One fact TFA and the Slashdot title both got wrong, is Alexa wasn't Amazon's idea. Until Amazon bought it in 1999, Alexa was the commercial offshoot of archive.org for three years. Alexa is still what gives the Wayback Machine its web crawls.
From the tech end there's no such thing as a "masked" domain. What usually goes on behind the scenes, is the domain provider hosts a small HTML file at your actual domain. That file loads your real site in a child IFrame, which is set to the full size of your browser window, while the parent frame is set to a non-visible size. So you don't see the parent frame (the real, technical contents of whatever your domain name is) but you see its URL in the address bar, since it is the parent frame, and remains so while you click around in the child frame.
So, according to most browsers and search bots, your domain name only contains that small invisible HTML page calling up a child frame from offsite, and that's it. The actual URL of (in this case) your blogger account, is what should logically get the Alexa rating, or Google ranking, or whatever.
Why do people *always* seem to fall for marketing nonsense like this?
Because the company has spent over a century building an empire based around the fact that they can convince people regular intake of fizzy caffeinated sugar water is a fine idea.
True, but Easynews is a paid service. You pay them a premium to take care of the techie end of things for you. Saying that Usenet is simple because you use Easynews is a bit like saying cooking is easy because you employ a personal chef.
For those who don't want to (or can't) buy allofmp3's DRM-free music, they are providing DRM-laden music that can be played only within a restricted player provided by the website."
The main distinguishing feature of Bittorrent, and all the other mainstream P2P networks, is they all have nice shiny GUI-based clients. All your average Internet user needs is to hear from their token nerd friend "download blahblahwindowsclient.exe from this site, double-click it, and click yes to everything" and they're up and running with a dead-easy piracy scheme.
Usenet piracy, however, still requires a bit of fiddling with to get working. You need to choose and install a client. You need to set it up with your server's settings. You need to learn about binaries, how to rejoin split files, how to use RAR archives, how to recreate missing parts by using multiple servers or fiddling with PAR2s, and so on.. and that's just to leech. If you want to contribute, there's another whole list of things you need to learn how to do to make usable posts.
There's also the fact that everyone's a target with P2P. If you're leeching, you're also sharing with others, your IP is out there, and you're counted among the trackable. One file can possibly lead to hundreds or thousands of guilty trraders for the **AA to prosecute. On Usenet the only ones they can go after are the posters, and one successfully posted file can be grabbed by a virtually unlimited number of downloaders before it vanishes from the ether forever.
Both Nokia E Series and N Series Wi-Fi enabled phones tested, showing not only Voice but IM, video and conference calling.
That's all the world neds, cellphone video conferences. You know how it's nigh-impossible to take a flattering picture of yourself by holding a camera at arm's length? Welcome to the camera phone version of that, video chatting while staring at low-res views straight up each other's noses.
I wonder about the status of that 8-minute Jay-Z clip they're giving you. IANAL, but since you obviously didn't click "yes" on any of the record label's copyright or terms-of-use screens to get onto the P2P network, and since there's no way for them to make you view their copyright notice before you get your hands on the file, and since they are willfully giving it away for free themselves, do they own that clip anymore? Would the fact that they are deliberately giving out these clips negate any claim on enforcing the copyright of that material?
There was an interesting project a few years back called RIAA-mix. Basically, it took a bunch of decoy files from P2P (you know, the ones that only have the first 5 seconds or so of the song before going blank or staticky) and remixed them. The idea was, since the RIAA gave those specific clips out themselves, they were releasing them into the public domain to be bastardized by us shady Internet masher-uppers.
I think giving something unique to the "hard core" fan is the best solution, but it's also a drain on resources, and not just a minor one like people think. It's a pretty major drain to make it working (even if it's just like the museum)
I'd agree for the most part. There are the properties out there that develop the hardcore fans who would go for something like this, and I think it could be worth it to those publishers to put together something extra.
For example, Square had published high-end art books for many of their Final Fantasy games. They have also been known to put behind-the-scenes stuff like interviews into their strategy guides, giving them an edge over players getting free hints off the Internet.
Metal Gear Solid 2 even had "The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2," which was a whole extra playable disc where you could play with the 3D models and environments, watch the game's real-time cutscenes while zooming the camera around anywhere you like, read the entire annotated script (in Japanese,) watch behind-the-scenes videos, and even some new playable bonus missions. It was basically a bonus DVD like movies get, but tailored specifically to gamers, and sold for (IIRC) half the price of the game.
Extras like this can really be worth it for fans of major franchises to grab, and thereby worth it for the studios to produce. And you don't even need to take space on the game disc away from the actual game.
Nor is the problem the age of the representative. I'm closing on 60, and I know a great deal about technology. My mother knew more than any representative I am aware of when she died recently, and she was almost 90.
O_O
I inherited her dual CPU Dell running Red Hat SMP when she died. She wrote some pretty tricky perl scripts; I wish I could have converted her to Python, but alas. I didn't say she was perfect.
Not to mention, this (£1531.06=US$2,858.79) vs MythTV box (adaptable to your budget, a quite decent box can be built for a few hundred.) Turns out, my wallet hates the proprietary DRM'd stuff as much as I do.
You've got to hand to the guy for travelling 70 miles just to beat someone up.
This should be required reading for every couch potato who has ever ended up watching a crappy TV show they didn't like, just because they couldn't find the remote to change the channel with.
Same here. Not only is it the principle of the thing, but to continue to use Sam and Max as an example, I still have my copy of the first game. I loved it then, and I still play it now. Assuming this game is as good as it should be, I want to be sure that I'll be able to play it in 15 years on whatever the future equivalent to ScummVM is.
It's serious trouble for the ad companies, as they suddenly realize their trade has nowhere near as much effect in the civilized world as their business plan requires. How would you like to find out that your customers aren't getting what they pay you for, thanks to more and more people specifically filtering out your work when using the Internet? Time to search the want-ads.
Slashdot Mirror
Scorpion venom, hemlock, and radium are also "all natural." Doesn't mean I want to eat or drink them.
One fact TFA and the Slashdot title both got wrong, is Alexa wasn't Amazon's idea. Until Amazon bought it in 1999, Alexa was the commercial offshoot of archive.org for three years. Alexa is still what gives the Wayback Machine its web crawls.
From the tech end there's no such thing as a "masked" domain. What usually goes on behind the scenes, is the domain provider hosts a small HTML file at your actual domain. That file loads your real site in a child IFrame, which is set to the full size of your browser window, while the parent frame is set to a non-visible size. So you don't see the parent frame (the real, technical contents of whatever your domain name is) but you see its URL in the address bar, since it is the parent frame, and remains so while you click around in the child frame.
So, according to most browsers and search bots, your domain name only contains that small invisible HTML page calling up a child frame from offsite, and that's it. The actual URL of (in this case) your blogger account, is what should logically get the Alexa rating, or Google ranking, or whatever.
It already is their greatest scam.
True, but Easynews is a paid service. You pay them a premium to take care of the techie end of things for you. Saying that Usenet is simple because you use Easynews is a bit like saying cooking is easy because you employ a personal chef.
The main distinguishing feature of Bittorrent, and all the other mainstream P2P networks, is they all have nice shiny GUI-based clients. All your average Internet user needs is to hear from their token nerd friend "download blahblahwindowsclient.exe from this site, double-click it, and click yes to everything" and they're up and running with a dead-easy piracy scheme.
Usenet piracy, however, still requires a bit of fiddling with to get working. You need to choose and install a client. You need to set it up with your server's settings. You need to learn about binaries, how to rejoin split files, how to use RAR archives, how to recreate missing parts by using multiple servers or fiddling with PAR2s, and so on.. and that's just to leech. If you want to contribute, there's another whole list of things you need to learn how to do to make usable posts.
There's also the fact that everyone's a target with P2P. If you're leeching, you're also sharing with others, your IP is out there, and you're counted among the trackable. One file can possibly lead to hundreds or thousands of guilty trraders for the **AA to prosecute. On Usenet the only ones they can go after are the posters, and one successfully posted file can be grabbed by a virtually unlimited number of downloaders before it vanishes from the ether forever.
I wonder about the status of that 8-minute Jay-Z clip they're giving you. IANAL, but since you obviously didn't click "yes" on any of the record label's copyright or terms-of-use screens to get onto the P2P network, and since there's no way for them to make you view their copyright notice before you get your hands on the file, and since they are willfully giving it away for free themselves, do they own that clip anymore? Would the fact that they are deliberately giving out these clips negate any claim on enforcing the copyright of that material?
There was an interesting project a few years back called RIAA-mix. Basically, it took a bunch of decoy files from P2P (you know, the ones that only have the first 5 seconds or so of the song before going blank or staticky) and remixed them. The idea was, since the RIAA gave those specific clips out themselves, they were releasing them into the public domain to be bastardized by us shady Internet masher-uppers.
For example, Square had published high-end art books for many of their Final Fantasy games. They have also been known to put behind-the-scenes stuff like interviews into their strategy guides, giving them an edge over players getting free hints off the Internet.
Metal Gear Solid 2 even had "The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2," which was a whole extra playable disc where you could play with the 3D models and environments, watch the game's real-time cutscenes while zooming the camera around anywhere you like, read the entire annotated script (in Japanese,) watch behind-the-scenes videos, and even some new playable bonus missions. It was basically a bonus DVD like movies get, but tailored specifically to gamers, and sold for (IIRC) half the price of the game.
Extras like this can really be worth it for fans of major franchises to grab, and thereby worth it for the studios to produce. And you don't even need to take space on the game disc away from the actual game.
It's not just a Flash site, it's Flash 9. Anyone who isn't on their own computer and can't upgrade is SOL.
A small army of soldiers marches up.
......*
COMMANDER: Ve are the Judean People's Front, crack suicide squad. Suicide squad... attack!!!
The soldiers all draw their swords, stab themselves, and fall over.
COMMANDER: That showed 'em, huh?
--Life of Brian
It's a trap!
Not to mention, this (£1531.06=US$2,858.79) vs MythTV box (adaptable to your budget, a quite decent box can be built for a few hundred.) Turns out, my wallet hates the proprietary DRM'd stuff as much as I do.
Same here. Not only is it the principle of the thing, but to continue to use Sam and Max as an example, I still have my copy of the first game. I loved it then, and I still play it now. Assuming this game is as good as it should be, I want to be sure that I'll be able to play it in 15 years on whatever the future equivalent to ScummVM is.
Badly-done photoshop mockups of the "really real new leaked Xbox design" in 3..2..1..
It's serious trouble for the ad companies, as they suddenly realize their trade has nowhere near as much effect in the civilized world as their business plan requires. How would you like to find out that your customers aren't getting what they pay you for, thanks to more and more people specifically filtering out your work when using the Internet? Time to search the want-ads.
Won't somebody please think of the clows?