*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info

iTunes 7.0.2
Posted by: Digital Dave on October 31, 2006 11:07 PM
Fixes, fixes, and more fixes...

- Majorgeeks.com

iTunes 7.0.2
Author: Apple Computer
Date: 2006-10-31
Size: 35 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K

Download iTunes 7 and make yourself at home. Buy music, movies, TV shows, and audiobooks, or download free podcasts from the iTunes Store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Play everything on your Mac or PC. Then sync it to your iPod and bring it along. Anywhere.


download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/iTunes_d5285.html

 

S3 Twice as Power-Hungry as XBox 360
Posted by: Digital Dave on October 31, 2006 5:02 PM
Holy crap!

Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3, due on US shores on November 17, sucks up 380 watts of power, a far cry from the PS2 which sips a mere 45 watts. That means the PS3 uses more than twice the 160 watts consumed by the Xbox 360. The PS3's 380 watts will cost you around $40 a year to run if you play it two hours a day.

- gizmodo.com


more info here
link
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/ps3-twice-as-powerhungry-as-xbox-360-211005.php

 

I came across this newsstory that i just had to share with you boys and girls, because i believe it's a perfect example of how we should treat murderers, rapists and child molesters :
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/10/30/inmate.tattoo.ap/index.html

=======================================================================
Victim's cousin charged with tattooing killer
POSTED: 12:17 p.m. EST, October 30, 2006

COLUMBUS, Indiana (AP) -- An inmate accused of forcibly tattooing a slain 10-year-old girl's name onto her killer's forehead in an Indiana prison was the victim's cousin, a family friend said.

Jared Harris, 22, is a cousin of Katlyn "Katie" Collman, family friend and spokesman Terry Gray told The Republic newspaper. He said he did not believe they knew each other well.

Harris, 22, who is serving time on a burglary conviction at Wabash Valley state prison in Carlisle, has been charged with battery and accused of tattooing "KATIE'S REVENGE" across Anthony Ray Stockelman's forehead.

Harris told prison officials the attack was in revenge, according to an affidavit.

Stockelman is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to abducting, molesting and killing the fourth-grader, who lived about 70 miles south of Indianapolis. She was missing for five days before her body was found January 30, 2005, in a creek about 15 miles from her home.

The affidavit said that prison officials transferred Harris to the same prison wing as Stockelman on September 19, three days before the attack, and that Harris subsequently threatened Stockelman's life several times.

Harris slipped into the open cell Stockelman shared with another prisoner on September 22 and, when Stockelman returned, Harris closed the locking cell door, according to the affidavit.

Stockelman told investigators that Harris put his right hand around his throat and told him, "I'm either gonna stick you and leave you bleeding or I'm gonna tattoo you." After applying the tattoo, Harris discarded the tattoo gun in a prison trash can, he told investigators.

It was unclear how he had gotten the tattoo gun.
======================================================================

Now this, i think, is a great example of frontier justice.

 

@The_FIend....here's his photo. It was on the front page of the Philly Daily News LOL! (must have been a slow day for news!):



Looks more like needles and ink than an actual gun.

 

when i posted the info i did not have time to check it out...
i just checked it,your right ddp


Get free anti-virus and anti-spyware
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link
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

download here
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5

 

Another denial-of-service bug found in Firefox 2


By Joris Evers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 1, 2006, 12:52 PM PST
Tell us what you think about this storyTalkBack E-mail this story to a friendE-mail View this story formatted for printingPrint Add to your del.icio.usdel.icio.us Digg this storyDigg this

A second security flaw that could cause the new Firefox 2 browser to crash has been publicly disclosed.

The vulnerability lies in the way the open-source browser handles JavaScript code. Viewing a rigged Web page will cause the browser to exit, a representative for Mozilla, the publisher of the software, said Wednesday. Contrary to claims on security mailing lists, the bug cannot be exploited to run arbitrary code on a PC running Firefox 2, the representative said.

This flaw in the JavaScript Range object is different from the denial-of-service vulnerability in Firefox 2 that was confirmed by Mozilla last week. That bug is related to a more serious security hole, which was fixed in earlier versions of Firefox, the organization has said.

The two "crashers" are the only publicly released vulnerabilities that have been confirmed by Mozilla in the week since Firefox 2 was launched. The issues are only minor, the organization has said.

By contrast, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 update suffers from a spoofing flaw, discovered a week after Microsoft released IE 7 on Oct. 18. The vulnerability could help crooks mask phishing scams, the type of attack Microsoft designed the browser to thwart.

According to Secunia, a security monitoring company, there are at least two other vulnerabilities in IE 7. Microsoft has disputed these issues, saying that one reported problem lies in Outlook Express, not IE 7, and the other is a part of the product design, not a flaw.

Release of the new Web browsers set off a race among bug hunters to come up with the first security hole in either program. So far, though, none of the reported flaws could be exploited to hijack a PC running the browser, the most serious type of vulnerability.

http://news.com.com/Another+denial-...refox+2/2100-1002_3-6131624.html?tag=nefd.top

 

gerry1, bieng from Philly are you familiar with 4th and Bainbridge?

 

RIAA goes after Santangelo kids

p2pnet.net News:- It was inevitable.

Having made New York mother Patti Santangelo's life quite literally a living hell, Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal have now turned their attentions to two of her children, Michelle, 20, and Robert, 16, going so far as to blackmail Robert's best friend into making statements against him.

"With Christmas only sixty days away, the Big Four Organized Music labels are bent on using children to continue their bizarre attack on people they allege have shared files online," p2pnet posted last year. Because, "looming over her children," Michelle, Nicole, Bobby Jack and Ryan, was the RIAA.

Members of the Organized Music cartel, the Big Four, are completely out of control as they go after, and deliberately and knowingly terrorize, innocent men and women, and even children, around the world who don't have a hope in hell of standing up to them, their billions of dollars, their corrupt political and media connections, their legions of lawyers.

'Competition' is an obscene word to Warner Music, et al. They have to have it all and as an integral part of their efforts to make sure they gain total control of how, and by whom, music is distributed online, they're accusing their own customers of being 'criminals' and 'thieves,' aided and abetted in this by the mainstream media who repeat cartel allegations unchallenged as though they're proven facts from credible sources.

Almost a year ago p2pnet readers decided to do what they could to help Patti Santangelo, the New York mother of five who decided she'd stand up to the Big Four.

They've so far contributed $14,299.41 to the Patti Santangelo Fight Goliath defence fund.

But who's standing up for Michelle and Robert as their legal representative? At the time of writing, no one.

'Hard fought discovery and investigation'

Here's part of what the Big Four say through Robinson & Cole and Holme Roberts & Owen, the companies fielding the teams of lawyers Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal are paying to savage the Santangelos.

Notwithstanding the vigorous and public denials by Patricia Santangelo and by the Defendants of their involvement in the substantial copyright infringement alleged, which denials went on for over one year, the evidence developed from these themselves and other witnesses in the Particia Santangelo Action has conclusively established that these Defendants are, indeed, responsible for the infringement at issue, having downloaded and distributed over 1,000 sound recordings through such sharing programs.

And,

...after a year of hard-fought and expensive discovery and investigation, Plaintiffs have discovered that both engaged in massive infringement at issue here. Indeed, notwithstanding their prior denials of their involvement, Defendant Michelle Santangelo has now admitted under oath to substantial and ongoing infringement of Plaintiff's significant copyright interests. Similarly, although Robert Santangelo, Jr. testified under oath that he took no part in the infringement at issue, his former neighbor and best friend testified at length as to how he and Defendant Robert Santangelo, Jr. had together downloaded a file-sharing program and distributed these same recordings (the neighbor has settled Plaintiff's claims against him by paying a settlement amount and by agreeing to the same injunctive language that Plaintiffs seek to have entered in this case).

The impression given is that Michelle was testifying during a trial. However, it was actually a deposition hearing during which is evidence given under oath for use in a court at some future date. In the US, it's part of the discovery process through which both sides get information from each other for the upcoming trial.

Jordan Glass, Patti Santangelos' lawyer, says he was there, but doesn't remember Michelle "admitting or acknowledging" downloading.

Michelle may be 20 how, but she was 16 when the RIAA first zoomed in on her, and Robert - Bobby - was only 12.

Moreover, claims made in this kind of document are by no means evidence. In fact, they're often little more than one step above the extortionate frighteners lawyers routinely mail and email to their clients' victims as part of the softening up process.

The labels: haemorrhaging credibility and customers

File sharing is no more a form of theft now than it was the past when people taped music from the radio and vinyl discs, re-playing the music for themselves, or passing it around to friends. Music lovers do the same today, although in this digital 21st century, tracks come from CDs legally bought in record stores, or downloaded.

Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal claim sharing music results in sales lost, as though someone who's received a track would have otherwise gone out and bought it.

However, the reality is the same now as it was in the 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, 80s and 90s. That's to say if someone hears something they like, no matter where they heard it, they'll probably go and buy it.

Meanwhile, the labels are haemorrhaging credibility and customers wholly and solely because of bad product, bad business decisions, bad management, and bad taste.

The issue that's most urgent, "for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music - Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI" is sSo far, they've been slow to embrace the Net, "which has seemed to them not an opportunity but their nemesis," says The Economist.

And that was in 2004. "Rather than putting their product on file-sharing applications, they are prosecuting free-download users for theft," it said, concluding that online music, "might truly take off if the majors were to make a truce with the file-sharing networks".

'Hundreds of millions of wicked file sharers'

I've known the Santangelos for more than a year now and they're just like you and me. They're no more criminals and thieves than the labels are honest, aggrieved companies trying to keep their heads above water as they're being "devastated" (their word) by the depredations of hundreds of millions of wicked file sharers.

In fact, the only people being devastated are the families being sued by Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal.

The lawsuits are terrifying. Victims, all of them very ordinary people with very ordinary means, don't know what to do, how to respond, how to find legal help, or how to pay for it if they can manage that.

And on top of it, they're continually harrassed by the so-called settlement centres which try to extort payments on behalf of the Big Four.

Some people are lucky enough to find attorneys willing to represent them pro bono. But they're few and far between and anyway, to be blunt, services rendered by a pro bono lawyer aren't likely to be on the same level as those delivered by lawyers who are being paid for their time and whose client can afford the "expensive discovery and investigation" processes flaunted by the Big Four and their legal teams.

But music lovers don't depend on the Big Four. It's the other way around and Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal can no longer get away with this kind of corporate terrorism.

They used to control the international press corps but today, thanks to the Net, people everywhere are now their own information providers and there's a phrase the Big Four would do well to bear in mind:

Critical mass.

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton

Also See:
around the world - RIAA sues wheelchair mother, November 1, 2006
stand up to the Big Four - RIAA victim talks to p2pnet, September 4, 2005
bizarre attack - RIAA ready to attack more kids, December 19, 2006
The Economist - Music's brighter future, October 28, 2004

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Thursday 2nd November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10296?PHPSESSID=2d58672caae5da1187bb4e16bf5344bc

 

for ye vista lovers out there,some good news..
MICROSOFT HAD A CHANGE OF HEART!!!!!!!

Microsoft backtracks on Vista transfer limits


By Ina Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 2, 2006, 11:00 AM PST
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REDMOND, Wash.--Reversing a licensing change announced two weeks ago, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will not limit the number of times that retail customers can transfer their Windows Vista license to a different computer.

On Oct. 16, Microsoft issued the new user license for Vista, including terms that would have limited the ability of those who buy a boxed copy of the operating system to transfer that license. Under the proposed terms, users could have made such a switch only one time.
However, the new restriction prompted an outcry among hardware enthusiasts and others. Microsoft is returning the licensing terms to basically what they were in Windows XP--users can transfer their license to a new PC an unlimited number of times, provided they uninstall and stop using it on the prior machine.

The software maker said it paid attention to the response both directly to the company and on blogs and decided to reverse course. Microsoft had hoped to use the change to aid its ongoing efforts to thwart piracy.

"We're trying to be really clear about our intention to prevent piracy," said Microsoft product manager Mike Burk. "At the same time, after listening to the feedback that came in, (we) felt that we needed to make this change."

By reversing course, Burk said, Microsoft hoped to assuage users' concerns, particularly those of hobbyists who frequently upgrade the components of their PC, in some cases triggering Windows to consider the machine a new PC.

The plan to limit transfers was part of a series of changes to the terms that apply to boxed copies of Vista, not to the license that comes on a new, Vista-equipped PC. Separate rules apply for the versions of Windows installed on new PCs, which is how the majority of buyers get their copy of Windows. Typically, copies of Windows purchased on a new PC cannot legally be transferred to another PC.

Burk said that Microsoft isn't planning to back off any of its other planned licensing changes, including a move related to virtualization, in which a computer runs multiple operating systems, or multiple copies of the same operating system, at the same time.

Under those new license terms, any Windows version can serve as the primary, or host, operating system. However, only the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista can run as guest operating systems in virtualization.

"We're not planning on making any other changes," Burk said. "We'll keep listening to people's feedback."

link
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6131900.html?part=rss&tag=6131900&subj=news

 

Spanish judge rules downloading music is legal

A Spanish state's prosecutor's office along with two music distribution associations accused a 48-year-old man of downloading music and offering them on CD via e-mail and chat room requests and aimed to have a two year sentence put against him. However, as there was no proof that this person made a profit from selling CDs and that the Spanish permits the downloading of music for personal use, the northern city of Santander Judge dismissed the case.

This ruling has made a major hit at the Spanish music industry, since it effectively allows Internet users in Spain to freely download and share music without being punished. As a result, the Spanish rerecording industry federation Promusicae plans on appealing the Judge's decision. Spain is also in the process of drafting new legislation to remove consumer's right to private copying.

Unfortunately, it is unclear at this time how much the new drafted legislation will affect Spanish consumers, as a certain level of private copying needs to be allowed in order to allow consumers to transfer CDs to their MP3 player, purchased downloads to CD and so on. Then again, even though consumers in the UK don't think twice of transferring music from CD to their iPod, Creative or other MP3 player, apparently this is actually against the law there.

 

At least there's one just judge...

 

Mother of all gaming machines emerges in UK

Quad core, water-cooling, Geforce 8800 GTX SLI and all. Only £5400

By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 03 November 2006, 12:19
UK FIRM, VADIM Computers decided to make the mother of all gaming machines.

The firm put plugged two Geforce 8800 GTX cards, water-cooled, into an Asus P5N32-SLI Premium WiFi-AP (1066 FSB Conroe) board, powered with Intel Core 2 Quad QX6700 Extreme retail (4x2.66GHz 1066FSB 8Mb) and Patriot DDR2-1066 2x1024MB ELK series dual-channel kit memory.

The firm also bunged in an Asus Ageia PhysX Accelerator. Plus, the machine comes with two 150Gb Raptor 10000 16mb E-SATA disks as system drivers and a 750Gb Barracuda 7200.10 16mb Cache SATA II NCQ drive for storage.

You will also get a CDRW DVD Combo 52x32x52x16, Black Optical Drive and Pioneer 111DBK DVDRW Black. The sound card naturally comes from Creative labs 7.1 X-FI Extreme Music and it is all installed on Windows XP 64-bit.

Before we forget the machine is packed in Lian-Li V2100B Plus Black CASE with complex custom laser cut window and water-cooling - the LiquoCool Antarctic TX Extreme - enough to cool the CPU, chipset and both 8800 GTX cards. If you think about it, two cards together have an astonishing 1.5GB of VGA memory. The Enermax Galaxy Modular 1000W PSU should be enough to power it.

As for the price, it costs £4622.23 (ex VAT) or roughly £5400+ with the tax. Don't forget that you also need a display mouse and keyboard for it. So it will get even more expensive.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35523

 

RIAA, Santangelo court doc farce

p2pnet.net News:- The Associated Press is fielding Jim Fitzgerald's Record Companies Sue Defendant's Kids.

And as p2pnet posted yesterday, "Having made New York mother Patti Santangelo's life quite literally a living hell, Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal have now turned their attentions to two of her children, Michelle and Robert, going so far as to blackmail Robert's best friend into making statements against him."

The AP wire article is also running in The New York Times and The Washington Post. And do a news search on Santangelo and it's everywhere online as well: US Today, CBS and Fox news, The San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek.

Everyone has it ---

---- everyone, that is, except the Santangelo family and their lawyer, Jordan Glass.

Because the RIAA (Recording (Industry Association of America), run by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), with Warner Music as the sole US company, chose to use the mainstream media to launch their suit by releasing a suppose court document without bothering to file it with a court.

Claims made in this kind of document, "are by no means evidence," we said yesterday. "In fact, they're often little more than one step above the extortionate frighteners lawyers routinely mail and email to their clients' victims as part of the softening up process."

We were wrong. It's one step lower. In fact, it could be construed that the 'filing' by media release was designed specifically to bolster a farce the Big Four Organized Music cartel has been running since 2003 - that people who share music online with each other are "criminals" and "thieves" and that the multi-billion-dollar labels are being "devastated" by it.

Not long after p2pnet started up, and when the RIAA sue 'em all marketing campaign was just getting under way, we posted a story about Lorraine Sullivan, a New York student who was among the first people to be subpoenaed for file sharing.

"She learned she was expected to turn up in court from a reporter and it took the RIAA a further seven days before she heard from them officially," she told us, saying she settled out of court for $2,500.

In the last two weeks we've heard from two other women - why are they always women? - both of whom are mothers and both of whom learned they were on the RIAA sue 'em all hit list when media reps phoned them for stories. Nor are they alone. Far from it. In fact, it now seems to be standard intimidation practice for Warner, et al, to tell the media about certain suits without troubling to let their victims know.

When I spoke to Jordan Glass last night, he was wondering when he was going to be officially informed about the suit.

He was still in the dark when I talked to him again this morning.

Theoretically, the process should work like this:

1. The plaintiff drafts a summons and complaint (or summons with notice).
2. The plaintiff buys an index number by bringing it to the court and filing with the clerk of the court (and paying a fee).
3. The plaintiff then serves the defendant with a copy of the papers (this can happeny any time up to 120 days after the index number has been obtained).
4. The defendant has an opportunity to answer (usually 20 or 30 days), including filing counterclaims (against the plaintiff) and third-party claims (against others who might have liability either to the plaintiff or the defendant as it relates to the same matter).

But incredible though it may seem, apparently, there's no law to stop plaintiffs from doing what the RIAA did ---- that's to say release information intended for a court case to the press before the defendants have seen it.

Is the supposed court document the RIAA leaked to the media no more than blatant flim-flam - a way to once again manipulate mainstream reporters to act as Big Four threat bearers to intimidate defendants before they've been anywhere near a court?

And does it also mean that, having served its purpose to publicly harrass and humiliate the defendants in the on- and offline print and electronic media, it need never be submitted to a court?

Will it ever be indexed? And if it is, will the Santangelos and their lawyer, Jordan Glass, have to wait 120 days to find out?

Meanwhile, as far as I was able able to discover by 11:23 am Pacific, the RIAA still hadn't acquired an index number. Nor had Glass received the document.

Stay tuned.
http://p2pnet.net/story/10312?PHPSESSID=8f12a50a88232bd2a3335854d17f23a7

 

What's with this blue background that keeps coming up on all threads? Kind of hard to read. I've seen this before but it went away after a while.

 

YE LEARN SOME THING NEW EVERY DAY,RIGHT

How to gag your enemies using the DMCA
Games people play

By Drew Cullen in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Saturday 4th November 2006 01:00 GMT
Get The Register's new weekly newsletter for senior IT managers delivered to your inbox, click here.

The Register received our first DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down notice in September.

We had in good faith published a photograph supplied to us by the subject of an otherwise uncontroversial article. A few days later, one very annoyed photographer emailed us claiming copyright for the picture and demanded its removal, or a fee.

We asked the article's author to check his claims. We established that the angry emailer was indeed the copyright owner and duly removed the photograph.

But we were not quick enough for him. In the meantime, he had fired off a DMCA take-down notice to our webhost in the US. The company in turn sent us a letter telling us to remove the photograph - which we had already deleted - and set us a deadline of a few hours to confirm in writing that we had done so.

Otherwise it would "suspend network access to the server hosting the website". The deadline was 2AM GMT, not a time when our techies in Edinburgh are usually at work. A suspension would have affected all our servers - including those hosted in the UK, as well as the US.

LINK TO THE TOTAL ARTICLE
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/04/eff_fights_bogus_dmca_case/

 

Big labels are f*cked, and DRM is dead -
Peter Jenner
Clash, Pink Floyd manager lifts the lid
Page: 1 2 3 4 Next >
By Andrew Orlowski → More by this author
Published Friday 3rd November 2006 17:04 GMT
Get The Register's new weekly newsletter for senior IT managers delivered to your inbox, click here.

Interview Few people know the music industry better than Peter Jenner. Pink Floyd's first manager, who subsequently managed Syd Barrett's solo career, Jenner has also looked after T.Rex, The Clash, Ian Dury, Disposable Heroes and Billy Bragg - who he manages today. He's also secretary general of the International Music Managers Forum.

And he doesn't pull his punches.

The major four music labels today are "f@@ked", he says. Digital music pricing has been a scam where the consumer pays for manufacturing, distribution, and does all the work - and still has to pay more. Labels should outsource everything except finance and licensing.

But he's also optimistic that for almost everyone else - indie labels, musicians, songwriters and budding entrepreneurs - as well as network providers - the future's going to be pretty bright. The Big Four know that the DRM era is nearly over - and within two or three years, he predicts, "most countries" in the world will have a blanket licensing regime where we exchange music freely, for a couple of quid a month.

In the future, he also suggests, artists, co-ops and managers will raise their own investment on behalf of artists - and pick and choose their marketing teams.

Jenner is organising a conference in London on November 15 to discuss these issues. Billed as an "Urgent Blue Sky Debate", for once a music event may live up to its billing. Earlier this year, France almost voted to legalise P2P and bring in a blanket license - the necessary stepping stone to the future.

While Jenner elaborated on these in a report for MusicTank recently - it's only available to the public for a fee. So we were delighted when he dropped by Vulture Central yesterday to lift the lid on the business. Strong language follows.
You said that at In The City, the big label executives have lost their faith in DRM - they don't believe in it any more.

They don't. Not anymore.

And that was done by Sony BMG - what the f@@k was that [rootkit DRM] about? The other was iTunes - and they've seen how kids don't like it. The unitary payment doesn't suit the technology, it doesn't suit how they're actually using downloads - which is to explore and move around. You don't want to pay a dollar for each track when you want to explore music.
And they're pretty crappy services, too. eMusic works, but when the others time-bomb the songs it's more annoying than the per-machine restriction. Because it's suddenly robbing you of something you had.

Oh yes.
And three years later you go, "Oh, shit!" - You basically have to pay twice for it.

Yes, that's outrageous. You've got to provide stuff that people can keep, and they don't mind paying you $3 a month for.
So how long can the big labels keep up this charade?

Earlier I was talking about the ground moving underneath the industry. At In The City people are beginning to realise they have to do something. So I think in two or three years blanket licenses will be with us in most countries.
And France nearly voted for it this year.

Yes, it got shot down - but the people who shot it down really shot themselves in the foot. They tried to get away from being too unpopular by saying "it's like a parking fine" - and the court said no - if it's an infringement of copyright, it's an infringement of copyright, and there's a huge fine.

So of course they can't enforce the law - it's completely unenforceable.

With the DRM, I think they've realised it just isn't working. People don't like the CDs, they find their way around it; they don't like the DRM, they don't use the DRM services; they resent - as you say - having subscriptions wiped.

THIS IS A LONG AND A DAM GOOD READ
LINK TO THE ARTICLE
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/peter_jenner/

 

CPU-Z

License Type: Free
Price: Free
Date Added: Nov 2006
Operating Systems: Windows XP
File Size: 400KB
Author: www.CPUID.com

This freebie gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.
Not sure of your motherboard's brand? Try this program. It's easy to install and setup.

DOWNLOAD HERE

http://pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64352-page,1-c,downloads/description.html

 

i know we are past halloween..but its a good read...

Ghost Photos: A Close Look at the Paranormal

By Benjamin Radford
Special to LiveScience


One thing that ghosts , Bigfoot , and UFOs have in common is a lack of hard evidence for their existence. Many people report seeing these phenomena, though sightings are essentially stories, not proof.

According to many "ghost experts," just about anyone can find evidence of ghosts using a device found in nearly every home: a camera. Ghost stories and sightings are fine, but what can we make of images claimed to be actual photographs of dead spirits?

Last year an exhibition of spirit photography was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Several of the pictures on display were created by Boston photographer William H. Mumler, who first claimed to have captured ghosts on film. Mumler produced many "spirit photographs" in the latter half of the 1800s, depicting faint, ghostly images in otherwise normal portraits. This caused a sensation and convinced many people with his seemingly excellent proof of ghosts.

Yet there was more to Mumler's photographic proof of life after death than met the eye; he was exposed as a hoaxer when some of the "ghosts" he had photographed were seen very much alive, living and working in Boston. In the process of his work, Mumler had simply stumbled across a crude method of double exposure, and hatched a plan to make a fortune with his fakes.

Thus, ghost photography began as an unseemly blend of photographic error and outright hoax.

Ghost photo categories

The clear images of ghosts and dead souls depicted by Mumler are long gone. Despite dramatically improved optical equipment and cameras over the past century, most "ghost photos" fall into two categories: 1) hazy, indistinct shapes that can be interpreted as a human form; and 2) "mysterious" glowing white blobs called orbs.

Both can be easily (and accidentally) created by photographic error, and the latter are by far the most common. Books, television shows, and Web sites about ghosts often include photographs of orbs that investigators (or just ordinary people) find scary, amazing, or simply puzzling. Orb photos are essentially Rorschach cards, though the forms are usually white and round instead of black and blobby. The interpretations of both, however, reveal much about how the viewer sees the world.

Orbs may take a variety of forms. There is not one blanket cause for all orbs; many things can create the phenomena, including insects and dust close to the camera lens.

In a series of experiments, I was able to create orb photos under a wide range of circumstances. Orbs can be found in the most un-spooky of settings, and are actually fairly common in daily, amateur photography. They are usually only noticed when a person is actively looking for them as evidence of ghosts. For example, this photo is one of several images I snapped at a New Year's wedding reception that later revealed odd glowing orbs. Proof of spectral party crashers, or a simple photographic trick of light?

The easiest way to create an orb image is to take a flash photograph outdoors on a rainy night. The flash will reflect off the individual droplets and appear as white, floating orbs (the effect is most pronounced in a light rain, though even a little moisture in the air can create mysterious orbs). As researcher Joe Nickell notes in his book Camera Clues , unnoticed shiny surfaces are also common sources of orbs. (As well, flashes reflecting camera straps can produce other ghostly photo effects.)

During one investigation I conducted several years ago at Fort George ("Canada's most haunted place," in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario), I examined a large, wooden soldiers' barracks where ghosts and orbs had been reported. I took several flash photographs of the area, and I noticed that the building (essentially a barn-like structure) was quite dusty. As a television crew interviewed some ghost hunters, I noticed one orb, photographed it, and wondered what it might be ( image).

It hovered about chest-high and did not move at all, suggesting that it was not an insect nor a dust particle; instead it seemed supernaturally suspended in the air. It was several feet away from the nearest post, wall, or other visible means of support. The phenomenon was very strange.

I showed the image to one of the ghost hunters, who seemed pleased that I had captured what was obviously a ghost orb.

Upon further investigation...

Not content to simply declare my orb a sure sign of the supernatural, a fellow investigator and I searched even harder for a solution.

Sure enough, closer investigation revealed that the orb was in fact a tiny piece of dust or lint that clung to the remnants of a spider web ( image). It was a very unusual place for a web, and had I not traced the long, nearly-invisible line to its arachnid anchor, I would have rejected a web as an explanation. But it was a very long strand and just far enough away from the walkway that all but the tallest passersby would not walk through it. The dust mote was very difficult to see, and only apparent when a dark color appeared behind it for contrast, or when caught in a flash photograph.

Had an amateur ghost-hunter spent a few minutes taking flash photos of that room at night, the dust would likely have appeared as an orb--and its true cause almost certainly overlooked as an explanation.

Orbs seem otherworldly because they are almost always invisible to the naked eye and go unnoticed until the photo is examined, later revealing the presence of a ghostly, unnatural, glowing object, sometimes appearing over or around an unsuspecting person. To those unaware of scientific and optical explanations, it is no wonder that orbs spook people (as Mumler's photos did 120 years ago). Most ghost investigators will admit that at least some orb photos are of ordinary phenomena. Still, they insist, there must be some orbs that defy rational explanation. None have yet been found. Of course it's possible that ghosts and spirits do exist and can be photographed. But if so, where's the proof? And why do images of ghosts look exactly like images of photographic errors?

Ghost enthusiasts are satisfied with hazy images and orbs, but this will never convince skeptics and scientists. So what would be good photographic proof of ghosts?

An authentic photograph of anyone born before the invention of photography would be a good start: Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, or any of thousands of other people for whom we have a good record of their likeness but no photograph. Just one such photo would be more convincing than a thousand glowing blobs. Unfortunately, all the ghost photos offered so far are indistinguishable from intentional fakes and optical mistakes. Maybe next year.

Benjamin Radford is an investigator with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and author or co-author of three books .

Full Frightening Coverage

* What Halloween is Really About
* Top 5 Haunted Places in America
* The Shady Science of Ghost Hunting
* Halloween's Top 10 Scary Creatures
* Higher Education Fuels Stronger Belief in Ghosts
* Vampires a Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says
* Candy Fears are Mere Halloween Phantoms
* Halloween Too Scary for Some Kids
* In Search of the Real Dracula
* Pumpkin Shortage?

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/061030_ghost_photos.html

 

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Image Browser Arctic operates on Windows

95/98/ME/XP/64/NT4/2000
If you are running an early version of Windows 95, you should download and install Microsoft Internet Explorer 4+ for best performance.

Overview

Image Browser Arctic is a multi-functional graphic viewer for Windows.

*View images quickly and comfortably
*Create self-deploying slide shows using hundreds of different transition effects
*Secure/lock your images using 128-bit encryption
*Manage your own Favorites Archive
*Built-in icon extractor
*Batch conversion, resize images
*Multiple viewing modes - Full screen, thumbnail, normal view, etc
*Easy to work with

*no ads, no spyware. 100% freeware*

Did you know?: Uticasoft Image Browser Arctic was the first image viewer world-wide to support stand-alone slide shows.

IBA Tools / Functions
Here is a list of the most commonly used functions in Image Browser Arctic.


Thumbnail support
View multiple images at the same time via the Thumbnail tab.

DirectImage
As you browse through Windows Explorer, DirectImage will automatically detect any supported images types and display them to you in thumb-nail format. Double clicking the thumbnail will allow you to resize the image.

Slide Show
Create your own memorable slides using the Slide Show feature. You can create a slide that changes in accordance to a timer (which you can set) or by you simply mouse-clicking and going to the next slide. Once you are done creating your slide show, you can create a self-deploying file and send your slide show to your friends or family without the need of Image Browser Arctic being installed on their system.

Web page loader
You can load a web page and display only the images that are on the page that you specify. This can come in handy if what you care about is just the images on the page or if you are a web master and want to verify that your image links are working properly.

Scan hard drive for images
Are images hiding on you? With the Scan function, you can scan and detect images in a specified folder even if the file extension is not a valid image type. For example, if you rename MyPicture.JPG to MyPicture.TXT, Windows no longer assumes it's a JPG file, right? Using the scan, MyPicture.TXT will be detected as an image because it contains image data that is viewable.

Icon Extractor
This function allows you to find, display and save icons that are hidden in DLL and EXE files.

Favorites Archive
Have certain images that you look at very frequently? Add them to the Favorites Archive! That way, you don't have to navigate through sub folders to find the image you want. Just look for it in your Favorites!

Bookmarks
In the same way that you can manage your favorite images, you can also add your favorite folders to your bookmarks. This is just one of the ways you can view images quicker!

Organizer
Are your images scattered around your hard drive? You can use the Organizer function to move or copy files from one folder to another using a source/destination type interface.

Encryption / Decryption
Protect your images and files using 128-bit encryption. This type of security exceeds password protection.

Viewing mode: Original Ratio
If you are viewing an image with a high resolution, use Original Ratio to view the image without stretching the image in anyway. Scroll through the image with no loss in quality.

Viewing mode: Stretch Mode
If you want to resize the image, use this function. Take note that stretching smaller images can cause the image to look awkward because they contain fewer pixels. This function works best with larger images.

Viewing mode: Full Screen
The Full Screen mode will cover your whole screen and display the image that you specify. If the image is larger than your screen resolution, the image will automatically resize to fit your screen. If you'd prefer it not to resize, use Original Ratio mode.

Converting images
You can convert images to BMP JPG JP2 ICO TIF TGA PCX PNG GIF or Grayscale. When saving as a JPG file, you have the option to set the compression rate of the file. For example, you can compress a 2MB BMP file to a 60 KB JPG with this function, as an example. Depending on the image, the image quality usually results to an adequate level.

Viewing List
All the images you want to look at can be added to your viewing list which you can view in order. You can save your viewing list for future use as well.

Easy clipboard handling
Copy and paste images from one application to another. You can easily copy your favorite image to the clipboard and paste it in your Word documents.

TWAIN support
You can easily scan images from your scanner.

Built-in help file
If there is anything you don't fully understand, hit F1. A complete help system is available to you.



Copy Muppy operates on Windows 95/98/ME/XP/NT4/2000

Copy Muppy is a backup utility which has list management support. Simply specify which folders you want to work with, then start copying. Backup your contents safely and reliably. This program offers straight-forward design and full control through various options. Command and switch support is also available for automatic scheduled backups.


SFX Compiler operates on Windows 95/98/ME/XP/64/NT4/2000

SFX Compiler is a freeware program which enables you to add multiple files into one self-extracting file. This can be useful for distribution. If you are a software developer and need to send your program to your users, you can easily compile all your required files into one archive with a .Exe extension. Non-software developers can benefit from this program too.

get all the downloads here
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