I was going to pre-register for the 5 free tracks today, but a few things gave me pause. One was that the service requires Windows and Media Player 7.1 Another BuyMusic.com, I guess.
The other thing was that their privacy policy page that they link to isn't up - it just redirects back to the homepage.
Their terms of use says that "Once you have burned a Purchased Track to a CD, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer the track from that CD to any other media or device" which makes me wonder -- if I burn a CD, can I rerip it to get rid of the DRM?
I have a directory on my harddrive called 'cdarchives' where I always keep the latest of my favorites, and occassionaly burn it to a CD so I have a backup, and can hand it to someone on Windows to give them most all the software they need.
Here's a good list of the more common apps I have in there:
I recall reading something a while ago about some guy who was going to publish old arcade game manuals online, but someone pulled the same sort of stunt on him. Was that one was DMCA related as well?
A hacking tool like a port scanner should be legal as it can have an intended use to check your own network for security holes.
I agree with you, but a hacker isn't going to care about the law anyway. Chances are, using an illegal port scanner is probably the least of their crimes.
The other screeners are the ones that work at the local movie theater.
Before every movie is played in the theater, the projectionist has to build it and *someone* has to watch every single movie before it's played to make sure the reels aren't put on backwards or in the wrong order or something like that. Anyone who's worked at the movie theater knows what late Thursday nights are like.
To adopt unique regional technologies would mean "not participating in the rest of the world because you have a proprietary standard, and not being able to inter-operate with the rest of the world. I fail to see the benefit".
Substitue "regional" for "corporate", and there is Microsoft's business plan. Came out with plenty of benefit for them, it seems.
I can see a couple of good reasons that they would want to develop their own operating system -- no Western influence in its development, security, and language, to say the least. Not too many programs ported to Chinese that I know of.
The problem with using Dreamweaver is you DON'T learn anything about HTTP. You learn Dreamweaver.
In my mind, it's safe to say that people who know how to use Dreamweaver, Frontpage or whatever, don't really *know* the languages the languages that programs use (PHP, JSP, etc). They can just wave their gui and get it done, but not know how it works.
And your analogy is flawed -- Of course you don't need to know ASCII to use a word processor, but we're talking about development, not usage. It's safe to say at the same time you don't need to know HTTP to browse the web.
There is some question as to what exactly was compiled, as the times seem impossibly fast even on the P4.
No kidding... my Athlon XP 2500 took about 15 hours to compile KDE. You can't even download all the KDE packages in 15 minutes.
Besides, the actual "kde" ebuild is nothing more than a little flag that says yes indeed, I installed all the other KDE packages: kdebase, kdenetwork, kdemultimedia, kdeaddons, kdeedu, kdegames, kdegraphics, kdeadmin, kdeutils, kdeartwork and kdepim.
Fortunately, you don't need to install each one if you want to use KDE's basic functions.
I must say, I love these letters where these huge corporate bosses talk about Open Source as if they were heading the revolution. "Open source movement needs to do this, and this and this..."
It seems to me that the whole idea of open source is to completely sidestep the stupid options of proprietary business methods -- case in point, intellectual property. It's only *now* when open source operating systems and applications are starting to steal the market share -- of their own merit -- do these companies freak out and attack their methods.
The question isn't so much "Is open source ready for enterprise level systems," but rather "was that even the developer's goal?"
Just look at the GPL -- "Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software."
No warranty doesn't exactly sound like a great business strategy to me.
Just rebooted for about the fifth time... After installing all of them, the scan still shows that there are still five unpatched vulnerabilities. Even the separate packages don't fix it.
I downloaded the MBSA (MS Baseline Security Analyzer), and it works pretty nice. It found 9 patches that couldn't be verified explicitly, with links to the URL on Microsoft's website of where to download the individual packages.
The only problem, was that 4 of the 9 download links redirected me to http://www.microsoft.com/
I heard to search the link on Google til I found the actual.exe to download.
Depending on who you ask, Apple's use of AAC isn't really a full open standard, since they've got the security hooks inside - but it's a far more open standard than WMA (Windows Media Audio). Any chance we'll see either one on Linux? Anyone? Guys?
I really hope not. The last thing Linux needs/wants is crappy DRM protected, proprietary audio formats used by monopolies to stick it to their competition and frustrate any hope of standards that anyone can use on any platform.
In a statement, Microsoft said, "We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind, and that the accused feature in our browser technology was developed by our own engineers based on preexisting Microsoft technology."
It's a shame they don't step up to the bat and actually speak out against stupid IP patents, and how they can be harmful to the developer's community. It would certainly look good for them, and if there's anyone who can sway opinion with the government, it's Microsoft.
The above comment may seem like trolling, but it really is true.
I know I, for one, hate to see old games just "fade away" and I get all riled up reading about stupid companies that won't just open them up, release them for free or whatever.... but the feeling goes away, and I realize I have much more important things to do than chase down corporations and write letters and create polls and projects and petitions.
Not to say that I wouldn't benefit from the hard work that one person could put into fixing up, hosting, etc. one game... but for most of us, we're probably not going to be the person that actually does that. So we move on.
From an objective point of view it does look like the rights owners are overprotective. But look at it from their point of view. Not only is can the original games be repackaged, but they can also yield sequels.
I agree with you, but I really don't care about them giving up the rights... I just want the game.
I mean, they can release the original Spy Hunter as freeware, open source license, or whatever, and still keep their copyrights, and options to create a sequel or whatever.
I actually made an effort to do this, last time I went home. I tried copying all my old games to the hard drive, but my 5 1/4 (or whatever size they were) disks were too badly damaged. 90% of them couldn't even be read anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
The other thing was that their privacy policy page that they link to isn't up - it just redirects back to the homepage.
Their terms of use says that "Once you have burned a Purchased Track to a CD, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer the track from that CD to any other media or device" which makes me wonder -- if I burn a CD, can I rerip it to get rid of the DRM?
Here's a good list of the more common apps I have in there:
AbiWord, AstroGrep, Audacity, BitTorrent, CDex, Cygwin, Enzip, Filezilla, Gaim, Gimp, GSview, LAME, mIRC, Mozilla, Mplayer, Nero 5.5, QuickTime, TweakUI, WinAmp, winLAME
What's your phone number? I'll sign you up.
I recall reading something a while ago about some guy who was going to publish old arcade game manuals online, but someone pulled the same sort of stunt on him. Was that one was DMCA related as well?
I agree with you, but a hacker isn't going to care about the law anyway. Chances are, using an illegal port scanner is probably the least of their crimes.
The other screeners are the ones that work at the local movie theater.
Before every movie is played in the theater, the projectionist has to build it and *someone* has to watch every single movie before it's played to make sure the reels aren't put on backwards or in the wrong order or something like that. Anyone who's worked at the movie theater knows what late Thursday nights are like.
True, but unfortunately, when Windows has 97% os market share, it's a computer virus.
Que?
Substitue "regional" for "corporate", and there is Microsoft's business plan. Came out with plenty of benefit for them, it seems.
I can see a couple of good reasons that they would want to develop their own operating system -- no Western influence in its development, security, and language, to say the least. Not too many programs ported to Chinese that I know of.
In my mind, it's safe to say that people who know how to use Dreamweaver, Frontpage or whatever, don't really *know* the languages the languages that programs use (PHP, JSP, etc). They can just wave their gui and get it done, but not know how it works.
And your analogy is flawed -- Of course you don't need to know ASCII to use a word processor, but we're talking about development, not usage. It's safe to say at the same time you don't need to know HTTP to browse the web.
There is some question as to what exactly was compiled, as the times seem impossibly fast even on the P4.
No kidding... my Athlon XP 2500 took about 15 hours to compile KDE. You can't even download all the KDE packages in 15 minutes.
Besides, the actual "kde" ebuild is nothing more than a little flag that says yes indeed, I installed all the other KDE packages: kdebase, kdenetwork, kdemultimedia, kdeaddons, kdeedu, kdegames, kdegraphics, kdeadmin, kdeutils, kdeartwork and kdepim.
Fortunately, you don't need to install each one if you want to use KDE's basic functions.
I must say, I love these letters where these huge corporate bosses talk about Open Source as if they were heading the revolution. "Open source movement needs to do this, and this and this..."
It seems to me that the whole idea of open source is to completely sidestep the stupid options of proprietary business methods -- case in point, intellectual property. It's only *now* when open source operating systems and applications are starting to steal the market share -- of their own merit -- do these companies freak out and attack their methods.
The question isn't so much "Is open source ready for enterprise level systems," but rather "was that even the developer's goal?"
Just look at the GPL -- "Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software."
No warranty doesn't exactly sound like a great business strategy to me.
And since the adrenaline can't be influenced by the violence that actually induced it ... we have nothing to worry about!
There is ... for Linux, anyway.
Check out Gentoo Games who already made Live CDs of Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and America's Army.
They work great .. just pop them in your puter, boot up, it detects everything, and runs over the network.
Just rebooted for about the fifth time... After installing all of them, the scan still shows that there are still five unpatched vulnerabilities. Even the separate packages don't fix it.
I just tried doing that, but half the links on Technet redirected me to Microsoft's home page.
The only problem, was that 4 of the 9 download links redirected me to http://www.microsoft.com/
I heard to search the link on Google til I found the actual .exe to download.
I really hope not. The last thing Linux needs/wants is crappy DRM protected, proprietary audio formats used by monopolies to stick it to their competition and frustrate any hope of standards that anyone can use on any platform.
That's why we have OGGs. :)
So I should stop using 123-45-6789?
It's a shame they don't step up to the bat and actually speak out against stupid IP patents, and how they can be harmful to the developer's community. It would certainly look good for them, and if there's anyone who can sway opinion with the government, it's Microsoft.
That could be solved by saying to the user 'press any key at random. this is NOT part of the vote" What are you talking about? That IS how I vote!
I know I, for one, hate to see old games just "fade away" and I get all riled up reading about stupid companies that won't just open them up, release them for free or whatever .... but the feeling goes away, and I realize I have much more important things to do than chase down corporations and write letters and create polls and projects and petitions.
Not to say that I wouldn't benefit from the hard work that one person could put into fixing up, hosting, etc. one game ... but for most of us, we're probably not going to be the person that actually does that. So we move on.
Link: http://www.transgaming.com/pollslist.php
From an objective point of view it does look like the rights owners are overprotective. But look at it from their point of view. Not only is can the original games be repackaged, but they can also yield sequels. I agree with you, but I really don't care about them giving up the rights... I just want the game. I mean, they can release the original Spy Hunter as freeware, open source license, or whatever, and still keep their copyrights, and options to create a sequel or whatever.
I actually made an effort to do this, last time I went home. I tried copying all my old games to the hard drive, but my 5 1/4 (or whatever size they were) disks were too badly damaged. 90% of them couldn't even be read anymore.