The $1 an mp3 file is strictly for those songs where you only want 1 song from a cd of 12 or 13 songs.
If you want the entire cd, you buy the cd and use your favourite software to generate appropriate quality mp3s. If, however, you actually find a Brittany Spears hit that you like but you'd rather hurl and die than buy the entire cd, you purchase the hit mp3 and then pretend it came free with the mp3 player when your friends find it in your playlist.
Your complaint sounds more like I don't have the budget right now to purchase music on a scale that I'd really like to indulge in. Perhaps this will be incentive to work harder and maybe make a little more dough sometime in the near future?
So all those mp3 players aren't really for playing whatever mp3s you can get your hands on?
Oh wait, you're talking about subscription services? Try Musicmatch's radio subscription service... it kept telling me I could purchase 1 mp3 for a buck or two... mp3s I wanted. What players could those mp3s play with?
Iriver? RCA's Lyra? The looks like it fell off a boat in Taiwan generic player? The ipod is NOT the only player on the market, and Sony is NOT, as is, competition for ANY of the players and/or subscription services.
Choice? Sony sounds more like a list of restrictions to listening to music than a list of options. Ain't no choice there.
You want choice? You toss your cd into the cdrom, create your mp3 file, then upload to the just-plays-the-damn-mp3-file-whenever-and-however mp3 player. That's a choice, that's competition to the ipod.
Give me a nice, couple of gigs mp3 player. I don't need a DRM'd player with a subscription service that has a eula and a list of restrictions just so I can get the latest and hippest tunes on the music charts.
***Basically, what I really want is to be able to sample a large and diverse variety of music to better inform my music buying decisions,***
*So use iTunes, listen to online radio, use music kiosks in music stores, and so on... P2P allows the entire product to be given away so that you don't have to pursue the legal alternative of paying for it.*
I don't have an ipod, and I'm not sure I want an ipod as I'm the owner of a small bare-bones mp3 player that just plays mp3's. I tried listening to online radio but the quality was crappy. And the idea of 'standing around in music kiosks' just isn't my idea of a fun time.
I used to use Napster. First I used it to find the music I liked. Then, I'd check out what other music the person had in the their shared folders - sometimes the other music was good, sometimes not. And I became involved in music again, and started to buy albums again, especially of the 'other music' that I liked.
And then Napster got shut down. And the cd's started to become copyright protected. And music stopped being fun and started to be about too many radio commercials, and about someone else not letting me do what I wanted with the music I owned, so I stopped buying cd's and I stopped looking around the web for music, and I stopped listening to the radio.
And started to buy dvds, and books, and other things.
Y'all can control your music all you want. You can absolutely ensure that every single dime that is supposed to come your way, comes your way. You can absolutely ensure that I can only play your music how you want it to, when you want me to, where you want me to, on hardware that you've approved of.
You cannot, however, ensure that I go anywhere near your damn music, not in bootleg format, not in paid for format.
Because you've taken the fun out of it.
I know, I know, you're having a damn hard time accepting the notion that someone would pay for the music that they'd already gotten for free, but it was NICE owning the cd - there was cover art, and the quality of the music on the cd was much better than what you get on mp3's, and the cd was a tangible I-own-this sorta thing. And I didn't really wanna screw over the artist.
But you took the fun out of the music shopping. Napster got shut down, and those paid-for versions come with so many restrictions that the old subconscious figures you don't really want me to access the paid-for downloaded music that your companies are offering. Then you put copyright protection on the cd's, so I'm figuring you don't really want me to access the cd's either.
So I took the hint and went away.
The movie industry doesn't seem to mind my watching/buying movies. They haven't been miserable and control-freakish, not to my perception they haven't. And their products are downright awesome; the improvement in video and audio from vhs to dvd is just awesome. The dvds are almost selling themselves...
When music sales, and download-music stats finally hit what you figure is rock-bottom, and I perceive you're willing to be a little less damn unfriendly, maybe you can lure me back into the listen-to-music gig and I'll buy a new cd or mp3 or two.
And if there is anything in this post that you can agree on that doesn't generate some sort of snarky response, I'll be downright astounded.
I've TRIED to open rtf files on the Palm that were transferred directly to a sd card, and Documents to Go refused to go near the rtf file. Same with any other document. Unless the document is translated using D2G on the home computer, D2G will not open the file on the Palm.
I've also tried to port Word documents created/edited using OO through D2G only to have D2G freeze solid.
I don't care WHAT the D2G site may claim, it and OO do NOT like each other. And OO and Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Palm don't like each other either.
Mine is a Tungsten E, if it helps. And it's been more of a stable computing platform than the XP machine has been. If I could only find some widget to turn it WiFi...
*the black box just supported a case that was already made*
There's a case in Ontario where a man was accused of speeding by witnesses, causing an accident that involved 6-10 other cars. Witnesses told police that he'd been speeding. His black box told police that he had not been speeding and had attempted to brake. He was not charged.
If I remember right, police in Ontario either need permission from the car owner or a warrant to obtain data from a car's black box, but the insurance company has the right to complete access to any and all data on the black box.
*** Anyone who does not vote for the Conservative Party is an enemy of The Dominion of Canada ***
Uh, no dude. You just don't get away with spouting that kind of crap north of the border, but Canada does have some serious security concerns. The Liberals don't like militaries so they've been dismantling ours. The NDP could care less about the military and gives tax monies to refugees and the poor and couldn't give a damn about deficits. And the mindset from both parties is 'why worry? Nothing will happen and if something happens, we couldn't do a damn thing about it and the Americans will bail us out anyway.'
We've been told that we're harbouring terrorists, we're an ideal country for raising funds for various terrorist organizations, and our passports are well liked by terrorists, and we don't do a damn thing about it because everyone here is ruled by the law of inertia.
This is security by obscurity and it makes me as nervous as all hell.
Besides, the most Conservative of Canadians would be called a Democrat if they lived in the USA. Think of Liberals/NDP'rs as the most radical left-wingers of US Democrats.
Until I get to vote in the US election, GWB is different kind of worry. In the meanwhile, I'd like to find just *one* political party here that I don't believe are absolutely corrupt (both the Conservatives and Liberals have contributed and withdrawn from that little slush fund).
I'd vote for the Marijuana party, but they don't have any platform other than legalizing weed.
The US is requiring fingerprints for all vistitors from those countries who don't, or won't in the near future, have biometric passports for it's citizens. Only exceptions are Mexico and Canada.
And given Canada's track record regarding passports, forgeries, and terrorists, I'm entirely surprised that that Canadians aren't being required to be fingerprinted when they cross the border. Maybe the Yanks figure they couldn't stand all the whining from up north if they did?
Canadian security is not ok. We're wide open for a terrorist attack, our infrastructure is crumbling, we have virtually no armed force left aside from those wandering bankrupt around Afghanistan, our emergency services couldn't survive 48 hours without electricity, but you think Canadian security is just fine? You must either be a Liberal, or vote for the NDP.
*** I can go to any odd border lake or river in Canada with a canoe and paddle right over with a backpack full of anthrax and no one would know. ***
Oh, I dunno 'bout that. I put nothing past the Yanks right now, including monitoring of the entire border via satellite. Gawdonlyknows what kind of tech they have access to nowadays.
But you've got a point; the US is too sensitive to air traffic while they neglect other traffic. Especially since the Spainish trains were hit.
I was wondering after the Spanish bombing when the US would tighten up security. I just wish Canada would tighten up security also.
Having to fork over your fingerprints/photograph in order to enter the US is a non-issue. It's irritating, as is having to take your shoes off when you go through airport security, but other than that, is a trivial issue. I'm wondering when they're going to start asking for a dna sample?
Can this info be presupplied, ie go to the local US Embassy and have all credentials supplied so that one gets to bypass the fingerprint queue, or does one have to have fingerprints taken each time you re-enter the US?
If it's the latter, I don't see how this can be seen as much of security measure - ie. your fingerprints are later run against a database and match that of a known criminal from the UK but now the police have to try and find you.
I've had the same experience in the US; as long as the money wasn't counterfeit, the merchants were more'n happy to take my money and that seemed to be the philosophy up to about a year and a half ago, and then everyone just went mean. The US merchants looked at my Canadian dollars like it came directly out of the Monopoly box and the Canadian merchants wouldn't even except US dollars at par. At par! fer gawdsakes; they'd make 25% when they went to the bank to exchange the dough; but no, their attitude was one of 'I don't need your business that badly.'
It's simply retarded way of doing business and I can't come up with a single reason why this is the prevailing attitude on both sides of the border except for an outbreak of meaness.
*** And is the purchase "un-do-able?" ***
Oh sure, EV1 can ask for their money back and the contract destroyed. And I'm sure they'll get it; after all, SCO are such reasonable folks...;)
You can't spend your US dollars here either, and it's the same in the US with Canadian money. Merchants north of the border look at you like you are trying to give 'em green Monopoly Money.
How about getting yourself a nice Yahoo email address, then setting up YahooMail to download your mail from your ISP?
Yahoo mail has everything Outlook Express does, and if something happens to your hard drive, your address book is not only backed up remotely, but you can access it just as easily from any other computer with an internet connection.
Get your parents on Firebird. No more popups! Preach to them on the evils of clicking one of those damn banner ads. And for that matter, get your parents the hell out of Outlook and into a nice Yahoo Email address - Yahoo does a limited amount of virus scanning.
Tell them NOT to use the computer for anything important like banking or record keeping. Tell 'em there are evil people on the web who can hack into their computer, so it's best not to put important stuff on the damn thing. Tell 'em to never give out passwords and IDs, no matter WHO asks for 'em. Tell 'em TO PHONE YOU if they have any questions or if anything on the computer starts to ask questions. Tell em these things OVER AND OVER again so they start to sink in.
Hell, write it down for 'em on a little postcard and attach said postcard to the top of the monitor if you have to.
I stopped using Real's free player, and never went near the paid versions, after downloading the free player sometime in '98 (I think) using dialup. It took over half an hour to download the program, and lo!, next month the program had 'expired' and wanted me to download the same damn program all over again. I quickly realized that Real had deliberately expired the old program for no damn reason other than to be a nuisance.
Which kind of explains the purpose of all the other versions of the Real player that came out afterwards; to make watching video as much of a nuisance as possible.
I might've been a computer newbie, but I wouldn't touch the software after that.
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The $1 an mp3 file is strictly for those songs where you only want 1 song from a cd of 12 or 13 songs.
If you want the entire cd, you buy the cd and use your favourite software to generate appropriate quality mp3s. If, however, you actually find a Brittany Spears hit that you like but you'd rather hurl and die than buy the entire cd, you purchase the hit mp3 and then pretend it came free with the mp3 player when your friends find it in your playlist.
Your complaint sounds more like I don't have the budget right now to purchase music on a scale that I'd really like to indulge in. Perhaps this will be incentive to work harder and maybe make a little more dough sometime in the near future?
So all those mp3 players aren't really for playing whatever mp3s you can get your hands on?
... it kept telling me I could purchase 1 mp3 for a buck or two ... mp3s I wanted. What players could those mp3s play with?
Oh wait, you're talking about subscription services? Try Musicmatch's radio subscription service
Iriver? RCA's Lyra? The looks like it fell off a boat in Taiwan generic player? The ipod is NOT the only player on the market, and Sony is NOT, as is, competition for ANY of the players and/or subscription services.
Choice? Sony sounds more like a list of restrictions to listening to music than a list of options. Ain't no choice there.
You want choice? You toss your cd into the cdrom, create your mp3 file, then upload to the just-plays-the-damn-mp3-file-whenever-and-however mp3 player. That's a choice, that's competition to the ipod.
Give me a nice, couple of gigs mp3 player. I don't need a DRM'd player with a subscription service that has a eula and a list of restrictions just so I can get the latest and hippest tunes on the music charts.
***Basically, what I really want is to be able to sample a large and diverse variety of music to better inform my music buying decisions,***
... P2P allows the entire product to be given away so that you don't have to pursue the legal alternative of paying for it.*
...
*So use iTunes, listen to online radio, use music kiosks in music stores, and so on
I don't have an ipod, and I'm not sure I want an ipod as I'm the owner of a small bare-bones mp3 player that just plays mp3's. I tried listening to online radio but the quality was crappy. And the idea of 'standing around in music kiosks' just isn't my idea of a fun time.
I used to use Napster. First I used it to find the music I liked. Then, I'd check out what other music the person had in the their shared folders - sometimes the other music was good, sometimes not. And I became involved in music again, and started to buy albums again, especially of the 'other music' that I liked.
And then Napster got shut down. And the cd's started to become copyright protected. And music stopped being fun and started to be about too many radio commercials, and about someone else not letting me do what I wanted with the music I owned, so I stopped buying cd's and I stopped looking around the web for music, and I stopped listening to the radio.
And started to buy dvds, and books, and other things.
Y'all can control your music all you want. You can absolutely ensure that every single dime that is supposed to come your way, comes your way. You can absolutely ensure that I can only play your music how you want it to, when you want me to, where you want me to, on hardware that you've approved of.
You cannot, however, ensure that I go anywhere near your damn music, not in bootleg format, not in paid for format.
Because you've taken the fun out of it.
I know, I know, you're having a damn hard time accepting the notion that someone would pay for the music that they'd already gotten for free, but it was NICE owning the cd - there was cover art, and the quality of the music on the cd was much better than what you get on mp3's, and the cd was a tangible I-own-this sorta thing. And I didn't really wanna screw over the artist.
But you took the fun out of the music shopping. Napster got shut down, and those paid-for versions come with so many restrictions that the old subconscious figures you don't really want me to access the paid-for downloaded music that your companies are offering. Then you put copyright protection on the cd's, so I'm figuring you don't really want me to access the cd's either.
So I took the hint and went away.
The movie industry doesn't seem to mind my watching/buying movies. They haven't been miserable and control-freakish, not to my perception they haven't. And their products are downright awesome; the improvement in video and audio from vhs to dvd is just awesome. The dvds are almost selling themselves
When music sales, and download-music stats finally hit what you figure is rock-bottom, and I perceive you're willing to be a little less damn unfriendly, maybe you can lure me back into the listen-to-music gig and I'll buy a new cd or mp3 or two.
And if there is anything in this post that you can agree on that doesn't generate some sort of snarky response, I'll be downright astounded.
I've TRIED to open rtf files on the Palm that were transferred directly to a sd card, and Documents to Go refused to go near the rtf file. Same with any other document. Unless the document is translated using D2G on the home computer, D2G will not open the file on the Palm.
...
I've also tried to port Word documents created/edited using OO through D2G only to have D2G freeze solid.
I don't care WHAT the D2G site may claim, it and OO do NOT like each other. And OO and Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Palm don't like each other either.
Mine is a Tungsten E, if it helps. And it's been more of a stable computing platform than the XP machine has been. If I could only find some widget to turn it WiFi
I have had this trouble also. For Word documents, I have to resave as rich text format, and I've yet to resolve the Excel situation.
And I've had trouble porting pdf files, created using OO, over to the pda.
These are my only complaints with OO. Otherwise, OO is well worth its price.
Agreed. This guy shoulda been HIT with black box upside the head and given a 20 year sentence.
Why is it committing murder in Canada with a vehicle gets you less of sentence than stealing $10,000?
And when are we going to make a life sentence a life sentence instead of a 25 year term with 1/3rd of that cut by law?
*the black box just supported a case that was already made*
There's a case in Ontario where a man was accused of speeding by witnesses, causing an accident that involved 6-10 other cars. Witnesses told police that he'd been speeding. His black box told police that he had not been speeding and had attempted to brake. He was not charged.
If I remember right, police in Ontario either need permission from the car owner or a warrant to obtain data from a car's black box, but the insurance company has the right to complete access to any and all data on the black box.
*** Anyone who does not vote for the Conservative Party is an enemy of The Dominion of Canada ***
Uh, no dude. You just don't get away with spouting that kind of crap north of the border, but Canada does have some serious security concerns. The Liberals don't like militaries so they've been dismantling ours. The NDP could care less about the military and gives tax monies to refugees and the poor and couldn't give a damn about deficits. And the mindset from both parties is 'why worry? Nothing will happen and if something happens, we couldn't do a damn thing about it and the Americans will bail us out anyway.'
We've been told that we're harbouring terrorists, we're an ideal country for raising funds for various terrorist organizations, and our passports are well liked by terrorists, and we don't do a damn thing about it because everyone here is ruled by the law of inertia.
This is security by obscurity and it makes me as nervous as all hell.
Besides, the most Conservative of Canadians would be called a Democrat if they lived in the USA. Think of Liberals/NDP'rs as the most radical left-wingers of US Democrats.
Videoconferencing?
In case it isn't obvious, je suis Canadien.
Until I get to vote in the US election, GWB is different kind of worry. In the meanwhile, I'd like to find just *one* political party here that I don't believe are absolutely corrupt (both the Conservatives and Liberals have contributed and withdrawn from that little slush fund).
I'd vote for the Marijuana party, but they don't have any platform other than legalizing weed.
The US is requiring fingerprints for all vistitors from those countries who don't, or won't in the near future, have biometric passports for it's citizens. Only exceptions are Mexico and Canada.
And given Canada's track record regarding passports, forgeries, and terrorists, I'm entirely surprised that that Canadians aren't being required to be fingerprinted when they cross the border. Maybe the Yanks figure they couldn't stand all the whining from up north if they did?
Canadian security is not ok. We're wide open for a terrorist attack, our infrastructure is crumbling, we have virtually no armed force left aside from those wandering bankrupt around Afghanistan, our emergency services couldn't survive 48 hours without electricity, but you think Canadian security is just fine? You must either be a Liberal, or vote for the NDP.
*** I'm glad I'm in Canada, eh? ***
Right up until the next election when you have to pick someone, aaaaanyone from the lying, thieving, corrupt bastard political parties to vote for.
Being fingerprinted and photographed and put into a national database is nothing.
Such a database probably already exists, it's just that now you know about it. And it includes your fingerprints.
Regular citizens should be fingerprinted and have their DNA recorded at birth anyway. It'd sure solve a heckuva lot of old crimes.
*** I can go to any odd border lake or river in Canada with a canoe and paddle right over with a backpack full of anthrax and no one would know. ***
Oh, I dunno 'bout that. I put nothing past the Yanks right now, including monitoring of the entire border via satellite. Gawdonlyknows what kind of tech they have access to nowadays.
But you've got a point; the US is too sensitive to air traffic while they neglect other traffic. Especially since the Spainish trains were hit.
I was wondering after the Spanish bombing when the US would tighten up security. I just wish Canada would tighten up security also.
Having to fork over your fingerprints/photograph in order to enter the US is a non-issue. It's irritating, as is having to take your shoes off when you go through airport security, but other than that, is a trivial issue. I'm wondering when they're going to start asking for a dna sample?
Can this info be presupplied, ie go to the local US Embassy and have all credentials supplied so that one gets to bypass the fingerprint queue, or does one have to have fingerprints taken each time you re-enter the US?
If it's the latter, I don't see how this can be seen as much of security measure - ie. your fingerprints are later run against a database and match that of a known criminal from the UK but now the police have to try and find you.
I've had the same experience in the US; as long as the money wasn't counterfeit, the merchants were more'n happy to take my money and that seemed to be the philosophy up to about a year and a half ago, and then everyone just went mean. The US merchants looked at my Canadian dollars like it came directly out of the Monopoly box and the Canadian merchants wouldn't even except US dollars at par. At par! fer gawdsakes; they'd make 25% when they went to the bank to exchange the dough; but no, their attitude was one of 'I don't need your business that badly.'
It's simply retarded way of doing business and I can't come up with a single reason why this is the prevailing attitude on both sides of the border except for an outbreak of meaness.
*** And is the purchase "un-do-able?" *** Oh sure, EV1 can ask for their money back and the contract destroyed. And I'm sure they'll get it; after all, SCO are such reasonable folks ... ;)
You can't spend your US dollars here either, and it's the same in the US with Canadian money. Merchants north of the border look at you like you are trying to give 'em green Monopoly Money.
We didn't used to be so damn retarded, I tell ya.
The old 'snatch the pebble from my hand' Kung Fu series was shot in widescreen so the new DVD release is in widescreen.
How about getting yourself a nice Yahoo email address, then setting up YahooMail to download your mail from your ISP?
Yahoo mail has everything Outlook Express does, and if something happens to your hard drive, your address book is not only backed up remotely, but you can access it just as easily from any other computer with an internet connection.
Get your parents on Firebird. No more popups! Preach to them on the evils of clicking one of those damn banner ads. And for that matter, get your parents the hell out of Outlook and into a nice Yahoo Email address - Yahoo does a limited amount of virus scanning.
Tell them NOT to use the computer for anything important like banking or record keeping. Tell 'em there are evil people on the web who can hack into their computer, so it's best not to put important stuff on the damn thing. Tell 'em to never give out passwords and IDs, no matter WHO asks for 'em. Tell 'em TO PHONE YOU if they have any questions or if anything on the computer starts to ask questions. Tell em these things OVER AND OVER again so they start to sink in.
Hell, write it down for 'em on a little postcard and attach said postcard to the top of the monitor if you have to.
I stopped using Real's free player, and never went near the paid versions, after downloading the free player sometime in '98 (I think) using dialup. It took over half an hour to download the program, and lo!, next month the program had 'expired' and wanted me to download the same damn program all over again. I quickly realized that Real had deliberately expired the old program for no damn reason other than to be a nuisance.
Which kind of explains the purpose of all the other versions of the Real player that came out afterwards; to make watching video as much of a nuisance as possible.
I might've been a computer newbie, but I wouldn't touch the software after that.
Yep, me too.
The logo is misleading anyway; it kind of implies that the product it has been slapped on might be pirated.