Hotmail and Yahoo! are not ISPs. They're a couple of second-rate e-mail services. This is yet another reason everyone should steer clear of "free" e-mail altogether.
Everyone has a real e-mail account available to them if they just pay enough attention to know who's offering it (real ISP, college, job) and learn how to set up a real e-mail client. Five minutes.
Web layout should no longer be done in pixels, period. This will even -look- a lot better, not to mention fit a lot more resolutions, once SVG or similar vector-rendering support is built into browsers.
4) Of course layout should be done in pixels. Computer displays are in pixels. What else would you use? Inches? Font sizing? What do those mean on a 15" monitor versus a 21" monitor? I believe what you mean is that layout should be done in vectors rather than rasters. See note #1.
I think perhaps you missed the point. Layout should NOT, EVER, be done in pixels. It should be done in percents. Percents of the width of the viewing area. Sure, you can't and shouldn't do that with a (raster) image, but everything else should be sized to a percentage of the viewing area. Easy.
And as a sidenote (not directed at the parent), idiots with their monitors set to 640 (or 800) because they "can't read the little text" are idiots and should be smacked on the head. Methods exist to make font sizes larger without having a screen with 1/4-inch-wide pixels or the infernal fuzzy-LCD effect encountered when running a flat panel at a non-native resolution. Stupid clueless users. Of course, web "designers" who specify "10px" as the height of their text should be shot for making this problem worse, as well as whomever is responsible for MSIE not being able to scale this text when requested, which comprises the majority of commercial websites.
Released a year ahead of the rest, the Dreamcast was hands down the best console out there. But when the rest of the generation came out, a year or whatever later, they eclipsed it. If Sega had sat on it for a year and made improvements, and released it, say, two weeks before PS2, then it might have been a huge hit. I love mine; it's a powerful, compact system that had some good games.
> the riaa would pull the rug out and effectively close iTMS and kill the iPod.
When I worked at the Apple Store (for the past three months) I personally sold maybe 200 iPods (I was part-time). About 5 people cared about iTMS. About 98% of them asked me, though, "will it play music I have downloaded off Kazaa?"
RIAA has no power to kill iPod. To suggest otherwise is silly. I really don't care if iTMS stays in business anymore. It's going to suck more as the RIAA puts higher prices on things. I had to remove all the DRM from my files (using nothing but 1 CD-RW and 30 minutes of my time--burn, rip, erase disc, repeat) because, ironically, when I started working for Apple, my iTunes account was accidentally disabled. I initially tried to share some of Apple's enthusiasm back when iTMS first went up, and I might still buy my favorite artists' tracks once in a while, but I think most of the time I'll just go buy the CD for my favorite artists and infringe copyright for the rest. I just can't stand the money going to RIAA members.
You just said in four paragraphs what I've been trying to say ever since I started college. I have heard, though, from my friends that go to private universities, that despite the heavy cost burden, private schools are better than state schools. Of course, our mileage may vary. But your experience sounds like my wasted two years at a state university.
Bzz. Wrong. There are two types of people in the world: A. Those who want service packs installed B. Those who have no clue what SP's are, or for some other reason, don't want them.
Among the group that's pirated Windows XP, "A types" already used a keygen, changed their product key to a new, unpredictable value, and installed SP1. Since the SP2 "security" will once again be based on a blacklist of keys (basically, keys posted to the Internet), as far as SP2 is concerned, these people are legal. In the event of people grabbing keygen-generated keys off the Internet instead of running the keygen themselves, they will either obtain the keygen this time, or grab another post-service-pack key off the Internet.
"B types" didn't even install SP1 yet, so it doesn't matter one bit what MS tries to do with SP2. They won't install it anyway, legal or not.
That's certainly an improvement. I've had pretty good results with Packet8, and they're only $19.95...I have had reliability issues, but none that were really attributable to 8x8's service. My troubles were all blatantly Comcast's fault (my former ISP). I knew this because whenever I was having trouble with the phone I'd hang up and go check my pings. mail.comcast.net...average ping 1000ms. Thanks Comcast. My advice would be not to bother if you live in an area where Comcast and SBC "Yahoo" (and consider carefully that ALL DSL is from your Baby Bell, no matter who's on your e-mail address) are your only choices. You need a reliable connection for VOIP. Adelphia is highly recommended by me.
WTF? How is simply being able to open an connection to arbitraryserver.com a "problem"??
A connection on port 22 is no more a security hole than one on port 80, so you'd better disable the "http:" handler too then!
The only problem with the "exploit" this story is about is that the ssh: handler allows something other than a hostname. For example, switches. Some quick checking of the URI should fix this in two minutes. No spaces, no %20. No hyphen that doesn't have an alphanumeric character immediately before it. No slashes. Anything other than ssh://some.host.name should just break--do nothing, or complain about invalid URI.
> As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much to you, but I actually do use Linux, I don't buy software, and so it's very convenient to me to rip my CDs and encode to OGG.
It's also convenient to rip your CDs and encode to MP3, if you don't like AAC. It's not anyone's fault but your own if you let your philosophy limit your choice in music players. MP3 may be slightly inferior to OGG, but RAR is better than ZIP too, and though I love RAR, I use ZIP when I want maximum compatibility. My music is also one of these areas where compatibility trumps codec efficiency. If using MP3, I would just use the next bitrate up. Say 192k MP3 instead of 160k OGG.
> Finally, why do you feel the need to talk in such a flashy, grandstanding, condescending way?
I didn't mean to. Sorry. I just got annoyed because of this: > It's not a question of economics... > I really just want to have something as cool as the iPod with the compatibility I need to make it work well with my Linux systems....and that didn't make any sense to me. It is a question of economics. It makes no economic sense to bother. It's like you said: > I know it's not first on a list of priorities for music companies, and that makes sense. * Additionally, format-wise (which seems to be the argument you were originally making), the iPod has all the Linux compatibility one needs. One does not need to rip your music in an obscure, undersupported format just to stick it to Fraunhofer for daring to patent their algorithm. That is a choice you make. You want to use OGG. Not need. And I was just irritated because I had to point out the difference.
*And actually, that was pretty much the only point I was trying to make. Thanks for the response, and sorry for coming off as offensive. It wasn't based on Apple fandom, though. Just my personal high opinion of the iPod and the MPEG-4 AAC format.
Okay. So why the hell do you need FUSE for that? Why can't one just implement this using HTTP partial content requests? These libraries are open source, right? So the submitter obviously just needs to modify the existing libraries to read and seek using HTTP partial content requests instead of filesystem ones. Problem solved.
Yes, this involves doing real work. No, Ask Slashdot rarely does real work for people.
My "sorcerer's magic" comment, by the way, was trying to communicate the idea that even these libraries (that already exist), must either inspect the sections of the file that I mentioned, or parse the whole file. They cannot, by any way other than magic, just ascertain exactly which bytes to read without probing the file like I described. The person to whom I replied seemed (to me) to suggest this was somehow possible.
OGG Vorbis: supported natively in: - Linux - Maybe 5-10 obscure, inferior portable MP3 players. Supported with an easy add-on in: - Mac OS X - Windows
MPEG-4 AAC: better sound quality than Vorbis; supported natively, right now, in: - Mac OS X - iPod - maybe 5-10 obscure and inferior portable MP3 players. Supported with an easy add-on in: - Windows (Winamp, iTunes, you name it) - Linux (VLC, and I'm assuming lots of other apps too).
Since if you're on/., installing an easy add-on can't possibly be out of reach. With AAC, you get everything you get with OGG, plus iPod compatibility. Oh, minus the self-righteous and completely empty assurance that no one has paid or taken a license fee for your encoders and decoders. Well you know what? Who freaking cares? Right now both you and I can download 50 programs that can encode an MP3 or AAC for free. Just because in some circumstances some company claims a license fee is owed them doesn't mean anyone actually has to pay it. We've survived with these horrible "patent-encumbered" formats this far and I haven't heard of anyone getting screwed, so how can you justify everyone going out of their way to support an inferior codec? THAT is what I call politics. The iPod not supporting OGG? That's just common sense. If about 300 geeks on/. (which is the max number of people for whom OGG is the make-or-break of buying an iPod) can get an rare, virtually unadopted (in the real world) codec onto the iPod, then what's next? 300 dentists want some kind of dental applet on iPods? 300 strippers want a case included with every iPod designed to clip securely to a G-string?
> implementing OGG wouldn't cost much I'm curious whether you can prove that.
I'm sorry you chose to rip your audio library in the wrong format. I was going to say the Betamax of audio formats, but then I realized the key to understanding this whole affair is that Betamax actually was better than VHS. And I guess, sure OGG is better than MP3 (surely the VHS of audio formats) at most bitrates, but unlike the videocassette market, it's easy to add on a playback format in the digital world, so OGG is Betamax, MP3 is VHS, but now there are several formats that are even better. Just admit you jumped too soon on the OGG train, re-rip your music, buy whatever player you think is best, and quit whining. Nothing important will ever play OGG Vorbis. Ever.
I agree with the parent. I plan to purchase MS Office for this exact reason. It's excellent software that's still unrivalled (at least on the Mac OS X platform) in terms of consistency and visual appearance, and also I feel that the existence of a format-compatible MS Office suite is a Good Thing for the Mac OS X platform, so why wouldn't I support it with my dollars? Go Microsoft, and keep making Office/Mac, and keep getting my money.
Now, I am basically saying there's not a better alternative out there. I'm emphatically NOT saying Office is perfect. Microsoft, if you really want me to love Office, here's what needs to change:
- Use (or allow to be used) the systemwide services for address book and calendar. I'm just asking for the option here. The API's are wide open. I prefer to use these programs. Let me. Then maybe I would use Entourage.
- Okay, so yeah...make Entourage better than Mail.app. At least in the v.X version, it is just screams "BAD OS 9 PORT!!!" MS needs to bite the frikkin' bullet and learn Cocoa. That goes for all their products. I can just feel the Carbon in every click, every widget. Like in *shudder* Internet Explorer *shudder* (Yes, I know this is officially unsupported now but sooo many people still use it because they're too dumb to know that "Internet Explorer" != "The Internet").
- Those stupid-ass palettes need to go, too. Okay, MS basically invented the toolbar, and now they're saying, no, use this bloated six-square-inch palette with sections you have to collapse and expand, instead of a nice little toolbar at the top of the screen! Shame on them for wasting my screen real-estate. I know that you can put the normal toolbar back via Customize, but few people know this, so the default needs to be changed back.
This is where you tell us how you expect to find out which sections of the files contain the tag. The "libraries that read ID3v2 tags know exactly where and how much to read" because of the fact that they have access to the whole file! If you want that kind of perfect efficiency, then you'll have to download the whole file!
If you want a solution that will allow you to escape downloading the whole file, just check for ID3 in the first 3 bytes and 3DI @ 10 bytes back from the end. Download a couple K in the appropriate direction (more if you expect more than a minority to have images). Neither means no tag, move on. Then parse the tags with your libraries, catch errors, and try to grab more on the few that will throw errors, in case someone put a huge image or War and Peace in a tag.
It's not that hard, and I'm not sure what sorcerer's magic you expected Ask Slashdot to come up with to help you with this.
I think we can all agree on one thing though. Whatever asshole who decided that a tag at the end of the file is a good idea needs to be smacked in the head.
Perhaps if you do not find enough value in.Mac, it's because you view the e-mail account as the most important feature.
Granted, my first.Mac account was created when iTools first came out, as a free service to promote OS 9. I just grabbed it for the cool e-mail account. Since mail was the only feature I made any real use of (other than a little bit of HomePage) I wasn't willing to pay $99 to keep it going when the.Mac changeover came. Last time I ever use someone else's domain for my primary e-mail address. Good lesson to learn. Anyway...now I have.Mac again, and I use it for the other stuff far more than I use the mail.
In my opinion, the best features of.Mac are: - seamless iDisk integration in the Finder (especially in 10.3) - Share your public folder (example - not mine)on the web. The fastest way to get a file to someone else across the Internet. - One-click photo album publishing from within iPhoto. Creates thumbnails and screen-size versions and lets you choose from many templates. Your visitors can view the photos in a slideshow viewer and click the photos within that to see the full resolution. View an example (not mine). - Put a movie in your Movies folder, create a HomePage for it, and let Apple bother with embedding it properly, streaming it, etc. Again, templates are provided. - Free Virex. Tends to cost $69 anyway, so when buying a new Mac you'd be silly not to get.Mac (which is $69 with a new Mac.) - Backup utility. Pretty cool automatic backup utility. - Here's a glaring difference between.Mac mail and Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail:.Mac mail is real mail. You can use both IMAP/POP/SMTP and a nice webmail interface. This is still key for many of us. I refuse to ever use webmail at home. It's only for use on someone else's computer. - Auto-sync Bookmarks, Address Book, and iCal appointments/To Do items across all your Macs.
If you use it as just an e-mail service, I can understand why you would be disappointed at the pricing.
(Full disclosure: I work at a large computer retailer that sells.Mac, but that's not why I posted. Just wanted to share my personal experience.)
No it wouldn't. The tag is at the beginning of the file, so why not just fetch the first 512 bytes or so (more if you expect cover art in the tag) and save it into/tmp/.
If you really -must- download only the tag and not a byte more, then clearly you'd have to (A.) know the offset in each file where the tag ends. This is not possible without storing that in some sort of database. Which won't work if you aren't the person in control of the server. Or (B.) download the file and scan it as you download looking for the end of the tag and when you see it abort the download. Seems more trouble than it's worth to bother using those methods, though.
Okay then, that's all perfectly accurate. Sorry I swore at you. Just mistook you for one of those 30 billion "one button mouse" trolls for a moment there.
You are very right that many great GUI concepts were invented elsewhere. It'd be silly to say they all came from Apple. The only claim I'd make about Apple is that they were the first to create a usable WIMP system, and provided the only usable such (usable) systems on the market from the Lisa's debut until 1995. (Sorry, Windows 3.x doesn't cut it. Compare it to DOS, and it's impressive, but compare it to System 7, its competitor on the Mac side, and it was a joke.) Anyway, that last paragraph was pretty much a tangent. Oops.
So yes, while a lot of great stuff was and is co-opted from Mac OS, plenty was invented elsewhere too. Contextual menus are a good example.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (and anti-trust law in general) about that kind of trust. It's about the big "trusts" that were around back when that act was passed. Big trusts that owned and controlled bunches of companies; railroads and steel companies and such. They behaved anticompetitively.
As for your interpretation though, the way you explained it seems to also apply, even though it wasn't the original definition of "trust" involved. Nice job.
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> I don't understand why ISPs would block...
Hotmail and Yahoo! are not ISPs. They're a couple of second-rate e-mail services. This is yet another reason everyone should steer clear of "free" e-mail altogether.
Everyone has a real e-mail account available to them if they just pay enough attention to know who's offering it (real ISP, college, job) and learn how to set up a real e-mail client. Five minutes.
And as a sidenote (not directed at the parent), idiots with their monitors set to 640 (or 800) because they "can't read the little text" are idiots and should be smacked on the head. Methods exist to make font sizes larger without having a screen with 1/4-inch-wide pixels or the infernal fuzzy-LCD effect encountered when running a flat panel at a non-native resolution. Stupid clueless users. Of course, web "designers" who specify "10px" as the height of their text should be shot for making this problem worse, as well as whomever is responsible for MSIE not being able to scale this text when requested, which comprises the majority of commercial websites.
One word:
Dreamcast.
Released a year ahead of the rest, the Dreamcast was hands down the best console out there. But when the rest of the generation came out, a year or whatever later, they eclipsed it. If Sega had sat on it for a year and made improvements, and released it, say, two weeks before PS2, then it might have been a huge hit. I love mine; it's a powerful, compact system that had some good games.
I hope XB2 meets with a better fate.
> the riaa would pull the rug out and effectively close iTMS and kill the iPod.
When I worked at the Apple Store (for the past three months) I personally sold maybe 200 iPods (I was part-time). About 5 people cared about iTMS. About 98% of them asked me, though, "will it play music I have downloaded off Kazaa?"
RIAA has no power to kill iPod. To suggest otherwise is silly.
I really don't care if iTMS stays in business anymore. It's going to suck more as the RIAA puts higher prices on things. I had to remove all the DRM from my files (using nothing but 1 CD-RW and 30 minutes of my time--burn, rip, erase disc, repeat) because, ironically, when I started working for Apple, my iTunes account was accidentally disabled. I initially tried to share some of Apple's enthusiasm back when iTMS first went up, and I might still buy my favorite artists' tracks once in a while, but I think most of the time I'll just go buy the CD for my favorite artists and infringe copyright for the rest. I just can't stand the money going to RIAA members.
Make a Smart Playlist of all AAC tracks you added on that day when you dropped them all in.
You just said in four paragraphs what I've been trying to say ever since I started college. I have heard, though, from my friends that go to private universities, that despite the heavy cost burden, private schools are better than state schools. Of course, our mileage may vary. But your experience sounds like my wasted two years at a state university.
Bzz. Wrong. There are two types of people in the world:
A. Those who want service packs installed
B. Those who have no clue what SP's are, or for some other reason, don't want them.
Among the group that's pirated Windows XP, "A types" already used a keygen, changed their product key to a new, unpredictable value, and installed SP1. Since the SP2 "security" will once again be based on a blacklist of keys (basically, keys posted to the Internet), as far as SP2 is concerned, these people are legal. In the event of people grabbing keygen-generated keys off the Internet instead of running the keygen themselves, they will either obtain the keygen this time, or grab another post-service-pack key off the Internet.
"B types" didn't even install SP1 yet, so it doesn't matter one bit what MS tries to do with SP2. They won't install it anyway, legal or not.
> dual ring to my cell plus the home line
> phone bill was cut...to $37
That's certainly an improvement. I've had pretty good results with Packet8, and they're only $19.95...I have had reliability issues, but none that were really attributable to 8x8's service. My troubles were all blatantly Comcast's fault (my former ISP). I knew this because whenever I was having trouble with the phone I'd hang up and go check my pings. mail.comcast.net...average ping 1000ms. Thanks Comcast. My advice would be not to bother if you live in an area where Comcast and SBC "Yahoo" (and consider carefully that ALL DSL is from your Baby Bell, no matter who's on your e-mail address) are your only choices. You need a reliable connection for VOIP. Adelphia is highly recommended by me.
WTF? How is simply being able to open an connection to arbitraryserver.com a "problem"??
A connection on port 22 is no more a security hole than one on port 80, so you'd better disable the "http:" handler too then!
The only problem with the "exploit" this story is about is that the ssh: handler allows something other than a hostname. For example, switches. Some quick checking of the URI should fix this in two minutes. No spaces, no %20. No hyphen that doesn't have an alphanumeric character immediately before it. No slashes. Anything other than ssh://some.host.name should just break--do nothing, or complain about invalid URI.
> As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much to you, but I actually do use Linux, I don't buy software, and so it's very convenient to me to rip my CDs and encode to OGG.
...and that didn't make any sense to me. It is a question of economics. It makes no economic sense to bother. It's like you said:
It's also convenient to rip your CDs and encode to MP3, if you don't like AAC. It's not anyone's fault but your own if you let your philosophy limit your choice in music players. MP3 may be slightly inferior to OGG, but RAR is better than ZIP too, and though I love RAR, I use ZIP when I want maximum compatibility. My music is also one of these areas where compatibility trumps codec efficiency. If using MP3, I would just use the next bitrate up. Say 192k MP3 instead of 160k OGG.
> Finally, why do you feel the need to talk in such a flashy, grandstanding, condescending way?
I didn't mean to. Sorry. I just got annoyed because of this:
> It's not a question of economics...
> I really just want to have something as cool as the iPod with the compatibility I need to make it work well with my Linux systems.
> I know it's not first on a list of priorities for music companies, and that makes sense. *
Additionally, format-wise (which seems to be the argument you were originally making), the iPod has all the Linux compatibility one needs. One does not need to rip your music in an obscure, undersupported format just to stick it to Fraunhofer for daring to patent their algorithm. That is a choice you make. You want to use OGG. Not need. And I was just irritated because I had to point out the difference.
*And actually, that was pretty much the only point I was trying to make.
Thanks for the response, and sorry for coming off as offensive. It wasn't based on Apple fandom, though. Just my personal high opinion of the iPod and the MPEG-4 AAC format.
Okay. So why the hell do you need FUSE for that? Why can't one just implement this using HTTP partial content requests? These libraries are open source, right? So the submitter obviously just needs to modify the existing libraries to read and seek using HTTP partial content requests instead of filesystem ones. Problem solved.
Yes, this involves doing real work. No, Ask Slashdot rarely does real work for people.
My "sorcerer's magic" comment, by the way, was trying to communicate the idea that even these libraries (that already exist), must either inspect the sections of the file that I mentioned, or parse the whole file. They cannot, by any way other than magic, just ascertain exactly which bytes to read without probing the file like I described. The person to whom I replied seemed (to me) to suggest this was somehow possible.
Think about this for a moment here, though.
/., installing an easy add-on can't possibly be out of reach. With AAC, you get everything you get with OGG, plus iPod compatibility. Oh, minus the self-righteous and completely empty assurance that no one has paid or taken a license fee for your encoders and decoders. Well you know what? Who freaking cares? Right now both you and I can download 50 programs that can encode an MP3 or AAC for free. Just because in some circumstances some company claims a license fee is owed them doesn't mean anyone actually has to pay it. We've survived with these horrible "patent-encumbered" formats this far and I haven't heard of anyone getting screwed, so how can you justify everyone going out of their way to support an inferior codec? THAT is what I call politics. The iPod not supporting OGG? That's just common sense. If about 300 geeks on /. (which is the max number of people for whom OGG is the make-or-break of buying an iPod) can get an rare, virtually unadopted (in the real world) codec onto the iPod, then what's next? 300 dentists want some kind of dental applet on iPods? 300 strippers want a case included with every iPod designed to clip securely to a G-string?
OGG Vorbis: supported natively in:
- Linux
- Maybe 5-10 obscure, inferior portable MP3 players.
Supported with an easy add-on in:
- Mac OS X
- Windows
MPEG-4 AAC: better sound quality than Vorbis; supported natively, right now, in:
- Mac OS X
- iPod
- maybe 5-10 obscure and inferior portable MP3 players.
Supported with an easy add-on in:
- Windows (Winamp, iTunes, you name it)
- Linux (VLC, and I'm assuming lots of other apps too).
Since if you're on
> implementing OGG wouldn't cost much
I'm curious whether you can prove that.
I'm sorry you chose to rip your audio library in the wrong format. I was going to say the Betamax of audio formats, but then I realized the key to understanding this whole affair is that Betamax actually was better than VHS. And I guess, sure OGG is better than MP3 (surely the VHS of audio formats) at most bitrates, but unlike the videocassette market, it's easy to add on a playback format in the digital world, so OGG is Betamax, MP3 is VHS, but now there are several formats that are even better. Just admit you jumped too soon on the OGG train, re-rip your music, buy whatever player you think is best, and quit whining. Nothing important will ever play OGG Vorbis. Ever.
I agree with the parent. I plan to purchase MS Office for this exact reason. It's excellent software that's still unrivalled (at least on the Mac OS X platform) in terms of consistency and visual appearance, and also I feel that the existence of a format-compatible MS Office suite is a Good Thing for the Mac OS X platform, so why wouldn't I support it with my dollars? Go Microsoft, and keep making Office/Mac, and keep getting my money.
Now, I am basically saying there's not a better alternative out there. I'm emphatically NOT saying Office is perfect. Microsoft, if you really want me to love Office, here's what needs to change:
- Use (or allow to be used) the systemwide services for address book and calendar. I'm just asking for the option here. The API's are wide open. I prefer to use these programs. Let me. Then maybe I would use Entourage.
- Okay, so yeah...make Entourage better than Mail.app. At least in the v.X version, it is just screams "BAD OS 9 PORT!!!" MS needs to bite the frikkin' bullet and learn Cocoa. That goes for all their products. I can just feel the Carbon in every click, every widget. Like in *shudder* Internet Explorer *shudder* (Yes, I know this is officially unsupported now but sooo many people still use it because they're too dumb to know that "Internet Explorer" != "The Internet").
- Those stupid-ass palettes need to go, too. Okay, MS basically invented the toolbar, and now they're saying, no, use this bloated six-square-inch palette with sections you have to collapse and expand, instead of a nice little toolbar at the top of the screen! Shame on them for wasting my screen real-estate. I know that you can put the normal toolbar back via Customize, but few people know this, so the default needs to be changed back.
I found the nice "user friendly" settings to disable the bug.
Well, where's that option so we can all disable it?
This is where you tell us how you expect to find out which sections of the files contain the tag. The "libraries that read ID3v2 tags know exactly where and how much to read" because of the fact that they have access to the whole file! If you want that kind of perfect efficiency, then you'll have to download the whole file!
If you want a solution that will allow you to escape downloading the whole file, just check for ID3 in the first 3 bytes and 3DI @ 10 bytes back from the end. Download a couple K in the appropriate direction (more if you expect more than a minority to have images). Neither means no tag, move on. Then parse the tags with your libraries, catch errors, and try to grab more on the few that will throw errors, in case someone put a huge image or War and Peace in a tag.
It's not that hard, and I'm not sure what sorcerer's magic you expected Ask Slashdot to come up with to help you with this.
I think we can all agree on one thing though. Whatever asshole who decided that a tag at the end of the file is a good idea needs to be smacked in the head.
Perhaps if you do not find enough value in .Mac, it's because you view the e-mail account as the most important feature.
.Mac account was created when iTools first came out, as a free service to promote OS 9. I just grabbed it for the cool e-mail account. Since mail was the only feature I made any real use of (other than a little bit of HomePage) I wasn't willing to pay $99 to keep it going when the .Mac changeover came. Last time I ever use someone else's domain for my primary e-mail address. Good lesson to learn. Anyway...now I have .Mac again, and I use it for the other stuff far more than I use the mail.
.Mac are: .Mac (which is $69 with a new Mac.) .Mac mail and Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail: .Mac mail is real mail. You can use both IMAP/POP/SMTP and a nice webmail interface. This is still key for many of us. I refuse to ever use webmail at home. It's only for use on someone else's computer.
.Mac, but that's not why I posted. Just wanted to share my personal experience.)
Granted, my first
In my opinion, the best features of
- seamless iDisk integration in the Finder (especially in 10.3)
- Share your public folder (example - not mine)on the web. The fastest way to get a file to someone else across the Internet.
- One-click photo album publishing from within iPhoto. Creates thumbnails and screen-size versions and lets you choose from many templates. Your visitors can view the photos in a slideshow viewer and click the photos within that to see the full resolution. View an example (not mine).
- Put a movie in your Movies folder, create a HomePage for it, and let Apple bother with embedding it properly, streaming it, etc. Again, templates are provided.
- Free Virex. Tends to cost $69 anyway, so when buying a new Mac you'd be silly not to get
- Backup utility. Pretty cool automatic backup utility.
- Here's a glaring difference between
- Auto-sync Bookmarks, Address Book, and iCal appointments/To Do items across all your Macs.
If you use it as just an e-mail service, I can understand why you would be disappointed at the pricing.
(Full disclosure: I work at a large computer retailer that sells
You can count on it.
No it wouldn't. The tag is at the beginning of the file, so why not just fetch the first 512 bytes or so (more if you expect cover art in the tag) and save it into /tmp/.
If you really -must- download only the tag and not a byte more, then clearly you'd have to (A.) know the offset in each file where the tag ends. This is not possible without storing that in some sort of database. Which won't work if you aren't the person in control of the server. Or (B.) download the file and scan it as you download looking for the end of the tag and when you see it abort the download. Seems more trouble than it's worth to bother using those methods, though.
actually have good enough ears to tell the difference.
Sometime when I figure out PlayFair I'll set up a blind test for you and you can prove it. I'll send you an e-mail or something.
A POS sound card/chip with $3 tinny speakers is not really conducive to testing this kind of thing.
My sound card is not a 'POS' and my speakers cost $100, thank you very much.
FUD. I had no problem re-ripping to 128k AAC. Sounds exactly the same.
Okay then, that's all perfectly accurate. Sorry I swore at you. Just mistook you for one of those 30 billion "one button mouse" trolls for a moment there.
You are very right that many great GUI concepts were invented elsewhere. It'd be silly to say they all came from Apple. The only claim I'd make about Apple is that they were the first to create a usable WIMP system, and provided the only usable such (usable) systems on the market from the Lisa's debut until 1995. (Sorry, Windows 3.x doesn't cut it. Compare it to DOS, and it's impressive, but compare it to System 7, its competitor on the Mac side, and it was a joke.)
Anyway, that last paragraph was pretty much a tangent. Oops.
So yes, while a lot of great stuff was and is co-opted from Mac OS, plenty was invented elsewhere too. Contextual menus are a good example.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (and anti-trust law in general) about that kind of trust. It's about the big "trusts" that were around back when that act was passed. Big trusts that owned and controlled bunches of companies; railroads and steel companies and such. They behaved anticompetitively.
As for your interpretation though, the way you explained it seems to also apply, even though it wasn't the original definition of "trust" involved. Nice job.