for any errors in a customer order.
It strikes me that this would be a good way of checking items at the tills of PC stores - weigh the item, report that weight on the till receipt & that can be used to detect problems at point of purchase or later on when the customer brings something back.
Incidentally, in the UK, the onus for this is very much on the retailer due to the Sale Of Goods Act. You are entitled to a full refund if what you have purchased is unfit for purpose & it would be very much up to the retailer to prove the customer wrong. This is why, for example, a lot of unscrupulous customers in UK clothes stores will by an item for a party, wear it & then take it back for a full refund a week later - Marks & Spencer are particularly willing to give customer refunds and therefore get this a lot.
I did have one occasion in PC World where an item was missing from a box but I make a habit of always opening the box when I go out to the car from the store - so withing minutes I was back in the store for an exchange which helps also.
Then when there is a problem & the store have refused to do anything about it, ring up the credit card company & tell them to sort it out. Certainly here in the UK (and I know this from experience), the credit card company is jointly liable with yourself for any problems, so as a minimum you should always get half your money back.
And if the credit card company refuses to accept liability, complain to their CEO.
I had exactly this scenario with a Moben kitchen some years ago. The kitchen was not completed, installation was substandard & Moben refused to do anything about it. We went to a solicitor who wrote them some nasty letters but Moben still refused to do anything. I went to the credit card company as I'd paid for the kitchen on the card, they refused liability initially. So I found out the name of their CEO from the Internet and wrote to him directly. He wrote back, apologised for the mistake, admitted joint liability and the issue was solved - after a year of hassle, we got the kitchen corrected and, including our legal fees, ended up paying £2000 less for the kitchen over all as compensation.
1. When you scratch a vinyl disc, you will hear a click when you play that disc, especially if you have an expensive piece of audiophile equipment designed to pull out ever nuance of the recording. If you scratch a CD, it *MAY* affect the recording but for relatively minor ones, error correction will stop you hearing it. No CDs are not & never have been indestructible but they are better at handling day-to-day wear.
2. When it comes to hi-fi and the listening experience, the more you spend on hi-fi, the less the improvement in audio quality you get - plus it rapidly gets to a stage where there is no point paying £1000 for an amplifier and £2000 for a pair of speakers unless you also spend £20,000 on acoustic damping on your floors, walls and ceilings.
3. Vinyl needs to be both handled & stored in far more rigid conditions than a CD ever has to - that makes it impractical for most people.
4. As you get older, your hearing range starts to decrease anyway - so by the time you're earning enough money to buy expensive hi-fi, your ears probably aren't good enough any more to hear the best from it.
So what distinguishes these items from a DVD writer or a USB Flash key, both of which are hardware items capable of creating and/or storing pirated media files?
Also, no matter how you argue this, there ***IS*** a legitimate use for a Flash2Advance device for the development of home brew ROMs. Sure, it's quite possible that many people don't use them just for that purpose but supposedly in our advanced society, one is assumed innocent until ***PROVEN*** guilty.
And if the ESA think I am getting on bended knees to them for some kind of appeal, they can forget it! At the end of it all, the F2As were taken down too late to stop the sale going through so I achieved what I set out to do. I was hoping for an apology / explanation from the ESA - but they're obviously just a bunch of bureaucratic mindless tosspots.
I recently sold my Gameboy Advance & two Flash2Advance backup cartridges on eBay (all of them separately). Along with the F2A cartridges, I threw in with each a DVD full of **ONLY** GBA PD ROMs.
Fortunately, the auctions ended & the buyers had paid me before eBay informed me that they were taking the F2A listings down due to software piracy. When I questioned eBay as to why this had been done when I was not advertising any commercially copied software with the cartridges, they told me to get in touch with the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) who had asked for the listings to be removed.
So far, I have emailed the officious tosspots at the ESA four times & demanded an explanation as to why they insisted the F2As be removed when eBay can still advertise writable CDs & DVDs, USB flash keys and DVD writers, all of which can be used for piracy in a similar fashion.
In over 4 weeks now, I have not received one reply from the ESA who, as far as I am concerned, have accused me of being a software pirate & been heavy-handed in their attitude - even though I made it clear to them that the F2A can be a legitimate developer tool for homebrew GBA ROMs.
All these heavy-handed corporations are just assholes!
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Ahem! Europe and Asia individually have much higher populations than the US and probably the same penetration of Microsoft products as does the US.
And whilst it could be argued that in large parts of Asia where the cost of living is lower than in the US, the prices for MS products are probably less than in the US, here in Europe we generally pay *MORE* for everything than in the US - the same in Euros or Pounds Sterling that you pay in Dollars.
So no - most of Microsoft's money comes from outside the US.
By virtue of your own argument, OS X should dominate because it works better for consumers than Windows - so why does it not do so?
The fact is that Joe Sixpack does not really care one iota for OS X or Macs - let's face it, the only people who do are the same Apple fanbois who will queue outside of a store overnight to pay £200 more for an iPhone than it cost some two weeks later.
No, Joe Sixpack *believes* he needs Windows because all his friends and neighbours use it - but the fact is that as long as he can play the occasional game, write emails, surf the web and play his MP3s, he probably doesn't give a damn about what applications are carrying out those tasks for him.
Apple will not release OS X for any PC because the fact is nobody will buy it.
Aside from big companies that pay support contracts to the likes of Red Hat and Novell, how many people in the home have *paid for* that copy of Ubuntu/Fedora/Gentoo Linux that they run? And how many people walk into their local computer store and buy a boxed version of Windows XP or Vista? In both cases, hardly anyone.
Most people don't give a damn about what OS they use because in most cases it came on their PC when they bought it and it's more than likely to be Windows. End of story.
Kids are like sponges, they soak up everything around them, including the endless marketing and advertising that is constantly being thrown at them. And when they get to be teenagers, at the time when they're in the most emotional turmoil, the pressure to conform and to not stand out from the crowd is immense.
The counterbalance to all of that pressure is a strong, loving family around kids with attentive, caring parents who are constantly reassuring their kids that all the other stuff around them is the "outside" world. However, broken marriages are at an all time high, houses are so expensive in the Western World that most parents need to go and work full time, and when the parents get home from work they're naturally too tired to bother spending quality time with the kids. Consequently, the kids are thrown in front of their Playstations or left to do as they please.
So whilst I accept that violence amongst teenagers is rising (certainly here in the UK where knife crime is on the increase), so are thefts and muggings for iPods and mobile phones - and you can attribute marketing and advertising as the cause of that in forcing kids to believe these items are "must haves".
And whether kids are robbing from each other, bullying each other or killing each other, whenever it happens you can always ask yourself the same question - "Where were the parents?"
But if you take Joe Sixpack in the street, does he *really care* that Windows Media Player is playing his MP3s for him, that he happens to write his letters in Word, or that he browses the web with Internet Explorer. No, of course not - at that level, every software application he uses has to *just work* and nothing more.
And if you don't believe me, use Mozilla Firefox as an example. Quite clearly, Firefox is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer (more standards compliancy, more addons, etc.) yet it is still the minority browser. That's because Joe Sixpack simply does not care about better technology - IE does what it needs to for him so it's not even worth his while doing a 5MB download for Firefox.
Additionally, add to all of that the very clever marketing by the likes of Mcafee and Symantec, as well as Microsoft. Now when Joe Sixpack buys his PC, he has an automatic *expectation* that he is going to fork out good money for a subscription to additional anti-virus, anti-spyware or Internet security products - yet this is despite the fact that he is only having to buy these products because of the OS holes in Windows in the first place.
So please do not confuse better technology with higher popularity. FOSS software does not have huge marketing budgets or a remit to sell so many thousands of copies before it becomes profitable. The fact is that most Joe Sixpacks don't give a damn about FOSS (and why should they when they're happy using Windows and happy handing their PCs to the likes of me to "delouse" when they're so riddled with viruses and spyware) and are taken in by the glossy adverts anyway.
Microsoft knows this and (all credit to them) uses it to their advantage - otherwise how could utter dross like Vista achieve the penetration it is getting?
And as for my mobile phone, I rarely text on it as it's a tool for people to get hold of me if they have a good reason to or vice versa - it is NOT a device that props of any lack of self esteem on my part because of being so terrified of missing out on anything my friends or family are doing that I have to be in constant contact with them all nattering/texting about total banalities.
Grow up, people! Look up from your 2 inch square screens for a few minutes and enjoy REAL LIFE!
And there was me thinking for all of these years that the whole idea of a capitalist economy is that you stay in business because you remain competitive - ipso facto, when you are no longer competitive or produce products not or no longer wanted by the consumer, then you go out of business.
So before you go and cheer on our new communist rulers take into account that sometimes it's not such a bad idea to drop a few bucks on an Intel chip.
Actually, I think you'll find that it's "traditional" for Communist governments to "shore up" their own favoured industries with subsidies and trade restrictions in order to force the consumer to buy from a specific vendor. This is precisely what you are saying should happen if a Taiwanese company like Via cannot be fairly allowed to compete with an American company like Intel.
Anyway, enjoy your -1 Troll - you earnt it!
How about we just recognise that since his very dawn, man has filled his life with things he *MUST* do in order to survive (i.e. eat, hunt, have sex, etc.) & things he *LIKES* to do when he's not doing the things he *MUST* do (i.e. eat, play games, have sex, etc.) so that computer games are just another facet of the the things man has always done to entertain himself?
Also, can we make the assumption that any human being with an IQ higher than a sub-normal woodlouse knows that *REALITY* is *OUTSIDE* of his head and *FANTASY* is *INSIDE* it? Therefore , in all likelihood, the online *FANTASY* persona a gamer portrays in a game (or indeed elsewhere online) is probably far removed from the *REAL* person in *REAL* life. Thus, a great "Commander Napoleon Patton" in Battlefield 1942 might well be "Little Mister Sheepman Incarnate" in real life.
Now, can I please get back to my game?
Peppers are also (surprisingly!) excellent for aiding digestion.
Microsoft has close partnerships with hardware developers so we would be very susprised if this woul happen to them.
But, on that basis, if you mean to tell me you have never been approached by a friend or relative to fix a Windows XP machine that is taking several minutes to boot up, not least because it has too little RAM for what it is expecting to run, then you have no idea what you are talking about. Look on any web site or in any PC store and you will find budget PCs with bare minimum spec that run Windows just about okay for a week or two but rapidly grind to a halt the moment you start installing new stuff.
Yep, an experienced Windows user like you or me can keep XP running pretty slickly - but then an experienced Linux user like me can also write a simple script to stop the disk thrashing problem.
Last night, I hadn't read this comment & slept a solid, undisturbed 8 hours.
Tonight, having read this comment, I will sleep a solid, undisturbed 8 hours.
Then you are a fool who has no idea what he is talking about.
As I said in a previous post on this thread, security is about layered protection, not one single point of potential failure. A sensible person deploys a hardware *AND* software firewall, as well as turning off unneeded services and checking everything is configured correctly.
Given the alternative that Vista is the equivalent of being severely rogered up the rectum by Bill Gates huge, black, barbed member, I for one will be hopping over onto Linus' lap, thanks all the same.
It's probably not for you, either. Since you can't spell "homosexuals" correctly, I wouldn't recommend you try commands like "man" or "ls" in case you get those wrong also.
Perhaps it time to scribble "My First Speak And Spell Computer" in crayon on the bottom of your Christmas list and mail it to your parents so they get in time for their annual visit to you at the "School For The Gifted".
And of course, both of them together are still *NO EXCUSE* for not putting on regular software updates, turning off unneeded services and making sure everything is configured securely...
And guess what happens when a bloated MS operating system gets used with too little RAM! Yep, huge swapfile, endless disk thrashing. more drive wear and tear...
"Mr Black Kettle, meet Mr Black Pot."
A single parameter change to the "hdparm" command fixes the cause of this problem - sorry, but just how many of Windows numerous flaws are fixable by editing a single text file?
However, because it's Apple, all the Apple fanbois think it's just fine and dandy - you're both laughable and pitiful in your devotion.
And before you say anything, I use Windows XP about a fifth as much as I use Linux - and have never owned a single Apple product because I've never yet found a need to own one.
Yes, an external NAT/firewall/router is advisable but there's nothing wrong activating the computer's firewall also - especially because firewall activation is usually associated with additional activity logging which, on a computer will be more comprehensive & more likely to be looked at than any logging on the router.
I pity you & maybe when you're on your deathbed dying alone because you've spent your selfish life screwing everyone else over to the point that they don't want to know you, maybe you'll understand what living *WITH* other people is really about.
In the magazine were a couple of pages detailing their ordering & shipping process, most of which is done robotically. When a customer orders a stack of items, the items get placed into a carton which is finally checked by weighing it - since the weight of each inividual item is already known, checking the total weight is a good way of checking for any errors in a customer order.
It strikes me that this would be a good way of checking items at the tills of PC stores - weigh the item, report that weight on the till receipt & that can be used to detect problems at point of purchase or later on when the customer brings something back.
Incidentally, in the UK, the onus for this is very much on the retailer due to the Sale Of Goods Act. You are entitled to a full refund if what you have purchased is unfit for purpose & it would be very much up to the retailer to prove the customer wrong. This is why, for example, a lot of unscrupulous customers in UK clothes stores will by an item for a party, wear it & then take it back for a full refund a week later - Marks & Spencer are particularly willing to give customer refunds and therefore get this a lot.
I did have one occasion in PC World where an item was missing from a box but I make a habit of always opening the box when I go out to the car from the store - so withing minutes I was back in the store for an exchange which helps also.
Then when there is a problem & the store have refused to do anything about it, ring up the credit card company & tell them to sort it out. Certainly here in the UK (and I know this from experience), the credit card company is jointly liable with yourself for any problems, so as a minimum you should always get half your money back.
And if the credit card company refuses to accept liability, complain to their CEO.
I had exactly this scenario with a Moben kitchen some years ago. The kitchen was not completed, installation was substandard & Moben refused to do anything about it. We went to a solicitor who wrote them some nasty letters but Moben still refused to do anything. I went to the credit card company as I'd paid for the kitchen on the card, they refused liability initially. So I found out the name of their CEO from the Internet and wrote to him directly. He wrote back, apologised for the mistake, admitted joint liability and the issue was solved - after a year of hassle, we got the kitchen corrected and, including our legal fees, ended up paying £2000 less for the kitchen over all as compensation.
2. When it comes to hi-fi and the listening experience, the more you spend on hi-fi, the less the improvement in audio quality you get - plus it rapidly gets to a stage where there is no point paying £1000 for an amplifier and £2000 for a pair of speakers unless you also spend £20,000 on acoustic damping on your floors, walls and ceilings.
3. Vinyl needs to be both handled & stored in far more rigid conditions than a CD ever has to - that makes it impractical for most people.
4. As you get older, your hearing range starts to decrease anyway - so by the time you're earning enough money to buy expensive hi-fi, your ears probably aren't good enough any more to hear the best from it.
Also, no matter how you argue this, there ***IS*** a legitimate use for a Flash2Advance device for the development of home brew ROMs. Sure, it's quite possible that many people don't use them just for that purpose but supposedly in our advanced society, one is assumed innocent until ***PROVEN*** guilty.
And if the ESA think I am getting on bended knees to them for some kind of appeal, they can forget it! At the end of it all, the F2As were taken down too late to stop the sale going through so I achieved what I set out to do. I was hoping for an apology / explanation from the ESA - but they're obviously just a bunch of bureaucratic mindless tosspots.
Fortunately, the auctions ended & the buyers had paid me before eBay informed me that they were taking the F2A listings down due to software piracy. When I questioned eBay as to why this had been done when I was not advertising any commercially copied software with the cartridges, they told me to get in touch with the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) who had asked for the listings to be removed.
So far, I have emailed the officious tosspots at the ESA four times & demanded an explanation as to why they insisted the F2As be removed when eBay can still advertise writable CDs & DVDs, USB flash keys and DVD writers, all of which can be used for piracy in a similar fashion.
In over 4 weeks now, I have not received one reply from the ESA who, as far as I am concerned, have accused me of being a software pirate & been heavy-handed in their attitude - even though I made it clear to them that the F2A can be a legitimate developer tool for homebrew GBA ROMs.
All these heavy-handed corporations are just assholes!