I'm with nathanmace on this one.
I've spoken with a handful of people about this very topic a couple of times in the past, and this is one of the scenes that always comes up.
The fact that your character (cloud) has to stand there and watch it all happen made it all the more heartwrenching.
And let's not forget the first time you rescued the REAL princess in the first NES Mario Bros. game. You know you loved it.
One thing I find very different is that Windows and it's associated applications force the user to think of their info as being stored in files, whereas many Mac OS X apps (iPhoto, iCal, iTunes, etc - esp the Apple apps) really make life easier for you if you can start to think of things just in terms of data - this is a song, this is a picture, this is a movie - rather than files. Some 'swithcers' find it frustrating that they have songs that they listen to in iTunes that stop being part of iTunes when they move the files around. Here's a hint - DON'T MOVE THE FILES AROUND. Turn on the "copy files for me" preference and let iTunes worry about where the files ARE, you just need to listen to SONGS. When you import new music from a CD it's all right in your library, if you get a new song (through some unknown process) drag the song off [someplace like the desktop], and drop it in your iTunes library - iTunes will copy it to the music library for you (you can do this with multiple songs at once) and you don't have to know where it goes or when it's done.
That's just one example. Just pretty much stop thinking about files altogether or you may end up being frustrated with where everything is and how hard it is to manage everything yourself. The beauty of it is that Apple knows how hard it is to manage a filesystem by yourself, so they set most things up to do it for you.
Also, set up an Administrator account, and an everyday use account, and a Guest account. This is the minimum for any machine (it only takes a second to do and it really easy) The adminstrator account will be used very rarely. I hardly ever use mine. The everyday account will be used 'everyday' for day-to-day stuff. If you need to install programs or change settings that require admin access, you'll either be prompted to enter the password (usually) or be asked to login as the administrator (less often) but either way you'll be aware that you're giving something administrative access to your machine and you might not always want that (depending on which program we're talking about or which setting change.) The Guest account will have no password and will allow other people to use your machine without access to YOUR files (unless they're in your SHARED directory) and they won't be able to change any settings on your machine (unless you give them your admin password).
Some might say this is more complicated than using windows, setting up all these users, but the thing is with windows, although they do provide these different levels of security it's very poorly 'policy-ed' (?) You really can't do ANYTHING with windows without admnistrator access, so most people just set themselves up as the admin. Besides it's really not that complicated.
Another benefit of this users system is that it will force you to keep your files/info/data IN YOUR HOME DIRECTORY which a lot of people find a strange concept. USE YOUR HOME DIRECTORY. DON'T STORE FILES IN OTHER PLACES. It sounds authoritarian but it makes a lot of sense once you start doing it. You really shouldn't save things anywhere but inside your home directory, and if you're using your 'everyday' account, you'll be forced to do this.
(PS All this info is based on my experience as a tech at a university where the school had no particular "Mac Policy" so the techs came up with one ourselves - ie: lots of practical experience)
Thank you SOOOOOO much. This is exactly the argument I wanted to make originally but was not able to put together properly. So instead of making this argument I went after something else that I knew I could articulate. (Whether it was completely correct or not)
Truthfully, I WANTED to have this argument "rejected on a rights basis" because I wanted the to see an argument developed around that idea. I am saving your response to a file on my hard drive right now (posting info included) so I can keep this in mind in the future!
Very good point!! I guess I hadn't really thought of the "sign" scenario before. That little analogy actually clears a lot of this up eh? The TOS or EULA or whatever you agree to is more like a sign at a pool than a contract.
Also I never really thought of the instance when a contract makes me agree to endangering myself or breaking the law.
I'm glad there's some folks out there who know how this stuff works!
Thanks for the spelling advice! I need it sometimes.
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Has clicking a button been found to NOT BE a legally enforcible means of signing a contract?
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Any ideas about how they would have obtained the info about the DRM, the encrypted files, and an Apple authorization key, as well as the algorithms that govern all these pieces' interaction, without the ITMS?
I haven't been thinking about the problem that long but I can't figure ANYTHING out.
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 2, Insightful
No one's forcing people to buy music from Apple. If you don't like the TOS, don't buy their music. But if you enter into a contract with anyone, let alone a multinational, multi-milliondollar-a-year computer company with a reputation for aggressively protecting their IP, you had better be ready to stand by your decision. No one forced people into this TOS - they wanted music and bought it and that inherently binds them under the TOS.
Now, whether that's legally enforceable and under what jurisdiction it should fall is another question.
What's legal and what's not is different in every part of the world. But where I'm from a contract is a contract is a contract. I don't know of anywhere in the world where you can enter into usage agreements and not be expected to live up to them - free nation or not.
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I guess I disagree. In my mind, if you agree to a TOS you agree to it. It is not the responsibility of the company (Apple in this case) to come up with a nifty TOS that everyone will like and agree to. Though that may be in their best interest. It IS the responsibility of the consumer to understand the contracts they sign before they enter into them.
Just look at what has happened with Kazaa and multiple other free/shareware examples where they expect you to blip right through their usage agreement which explicitly states that the Kazaa installer has the right to install whatever it wants wherever it wants. It's horse-sh*t, but millions of people subject themselves to it everyday.
Again, it doesn't make it right, it just makes us (the collective, consumer, public populous who does these things) pretty dumb sometimes.
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"It is possible that Playfair does not violate ITMS - for the developer, as long as it was written without using ITMS content in the development. If the devloper did not us ITMS music, then they would not be bound by its TOS, since they would not have agreed to ITMS TOS."
Except that the TOS also states that you agree not to encourage such behaviour, I suppose it MIGHT be questionable as to whether downloading the software and/or using it would/should be considered encouraging - I see your point though. Maybe it's not so black and white as I had thought originally.
Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 5, Informative
A Quote from the "Terms Of Service" which you MUST AGREE TO in order to purchase tracks from the ITMS:
Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners in any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition, or artwork embodied in any Product.
You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules.
The delivery of Products does not transfer to you any commercial or promotional use rights in the Products.
It's not really a question about whether it's ethical or not. If you have music from the ITMS, you bought it from Apple, and YOU AGREED TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE. If you make a piece of software to "circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service" than you are breaking your contract with Apple, and thusly breaking the law. It's pretty simple.
GrooveSalad is the most amazing radio station in the world. they continue to captivate me everytime I turn it on, and they broadcast in a variety of speeds, so I can still listen to good stuff (even though it sounds pretty terrible) when connections are slower. Thank you so much SOMA!!
Re:Answer to title. (Actual experience)
on
Is Mac OS X Slow?
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· Score: 1
You can actually "turn off all the UI crap" in OS X.
There are a couple of ways but my favourite is to let the machine boot to the login screen, and choose to login as "Other" which will present you with a typical username/password text fields to fill in. (If you don't have your machine setup to boot to the login screen you'll already have these username/password prompts already, OR you've got things set up to autologin, which just means you'll have to "Logout" from the apple menu and go from there)
Anyway, once you get to the username/password prompts, type in your username as (without quotes) ">console" and viola!... pure Darwin, in all its splendor. No GUI at all. In fact, this is a really great way to get good performance from X11 too. It feels great to have AfterSTEP, etc.... running full speed ahead with a simple "startx"....
Also, there are ways to have the machine boot into various levels of command-lined-ness.
Do a little poking around on google to be sure, but I think one is Cmd-s during startup, which will boot you into single user mode, which is very geeky and bare-bones-y. When you boot into this mode you don't even have your harddrive mounted and need to do it manually.
There are other options like this one so do some research.
I would especially like to suggest this before ranting with such fervor on a forum like this.
I would actually like to propose that you can do MORE with the console mode Macintosh than with any windows machine. All the services are still up and running, including a full TCP/IP stack, webservers, ftp servers, ssh servers, any cron tasks, etc, etc....
I don't know about this for sure, but I don't think that the command-line mode on a windows machine will keep a user this well supported... Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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I'm with nathanmace on this one. I've spoken with a handful of people about this very topic a couple of times in the past, and this is one of the scenes that always comes up. The fact that your character (cloud) has to stand there and watch it all happen made it all the more heartwrenching. And let's not forget the first time you rescued the REAL princess in the first NES Mario Bros. game. You know you loved it.
One thing I find very different is that Windows and it's associated applications force the user to think of their info as being stored in files, whereas many Mac OS X apps (iPhoto, iCal, iTunes, etc - esp the Apple apps) really make life easier for you if you can start to think of things just in terms of data - this is a song, this is a picture, this is a movie - rather than files.
Some 'swithcers' find it frustrating that they have songs that they listen to in iTunes that stop being part of iTunes when they move the files around. Here's a hint - DON'T MOVE THE FILES AROUND. Turn on the "copy files for me" preference and let iTunes worry about where the files ARE, you just need to listen to SONGS. When you import new music from a CD it's all right in your library, if you get a new song (through some unknown process) drag the song off [someplace like the desktop], and drop it in your iTunes library - iTunes will copy it to the music library for you (you can do this with multiple songs at once) and you don't have to know where it goes or when it's done.
That's just one example.
Just pretty much stop thinking about files altogether or you may end up being frustrated with where everything is and how hard it is to manage everything yourself. The beauty of it is that Apple knows how hard it is to manage a filesystem by yourself, so they set most things up to do it for you.
Also, set up an Administrator account, and an everyday use account, and a Guest account. This is the minimum for any machine (it only takes a second to do and it really easy)
The adminstrator account will be used very rarely. I hardly ever use mine.
The everyday account will be used 'everyday' for day-to-day stuff. If you need to install programs or change settings that require admin access, you'll either be prompted to enter the password (usually) or be asked to login as the administrator (less often) but either way you'll be aware that you're giving something administrative access to your machine and you might not always want that (depending on which program we're talking about or which setting change.)
The Guest account will have no password and will allow other people to use your machine without access to YOUR files (unless they're in your SHARED directory) and they won't be able to change any settings on your machine (unless you give them your admin password).
Some might say this is more complicated than using windows, setting up all these users, but the thing is with windows, although they do provide these different levels of security it's very poorly 'policy-ed' (?) You really can't do ANYTHING with windows without admnistrator access, so most people just set themselves up as the admin. Besides it's really not that complicated.
Another benefit of this users system is that it will force you to keep your files/info/data IN YOUR HOME DIRECTORY which a lot of people find a strange concept. USE YOUR HOME DIRECTORY. DON'T STORE FILES IN OTHER PLACES. It sounds authoritarian but it makes a lot of sense once you start doing it. You really shouldn't save things anywhere but inside your home directory, and if you're using your 'everyday' account, you'll be forced to do this.
(PS All this info is based on my experience as a tech at a university where the school had no particular "Mac Policy" so the techs came up with one ourselves - ie: lots of practical experience)
Thank you SOOOOOO much. This is exactly the argument I wanted to make originally but was not able to put together properly. So instead of making this argument I went after something else that I knew I could articulate. (Whether it was completely correct or not)
Truthfully, I WANTED to have this argument "rejected on a rights basis" because I wanted the to see an argument developed around that idea. I am saving your response to a file on my hard drive right now (posting info included) so I can keep this in mind in the future!
Very good point!!
I guess I hadn't really thought of the "sign" scenario before. That little analogy actually clears a lot of this up eh? The TOS or EULA or whatever you agree to is more like a sign at a pool than a contract.
Also I never really thought of the instance when a contract makes me agree to endangering myself or breaking the law.
I'm glad there's some folks out there who know how this stuff works!
Thanks for the spelling advice! I need it sometimes.
Has clicking a button been found to NOT BE a legally enforcible means of signing a contract?
I haven't been thinking about the problem that long but I can't figure ANYTHING out.
Now, whether that's legally enforceable and under what jurisdiction it should fall is another question.
What's legal and what's not is different in every part of the world. But where I'm from a contract is a contract is a contract. I don't know of anywhere in the world where you can enter into usage agreements and not be expected to live up to them - free nation or not.
Just look at what has happened with Kazaa and multiple other free/shareware examples where they expect you to blip right through their usage agreement which explicitly states that the Kazaa installer has the right to install whatever it wants wherever it wants. It's horse-sh*t, but millions of people subject themselves to it everyday.
Again, it doesn't make it right, it just makes us (the collective, consumer, public populous who does these things) pretty dumb sometimes.
Except that the TOS also states that you agree not to encourage such behaviour, I suppose it MIGHT be questionable as to whether downloading the software and/or using it would/should be considered encouraging - I see your point though. Maybe it's not so black and white as I had thought originally.
It's not really a question about whether it's ethical or not. If you have music from the ITMS, you bought it from Apple, and YOU AGREED TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE. If you make a piece of software to "circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service" than you are breaking your contract with Apple, and thusly breaking the law. It's pretty simple.
I saw a comment here about Neopets and I think this is a great site!! One you can play along with the little ones. Also, checkout the CBC kids site [www.cbc.ca/kids/] Definitely very good site directed at learning and the "safe environment" thing. Especially if the little kids can watch the CBC and see the special shows that go along with their counter parts on the site - infomatrix is good for 10 - 15, Get Set For Life is for the littler ones.
GrooveSalad is the most amazing radio station in the world. they continue to captivate me everytime I turn it on, and they broadcast in a variety of speeds, so I can still listen to good stuff (even though it sounds pretty terrible) when connections are slower. Thank you so much SOMA!!
You can actually "turn off all the UI crap" in OS X. There are a couple of ways but my favourite is to let the machine boot to the login screen, and choose to login as "Other" which will present you with a typical username/password text fields to fill in. (If you don't have your machine setup to boot to the login screen you'll already have these username/password prompts already, OR you've got things set up to autologin, which just means you'll have to "Logout" from the apple menu and go from there) Anyway, once you get to the username/password prompts, type in your username as (without quotes) ">console" and viola!... pure Darwin, in all its splendor. No GUI at all. In fact, this is a really great way to get good performance from X11 too. It feels great to have AfterSTEP, etc.... running full speed ahead with a simple "startx".... Also, there are ways to have the machine boot into various levels of command-lined-ness. Do a little poking around on google to be sure, but I think one is Cmd-s during startup, which will boot you into single user mode, which is very geeky and bare-bones-y. When you boot into this mode you don't even have your harddrive mounted and need to do it manually. There are other options like this one so do some research. I would especially like to suggest this before ranting with such fervor on a forum like this. I would actually like to propose that you can do MORE with the console mode Macintosh than with any windows machine. All the services are still up and running, including a full TCP/IP stack, webservers, ftp servers, ssh servers, any cron tasks, etc, etc.... I don't know about this for sure, but I don't think that the command-line mode on a windows machine will keep a user this well supported... Please correct me if I'm wrong.