I work at a major office supply chain store and people always ask me one of two things. About 80% of the time they will ask me what the least computer they can get to run minimal applications (ie web browsing, wordprocessing, etc). Those people are usually either beginners themselves, buying it for a beginner (eg grandma, grandpa), or parents who are still niave enough to think that their kids are going to actually use the computer for 'schoolwork'.
The other twenty percent usually ask, "What's the best computer you carry?". In most cases I usually agree with the sentiment that 'less is more' so I have no problems with selling them the cheapest computer they can get, because I feel that most computers are so ridicuosly over-powered for what even that 20% segment needs it for (I am obviously only refering to the segment of the population who shop in my store). Plus we are not commission paid so why should I care if my company squeeks an extra 400 bucks out of Joe Sixpack (or in the case of my town Joe Multiple-Kegs).
As for my personal beliefs... I truly think a beginner (who really wants to learn) should start with the oldest piece of junk they can get their hands on. You learn more that way. And if it truly interests you than you will figure out exactly what you need to do to get things to work, and learn more along the way.
I had noticed that same thing when I used the eMule windows client. However that was likewise about 6 months ago, and I have since dumped my windows partition completely. I do not have these same problems with xMule. But I have noticed that sharing with either xMule or eMule seems to eat up a abnormally large portion of my internet bandwidth - even if my outgoing and incoming shares are only a minute fraction of what I am capable of.
On the whole xMule/eMule seems to be the place to find even some of the more obscure stuff I am looking for, I just have to be prepared to wait awhile to get it.
I agree. I encode everything with musepack or ogg (depending on what sort of mood I am in that week) at the highest quality. And even if I can't perceive any difference between that and the original, I still get this nagging feeling that what I am listening to is somehow inferior to the original.
Someone should offer a lossless format for download, that way I am getting everything that I paid for. Especially at the prices that some places are charging (99 cents a track AND I have to buy my own cd-rs AND I don't get the liner, might as well buy a $15 dollar CD from the store).
At least lossless downloads would provide me with some sense that I was getting my money's worth, not some facsimile of "acceptable" or "near-CD" quality. Take software downloads for instance, when you download software you are getting exactly the same software that you would have gotten had you purchased it retail, sans the nice (overly large) packaging. But with music you are downloading songs that are missing something, which would be like if the software download had some feature that was nobody ever used stripped out of it and then tried to sell it to you for close to the same price as the retail version. Would you ever notice?... probably not... but the principle is the thing. On the other hand I am known to be something of an anal retentive about these sort of things...
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The other twenty percent usually ask, "What's the best computer you carry?". In most cases I usually agree with the sentiment that 'less is more' so I have no problems with selling them the cheapest computer they can get, because I feel that most computers are so ridicuosly over-powered for what even that 20% segment needs it for (I am obviously only refering to the segment of the population who shop in my store). Plus we are not commission paid so why should I care if my company squeeks an extra 400 bucks out of Joe Sixpack (or in the case of my town Joe Multiple-Kegs).
As for my personal beliefs... I truly think a beginner (who really wants to learn) should start with the oldest piece of junk they can get their hands on. You learn more that way. And if it truly interests you than you will figure out exactly what you need to do to get things to work, and learn more along the way.
On the whole xMule/eMule seems to be the place to find even some of the more obscure stuff I am looking for, I just have to be prepared to wait awhile to get it.
Someone should offer a lossless format for download, that way I am getting everything that I paid for. Especially at the prices that some places are charging (99 cents a track AND I have to buy my own cd-rs AND I don't get the liner, might as well buy a $15 dollar CD from the store).
At least lossless downloads would provide me with some sense that I was getting my money's worth, not some facsimile of "acceptable" or "near-CD" quality. Take software downloads for instance, when you download software you are getting exactly the same software that you would have gotten had you purchased it retail, sans the nice (overly large) packaging. But with music you are downloading songs that are missing something, which would be like if the software download had some feature that was nobody ever used stripped out of it and then tried to sell it to you for close to the same price as the retail version. Would you ever notice?... probably not... but the principle is the thing. On the other hand I am known to be something of an anal retentive about these sort of things...
Is that Toby McGuire on the index page?