Reader Comments

From a legal perspective, the point of "fair use" in the first place is that it overrides contractual and common law obligations to abide by copyright laws. So (I think) if it is judged to be fair use, the contracts for the song purchases shouldn't be a problem. IMO it is fair use, and I'm pretty sure in Canada the courts have made several pretty anti-RIAA decisions, but who can say what the US Courts will decide?

Absolutely nobody cares about Microsoft's inferior Windows-only technologies.  iTunes owns 80% of the market and still growing, and after tomorrow, we'll be buying movies too.  I'm ecstatic that people are cracking Microsoft's format and giving it a hard time.

Once music is purchased legally and is sitting on a HDD... comments like, "My guess it that Microsoft will shut this thing down pretty quickly." Really go out the door. DRM is nice and all, but there is something to be said about home-field advantage in programming. Its the whole reason why MMO games are client-server based, any security can be comprimised since all security is, is a software construct. If you've got access to all the binaries, nothing is impossible. The only thing that RIAA or any other copywright watchdogs can do is hunt and punish.

"I'm ecstatic that people are cracking Microsoft's format and giving it a hard time" I presume you are just as happy that the iTunes format got cracked also? It was recently hacked, as it has been in the past - presenting the same problems to Apple that Microsoft is currently facing. Oh, and plenty of people care about Microsoft's technologies. Vendors care for one - no vendor is able to use Apple's system at the present, because Apple refuse to license - Microsoft is the only viable choice avaiiable today for music stores wishing to offer an online music delivery method to consumers. As for whether consumers care - well, most consumers who actually buy music from online stores, have probably allready resigned themselves to the fact that their music will have DRM - so they are unlikely to really worry too much whether there is a hacking tool around or not. There are many vendors around competing with iTunes, most of them using Microsoft's technologies which serve them well - it's not the format that is the problem, it is the vendor's inability to compete with iTunes (hence why Microsoft are now 'doing it for themselves' with URGE and Zune) - however, these competing vendors have largely aquited themsevles, surviving well against the sucessful iTunes. If they didn't, iTunes would have the market to itself and would be a monopoly - you know, that thing people criticise Microsoft for being?

What a coincidence--absolutely NOBODY cares to hear from YOU, bonch! Your useless, Apple-biased alleged facts are not only boring to read, they're laughable at best. The fact that you have to come on to this Windows related site daily to post your drivel is a sure sign that you should seek medical attention. You quote "sources" and post links to old reviews from fellow apple fanatics that are useless. Your posts are useless wastes of space. Your useless, wasteful posts fall on deaf ears, so why do you insist on coming here? Goodness gracious, get a life, move out on your own, experience REAL life for a change and stop visiting here! [deep breath] Ok, now that I've got that off my chest...

It's a cat and mouse game. Introduce DRM, DRM gets cracked, vendor reworks DRM, DRM gets cracked... What a joke. That's not to say there shouldn't be ANY DRM, just schemes that aren't unduly restrictive. I'm not really upset at Microsoft, Apple, SONY, or anyone else for trying to implement fair and reasonable DRM; I'm more upset at the thieves that utilize their impressive skills to try to circumvent those schemes. As implemented, the DRM in FairPlay and Protected WMA isn't exactly draconian, so I don't see what the point is. DRM is like a lock on a house. It'll only stop an honest person. There's this thing called "physics" that the RIAA and others should know about--if you can hear it, you can reproduce it. Making DRM so restrictive that you basically can't do anything with the music you purchase will only encourage more thievery. This kind of BS is only going to lead to more and more restrictive DRM until, finally, no one's going to bother purchasing music legally. Then we all lose. Stupid people all the way around.

This may sound harsh, but who the hell cares? Do any of us actually PAY for DRM-laden music? I don't. I get all of my music from either torrents, LimeWire, or friends' CD's. That way I'm free to do whatever I want with the songs and I can rip them at 224 Kbps. And don't even get me started on the DRM that just popped up on Amazon's new movie download service. You can't even play those files in a non-Amazon program! And you can't burn them to a DVD! What a bunch of idiots. It's like releasing a car and telling people they can't drive it on Main St. Or that they can only turn the wheel to the right. Whatever. I'll keep stealing from the RIAA and MPAA. I will continue to sleep soundly at night.

"I presume you are just as happy that the iTunes format got cracked also? It was recently hacked, as it has been in the past - presenting the same problems to Apple that Microsoft is currently facing." No, not the same problems--Apple already has 80% of the market. When they release a new version of iTunes this week, the DRM crack will be surpassed again, and it will take another year for them to crack it, like last time. "Oh, and plenty of people care about Microsoft's technologies. Vendors care for one - no vendor is able to use Apple's system at the present, because Apple refuse to license - Microsoft is the only viable choice avaiiable today for music stores wishing to offer an online music delivery method to consumers." And Microsoft is supplanting PlaysForSure with their Zune player, thereby decimating your entire point. Microsoft isn't going to license their new Zune DRM. By the way, my office bought two new Dell PCs today. I had to go through the long setup wizard, then install printer drivers, then run Windows Update which had a whopping 36 "critical" updates I had to install. All the while, I was clicking off the endless system tray popups, McAffee popups, Dell notification center popups, and Google toolbar popups. And I had to validate with Microsoft's Genuine Advantage. On our Macs? Everything's wireless, so the only cable is the power cord coming out the back of the iMac. I just plugged it in and turned it on. All printers were configured via Bonjour, Apple's zero-configuration networking technology. No driver installation required. No security updates. No registration, antispyware, antivirus, registry cleaner, system restore, or any of that crap. No activation, no serial numbers, no "Genuine Advantage." Clearly, Apple makes the superior hardware and software experience. No wonder people are switching in droves, running screaming from the Windows disaster in which even more top Microsoft executives have left for greener pastures. LOL!

"I get all of my music from either torrents, LimeWire, or friends' CD's. That way I'm free to do whatever I want with the songs and I can rip them at 224 Kbps." I'm sure the artists just love you for making sure they don't get paid today. "Whatever. I'll keep stealing from the RIAA and MPAA. I will continue to sleep soundly at night." You're not stealing from the RIAA and MPAA, you're stealing from the human beings who actually made the music and movies and put them up for sale. I absolutely love pirates and their not-me mindset. "The RIAA made me do it!" You scapegoat the RIAA/MPAA as much as possible to remove the guilt you have over the fact you're ripping people off. Pirates always make sure to leave the artist they're ripping off OUT of the equation because they don't want to remind people that they're not ripping off some faceless corporation, they're ripping off real human beings who spend money to rent a studio or buy a camera, hire actors, buy instruments, and spend half a year creating something artistic for others to buy, so that they can make a living. It's morons like you that are killing industries like PC gaming, which has become so riddled with piracy that everything's going to the consoles. But hey, freeloaders always get bitter when the free ride is taken away.

More disappointed reviews of Windows Vista RC1, the upcoming flop from Microsoft: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/09/07/37OPenterwin_1.html?source=NLC-ENTWINDOW2006-09-11

geez, I said I wouldn't do this, but I can't help myself... bonch, you are a hypocritical imbecile...first you say: "I'm ecstatic that people are cracking Microsoft's format and giving it a hard time" Then you chide bdkjones for his remarks about pirating music. Where is the consistency in those messages? And, even though we all know you are nothing but a zit faced kid, in love with daddy's Mac...you say "...my office bought two new Dell PCs today...Everything's wireless..." If by chance you work in the IT industry, it must be for a very small, very uneducated, non-HIPPA, non-SOX regulated company...since wireless is not allowed in the industries that must follow those regs... I suppose you have Bluetooth enabled on your cell phone so that you can sync up your contacts and calendar with the iSuite on Daddy's Mac...it is considered one of the most insecure protocols there is. IDIOT!!! http://www.thebunker.net/security/bluetooth.htm --tayme

I wonder why Thurrott hasn't banned "bonch" yet.

The problem with DRM is that it is too late to do anything other than hurt *honest* people. Had DRM came with the advent of commercial digital music (Ala the audio CD), where every bit and byte of the audio world was DRM protected, then there would be no alternative sources. Now its true that decoders and other ways to circumvent DRM would have arisen and leaked naked digital audio into the world... but alot of what drives individuals to make things of this sort is the nostalgia of pre-DRM. Fact is, DRM sucks, every single form and permutation. No DRM is always better... .WAV was king. Private and lossless, the way everything should be.

"I wonder why Thurrott hasn't banned "bonch" yet." Look at PT's post activity compared to all the other news posters on WinIT Pro. Its about 5 to 10 times as many... as of recent, all because of Bonch + his backlash.

Apple to meet a whopping 1 million sales of MacBooks by September alone: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2031 And you guys still don't believe the proven 12% marketshare stat. :)  Have fun with your registry cleaners.

"Then you chide bdkjones for his remarks about pirating music. Where is the consistency in those messages?" Piracy is wrong, but I'm happy Microsoft's weak WMA DRM encryption is broken, because Microsoft doesn't belong in the digital media business, nor do they belong making videogame consoles, online video services, or blog sites.  They make spreadsheet software and operating systems, for crying out loud.  This desperate expansion into every imaginable market is exactly why they're dying and why top-level execs are leaving left and right. "Its about 5 to 10 times as many... as of recent, all because of Bonch + his backlash." Heck, I'm the reason comments now use pagination.  When comments were first introduced, the page stretched on for hundreds of posts because of me.  I'm also the reason we have to log in. Clearly, you guys can't get enough of talking to a very happy Mac user.  It must be envy.  Have fun with your antivirus, antispyware, firewall, defragger, and registry cleaner software, along with all associated popups and annoying dialogs.  Me?  I use a Mac, where the only setup is plugging it in and turning it on.  That's called superior, modern design.

By the way, you guys are going to freak when you see what Apple has added to Safari 3.0.  I can actually resize any text input box in real-time by dragging the corner!  Very handy for writing posts on Wininformant...

tayme - I'm upset that you beat me to the punch on debunking bonch's latest "rant". In case someone didn't figure out that bonch is a 15 year old pimply faced kid who wouldn't be able to get a date if his mother paid someone to go out with him, there's this: "By the way, my office bought two new Dell PCs today. I had to go through the long setup wizard, then install printer drivers, then run Windows Update which had a whopping 36 "critical" updates I had to install. All the while, I was clicking off the endless system tray popups, McAffee popups, Dell notification center popups, and Google toolbar popups. And I had to validate with Microsoft's Genuine Advantage." No real administrator in the world would go through that. If you actually worked in the industry, the story would have gone a little like this: We got 2 new Dell's at work. I fired up Ghost to reimage the box to get rid of the demo software from Dell. The image then automatically joined AD, and AD (or SMS) pushed all the needed applications, drivers, fixes and otherwise to the system. Completely automated. "Everything's wireless, so the only cable is the power cord coming out the back of the iMac. I just plugged it in and turned it on. All printers were configured via Bonjour, Apple's zero-configuration networking technology. No driver installation required. No security updates. No registration, antispyware, antivirus, registry cleaner, system restore, or any of that crap. No activation, no serial numbers, no "Genuine Advantage."" And apparently no security either. No WPA configuration. No directory services. No remote administration. No automatic software installation. One las thing, bonchikens. Before you start complaining about piracy, someone should remind you that the RIAA thinks Steve Jobs is raking them over the coals.

"By the way, you guys are going to freak when you see what Apple has added to Safari 3.0. I can actually resize any text input box in real-time by dragging the corner! Very handy for writing posts on Wininformant..." Yes. You have fun dragging text windows while we get some real work done.

once Zune comes out, itune 80% market share will go down to drain...

"Heck, I'm the reason comments now use pagination. When comments were first introduced, the page stretched on for hundreds of posts because of me. I'm also the reason we have to log in." -Typical arrogant Mac fanboy Next up: how bonch singlehandedly upped Apple's notebook marketshare by 6% or more. Everyone here is curious as to *what* industry you are in. I'm guessing it is a small, small business. Any reasonably large company's computer deployment would go something like jersey72's post. Wow! In Safari 3.0, you can resize comment boxes? Incredible! That alone should up my productivity 50% or more! This is obviously much more important than minor issues like fixing the random shutdowns or fires in macBooks.

"Heck, I'm the reason comments now use pagination. When comments were first introduced, the page stretched on for hundreds of posts because of me. I'm also the reason we have to log in." I figured it out...bonch is Al Gore!!! --tayme

Bonch, I'm sorry for you. I really mean that sincerely. I feel real, honest pity for you. This isn't a snide insult or an attempt to dismiss you. I genuinely believe you're an very unhappy individual. I believe your life is barren and bitter. I hope things improve for you. I really do.

Apple MacBooks are already selling a whopping 200,000 ahead of initial predictions! http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/11/apple-receives-outperform-rating-on-back-of-macbooks/ Meanwhile, in the Microsoft world, Vista still isn't out (six years of waiting!), UMPCs didn't do squat, Zune won't do squat either, and nobody cares...

"And, even though we all know you are nothing but a zit faced kid, in love with daddy's Mac...you say "...my office bought two new Dell PCs today...Everything's wireless..." If by chance you work in the IT industry, it must be for a very small, very uneducated, non-HIPPA, non-SOX regulated company...since wireless is not allowed in the industries that must follow those regs..." I know you NEED to dismiss me in such a way because you can't debunk anything I'm saying, but I do the IT for a local branch of a certain national real estate company. Our wireless is encrypted, of course. "One las thing, bonchikens. Before you start complaining about piracy, someone should remind you that the RIAA thinks Steve Jobs is raking them over the coals." What does the RIAA have to do with violating artists rights? Again, pirates are so used to scapegoating and obsessing over the RIAA that they completely forget that they're ripping off the ARTISTS. "No real administrator in the world would go through that. If you actually worked in the industry, the story would have gone a little like this:" No real administrator would suffer through Windows. "We got 2 new Dell's at work. I fired up Ghost to reimage the box to get rid of the demo software from Dell." BZZT--you shouldn't have to do that! And on a Mac, you don't. "The image then automatically joined AD, and AD (or SMS) pushed all the needed applications, drivers, fixes and otherwise to the system. Completely automated." You don't have to push out drivers, the 36 critical updates, and more. You just plug in and turn on. You're justifying a massive, bloated infrastructure to support a failing of the inferior Windows architecture, an architecture Microsoft's own devs refer to as broken and plan to replace in Vienna with a virtual machine for pre-Vienna apps. Do you get it yet? Microsoft itself considers Windows to be brkoken. "Yes. You have fun dragging text windows while we get some real work done." Windows Update?

"And apparently no security either. No WPA configuration. No directory services. No remote administration. No automatic software installation." Uh, where did I say there was no remote administration, wireless security, or automatic software installation? I know you're used to having Windows' inferiority justify your IT job, but at our office, we're interested in getting work done, not wasting time and money wrestling with an OS like Windows that was originally designed in the pre-Internet, single-user era and is vulnerable to a neverending stream of critical Internet Explorer and Office vulnerabilities. Clearly, Microsoft's engineers simply lack the skills necessary to write secure code. "-Typical arrogant Mac fanboy" Typical ignorant Windows fanboys. Hey, where did your Recycle Bin come from again? How about the "File Edit View Window Help" menu? Or pretty much everything in Vista? "Next up: how bonch singlehandedly upped Apple's notebook marketshare by 6% or more." Nope, consumers knocked it up to 12% by themselves. "Everyone here is curious as to *what* industry you are in. I'm guessing it is a small, small business. Any reasonably large company's computer deployment would go something like jersey72's post." You guys *need* to believe I'm unknowledgable and inexperienced, because you can't actually address the points I raise about Microsoft's critically inferior software. It's so poorly designed that they're throwing it out in Vienna and running old apps in a virtual machine--it's THAT bad. "Wow! In Safari 3.0, you can resize comment boxes? Incredible! That alone should up my productivity 50% or more! This is obviously much more important than minor issues like fixing the random shutdowns or fires in macBooks." The random shutdowns they already fixed? And what fires in MacBooks, you mean the Sony batteries in the discontinued PPC portables? More proof of the ignorance of Windows users. Have fun running your registry cleaners, ROFL!

Why is it you guys just won't admit that OS X is a superior operating system? It obviously has the superior design--it doesn't even need wizards to install and remove software like Windows does. And the interface is clearly superior in every way possible. OS X is a clean, modern operating system with top-of-the-line object-oriented development frameworks that totally whoop the slow, bloated .NET Java-rip-off from Microsoft. Things like the resizable text box in Safari are examples of how Apple thinks through every little thing--things you absolutely get used to and are annoyed not to find when you're forced to slum it in Windows. Kind of like Spotlight or being able to move open files without getting a "BONK!" alert dialog like in Windows. That's yet another inferiority of Windows you guys will completely ignore because you can't address it. Just look at the abortion that is the Internet Explorer 7 interface. It's a total puking of buttons and sidebars with no interface consistency whatsoever. In Vista, some apps will have menus, some won't. Wonderful! Hell, Vista won't even be using vector-scaling for its resolution-independence like they originally promised. It's still using old-school bitmap scaling! The whole thing looks like a toy OS. Microsoft is more concerned about tying DirectX 10 and making a "My Games manager" than actually writing a clean, modern operating system that doesn't totally suck and require antivirus/antispyware/firewall/registry cleaner/defragger/system restore software. Think about it, Windows is so broken that it has to take periodic snapshots of its system files and registry in case it screws itself up. ROFL. Not to mention that Windows inherently slows down after months of use (lovingly called "WinRot"). It's hilarious that you defend this crap! Macs run just as fast as the day you first turn them on. Windows is clearly a toy OS for playing videogames, like The Sims. Macs are for getting real work done.

By the way, what's it feel like to still be using an operating system dating way back to the year 2001? Are you guys still running that hysterical Fisher Price blue-and-red theme? Don't you tire of Microsoft patronizing you with that kiddie visual look? Aqua is clear and beautiful and stays out of your way. Windows XP and Vista are explosions of blue-green wasted space, tons of hyperlinks, paragraphs of text, buttons, wizards, popups, and more. Heck, Vista's windows are still like reading friggin' short stories--endless paragraphs of text. Apple actually employs real interface design. It's the reason Microsoft continues to rip them off to this day. Nearly everything in Vista, even down to the tray icon for the system volume, is stolen directly from Mac OS X. Top execs are fleeing left and right. This company is going down the tubes, the stock price has been flat since XP...what does it take for you guys to get off this ancient beast? After using a Mac, using Windows feels like traveling back in time. Win32 apps are so incredibly ugly and dated, which makes sense because the APIs date back to 1985! Vista won't even use EFI, forcing you guys to use the 25-year-old BIOS firmware. It's the reason Windows boots in 30-60 seconds OS X boots in 12.

It must tell you something when even the posters at "Windows enthusiast" sites like ActiveWin and AeroXP constantly mock Windows Vista and Microsoft. It's all a freaking joke. I love the new HP laptop with optional webcam built in to the top of the screen with a microphone beside it. Hmm, wonder where THAT idea came from? ROFL. Have fun being followers, guys. After Vista, enjoy the next five-year wait (after the pointless "second edition" Vista update codenamed Fuji, of course, which none of you will criticize despite criticizing Apple for releasing OS X updates often). $400 for Vista Ultimate Edition! $200 for Home Basic Edition! Separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions that won't run each other's drivers and apps! ROFLMAO...suckers.

"Bonch, I'm sorry for you. I really mean that sincerely. I feel real, honest pity for you. This isn't a snide insult or an attempt to dismiss you. I genuinely believe you're an very unhappy individual. I believe your life is barren and bitter. I hope things improve for you. I really do." On the contrary, when I'm not working IT, I make some nice cash doing a ton of freelance design work and photography, using a Mac, of course. Windows can't handle things like feature film editing or music multi-tracking very well, if at all (it's just now getting around to fixing its broken sound system and compositing, in the year 2007...). I love how broken the Windows interface is--every window creates a button on the taskbar despite sharing a process, so if you close the main Firefox window, Firefox is still running if you have the Downloads window open, which is unintuitive to the user. On a Mac, all windows are document windows of one app instance clearly denoted on the Dock, so you know the process is still running. Notice how Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and other apps keep their windows in a big parent window with a gray background behind it? Did you know that's an attempt to emulate the Mac OS desktop, which groups its windows into one app as I described? LOL... "OS X is clearly better than Windows...especially for power users." - Paul Thurrott

"I know you're used to having Windows' inferiority justify your IT job, but at our office, we're interested in getting work done, not wasting time and money wrestling with an OS like Windows that was originally designed in the pre-Internet, single-user era and is vulnerable to a neverending stream of critical Internet Explorer and Office vulnerabilities. Clearly, Microsoft's engineers simply lack the skills necessary to write secure code." I guess, in that case, the question becomes - why do you have Windows at all at your office if OS X is so clearly superior?

Bonch, it doesn't matter if you make lots of cash doing IT or design or whatever. You're still very unhappy. These rants are far more than a debate about computer technology. You are determined to belong to one "side", and feel you must despise the other. You act like someone who is alone and alienated and you have this massive need to belong to a faction. It's like you can only define yourself as somone who hates Microsoft. Your anger has nothing to do with the merits of Apple systems. It's really sad and I hope you can find something or someone in your life that is actually worth such intense feeling.

Whether he is unhappy most certainly has nothing to do with his job, and its apparent ZERO responsibilities. Either that, or bonch should be a court-reporter... the sheer number of posts is flooring! And this could have turned into a really interesting discussion of fair use. I'm with bdkjones... I download only mp3s from torrents, and sleep soundly. I'm NOT stealing from artists AS MUCH as the record companies are with their restrictive subrogation of copy rights. It's all a relative term. What we do when we d/l is wrong, but it's far less wrong than the alternative.

Back On Topic... I buy CD's from the Artists directly - when they play shows here. the less money I can give to the record companies the better. If they don't come around, I order them either from the artists websites or from my local, small business CD store. Then I rip them and sell teh CDs to a user CD store. I also use torrent sites to find music I can't find or to download soon to be released stuff. If it's good, I'll buy the CD, rip it and sell it. If it's crap, I won't buy it. I will *never* buy DRM protected content from *any* company.

CNN reports that you get more for your money with Apple's new iMac: http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/11/magazines/fortune/New_Intel_24inApple.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2006091112 Frankly, there's no reason not to buy a Mac these days.  OS X for the real work, dual-booting into Windows for playing videogames (which Windows is designed for).

bonch, make a deal with you.... when the "artists" stop making 20 million a picture, I'll make sure the "Pirates" start feeling guilty. now then, who's ripping who off???? BTW bought my wife a macbook, makes a good web browser. Hope, for your arguments sake Leopard is more stable than Tiger would hate for you to look foolish or anything.....

"No real administrator would suffer through Windows." Sorry, I can't stop myself from laughing. I guess that means 90% of IT folks are not "real administrators." What are they, then? "Fake" administrators? "Inferior" admins? What? The large corporation I work for uses PCs *exclusively.* We have several in-house apps that we developed that only run on *windows.* Does that make us "fake" admins? Tell me how moving to OS X would save us money? We manage several plants, each with hundreds of PCs running Windows just fine. When a computer dies, we buy another Dell. bonch, I don't know what you are smoking, but Apple has not fixed the random shutdown issue. Last post about an "announcement" from Apple in Digg received hundreds of Diggers complaining about Apple's poor customer service, spending hundreds of $$$$ while their macBook was under warranty, and the shutdown issue *remained.* If you have an official response from Apple, complete with the reasons *why* the macBooks are shutting down, please post! I'm keeping my Dell, which has had *0* issues so far. I would prefer the one-per-6-month BSOD to a randomly shutting down macBook with *no* auto-recover capabilities.

Bonch, how can you not see how abnormal your behaviour is? Look at yourself. Look at what you're doing. Don't you ever question your own motivations? Don't you realise that you're behaving like a seriously damaged individual? On this forum, you have demonstrated nothing but social dysfunction. You have advertised in the most blatant manner your inability to interact in a normal healthy manner with others. It's so obvious that you don't really care about Apple or Microsoft. It's so obvious you just want to belong to something and feel like you're fighting for the good guys. It is tragic to witness. Everyone else can see this. Why can't you?

On topic, I also refuse to d/l or buy DRM protected music. Since I am a classical music aficionado, the music to which I listen I buy from concerts or occasionally from a music store. I feel that d/l music via torrent or P2P is morally wrong, even with justifications like "The recording industry is ripping off the artist more than I am." Two wrongs do not make a right. Buying directly from an artist or buying DRM-free music is the way to go. I do agree, however, that until the RIAA mandates quantum-encryption DRM, the DRM algorithms will be cracked. It is a never-ending circle. If you think music is bad, try recent computer games! The manufacturers will try all sorts of things to prevent you from running a CD image or using a duplicate of the Cd/DVD, including installing a low-level driver that is known to affect the stability of Windows. The new schemes work for 10 days or so, and then someone cracks them. Round and round we go. Intellectual property was *so* much easier to protect before computers...

Confusious say: The wise speak when they have something to say, the fools speak when they have to say something. tom275 bonch will84 MLomasIcomm sdavis lotsamystuff bdkjones bonch bonch bonch tayme Mystery will84 will84 bonch bonch bonch jersey72 shark47 cuibap NateB2 tayme pi3600 bonch bonch bonch bonch bonch bonch bonch jersey72 pi3600 tom275 sticknick bonch uscs8632 NateB2 pi3600 will84 bdkjones 1 bonch 15 cuibap 1 jersey72 2 lotsamystuff 1 MLomasIcomm 1 Mystery 1 NateB2 2 pi3600 3 sdavis 1 shark47 1 sticknick 1 tayme 2 tom275 2 uscs8632 1 will84 3 Bonch vs. Everyone Else 1:1.53 posts.

about that CNN link bonch posted (which just appeared in Digg, BTW), has *0* credibility. In the comparison sheet, the dell has comments like "The iMac operating system is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Dell's operating system is Genuine Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005 Edition. Both are scheduled to be upgraded early next year, the Mac OS to version 10.5, code-named Leopard, and Windows to several versions of Vista. Vista will offer lots of features found today in Tiger, including greater resistance to worms, viruses and other security attacks. For now, it's no contest." (for OS X) Bye, bye credibility! The comparisons I am looking for go along the lines of www.xvsxp.com This comparison is the most exhaustive comparison between XP and OS 10.4. I cannot find *any* bias one way or another. (BTW, they rated OS X a few points higher than XP). I don't mind who *wins* in a comparison, as long as the comparison is NOT BIASED. I have a suggestion regarding our fav. troll: the people who do not want bonch posting on these articles should email Paul. If enough people email him, he should see the issue and work to correct it.

A) I do support artists. I do not support record companies. I believe record companies are a dying entity and that soon artists will simply offer their music directly to consumers through venues like iTunes, Rhapsody, and Urge. I look forward to the day that happens. B) I buy plenty of concert tickets and CD's. I own, for example, every album Bruce Springsteen has ever put out. Even though I know only a small amount of the purchase price goes to Bruce, I still bought them all. C) I think artists are overpaid. Watch an episode of MTV Cribs where they show you the 14 year old rapper who has a $400,000 car in his garage that he can't even drive yet. D) Most of the music I like is not represented by big-name labels. I get much of my library from demo CDs or from the bands themselves. These guys are just happy to BE in someone's library - they make music because it's what they love, not because it makes them money. Call me a pirate, call me cheap, call me anything you want. Until the RIAA releases me to use downloaded music HOWEVER THE HELL I WANT they will not get a red cent from me. If that forces artists to drive a lexus instead of a lamborghini, well, then, cry me a river.

Sticknick: Thank you! I'm always glad to hear that other people don't buy music at Wal-Mart! It's a shame that very few towns still have small music stores left. If you get to know the people that work there, they will introduce you to more music and more artists than you could ever unearth in a lifetime of trial and error. I love it. And I love the fact that when I go to buy a CD I drive 20 minutes past one of my FOUR local Wal-Marts. And to Everyone: THESE are the types of artists that need your money. The ones you don't even know about who work crappy jobs hoping to be discovered. Most of the artists on iTunes (the ones that make the top 10 list anyway) don't need another cent for the rest of their lives. U2 is freakin' set. Britney - check. Whichever-rapper-didn't-get-shot-today: more diamonds than God. I have no problem depriving these "artists" of my money. I'd much rather spend it helping some young kid buy a new amp. Especially if that means showing up at his gig and putting a twenty in the donations box on the corner of the stage.

Greetings bonch. Out of general curiosity, how old are you exactly? The obsessiveness of your posts are disturbing. The fact that you seem to spend all day on this site, even more so. The amount of sexual frustration evident in your posts suggests you are in the age range of around 22 or so. It's cool that you are in love with Macs. Everyone has their obsessions. I would caution you to latch onto something that isn't so fragile, however. All it takes is a freak lightning strike, a power surge, or a solar flare to wipe out our computers and then we don't get to enjoy those fun glowing pixels. In the end, it's all just pixels on a screen. It can all be wiped out in a snap. Get some fresh air sometimes, the real world is pretty exciting.

"By the way, my office bought two new Dell PCs today. I had to go through the long setup wizard, then ....." Firstly, what the hell has that got to do with digital media? Secondly, this line of thought demonstrates yet again, why you don't know what you are talking about. If in doubt, fall back on the only argument you have - ie, that Microsoft sucks. You can't demonstrate why Microsoft sucks - you think you can but you can't. We keep getting these little snippits of 'Windows is just for games' and 'Apple's hardware is superior' backed up with words like 'clearly' and 'obviously' - as if you are genuinely surprised that the whole world isn't allready using Macs. I've got some news for you. The world isn't running from WIndows, because it simply isn't a disaster - you want people to think that it's a disaster, but just saying it over and over again on this forum (and I'm sure others), won't make it true Bonch, it just won't. Face it - you're wrong, you know you're wrong, and you've proven yourself to be someone who doesn't actually know what you're talking about. Meanwhile, I'm sat here at my office, working as a network engineer in an IT industry where desktop computing is dominated by Windows - and no-one, repeat no-one, is crying out for a Mac, - not one person Bonch, has come to us and said 'god, I can't get any work done on Windows, can I have a Mac please?' As for the whole Zune thing, which supposedly "decimates" My argument - i don't think it does. Microsoft aren't withdrawing their digital media platform from competitors - they're using the same basic technology on the Zune and Urge that the current Windows media platform uses.

>>I love the new HP laptop with optional webcam built in to the top of the screen with a microphone beside it. Hmm, wonder where THAT idea came from? ROFL. Sony PCG-C1 circa September 1998? http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199809/98-085/index.html

">>I love the new HP laptop with optional webcam built in to the top of the screen with a microphone beside it. Hmm, wonder where THAT idea came from? ROFL. Sony PCG-C1 circa September 1998? http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199809/98-085/index.html" Wow... bonch, i think you owe HP an apology... and Apple needs to stop stealing from Sony like that! LoL >.>

Apple officially kills any chances Microsoft ever had of entering the living room with the Zun, XBox, or Media Center PCs: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/12/live-from-the-steve-jobs-keynote-its-showtime Meanwhile, Microsoft still hasn't delivered any products this year...

But Sony were providing a hifi-style form factor Media PC with HDMI connector, 802.11, ethernet, USB2, optical audio, and remote control designed for the living room back in October 2005. http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/computer_peripheral/desktops/release/9044.html The XL1 also had a media card reader, iLink, FM Radio, DVD player and harddisk recorder built in as well. Stream your video to any XBox in the house if you like. Liked it so much I went out and bought the updated XL2 earlier this year.

Having a read of that Apple Keynote link, good to see Apple finally included gapless playback their iPods. About time! Sony were offering up gapless playback on their first generation Hard disk players back in June 2004. http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/portable_audio/walkman_players/release/8835.html (Hang on, there's a theme developing here.....)

Influential Windows writer ditches all Microsoft software and switches to Mac; says Vista "looks like a pile of crap compared to OS X": http://peterwright.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-bye-microsoft-pete-has-now-left.html

>>When they release a new version of iTunes this week, the DRM crack will be surpassed again, and it will take another year for them to crack it, like last time. Or rather 8 hours and 1 minute. Igor's quite the cracker. http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/13/itunes-7-patches-qtfairuse-2-2-qtfairuse-2-3-patches-itunes-7/

"When they release a new version of iTunes this week, the DRM crack will be surpassed again, and it will take another year for them to crack it, like last time." LOL - good prediction Bonch - too bad it's wrong. Itunes 7 is released now, and a few /hours/ later - QTFairUse has been updated to allow it to carry on cracking the iTunes files!