The whole article is suspect
on
Beatles Bite Apple
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's a sad day when MacCentral/Yahoo is reporting a rumor from Fox News as an actual news story.
It seems every rumor regarding this is traceable to Fox News and Roger Friedman. Is there any other articles other that come from a source other than the two by this guy? (Yes, even the MacCentral article references this.)
I'm suspicious because the article reports that the term Steve Jobs admitting "Apple Computer" came from Apple Records, as well as provides no background as to the relationship between the two companies (or if even Apple Records still exists after they were absorbed by Capitol).
Perhaps I'm not up on my history, but I seem to remember that Apple was supposed to be the "third" Apple (after the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and Isaac Newton's story). In fact, the original logo was looked like a woodcut of Isaac Newton under an apple tree. It seems the author has done no research.
Though Apple Records was formed as a holding company for the Beatles, I thought the trademark passed to EMI/Capitol. Why does the article claim that the Beatles are suing Apple? More sensationalist FOX B.S.? sloppy reporting? or am I in error?
I have never heard a real company giving a comment about a lawsuit that hasn't even been served--Apple is not SCO.
On another note, can anyone find the lawsuits between Apple Records and Apple Computing (I assume they're in England and not in Lexis/Nexis). I ask this because while I know that early lawsuits between Apple and Apple Records occurred, I don't have any evidence that Apple Records ever took Apple Computing up on the offer, "sosumi".
Hard to believe the parent was modded as "insightful".
Cool! Where are the numbers to support [Mac Total Cost of Ownership lower than Windows]? Probably isn't going to cut it. [More uncontrolled ranting...]
BTW, I've seen studies supporting Linux as having a good TCO vs. Windows NT. I've never seen a study comparing Linux vs Mac TCO on desktop, and there are only a few studies comparing Linux vs Mac TCO in servers (the Mac usually comes out on top, but the studies are recent and may have bias).
At any rate, "move away" in SCO's terms I think really means to move away from Linux entirely and go back to solely distributing products based in AIX, to which IBM would have to continue to pay SCO for. Its a statement that's certainly not in IBMs best interests, but certainly is in SCO's.
IBM has never had to pay SCO a cent for the System V license for AIX. IBM fully-purchased a perpetual license for it from AT&T in 1985 In order for IBM to have to pay SCO, SCO would have to win their lawsuit (and appeals) and in it prove that their support of Linux was a breach of the AT&T contract, or, going into the more absurd, prove that AIX is a "unauthorized derivative" of System V Unix.
No it doesn't. Once a sale is made, it is final. Reread what you just quoted: the sentence you emphasize applies to the service not the sale.
The guy in the article was trying to use the service of reauthorizing his music (after he deleted his authorization keys by reinstalled his computer from scratch) from a credit card he changed to a Canadian billing address (which Apple makes very clear during the sale cannot be used as a billing address for access to iTMS--not in fine print as the author implies).
Had he done any of the following, he wouldn't have any problems:
not deleted his authorization key from his computer by reinstalling from scratch;
backed up his hard drive with a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner (this is very easy because a Powerbook can be mounted in target disk mode or you can back up to a bare 3.5" HD via a Drive Dock)
not changed his billing address to Canada; or
changes his billing information/credit card to one in the United States (having a friend forward mail, for instance).
Right now Apple uses the "technology" of billing address verification to verify compliance. The agreement is worded such that they have the freedom to use another technology whenever you try to use iTMS service (authorize or deauthorize a computer constitutes a service, listening to music sold to you, by my guess does not). They obviously will use this "technology" as long as they are not allowed to sell iTMS music in Canada.
This article sounded too pat to me. It's obvious from the agreement that iTMS is designed to behave the way it did. The writer seems to have gone to great extremes to find a scenario in which he couldn't listen to his music and is the internet equivalent to buying a CD, having it damaged by movers, and then being "shocked" when the music store he bought it from won't send him a new one. Because of this, I checked out the author's homepage: what do you know, it says he's a vice president of MusicDirect.Com (which seems to be a website making money from referrals to Amazon.Com music downloads)--an unfortunate conflict of interest. (I also noticed that he worked for Microsoft, but I believe this to be a red herring: it was their internet division and he left them during the internet boom.)
BTW, I must complement him on a well done homepage! A wiki and blogger: he's a pretty talented guy--talented enough to have a backup of his hard drive and worldly enough to scam a US-based credit card somewhere, no doubt.:-)
Nice catch about the large center banner and the commercials of people singing on their personal music players with a white backdrop. Their creative department must have brainstormed all night to come up with those ideas! Once I started drilling down into the site, I really wish they stole the "feel"iTMS user-interface, instead of just the "look". All those broken images and poorly located links makes me think the whole thing is a rush job.
Another thing I don't understand is how their top two album downloads (Dangerously In Love by Beyonce and So Long Astoria by the Ataris) are only for sale as individual tracks only. Riddle me how this happens?
An hour of navigating and I'm still looking for a better deal than iTMS on a currently-popular song (actually I haven't found one anywhere, but I've only seriously tried to look under current hits). They either nab you with the restriction on the number of downloads (vs iTMS 3), or number of "transfers"(vs infinite), burns(vs infinite), or they leave out one song so you can't buy the album, or they charge you more than $9.99/album $.99/song.
When you allows the labels to dictate the term, you end up with a big mess! Some of those terms are a bit silly, after all, it makes sense to have a less restrictive license on "transfers" than iTMS because I'd imagine the iPod, with its large capacity, high speed interface, and easily accessible hard drive would be far more dangerous than the pathetic "approved" players (the only good one is the bulky, hard-to-navigate Zen). Then again, Apple's AACs are watermarked, who knows what happens when you transcode WMAs (assuming you go through all the hassle and isn't it a violation of your "license"?).
Where's the one-click? Why can't I unregister a computer? Where's the find as you type? Where's the cross sell? Where's the lateral navigation? How come my page keeps reloading--no need for Apple's WebObjects, if you're demanding IE5 and developing on dotNet, why not use a bit of remote scripting? The user interface is so poor, no wonder it comes with a manual in which they need to hire a model to get you to click on their links--insert reference to the old MicroWarehouse/MacWarehouse catalogs.
I guess we're going to have to give Buy.com some time on this one before they get it right. We waited for Apple to bring the indies on board and we're still waiting for a Windows iTMS and international versions. I guess we can wait.
But please, be a bit more original with the commercials and website design. And definitely put more thought into the user interface! This sort of copycat attitude which misses what makes their competitor work is why they got their a**** handed to them by Amazon. I can excuse Apple for simplistic editorial content, limited cross-sell and no community interface; I cannot excuse a company who makes a business of doing exactly those three things without my head screaming "incompetence."
I hope they fix this site. The PC world (heck! the Mac world too if Apple has to change their pricing or improve their features to compete) could use a decent competitor to iTMS.
That also reminds me of an IRC command that experienced people tell to newbies:/join #2,000
I don't know exactly how, but what it really does is leave all currently joined channel instead of joining that #2,000 channel.
That's easy. Your IRC client treats commas as a delimiter for multiple entries. So what you are doing is issuing a ":join #2" and then a ":join 0". 0 is a short cut for leaving all currently open channels (it's the channel you are join'd to when you first log in).
There were a lot of those snide commands in the old days, most of them involved obscure shortcuts to an irc clients signoff commands: "/sign operator on"
Slashdot Mirror
It's a sad day when MacCentral/Yahoo is reporting a rumor from Fox News as an actual news story.
It seems every rumor regarding this is traceable to Fox News and Roger Friedman. Is there any other articles other that come from a source other than the two by this guy? (Yes, even the MacCentral article references this.)
I'm suspicious because the article reports that the term Steve Jobs admitting "Apple Computer" came from Apple Records, as well as provides no background as to the relationship between the two companies (or if even Apple Records still exists after they were absorbed by Capitol).
Perhaps I'm not up on my history, but I seem to remember that Apple was supposed to be the "third" Apple (after the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and Isaac Newton's story). In fact, the original logo was looked like a woodcut of Isaac Newton under an apple tree. It seems the author has done no research.
Though Apple Records was formed as a holding company for the Beatles, I thought the trademark passed to EMI/Capitol. Why does the article claim that the Beatles are suing Apple? More sensationalist FOX B.S.? sloppy reporting? or am I in error?
I have never heard a real company giving a comment about a lawsuit that hasn't even been served--Apple is not SCO.
On another note, can anyone find the lawsuits between Apple Records and Apple Computing (I assume they're in England and not in Lexis/Nexis). I ask this because while I know that early lawsuits between Apple and Apple Records occurred, I don't have any evidence that Apple Records ever took Apple Computing up on the offer, "sosumi".
Hard to believe the parent was modded as "insightful".
Sad, people never learned to search the internet before pressing the flame button. There are a lot of studies that support Cringley's statement etc., and you'd be hard pressed to find a single study in the reverse!
BTW, I've seen studies supporting Linux as having a good TCO vs. Windows NT. I've never seen a study comparing Linux vs Mac TCO on desktop, and there are only a few studies comparing Linux vs Mac TCO in servers (the Mac usually comes out on top, but the studies are recent and may have bias).
No it doesn't. Once a sale is made, it is final. Reread what you just quoted: the sentence you emphasize applies to the service not the sale.
The guy in the article was trying to use the service of reauthorizing his music (after he deleted his authorization keys by reinstalled his computer from scratch) from a credit card he changed to a Canadian billing address (which Apple makes very clear during the sale cannot be used as a billing address for access to iTMS--not in fine print as the author implies).
Had he done any of the following, he wouldn't have any problems:
Right now Apple uses the "technology" of billing address verification to verify compliance. The agreement is worded such that they have the freedom to use another technology whenever you try to use iTMS service (authorize or deauthorize a computer constitutes a service, listening to music sold to you, by my guess does not). They obviously will use this "technology" as long as they are not allowed to sell iTMS music in Canada.
This article sounded too pat to me. It's obvious from the agreement that iTMS is designed to behave the way it did. The writer seems to have gone to great extremes to find a scenario in which he couldn't listen to his music and is the internet equivalent to buying a CD, having it damaged by movers, and then being "shocked" when the music store he bought it from won't send him a new one. Because of this, I checked out the author's homepage: what do you know, it says he's a vice president of MusicDirect.Com (which seems to be a website making money from referrals to Amazon.Com music downloads)--an unfortunate conflict of interest. (I also noticed that he worked for Microsoft, but I believe this to be a red herring: it was their internet division and he left them during the internet boom.)
BTW, I must complement him on a well done homepage! A wiki and blogger: he's a pretty talented guy--talented enough to have a backup of his hard drive and worldly enough to scam a US-based credit card somewhere, no doubt. :-)
Nice catch about the large center banner and the commercials of people singing on their personal music players with a white backdrop. Their creative department must have brainstormed all night to come up with those ideas! Once I started drilling down into the site, I really wish they stole the "feel"iTMS user-interface, instead of just the "look". All those broken images and poorly located links makes me think the whole thing is a rush job.
Another thing I don't understand is how their top two album downloads (Dangerously In Love by Beyonce and So Long Astoria by the Ataris) are only for sale as individual tracks only. Riddle me how this happens?
An hour of navigating and I'm still looking for a better deal than iTMS on a currently-popular song (actually I haven't found one anywhere, but I've only seriously tried to look under current hits). They either nab you with the restriction on the number of downloads (vs iTMS 3), or number of "transfers"(vs infinite), burns(vs infinite), or they leave out one song so you can't buy the album, or they charge you more than $9.99/album $.99/song.
When you allows the labels to dictate the term, you end up with a big mess! Some of those terms are a bit silly, after all, it makes sense to have a less restrictive license on "transfers" than iTMS because I'd imagine the iPod, with its large capacity, high speed interface, and easily accessible hard drive would be far more dangerous than the pathetic "approved" players (the only good one is the bulky, hard-to-navigate Zen). Then again, Apple's AACs are watermarked, who knows what happens when you transcode WMAs (assuming you go through all the hassle and isn't it a violation of your "license"?).
Where's the one-click? Why can't I unregister a computer? Where's the find as you type? Where's the cross sell? Where's the lateral navigation? How come my page keeps reloading--no need for Apple's WebObjects, if you're demanding IE5 and developing on dotNet, why not use a bit of remote scripting? The user interface is so poor, no wonder it comes with a manual in which they need to hire a model to get you to click on their links--insert reference to the old MicroWarehouse/MacWarehouse catalogs.
I guess we're going to have to give Buy.com some time on this one before they get it right. We waited for Apple to bring the indies on board and we're still waiting for a Windows iTMS and international versions. I guess we can wait.
But please, be a bit more original with the commercials and website design. And definitely put more thought into the user interface! This sort of copycat attitude which misses what makes their competitor work is why they got their a**** handed to them by Amazon. I can excuse Apple for simplistic editorial content, limited cross-sell and no community interface; I cannot excuse a company who makes a business of doing exactly those three things without my head screaming "incompetence."
I hope they fix this site. The PC world (heck! the Mac world too if Apple has to change their pricing or improve their features to compete) could use a decent competitor to iTMS.
That's easy. Your IRC client treats commas as a delimiter for multiple entries. So what you are doing is issuing a ":join #2" and then a ":join 0". 0 is a short cut for leaving all currently open channels (it's the channel you are join'd to when you first log in).
There were a lot of those snide commands in the old days, most of them involved obscure shortcuts to an irc clients signoff commands: "/sign operator on"