I own a Philips DVD player which can has a 'soft' region setting. No flashing or hardware mods are needed; only a few simple keystrokes on the remote can change the region.
The problem with many of the 'region free' players is that some of the discs wouldn't work on players with no region code set. On my DVD player, I can set the region code to whatever the disc is looking for.
Now it's nice that I have the ability to do this, however I don't even own any DVDs that are non USA region (1?).
If there's one thing you can do and never go wrong on, it's "Don't buy the Sony media alternative".
That's precisely the logic I used when I chose a Canon digital camera over a Sony. Compact Flash is significantly cheaper than the memory stick.
Wow! That's nice of your ISP to give you a heads up. Which ISP do you use? Sounds like some ISPs are still concerned about customer satisfaction (unlike greedy Verizon!!)
I'm not a satellite expert, but I know that there are 72 geostationary orbital slots for satellites (360 degrees / 5 degrees of separation = 72 slots).
If there's a dead satellite sitting in that slot, do they shoot it out of the way or do they wait until the orbit degrades and let the satellite turn into a shooting star when it re-enters the atmosphere? The slots over N. America (USA in particular) are pretty valuable.
My point is that I wasn't aware of any widespread problem with people being unable to play because their key was already in use (illegally).
I was under the impression that the WON authentication server worked fine keeping most of the hackers/crackerz away. In my experience (prior to buying a copy) all the generated keys I tried got rejected by the WON server.
I don't remember offhand how many digits the CD key to HalfLife is (16? 20? 24?) but with 36 possible characters for each digit, there are a lot of key combinations.
Now my next task is to get my burner settings correct to defeat SafeDisc and create a legitimate backup of another game!
I always felt the WON authentication on the original Half-Life (miltiplayer) worked just fine. I purchased a legitimage copy of the original Half-Life and had no problems (no one ever copied my key, at least not when I tried to play).
In reality, how long will people really play the single player version of HL2? Once someone buys it and beats it in a week or two, how likely are they to play again?
Multiplayer is where all the fun lies, and I thought the WON authentication system worked just fine keeping the hackers/crackerz away.
I'm completely lost here, as I'm not familiar with Steam. I bought the original Half-Life and played it a long time. I also played Counter-Strike, but one day I went to play and it told me I needed Steam to run it, so I stopped playing and never bothered to install it.
All the software I ever purchased has worked the same. I buy a box with a CD or two (or five) and some books, then I install the software on my machine and run it whenever I want.
If I walked into BestBuy tonight and bought Half-Life 2, what would be different than what I'm used to? Are the CDs useless? Perhaps I have a dialup connection. Will I have to wait two days for something to download before I can play? What about this crap of HL2 connecting to a server when each level loads? What if don't ever hook my machine up to the internet after the initial registration?
My first job out of college was with a defense contractor in Southern California. I've been working for three years now.
I interviewed with five different companies within the past year and received five offers with pay increases anywhere between 5 and 10% over what I make now. I want to move to the NYC metropolitan area or Houston, but unfortunately I can't find anything good in either city (the offer I got in the NYC area was with a company that doesn't seem too good).
The additional benefit of defense work is that your job is *extremely* unlikely to be exported to overseas.
DivX copies are very good quality (way better than VHS) and there are certainly more than 10,000 people trading/sharing/downloading them.
Even if I couldn't download a movie I wanted, I wouldn't bother to see it in the theater, rent it, or buy it either. If I *really* need to see a new movie, I can wait a few weeks after it's release until it shows up in the $2 second-run theater up the street.
The RIAA blames their lack of sales on Internet Piracy. Why don't they consider the reality that most mainstream music has been awful the past few years?
Most of the music I buy is on vinyl, however I still purchase CDs of good music (ironically, most of the CDs I purchase aren't from big labels)
When I was at CMU, we didn't have I2HUB. During my first two years of college, a bandwidth cap didn't even exist!!! A friend was once pushing movies at about 30GB+ each day!
I remember people openly sharing folders through Windows filesharing (or Samba) that were jam packed with music! We didn't even need Napster.
And this method is extremely accurate too! Do you remember the motorcyclist who was ticketed for going 200+ MPH? He had his bike on a dyno and proved that it couldn't top 140 or 160.
Looks like Officer Hardass had an itchy trigger finger.
I guess it all depends on the ad format. My primary reason for using Google when it first came out was because it wasn't littered with banner ads. Even if Google's search function wasn't as good as Yahoo, I would still use Google because of the layout. Now I see MSN has ripped off Google's banner-free simplicity (though their search isn't nearly as good)
All ads are annoying, but banner ads are the worst. I can picture fast forwarding with TiVO and this big banner is flashing "ClIcK HeRe To WiN YoUr FrEe IpOD!" or "NeEd ViAgRa? ClIcK hErE To ClAIM yOuR FrEe OnE YeAr SupPly!"
I'll gladly pay more to have ad-free content, both online and on TV.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with many of the 'region free' players is that some of the discs wouldn't work on players with no region code set. On my DVD player, I can set the region code to whatever the disc is looking for.
Now it's nice that I have the ability to do this, however I don't even own any DVDs that are non USA region (1?).
If there's one thing you can do and never go wrong on, it's "Don't buy the Sony media alternative". That's precisely the logic I used when I chose a Canon digital camera over a Sony. Compact Flash is significantly cheaper than the memory stick.
Wow! That's nice of your ISP to give you a heads up. Which ISP do you use? Sounds like some ISPs are still concerned about customer satisfaction (unlike greedy Verizon!!)
I'm not a satellite expert, but I know that there are 72 geostationary orbital slots for satellites (360 degrees / 5 degrees of separation = 72 slots).
If there's a dead satellite sitting in that slot, do they shoot it out of the way or do they wait until the orbit degrades and let the satellite turn into a shooting star when it re-enters the atmosphere? The slots over N. America (USA in particular) are pretty valuable.
The SEDs (Smoke Emitting Diodes) were functioning properly, completing their transition to friodes. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=smoke-emi tting%20diode
I was under the impression that the WON authentication server worked fine keeping most of the hackers/crackerz away. In my experience (prior to buying a copy) all the generated keys I tried got rejected by the WON server.
I don't remember offhand how many digits the CD key to HalfLife is (16? 20? 24?) but with 36 possible characters for each digit, there are a lot of key combinations.
Now my next task is to get my burner settings correct to defeat SafeDisc and create a legitimate backup of another game!
In reality, how long will people really play the single player version of HL2? Once someone buys it and beats it in a week or two, how likely are they to play again?
Multiplayer is where all the fun lies, and I thought the WON authentication system worked just fine keeping the hackers/crackerz away.
All the software I ever purchased has worked the same. I buy a box with a CD or two (or five) and some books, then I install the software on my machine and run it whenever I want.
If I walked into BestBuy tonight and bought Half-Life 2, what would be different than what I'm used to? Are the CDs useless? Perhaps I have a dialup connection. Will I have to wait two days for something to download before I can play? What about this crap of HL2 connecting to a server when each level loads? What if don't ever hook my machine up to the internet after the initial registration?
I interviewed with five different companies within the past year and received five offers with pay increases anywhere between 5 and 10% over what I make now. I want to move to the NYC metropolitan area or Houston, but unfortunately I can't find anything good in either city (the offer I got in the NYC area was with a company that doesn't seem too good).
The additional benefit of defense work is that your job is *extremely* unlikely to be exported to overseas.
AllOfMP3.Com, MP3Spy.Ru and MP3Search.Ru Are those sites really legal?
Even if I couldn't download a movie I wanted, I wouldn't bother to see it in the theater, rent it, or buy it either. If I *really* need to see a new movie, I can wait a few weeks after it's release until it shows up in the $2 second-run theater up the street.
The RIAA blames their lack of sales on Internet Piracy. Why don't they consider the reality that most mainstream music has been awful the past few years?
Most of the music I buy is on vinyl, however I still purchase CDs of good music (ironically, most of the CDs I purchase aren't from big labels)
I remember people openly sharing folders through Windows filesharing (or Samba) that were jam packed with music! We didn't even need Napster.
Man, those were the days.
If we could drill that far down we may hit some serious oil wells, eliminating our need for nuclear power altogether.
Give back to Mother Nature what was taken away!
And this method is extremely accurate too! Do you remember the motorcyclist who was ticketed for going 200+ MPH? He had his bike on a dyno and proved that it couldn't top 140 or 160. Looks like Officer Hardass had an itchy trigger finger.
All ads are annoying, but banner ads are the worst. I can picture fast forwarding with TiVO and this big banner is flashing "ClIcK HeRe To WiN YoUr FrEe IpOD!" or "NeEd ViAgRa? ClIcK hErE To ClAIM yOuR FrEe OnE YeAr SupPly!"
I'll gladly pay more to have ad-free content, both online and on TV.
I can picture some kid trying to be like Harry Potter using his "magic map" to locate every student in the school.