A previous poster mentioned this but was marked as flamebait. But the point is valid.
I was not aware of the language in the Sherman Anti-Trust act that the article quotes:
the Sherman Act has a second component aimed at shared abuse of power. To wit: "Every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade is illegal."
That's dynamite. The question has long been raised, why isn't RIAA a monopoly, why doesn't someone file an anti-trust lawsuit against RIAA. The answer invariably given is that RIAA is just a trade group, an industry association that acts on behalf of many recording companies but itself doesn't really do anything.
Screw fighting RIAA...they are a multi-headed hydra. We are pissing away time and effort trying to fight the Hillary Rosen beast.
I think we need to focus on the real target, the recording companies themselves. We need to work towards anti-trust investigations of BMG, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Virgin, etc.
Who could not look at their actions toward online music in the past five years and not see a compelling restraint of trade? In concert (read: conspiracy) the major groups have all withheld licensing from any third-party group that wished to create a value-added-service based on record company products.
This would be like Dell refusing to sell me hardware because I charge people to set the hardware up for them. Dell also sells installation services. So I would be robbing Dell of money while at the same time gaining profit based on Dell hardware.
The argument above is ridiculous. But somehow the argument makes sense when we are talking about intangible intellectual property instead of real physical property...even though the economics of the situation should indicate that there is less risk for the intellectual property!
After all...if Dell were to experiment with promotions...give away servers to try and encourage future business...that represents real risk and real, on the book, loses. But if a record company decides to experiment with the same promotion, give away electronic copies of music to try and encourage future business...there is no risk and no real loss. Oh sure they would argue loss of future profits while at the same time ignoring that this is exactly what radio has been doing the past fifty years.
So then, if there is no real, reportable on the book, losses, shouldn't a record company be MORE willing to engage in unproved or far-sighted enterprises, like online music? But they haven't. They, in concert (read: conspiracy) had their trade group shut down any online company that would seek to gain a profit by adding some new value (search engines, recommendation engines, collections, remote cacheing) that is based on record company products.
Radio stations (traditional) have to worry about stomping over another radio station that may be using the same (or nearby) frequency. So yes, there is a difference when you look at the technical level.
But the "they" I was talking about was the existing royalty infrastructure, i.e. the National Association of Broadcasters. Do they distinguish one kind of radio wave from another?
There are already three or four types of radio wave in use for the purpose of broadcasting copyrighted content (AM, FM, AM Stereo, XM, etc). XM is the most recent addition. Couldn't 802.11 (maybe call it iM?) be considered another a new one too?
My point is that if I throw up an 802.11 antenna and start broadcasting music around my neighborhood, why can't I try to join the NAB? And if they tried to block my admission, wouldn't I have a good argument that the block is unjustified given the reasons mentioned in my first posting?
On a similar tangent...the FCC was talking about allowing low-power FM broadcasting, so I wonder if I couldn't put up a local FM broadcast and then qualify for the lower rate webcasting fee, owing to the fact I'm rebroadcasting a radio signal over the Internet.
What exactly has been done to define "webcasting?" The very term seems completely outdated. No one uses the "web" (HTTP) to deliver music any more. So what is the difference between webcasting and standard radio? Let's examine.
Is it having a web page? Of course not. Regular radio stations have web pages, same as webcasters. So clearly the web page itself is not the key factor.
Is it being digital? I don't think so. Consider the new XM satellite radio systems as well as small regionalized experiments with digital radio transmissions. Yet these would seem to be considered closer to tranitional radio than webcasting.
Is it being interactive? This is a big issue for the record companies...but how much control is required before something is interactive? Almost every radio station lets you e-mail song requests. So then, if a "webcaster" used the same mechanism, and disable any form of direct control, wouldn't they fall under the same category as radio stations?
Is it the content delivery mechanism? Consider the hypothetical situation where my computer has an FM radio card. Clicking on a link tunes my radio card to a radio station playing the song I want. Now I'm doing something interactive, web-based, and on-demand...everything that would seem to point to it being a webcaster, but since the music is coming in over standard radio waves, is it?
All of this brings me to my idea...let's grow 802.11 wireless networks specifically for broadcasting music. We aren't webcasting, it's radio wave transmission...same as regular radio stations. The 802.11 spectrum is licensed by the FCC, same as regular radio station.
Then once we are all broadcasting music via radio waves in our localized region, let's join the NAB and pay the same low royalties as regular radio stations. Could they stop us? What could they use to draw a distinction between one form of radio wave carrying music and another?
Technically, I don't have the rights to make a copy of anything. But since the court have affirmed the principle of "fair use" then I effectively do have that right.
Here we have a law. Now, if the executive branch doesn't enforce the law, then it is as if the law doesn't exist. But let's say the law is enforced. Now, if the judicial branch says "you can't enforce the law in situation X" then for situation X, it is as if the law doesn't exist.
That means the battle is over what X means.
Regarding their right to keep us from timeshifting...I disagree and thing that (eventually) the courts will find this is unacceptable. In the 1970s, book publishers tried to put licenses on books to prevent a wide range of fair use activities (quoting without written permission, reselling, translation, etc). The courts affirmed the "first sale doctrine" which put an end to this practice. I think someday the courts (assuming they are immune from the influence of the copyright cartel, that's a big assumption) will do something similar for other media.
To quote Blanche in the Simpson retelling of A Streetcar Named Desire:
"A stranger's just a friend you haven't met."
Ha! But seriously...at least on IRC, the channels that form around shows like Futurama, Simpsons, Jackass, 24, Star Trek, Southpark, et cetera are all a pretty tight, close-knit bunch. The regulars all get to know each other. They all discuss the show and they trade items of interest back and form, like clips from unreleased pilots or deleted scenes. In theory it's possible for a total stranger to walk in and download an episode but in practicalty it doesn't happen very often because regulars get taken care of first. Begging leeches tend to get ignore or the boot.
Now with Kazaa and Morpheus...it's a little bit less clear. Whereas IRC is based on chat and file exchanges are secondary, P2P clients for the most part are the opposite. Napster and maybe Direct Connect are the only two that come to mind that have a topic based chat system to help people find other people interested in the same thing. Oh yeah, Filetopia too.
Still...in theory, there is nothing stopping you from talking with someone on Kazaa. I was once messaged by someone who had been searching for Tracy Ullman Simpson shorts and noticed I had the complete collection. Since he typically used Dalnet and I used EFNet, we would have never met if it wasn't for Kazaa and now we know each other pretty well (about as well as you get to know anyone on the Internet) and regularly trade clips and episodes with each other.
The bottom line? I don't think courts can decide what a friend is. I don't think Congress can legislate it. I don't think there could ever be a law passes that says I can only shared with the 20 people closest to me. I don't think the courts could say that just because you don't know someone's real name (just their handle) then it's not really a friend you can trade with.
There is a big difference between the TV industry and the music industry...the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed our right to time shift televised content.
This means that as soon as a television station airs a program, I have the legal right to record that program to watch it at a different time or to watch it multiple times. So look at it these case situations:
A) Me pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = legal (Betamax decision)
B) Me pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. If the courts did not see any distinction between existing media formats (Beta vs. VHS) then likewise there should be no distinction between media characteristics (magnetic tape vs. magnetic platters)
C) My friend pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. Again, the courts did not specify that timeshifting only applied to the person making the recording. Otherwise how could sons setup the family VCR to record Days of Our Lives for technophobic mom? It's simple to see how it makes no difference who presses the button, the result is the same.
D) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal...combining case B and C.
E) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my monitor = just as legal...again the courts made no requirement for viewing device, whether tuner-ready television or single-channel monitor.
F) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by CAT-5 cable to be viewed on my monitor = JUST AS LEGAL!...because yet again the courts made no requirement for trasmitting cable. Coaxial, Audio/Video, CAT-5, it's all the same as far as its purpose is concerned.
So working a step at a time from A (which we know is legal) it is trivial to show that F (what the article is talking about) is just as legal.
Now, I admit the issue is a little grey on pay-per-view and premium channels. I don't know if those things existed back in 1980 when the Betamax decision was written. But, even so, if I can go next door to watch HBO on my friend's TV, why can't I timeshift that same content to a time I'm in the comfort of my own home? Maybe my friend has HBO but I have the better TV/stereo? Again, these would be cases the courts could have mentioned but didn't.
The Internet changes nothing. My friends and I were recording shows for each other in high school back when Internet cost your $10/hour. The only difference the Internet makes is it becomes much more efficient...which is what progress is supposed to do.
"Any reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet... would be aware that messages are received in a recorded format, by their very nature, and can be downloaded or printed," said the court, likening an e-mail message to a message left on a telephone answering machine.
A show of hands please...who here has to log into their answer machine to get messages? What manufacturer makes these password-protected answer machines?
Judges have no business making these kinds of comparisons when they clearly have never even used the technology to begin with. I think the biggest flaw our legal system faces in the 21st+ century is judges who make grand assumptions about technology, rather than have the honesty to admit they don't know how things work and have an expert brought in to explain it to them.
If this guy was posting messages on a newsgroup or something...sure...I would find the statment accurate. I, a reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet would be aware that my messages are being received in a recorded format and and can be downloaded or printed. But for Pete's sake the same is absolutely untrue for e-mail. The very notion that anything I e-mail to someone is available for downloading/printing by anyone but the receipient is a huge privacy violation.
Judges ought not to be making comments about "reasonably intelligent people" who are "savvy about the Internet" when their analogies demonstrate conclusively that they themselves are neither.
You weren't paying attention. You are talking about the situation today and that's not the same as when ZIP drives were released.
ZIP drives came out when CD-R drives cost $500 and media was expensive and was read-only because CD-RW drives didn't even exist. If you had files larger than 1.44MB that you needed to work with, here were your choices:
1) Use PKZIP to segment the file onto a pile of floppy disks. If you make changes to the file then you have to delete the archive and recreate it.
2) Spent a fortune on a CD burner and media and then find yourself burning CDs with 30MB or so on them at $5/each then throwing them away because the data changed and had to be reburned.
3) Save it to a ZIP.
Plus ZIP drives were external so if you had to take the file somewhere that a ZIP drive wasn't installed you just took the drive with you.
Of course ZIP had a small window in history where it was significant, but rather than build on that Iomega coasted and was left in the dust. That's why no one has a ZIP drive today.
Look at SuperDrives (120MB discs that fit into the same size as a regular 1.44MB floppy). They were superior to ZIP. It had slightly bigger capacity and people could get SuperDrives as a replacement to their floppy drive without losing a drive bay or floppy compatibility. Compaq for about a year was offering SuperDrives standard on their Deskpro line.
So why didn't SuperDrive beat ZIP? Because it wasn't first to market with the 10x advantage. All SuperDrive offered was marginal improvement to what ZIP offered. So no one adopted them. And of course, CD-R/RW eventually took over both.
If someone released a drive today that could store the equivalent of 100 CD's just like ZIP could store the equivalent of 100 floppies...that drive would be a success. 80GB on a single disc? Everyone would buy one. The issue of sharing is moot because of external drives. You would initially carry the drive around with you but since everyone would be wanting the new drive the problem goes away.
Just like CD-RW, which you conveniently forget to mention. You can take a CD-R nearly anywhere and read it but I dare you to try that with a CD-RW. It's only now that computers are starting to come with multiread CDs or CD-RW drives to access them. And now we have to content with CD-RW and CD-RW HighSpeed.
I stand by my argument. First to market with 10x advantage will take over and any problems with support and compatibility will work themselves out in due time.
How do you explain the ZIP phenomenon? Here we have a company (Iomega) that wasn't any of the "usual suspects". They created a product that ended up as a huge success even though it was completely closed and proprietary.
Ultimately, Iomega failed because they coasted on their initial success far too long but even today you'll find ZIP drives as options on every desktop and most laptops from major hardware manufacturers. There were even some programs released with ZIP disks as a choice of installation media.
Cringley once wrote an article (I can't seem to find it at the moment) that talked about the 10x factor. If something is 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing alternatices, consumers will flock to it.
I think Cringley hit the nail right on the head. ZIP drives came out right at a time where computer manufacturers were waffling on the subject of increasing floppy capacity. CD recordables were too new and expensive and no one needed THAT much storage. 100MB was perfect and fairly resonable.
FMD easily exceeds the 10x factor. They will be the next Iomega if they can ever produce an actual product. It won't matter what the major players decide to do. People will all buy FDM drives and figure out a way to play video from that. Or they will make dual-use drives. Or people will have one FDM drive and one DVD drive just like most modern systems have one DVD drive and one CD-RW drive.
27GB is nice, but it's not 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing options. People will gradually adopt them but the market is still up for grabs to anyone who can make the 10x factor.
Because MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 have two very different design purposes.
MPEG-2 was developed for highest quality video. On the consumer end, DVDs use bitrates around 8-10Mbps and on the professional end MPEG-2 4:2:2 is something huge like 45Mbps. The compression makes it more managable but it's really just a cursory thing, throw away redundant frame area, etc.
Now on the other hand MPEG-4 was developed for highest possible compression. Your basic DivX file is around 1Mbps or so and looks pretty darn good. But the compression doesn't ramp up...I think it tops out at around 4Mbps. That's probably sufficient for most consumer applications but the professionals need more.
MPEG-4 will continue to be the format of choice for streaming video or other things where bandwidth cost and availablity is the main issue. But MPEG-2 will continue to be the choice in closed systems like cable networks, tv studios, digital theaters, etc.
- JoeShmoe
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AT&T has been doing this for a while
on
TuVox Voice Interface
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I noticed starting about two months ago that whenever I called the main number for AT&T Broadband, I would get the message:
"For digital cable, press or say 1" etc.
A lot of times to avoid complicated and looping voicemail, I just don't press anything to fake like I have a rotary phone and get transferred to the first available agent.
Well, that trick is no more! Since even rotary phone users can say their choices, not doing or saying anything disconnects you. Pretty crafty.
Scientists try to explain the origin of something using the rules that they can prove and this is impossible. Science does not want to ask the question "why?" and be told the answer is just "because".
Creationists accept the origin itself as "God" and thus have no need to delve deeper into where God came from.
Rewind both theories to the very beginning of the tape and you will eventually reach a given that can't be proven. In the case of science, it is: given a large superdense ball of matter here is how it turned into a universe. In the case of religion, it is: given a superior, supernatural being of some kind here is how he created a universe.
All these so-called "discoveries" are just window dressing. Articles like this one remind me of the magicians using eye-catching attention getters to distract people from the charade they are respresenting as truth.
Many years in the future, a bunch of scientists manage to contact God.
"God," they go on to say, "we no longer need you. Anything you can do, we can do. We know now how everything works."
"Is that so?" God responds. "Well, in that case, how about a contest? You create a man, and I'll create a man and we'll see which turns out better."
"Agreed," the scientists repond.
"But," God continues, "you'll have to do it like I did and create a man from the dirt."
"Not a problem," the scientists chortle, knowing enough to be able to resequence basic elements into complex structures like DNA. So, in unison, the scientists get out their beakers, bend down, and scoop up some dirt.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," God says. "You get your own dirt."
My point? Evolution is a non issue. The real debate is in the origin of the framework by which everything evolves. Scientists playing with DNA can make pretty much anything happen. But they still can't create matter with a thought.
This was a program that very briefly let people download streaming RealMedia files to their hard drives to watch later, or even convert them to open formats like MPEG.
Does anyone still have a copy of this program? Can you try it on this site to see if it still works? I know after Real got the company shut down they changed their format around to break a lot of Streambox's functionality.
Every day I still curse Streambox for bending over and let Real have their way with them. If only this site were using Windows Media! ASFRecorder is still working flawlessly even on the latest WM8 files.
...if Slashdot is going to be posting nearly every single article that Cringley writes (five times this past month) shouldn't he basically get his own Slashbox or topic?
I mean, I know Slashdot is a user-submission site but of given Cringley's anti-Microsoft pro-techi slate I think it's a given that someone's going to be submitting everything he writes. Shouldn't Slashdot be somewhat discerning in which articles they post? If I wanted to read everything he wrote I would just bookmark his site (as I have done). To see it posted on Slashdot every week seems, I'm sorry, -1 Redundant.
Aren't these types of systems more for archiving massive amounts of data than actively working on it? I mean, how much data can a computer actively process anyway? Wouldn't a 100GB drive meet just about any processing demands (genome tracking, video editing, etc)?
Why not use slower but MUCH cheaper offline storage? I really like the design goal of
http://www.dvdchanger.com/
You can easily get 1TB of storage with such a device for less than $1000. True, only one person can access it at a time but that is only because PowerFile wants to charge more for so-called "networked version".
In theory, if someone could figure out how to build on of these things, you could throw in a two or three CD/DVD drives for accessing and a 20GB hard drive to buffer images. Boom. Now you have the perfect storage backbone for a house-wide media center. I just wish Linksys or someone would throw a linux thinserver onto of the PowerFile hardware and get me something cheap and network-ready.
First, if I am my own little "government", then why should my information be viewed by people outside of my "country" beyond what is already required by law?
Why do we have the United Nations? Because at some point there may arise an issue between two company/countries and there needs to be a higher source to examine them. And re-read what I said, I did not say anyone should be able to READ this information. I said it should be maintained in case the company goes out of business. If that happens, we need forensics. We need to be able to retrace the last steps to identify any wrongdoing and hopefully make changes to the system to keep it from happening.
Your statements about stockholders have the legal right to inspect the books, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you have companies maintain their own books...they can cook them or keep two sets. Stockholder say "hire an outside auditor" thinking they can keep an eye on things. But guess what? Said outisde auditor is getting paid huge consulting fees which suddenly makes themm a little less picky about profitable business ventures. This is what I'm talking about...the wolf guarding the chicken coop.
Right now, Enron is shaping up to be a big game of fingerpointing. Documents have been shredded. Why? Because the companies themselves were asked to hold evidence agains them. The FBI is now faced with the prospect of having to try and recover files from wiped drives and overwritten backup tapes. How can this be allowed to happen again?
Bottom line, I think we both agree on several changes that should be made to keep Enron from happening again, but as an information packrat, I can't help but find the very concept of "delete" offensive. Coincidentally, I'm against the death penalty for the same reason. You can't undo mistakes. Too many times in my life I've seen important work get stuck in the wrong pile and end up costing someone dearly. I don't have any problem with locking people or documents up ad infinitum but when you take that irreversible step and delete them I find it impossible to prove there will never arise a situation where someone would say "there's been a mistake, we need this person/paper back".
How are businesses like governments? Well, for starters they have a system of leadership that ranges from dictator (sole proprietor) to republic (board members and executive). Sometimes they are wise and good, and others are corrupt cheats.
They pass/enforce business policies that affect their domain. The United States doesn't pass or enforce laws on the rest of the world, only on the United States. Likewise, if Company puts a "law" in their employment contracts that says they own the rights to any ideas you develop while working for them, you have to accept it to move to a different "country". Many large companies even have private "territory" where US laws don't apply. On business campuses they can search cars in their parking lots or employee areas any time they wish. They can also do things like require you pass lie detectors to remain a "citizen".
Finally, they have income, expenses, trade and "gross national products" that are in many cases larger than hundreds of real world nations.
Bottom line, they have money, they have power, and they have the potential to abuse their position and devestate themselves and their "citizen" employees.
Enron employees might as well wish they were Argentinian citizens. At least when countries go bankrupt, they usually get bailed out. Who's going to feed and cloth those 60-year-olds who put twenty years into Enron only to see their savings and retirement vanish into some executive's swiss bank account?
Also documents means that...documents. They can't transcribe every conversation. You can't scan every post-it. But for pete's sake...if you have a server with a bunch of e-mail and policy documents you can easily mirror it.
As far as workload/expenses is concerned, there is no need to target the lowely sole proprietor with a sewing shop. Start with the major corporations. Treat the information like money and use the same level of protection. Banks don't let big customers play with the accounts of smaller customers no matter home much they bully.
The point is that there need to be some Freedom of Information Act that applies to these major corporations. Corporations are given so many privaledges and benefits the least they can be asked is to keep accurate records. Should they go down the tubes society has a right to know why because society is who granted that corporation their charter in the first place.
Why on earth do we want to be considering the destruction of any document in this age of near infinite storage?
I mean, what if the government adopted this policy. What if instead of keeping old documents until they could be declassified the government went ahead and destroyed them? Would we tolerate it? Then why would we tolerate it from business that are for the most part just like little governments?
Paper copies I understand getting rid of. For some companies just a years worth of records fills a small warehouse. But storage space is just so darn cheap and optical media is perfectly suited for long term archiving.
What if thirty years from now (in a fictional paradise) Microsoft went out of business and then the document stores were "declassified". We would finally be able to see exactly what they knew or didn't know about their monopolistic practices. Shouldn't we want to know the inside story so like good little students of history we could either avoid or repeat it (depending on your point of view)?
Our government has done and continues to do some bad, bad things. I mean the CIA implanted a microphone and 20 pounds of batteries in a friggin cat in the hopes he would perch outside the KGB headquarters...radiation testing on humans, stuff like that. But companies can do things that are just as bad.
I think they should pass a law that requires companies to store copies of all documents in escrow with an independant third-part for as long as they are in business. After that, anyone who wants a copy should be able to get it. Of course, some of the stuff will be "classified". If Company B purchases Company A they don't want Company A's secret recipie for sale. Customer billing information would need to be kept secret. But eventually, after enough time, the information would be abandoned and then it should be returned to the public so they can have a full and complete knowledge of what was going on.
How are we going to understand how Enron got away with it for so long if we let the wolf guard the chicken coop?
What if, during the period that the US and several states were suing the Tobacco companies, the big 5 had setup free giveaway kiosks inviting people to "Visit Flavor Country"?
You think the web is already litigious? Wait until you see companies claiming they "own" the rights to certain property.
Like Disneyowning all comment space in/around/driving to Disneyland and using that to squelch any warnings about, say, a child getting his foot caught in a ride.
And food-lovers could post messages outside a restaurant door, giving subsequent visitors an instant endorsement-or a warning to take their custom elsewhere.
Does anyone really think this has a chance? Or isn't it more likely the restaurant owner will sue anyone who posts disparaging messages for libel and slander while at the same time posting 1000 comments extolling the virtues of the food.
The FBI will scream bloody murder about terrorists arranging targets or drug dealers arranding drop off points.
As useful as this idea is, I can't see any possiblility of it existing in the US of A. After all, the Internet is non-coporial and there are still giant bitch-slap fights over companies thinking that some completely unrelated (but similarly named) website in on their turf, when the Internet is actually linked with turf it'll open up Pandora's legal retainer.
Anything that is as techie friendly as you describe isn't going to be setup for individual billing. There wouldn't be any separate meters for utilities, so how would you know what to pay for gas/water/electricity? I sure wouldn't want to pay for the juice to power my neighbor's huge racks of drive arrays.
Also, anything that was a former hotel or business complex would be zoned commercial, thus not allowed for apartment rent/lease, right?
The other side of this question is what about Microsoft's attempts to make VPN a standard part of the OS? Have you noticed how obvious they are being about it?
Back in NT4, it was like an add-on pack in some obscure sub-section of "Remote Access" basically treating it like modem connection.
Then in the 2000 era, it starts being a little more obvious, working hand in hand with Active Directory, having this big Network and Dial-Up Connections category with a wizard that hand-holds you through the VPN porcess.
And now in XP, it's a big bulbous icon right in the Networking dialog. In fact, half of the screen seems reserved for them, IE to make you feel left out if you don't have any VPN items. And now they are throwing in a small (4 user? 5 user?) server aren't they? Before you had to have an NT/2000 server to establish a VPN but I'm pretty sure from reading that Linking XBox story that plain old professional can now act as a VPN server.
Which brings me back to me point...hold long until Microsoft has us all automatically on VPNs any time we do anything over the Internet? Can a cable company really say "We support Windows XP" and at the same time say "We don't support the standard way it makes connections over the Internet."
Well, I was simplifying things with that statment. My point was that there are a few voicemail programs out there that run as an applications and it is extremely easy for people to close them. Not to mention, if you don't login they don't run.
Just like your SQL example, the voicemail service would run on startup and do things like monitor the modem and save input to the hard drive. When the user logs in they would get a separate application that provides the tray icon, probably a status indicator that runs some kind of voicemail management application when clicked.
Slashdot Mirror
A previous poster mentioned this but was marked as flamebait. But the point is valid.
I was not aware of the language in the Sherman Anti-Trust act that the article quotes:
the Sherman Act has a second component aimed at shared abuse of power. To wit: "Every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade is illegal."
That's dynamite. The question has long been raised, why isn't RIAA a monopoly, why doesn't someone file an anti-trust lawsuit against RIAA. The answer invariably given is that RIAA is just a trade group, an industry association that acts on behalf of many recording companies but itself doesn't really do anything.
Screw fighting RIAA...they are a multi-headed hydra. We are pissing away time and effort trying to fight the Hillary Rosen beast.
I think we need to focus on the real target, the recording companies themselves. We need to work towards anti-trust investigations of BMG, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Virgin, etc.
Who could not look at their actions toward online music in the past five years and not see a compelling restraint of trade? In concert (read: conspiracy) the major groups have all withheld licensing from any third-party group that wished to create a value-added-service based on record company products.
This would be like Dell refusing to sell me hardware because I charge people to set the hardware up for them. Dell also sells installation services. So I would be robbing Dell of money while at the same time gaining profit based on Dell hardware.
The argument above is ridiculous. But somehow the argument makes sense when we are talking about intangible intellectual property instead of real physical property...even though the economics of the situation should indicate that there is less risk for the intellectual property!
After all...if Dell were to experiment with promotions...give away servers to try and encourage future business...that represents real risk and real, on the book, loses. But if a record company decides to experiment with the same promotion, give away electronic copies of music to try and encourage future business...there is no risk and no real loss. Oh sure they would argue loss of future profits while at the same time ignoring that this is exactly what radio has been doing the past fifty years.
So then, if there is no real, reportable on the book, losses, shouldn't a record company be MORE willing to engage in unproved or far-sighted enterprises, like online music? But they haven't. They, in concert (read: conspiracy) had their trade group shut down any online company that would seek to gain a profit by adding some new value (search engines, recommendation engines, collections, remote cacheing) that is based on record company products.
That is restraint of trade.
- JoeShmoe
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Radio stations (traditional) have to worry about stomping over another radio station that may be using the same (or nearby) frequency. So yes, there is a difference when you look at the technical level.
But the "they" I was talking about was the existing royalty infrastructure, i.e. the National Association of Broadcasters. Do they distinguish one kind of radio wave from another?
There are already three or four types of radio wave in use for the purpose of broadcasting copyrighted content (AM, FM, AM Stereo, XM, etc). XM is the most recent addition. Couldn't 802.11 (maybe call it iM?) be considered another a new one too?
My point is that if I throw up an 802.11 antenna and start broadcasting music around my neighborhood, why can't I try to join the NAB? And if they tried to block my admission, wouldn't I have a good argument that the block is unjustified given the reasons mentioned in my first posting?
On a similar tangent...the FCC was talking about allowing low-power FM broadcasting, so I wonder if I couldn't put up a local FM broadcast and then qualify for the lower rate webcasting fee, owing to the fact I'm rebroadcasting a radio signal over the Internet.
- JoeShmoe
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What exactly has been done to define "webcasting?" The very term seems completely outdated. No one uses the "web" (HTTP) to deliver music any more. So what is the difference between webcasting and standard radio? Let's examine.
Is it having a web page? Of course not. Regular radio stations have web pages, same as webcasters. So clearly the web page itself is not the key factor.
Is it being digital? I don't think so. Consider the new XM satellite radio systems as well as small regionalized experiments with digital radio transmissions. Yet these would seem to be considered closer to tranitional radio than webcasting.
Is it being interactive? This is a big issue for the record companies...but how much control is required before something is interactive? Almost every radio station lets you e-mail song requests. So then, if a "webcaster" used the same mechanism, and disable any form of direct control, wouldn't they fall under the same category as radio stations?
Is it the content delivery mechanism? Consider the hypothetical situation where my computer has an FM radio card. Clicking on a link tunes my radio card to a radio station playing the song I want. Now I'm doing something interactive, web-based, and on-demand...everything that would seem to point to it being a webcaster, but since the music is coming in over standard radio waves, is it?
All of this brings me to my idea...let's grow 802.11 wireless networks specifically for broadcasting music. We aren't webcasting, it's radio wave transmission...same as regular radio stations. The 802.11 spectrum is licensed by the FCC, same as regular radio station.
Then once we are all broadcasting music via radio waves in our localized region, let's join the NAB and pay the same low royalties as regular radio stations. Could they stop us? What could they use to draw a distinction between one form of radio wave carrying music and another?
- JoeShmoe
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Well, it's a tricky game of words.
Technically, I don't have the rights to make a copy of anything. But since the court have affirmed the principle of "fair use" then I effectively do have that right.
Here we have a law. Now, if the executive branch doesn't enforce the law, then it is as if the law doesn't exist. But let's say the law is enforced. Now, if the judicial branch says "you can't enforce the law in situation X" then for situation X, it is as if the law doesn't exist.
That means the battle is over what X means.
Regarding their right to keep us from timeshifting...I disagree and thing that (eventually) the courts will find this is unacceptable. In the 1970s, book publishers tried to put licenses on books to prevent a wide range of fair use activities (quoting without written permission, reselling, translation, etc). The courts affirmed the "first sale doctrine" which put an end to this practice. I think someday the courts (assuming they are immune from the influence of the copyright cartel, that's a big assumption) will do something similar for other media.
- JoeShmoe
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To quote Blanche in the Simpson retelling of A Streetcar Named Desire:
"A stranger's just a friend you haven't met."
Ha! But seriously...at least on IRC, the channels that form around shows like Futurama, Simpsons, Jackass, 24, Star Trek, Southpark, et cetera are all a pretty tight, close-knit bunch. The regulars all get to know each other. They all discuss the show and they trade items of interest back and form, like clips from unreleased pilots or deleted scenes. In theory it's possible for a total stranger to walk in and download an episode but in practicalty it doesn't happen very often because regulars get taken care of first. Begging leeches tend to get ignore or the boot.
Now with Kazaa and Morpheus...it's a little bit less clear. Whereas IRC is based on chat and file exchanges are secondary, P2P clients for the most part are the opposite. Napster and maybe Direct Connect are the only two that come to mind that have a topic based chat system to help people find other people interested in the same thing. Oh yeah, Filetopia too.
Still...in theory, there is nothing stopping you from talking with someone on Kazaa. I was once messaged by someone who had been searching for Tracy Ullman Simpson shorts and noticed I had the complete collection. Since he typically used Dalnet and I used EFNet, we would have never met if it wasn't for Kazaa and now we know each other pretty well (about as well as you get to know anyone on the Internet) and regularly trade clips and episodes with each other.
The bottom line? I don't think courts can decide what a friend is. I don't think Congress can legislate it. I don't think there could ever be a law passes that says I can only shared with the 20 people closest to me. I don't think the courts could say that just because you don't know someone's real name (just their handle) then it's not really a friend you can trade with.
- JoeShmoe
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There is a big difference between the TV industry and the music industry...the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed our right to time shift televised content.
This means that as soon as a television station airs a program, I have the legal right to record that program to watch it at a different time or to watch it multiple times. So look at it these case situations:
A) Me pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = legal (Betamax decision)
B) Me pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. If the courts did not see any distinction between existing media formats (Beta vs. VHS) then likewise there should be no distinction between media characteristics (magnetic tape vs. magnetic platters)
C) My friend pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. Again, the courts did not specify that timeshifting only applied to the person making the recording. Otherwise how could sons setup the family VCR to record Days of Our Lives for technophobic mom? It's simple to see how it makes no difference who presses the button, the result is the same.
D) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal...combining case B and C.
E) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my monitor = just as legal...again the courts made no requirement for viewing device, whether tuner-ready television or single-channel monitor.
F) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by CAT-5 cable to be viewed on my monitor = JUST AS LEGAL!...because yet again the courts made no requirement for trasmitting cable. Coaxial, Audio/Video, CAT-5, it's all the same as far as its purpose is concerned.
So working a step at a time from A (which we know is legal) it is trivial to show that F (what the article is talking about) is just as legal.
Now, I admit the issue is a little grey on pay-per-view and premium channels. I don't know if those things existed back in 1980 when the Betamax decision was written. But, even so, if I can go next door to watch HBO on my friend's TV, why can't I timeshift that same content to a time I'm in the comfort of my own home? Maybe my friend has HBO but I have the better TV/stereo? Again, these would be cases the courts could have mentioned but didn't.
The Internet changes nothing. My friends and I were recording shows for each other in high school back when Internet cost your $10/hour. The only difference the Internet makes is it becomes much more efficient...which is what progress is supposed to do.
- JoeShmoe
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"Any reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet ... would be aware that messages are received in a recorded format, by their very nature, and can be downloaded or printed," said the court, likening an e-mail message to a message left on a telephone answering machine.
A show of hands please...who here has to log into their answer machine to get messages? What manufacturer makes these password-protected answer machines?
Judges have no business making these kinds of comparisons when they clearly have never even used the technology to begin with. I think the biggest flaw our legal system faces in the 21st+ century is judges who make grand assumptions about technology, rather than have the honesty to admit they don't know how things work and have an expert brought in to explain it to them.
If this guy was posting messages on a newsgroup or something...sure...I would find the statment accurate. I, a reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet would be aware that my messages are being received in a recorded format and and can be downloaded or printed. But for Pete's sake the same is absolutely untrue for e-mail. The very notion that anything I e-mail to someone is available for downloading/printing by anyone but the receipient is a huge privacy violation.
Judges ought not to be making comments about "reasonably intelligent people" who are "savvy about the Internet" when their analogies demonstrate conclusively that they themselves are neither.
- JoeShmoe
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You weren't paying attention. You are talking about the situation today and that's not the same as when ZIP drives were released.
ZIP drives came out when CD-R drives cost $500 and media was expensive and was read-only because CD-RW drives didn't even exist. If you had files larger than 1.44MB that you needed to work with, here were your choices:
1) Use PKZIP to segment the file onto a pile of floppy disks. If you make changes to the file then you have to delete the archive and recreate it.
2) Spent a fortune on a CD burner and media and then find yourself burning CDs with 30MB or so on them at $5/each then throwing them away because the data changed and had to be reburned.
3) Save it to a ZIP.
Plus ZIP drives were external so if you had to take the file somewhere that a ZIP drive wasn't installed you just took the drive with you.
Of course ZIP had a small window in history where it was significant, but rather than build on that Iomega coasted and was left in the dust. That's why no one has a ZIP drive today.
Look at SuperDrives (120MB discs that fit into the same size as a regular 1.44MB floppy). They were superior to ZIP. It had slightly bigger capacity and people could get SuperDrives as a replacement to their floppy drive without losing a drive bay or floppy compatibility. Compaq for about a year was offering SuperDrives standard on their Deskpro line.
So why didn't SuperDrive beat ZIP? Because it wasn't first to market with the 10x advantage. All SuperDrive offered was marginal improvement to what ZIP offered. So no one adopted them. And of course, CD-R/RW eventually took over both.
If someone released a drive today that could store the equivalent of 100 CD's just like ZIP could store the equivalent of 100 floppies...that drive would be a success. 80GB on a single disc? Everyone would buy one. The issue of sharing is moot because of external drives. You would initially carry the drive around with you but since everyone would be wanting the new drive the problem goes away.
Just like CD-RW, which you conveniently forget to mention. You can take a CD-R nearly anywhere and read it but I dare you to try that with a CD-RW. It's only now that computers are starting to come with multiread CDs or CD-RW drives to access them. And now we have to content with CD-RW and CD-RW HighSpeed.
I stand by my argument. First to market with 10x advantage will take over and any problems with support and compatibility will work themselves out in due time.
- JoeShmoe
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Sorry, I have to disagree with YOU.
How do you explain the ZIP phenomenon? Here we have a company (Iomega) that wasn't any of the "usual suspects". They created a product that ended up as a huge success even though it was completely closed and proprietary.
Ultimately, Iomega failed because they coasted on their initial success far too long but even today you'll find ZIP drives as options on every desktop and most laptops from major hardware manufacturers. There were even some programs released with ZIP disks as a choice of installation media.
Cringley once wrote an article (I can't seem to find it at the moment) that talked about the 10x factor. If something is 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing alternatices, consumers will flock to it.
I think Cringley hit the nail right on the head. ZIP drives came out right at a time where computer manufacturers were waffling on the subject of increasing floppy capacity. CD recordables were too new and expensive and no one needed THAT much storage. 100MB was perfect and fairly resonable.
FMD easily exceeds the 10x factor. They will be the next Iomega if they can ever produce an actual product. It won't matter what the major players decide to do. People will all buy FDM drives and figure out a way to play video from that. Or they will make dual-use drives. Or people will have one FDM drive and one DVD drive just like most modern systems have one DVD drive and one CD-RW drive.
27GB is nice, but it's not 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing options. People will gradually adopt them but the market is still up for grabs to anyone who can make the 10x factor.
- JoeShmoe
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Because MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 have two very different design purposes.
MPEG-2 was developed for highest quality video. On the consumer end, DVDs use bitrates around 8-10Mbps and on the professional end MPEG-2 4:2:2 is something huge like 45Mbps. The compression makes it more managable but it's really just a cursory thing, throw away redundant frame area, etc.
Now on the other hand MPEG-4 was developed for highest possible compression. Your basic DivX file is around 1Mbps or so and looks pretty darn good. But the compression doesn't ramp up...I think it tops out at around 4Mbps. That's probably sufficient for most consumer applications but the professionals need more.
MPEG-4 will continue to be the format of choice for streaming video or other things where bandwidth cost and availablity is the main issue. But MPEG-2 will continue to be the choice in closed systems like cable networks, tv studios, digital theaters, etc.
- JoeShmoe
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I noticed starting about two months ago that whenever I called the main number for AT&T Broadband, I would get the message:
"For digital cable, press or say 1" etc.
A lot of times to avoid complicated and looping voicemail, I just don't press anything to fake like I have a rotary phone and get transferred to the first available agent.
Well, that trick is no more! Since even rotary phone users can say their choices, not doing or saying anything disconnects you. Pretty crafty.
- JoeShmoe
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Scientists try to explain the origin of something using the rules that they can prove and this is impossible. Science does not want to ask the question "why?" and be told the answer is just "because".
Creationists accept the origin itself as "God" and thus have no need to delve deeper into where God came from.
Rewind both theories to the very beginning of the tape and you will eventually reach a given that can't be proven. In the case of science, it is: given a large superdense ball of matter here is how it turned into a universe. In the case of religion, it is: given a superior, supernatural being of some kind here is how he created a universe.
All these so-called "discoveries" are just window dressing. Articles like this one remind me of the magicians using eye-catching attention getters to distract people from the charade they are respresenting as truth.
- JoeShmoe
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Many years in the future, a bunch of scientists manage to contact God.
"God," they go on to say, "we no longer need you. Anything you can do, we can do. We know now how everything works."
"Is that so?" God responds. "Well, in that case, how about a contest? You create a man, and I'll create a man and we'll see which turns out better."
"Agreed," the scientists repond.
"But," God continues, "you'll have to do it like I did and create a man from the dirt."
"Not a problem," the scientists chortle, knowing enough to be able to resequence basic elements into complex structures like DNA. So, in unison, the scientists get out their beakers, bend down, and scoop up some dirt.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," God says. "You get your own dirt."
My point? Evolution is a non issue. The real debate is in the origin of the framework by which everything evolves. Scientists playing with DNA can make pretty much anything happen. But they still can't create matter with a thought.
- JoeShmoe
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This was a program that very briefly let people download streaming RealMedia files to their hard drives to watch later, or even convert them to open formats like MPEG.
Does anyone still have a copy of this program? Can you try it on this site to see if it still works? I know after Real got the company shut down they changed their format around to break a lot of Streambox's functionality.
Every day I still curse Streambox for bending over and let Real have their way with them. If only this site were using Windows Media! ASFRecorder is still working flawlessly even on the latest WM8 files.
- JoeShmoe
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Now I actually have some recipies to swap over all those peer-2-peer networks like Kazaa, Direct Connect, eDonkey, etc!
I mean, that's what those networks are all for, right? Right?
- JoeShmoe
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...if Slashdot is going to be posting nearly every single article that Cringley writes (five times this past month) shouldn't he basically get his own Slashbox or topic?
I mean, I know Slashdot is a user-submission site but of given Cringley's anti-Microsoft pro-techi slate I think it's a given that someone's going to be submitting everything he writes. Shouldn't Slashdot be somewhat discerning in which articles they post? If I wanted to read everything he wrote I would just bookmark his site (as I have done). To see it posted on Slashdot every week seems, I'm sorry, -1 Redundant.
How about we just link this and be done with it?
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/
- JoeShmoe
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Aren't these types of systems more for archiving massive amounts of data than actively working on it? I mean, how much data can a computer actively process anyway? Wouldn't a 100GB drive meet just about any processing demands (genome tracking, video editing, etc)?
Why not use slower but MUCH cheaper offline storage? I really like the design goal of
http://www.dvdchanger.com/
You can easily get 1TB of storage with such a device for less than $1000. True, only one person can access it at a time but that is only because PowerFile wants to charge more for so-called "networked version".
In theory, if someone could figure out how to build on of these things, you could throw in a two or three CD/DVD drives for accessing and a 20GB hard drive to buffer images. Boom. Now you have the perfect storage backbone for a house-wide media center. I just wish Linksys or someone would throw a linux thinserver onto of the PowerFile hardware and get me something cheap and network-ready.
- JoeShmoe
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First, if I am my own little "government", then why should my information be viewed by people outside of my "country" beyond what is already required by law?
Why do we have the United Nations? Because at some point there may arise an issue between two company/countries and there needs to be a higher source to examine them. And re-read what I said, I did not say anyone should be able to READ this information. I said it should be maintained in case the company goes out of business. If that happens, we need forensics. We need to be able to retrace the last steps to identify any wrongdoing and hopefully make changes to the system to keep it from happening.
Your statements about stockholders have the legal right to inspect the books, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you have companies maintain their own books...they can cook them or keep two sets. Stockholder say "hire an outside auditor" thinking they can keep an eye on things. But guess what? Said outisde auditor is getting paid huge consulting fees which suddenly makes themm a little less picky about profitable business ventures. This is what I'm talking about...the wolf guarding the chicken coop.
Right now, Enron is shaping up to be a big game of fingerpointing. Documents have been shredded. Why? Because the companies themselves were asked to hold evidence agains them. The FBI is now faced with the prospect of having to try and recover files from wiped drives and overwritten backup tapes. How can this be allowed to happen again?
Bottom line, I think we both agree on several changes that should be made to keep Enron from happening again, but as an information packrat, I can't help but find the very concept of "delete" offensive. Coincidentally, I'm against the death penalty for the same reason. You can't undo mistakes. Too many times in my life I've seen important work get stuck in the wrong pile and end up costing someone dearly. I don't have any problem with locking people or documents up ad infinitum but when you take that irreversible step and delete them I find it impossible to prove there will never arise a situation where someone would say "there's been a mistake, we need this person/paper back".
- JoeShmoe
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How are businesses like governments? Well, for starters they have a system of leadership that ranges from dictator (sole proprietor) to republic (board members and executive). Sometimes they are wise and good, and others are corrupt cheats.
They pass/enforce business policies that affect their domain. The United States doesn't pass or enforce laws on the rest of the world, only on the United States. Likewise, if Company puts a "law" in their employment contracts that says they own the rights to any ideas you develop while working for them, you have to accept it to move to a different "country". Many large companies even have private "territory" where US laws don't apply. On business campuses they can search cars in their parking lots or employee areas any time they wish. They can also do things like require you pass lie detectors to remain a "citizen".
Finally, they have income, expenses, trade and "gross national products" that are in many cases larger than hundreds of real world nations.
Bottom line, they have money, they have power, and they have the potential to abuse their position and devestate themselves and their "citizen" employees.
Enron employees might as well wish they were Argentinian citizens. At least when countries go bankrupt, they usually get bailed out. Who's going to feed and cloth those 60-year-olds who put twenty years into Enron only to see their savings and retirement vanish into some executive's swiss bank account?
Also documents means that...documents. They can't transcribe every conversation. You can't scan every post-it. But for pete's sake...if you have a server with a bunch of e-mail and policy documents you can easily mirror it.
As far as workload/expenses is concerned, there is no need to target the lowely sole proprietor with a sewing shop. Start with the major corporations. Treat the information like money and use the same level of protection. Banks don't let big customers play with the accounts of smaller customers no matter home much they bully.
The point is that there need to be some Freedom of Information Act that applies to these major corporations. Corporations are given so many privaledges and benefits the least they can be asked is to keep accurate records. Should they go down the tubes society has a right to know why because society is who granted that corporation their charter in the first place.
- JoeShmoe
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Why on earth do we want to be considering the destruction of any document in this age of near infinite storage?
I mean, what if the government adopted this policy. What if instead of keeping old documents until they could be declassified the government went ahead and destroyed them? Would we tolerate it? Then why would we tolerate it from business that are for the most part just like little governments?
Paper copies I understand getting rid of. For some companies just a years worth of records fills a small warehouse. But storage space is just so darn cheap and optical media is perfectly suited for long term archiving.
What if thirty years from now (in a fictional paradise) Microsoft went out of business and then the document stores were "declassified". We would finally be able to see exactly what they knew or didn't know about their monopolistic practices. Shouldn't we want to know the inside story so like good little students of history we could either avoid or repeat it (depending on your point of view)?
Our government has done and continues to do some bad, bad things. I mean the CIA implanted a microphone and 20 pounds of batteries in a friggin cat in the hopes he would perch outside the KGB headquarters...radiation testing on humans, stuff like that. But companies can do things that are just as bad.
I think they should pass a law that requires companies to store copies of all documents in escrow with an independant third-part for as long as they are in business. After that, anyone who wants a copy should be able to get it. Of course, some of the stuff will be "classified". If Company B purchases Company A they don't want Company A's secret recipie for sale. Customer billing information would need to be kept secret. But eventually, after enough time, the information would be abandoned and then it should be returned to the public so they can have a full and complete knowledge of what was going on.
How are we going to understand how Enron got away with it for so long if we let the wolf guard the chicken coop?
- JoeShmoe
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What if, during the period that the US and several states were suing the Tobacco companies, the big 5 had setup free giveaway kiosks inviting people to "Visit Flavor Country"?
- JoeShmoe
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You think the web is already litigious? Wait until you see companies claiming they "own" the rights to certain property.
Like Disneyowning all comment space in/around/driving to Disneyland and using that to squelch any warnings about, say, a child getting his foot caught in a ride.
And food-lovers could post messages outside a restaurant door, giving subsequent visitors an instant endorsement-or a warning to take their custom elsewhere.
Does anyone really think this has a chance? Or isn't it more likely the restaurant owner will sue anyone who posts disparaging messages for libel and slander while at the same time posting 1000 comments extolling the virtues of the food.
The FBI will scream bloody murder about terrorists arranging targets or drug dealers arranding drop off points.
As useful as this idea is, I can't see any possiblility of it existing in the US of A. After all, the Internet is non-coporial and there are still giant bitch-slap fights over companies thinking that some completely unrelated (but similarly named) website in on their turf, when the Internet is actually linked with turf it'll open up Pandora's legal retainer.
- JoeShmoe
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Anything that is as techie friendly as you describe isn't going to be setup for individual billing. There wouldn't be any separate meters for utilities, so how would you know what to pay for gas/water/electricity? I sure wouldn't want to pay for the juice to power my neighbor's huge racks of drive arrays.
Also, anything that was a former hotel or business complex would be zoned commercial, thus not allowed for apartment rent/lease, right?
- JoeShmoe
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The other side of this question is what about Microsoft's attempts to make VPN a standard part of the OS? Have you noticed how obvious they are being about it?
Back in NT4, it was like an add-on pack in some obscure sub-section of "Remote Access" basically treating it like modem connection.
Then in the 2000 era, it starts being a little more obvious, working hand in hand with Active Directory, having this big Network and Dial-Up Connections category with a wizard that hand-holds you through the VPN porcess.
And now in XP, it's a big bulbous icon right in the Networking dialog. In fact, half of the screen seems reserved for them, IE to make you feel left out if you don't have any VPN items. And now they are throwing in a small (4 user? 5 user?) server aren't they? Before you had to have an NT/2000 server to establish a VPN but I'm pretty sure from reading that Linking XBox story that plain old professional can now act as a VPN server.
Which brings me back to me point...hold long until Microsoft has us all automatically on VPNs any time we do anything over the Internet? Can a cable company really say "We support Windows XP" and at the same time say "We don't support the standard way it makes connections over the Internet."
- JoeShmoe
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Well, I was simplifying things with that statment. My point was that there are a few voicemail programs out there that run as an applications and it is extremely easy for people to close them. Not to mention, if you don't login they don't run.
Just like your SQL example, the voicemail service would run on startup and do things like monitor the modem and save input to the hard drive. When the user logs in they would get a separate application that provides the tray icon, probably a status indicator that runs some kind of voicemail management application when clicked.