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Post by c64 on Mar 26, 2013 18:44:54 GMT
The Tax has to be notified, as in, it has to be CLEARLY stated inc or ex VAT, and it has to have a clear notification somewhere of what the price is with VAT included..... At Local rates. itunes, I dont have, but I do have a neat piece of homebrew software that can remove itunes and all associated crud from a computer that works from a USB drive and leaves no traces behind anywhere... its not commercially available unfortunately, as its extensively prejudice against itunes. I dont "Social media" anything, if I want people to know, I tell them direct. Heck I only just got this Email thing?.... Text?... it takes me less time to phone the person and tell them than text does... I aint the fastest at that stuff... the only time I actually really use TXT is sending and receiving postal addresses for work?... C64, that thing with Fire-wire... I didnt know (What?..?   ?.) that Fire-wire was owned by apple?... You learn something new every day... I have firewire hardware (and ports) , but its an old Cam-Corder, and its not an apple thing,..... Apple had invented it and just like the Microsoft Mouse (Yes, MS developed Hardware, too), it became an open standard. But unlike the MS Mouse, Apple charged a dollar per Socket which forced the "free to use IBM compatible world" to come up with a free alternative. So Firewire almost had died except for the Multimedia purposes Apple came up with. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 26, 2013 19:05:21 GMT
Apple had invented it and just like the Microsoft Mouse (Yes, MS developed Hardware, too), it became an open standard. But unlike the MS Mouse, Apple charged a dollar per Socket which forced the "free to use IBM compatible world" to come up with a free alternative. So Firewire almost had died except for the Multimedia purposes Apple came up with. USB originally was not royalty free either. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 27, 2013 8:27:28 GMT
I dont know....
Which is why I ask, who own/s SATA, IDE, etc.....
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Post by GTCGreg on Mar 27, 2013 10:58:29 GMT
I dont know.... Which is why I ask, who own/s SATA, IDE, etc..... Hope that clears things up  |
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Post by ironhold on Apr 2, 2013 16:42:14 GMT
Well, iTunes has decided to throw another curve my way: it keeps randomly clearing out my "plays", resetting everything back to zero.
This was on top of an update a few weeks ago that cleared out my playlists.
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 2, 2013 17:58:56 GMT
Well, iTunes has decided to throw another curve my way: it keeps randomly clearing out my "plays", resetting everything back to zero. This was on top of an update a few weeks ago that cleared out my playlists. Yep, that's iTunes. With iTunes, you either hate it or you hate it. My son had an app on his jailbroken iPhone that would allow him to download MP3s directly to the phone and play them as MP3s without converting them to Apple's propritary format first. It worked great. Then he upgraded to a newer iPhone (4s I think) and could no longer jail break the phone. There is no reason that Apple shouldn't allow MP3s to play on MY phone that I paid for and belongs to ME. Did I ever mention that I HATE iTunes. |
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Post by c64 on Apr 3, 2013 15:34:49 GMT
Well, iTunes has decided to throw another curve my way: it keeps randomly clearing out my "plays", resetting everything back to zero. This was on top of an update a few weeks ago that cleared out my playlists. Yep, that's iTunes. With iTunes, you either hate it or you hate it. My son had an app on his jailbroken iPhone that would allow him to download MP3s directly to the phone and play them as MP3s without converting them to Apple's propritary format first. It worked great. Then he upgraded to a newer iPhone (4s I think) and could no longer jail break the phone. There is no reason that Apple shouldn't allow MP3s to play on MY phone that I paid for and belongs to ME. Did I ever mention that I HATE iTunes. This looks like a license problem for the codec! |
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 3, 2013 15:59:54 GMT
This looks like a license problem for the codec! Well, in sorts. Apple doesn't want to use anybody else's technology, especially if they have to pay royalties. But the reason is a little more complicated than just that. Apple wanted to not only make and sell music players, they also wanted to sell music. In order to convince the record companies to let them offer music through Apple's music store, (iTunes), they had to prove to the record companies that the digital music files could not be copied and shared. That's why they developed their own digital music file system. Building a system that was totally incomparable with the rest of the world was just a bonus in Apple's eye. Well, Apple turned left and said "follow me" and the rest of the world turned right to follow the MP3 standard. Eventually the record companies gave in and started to allow music to be offered on MP3s. But Apple still refuses to allow MP3s to be played on their devices. They do, however, offer software (iTunes software) to convert your MP3s to Apple's format and download it to your Apple device. EDIT: Did I ever mention that I HATE iTunes? |
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Post by c64 on Apr 4, 2013 11:02:33 GMT
This looks like a license problem for the codec! Well, in sorts. Apple doesn't want to use anybody else's technology, especially if they have to pay royalties. But the reason is a little more complicated than just that. Apple wanted to not only make and sell music players, they also wanted to sell music. In order to convince the record companies to let them offer music through Apple's music store, (iTunes), they had to prove to the record companies that the digital music files could not be copied and shared. That's why they developed their own digital music file system. Building a system that was totally incomparable with the rest of the world was just a bonus in Apple's eye. Well, Apple turned left and said "follow me" and the rest of the world turned right to follow the MP3 standard. Eventually the record companies gave in and started to allow music to be offered on MP3s. But Apple still refuses to allow MP3s to be played on their devices. They do, however, offer software (iTunes software) to convert your MP3s to Apple's format and download it to your Apple device. EDIT: Did I ever mention that I HATE iTunes? Such things become more and more the norm. Modern televisions can record the MPEG stream from the TV stations. And to prevent that you can record and distribute TV shows, the TV makers use a proprietary recording format. You can't use recorded files on any other device so if your TV breaks down, all your recordings turn useless. But then you can always buy those highly expensive HDD receivers with DVD burner which can generate generic DVDs in retail quality! And then there is this HD+ nonsense here in Europe. The federal funded TV stations all use "HD" while the commercial funded TV stations tell their audience that you can only receive them by HD+ compliant devices since this gives you maximum quality. But in reality, the federal TV stations broadcast their material in "blue ray quality" while the commercial stations are just somewhat better than DVD due to a lower bandwidth which costs a lot of money after all. And the difference between HD and HD+ isn't the actual codec, they are fully identical! The difference is in the optional encryption technology. This also has nothing real new and is basically the same. But a HD+ compliant device has one single extra, the TV station can control if your device may record or not and if it may record, the TV station can disable fast forwarding so you can't skip the commercials. Also the recording remains encrypted so you can't watch your recording without your decoder card and on top of that, the TV station can set the number of times you can play your recording! That's the only difference, HD+ forces you to pay more for less rights but the commercial TV stations claim that it's better than ordinary HD. The DVD system has a pretty crazy safety system, too but fortunately you can avoid that. A DVD contains an encryption system with the decryption keys partially stored in a licensed device and so called "wobble tracks" on the disc itself. The wobble track zigzags so fast that the laser of the drive can't follow it but the wobble shows up in the tracking circuit of the drive and with a super secret method, this wobble signal can be read out as digital data and represents the key to the disc. The idea is that even if someone finds out how to ask the drive for the wobble track data, the laser of a burner can't move quickly enough to reproduce this track on a blanc DVD. And since everything is super secret, the open source world can't have any players that can handle this system. They don't even release binaries for Linux users since they are all anti-capitalists and pirates! So the Linux world is lacking the device keys and can't make use of the wobble tracks in order to play an encrypted DVD. But the encryption is softened up by the fact that there are many different device codes which all have to work so there are millions of possible keys working on the encrypted data. And somebody real clever hat found out how to optimize brute forcing so that a computer powerful enough to play a DVD needs less than 10 seconds to brute force the keys! If I put a Disney DVD which is as secure as a DVD can become into my "real" DVD player, it is alternating the disc speed for over 30 seconds making horrible noises in order to read the wobble tracks. Then it starts reading the disc and plays previews and "do not copy" messages for at least 5 minutes before I can enjoy my DVD. And you can't skip those! And if I put the DVD into my home-made open source DVD player, it takes 3 seconds to read the DVD, 0.25 seconds to brute force the keys and another second to start playing the previews and "do not copy" messages but I can skip them. So I can start watching the DVD in less time I need to sit back down after inserting the DVD. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 4, 2013 13:22:50 GMT
Well, C, they tried to make their system "fool proof", and see what happened?  The last thing you want to do is tell a hacker that you have a system that can't be hacked. |
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Post by ironhold on Apr 4, 2013 14:22:08 GMT
Looks like the system is either downloading an "updated" version every so often or is being required to send usage data back to Apple every so often.
Either way, every time it happens it wipes my playlists and listen history.
From here on out, I'm not even going to bother putting any playlists together unless I specifically know I'll be burning a disk for someone.
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 4, 2013 14:44:53 GMT
In all seriousness, why are you using iTunes at all? There are a lot of free music player programs available. I'm using Winamp and really like it.
Now if you buy all your music from Apple, then you're kind of stuck with the iTunes software. Years ago, they were the only ones selling music online in digital format. But now, you can buy legal music from a number of on-line music stores. I usually buy my music through Amazon. the music is in MP3 format and you have complete control over what you do with it and on what devices you play it. You don't have Apple controlling what you do with YOUR music. The only reason I use Apples iTunes software is to convert and download my music to my iPhone. And as soon as my current contract is up, I will NOT be getting another iPhone. It's not that I don't like the iPhone. It's that I don't want Apple trying to control my life.
By the way, I HATE iTunes.
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Post by ironhold on Apr 4, 2013 14:46:46 GMT
Like I said earlier - I have a way of getting free iTunes gift cards.
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Post by kharnynb on Apr 4, 2013 15:10:51 GMT
and you get what you pay for ;D
I've long since lost any interest in having anything apple related on my systems, or any of their devices.
Dvd was nice and easy to hack, sadly the regular customer who actually pays for his stuff is most inconvenienced by all the "security" and anti copying warnings.(the "you wouldnt steal a car" one still takes the crown)
This is of course the main reason why blu-ray is pushed so hard now.
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 4, 2013 15:20:00 GMT
Like I said earlier - I have a way of getting free iTunes gift cards. That still doesn't mean you have to use iTunes to play your music. You can purchase your "free" music from Apple through iTunes, then use a number of free converter programs (or iTunes) to convert your Apple music to MP3s. After that, use any player you want to create your playlists. www.ehow.com/how_5768747_convert-apple-lossless-mp3.htmlAnd just to keep the record straight, I HATE iTunes. |
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Post by c64 on Apr 4, 2013 16:13:21 GMT
Looks like the system is either downloading an "updated" version every so often or is being required to send usage data back to Apple every so often. Either way, every time it happens it wipes my playlists and listen history. From here on out, I'm not even going to bother putting any playlists together unless I specifically know I'll be burning a disk for someone. Same with modern cars - but those need to return to a licensed garage to upload all your driving habits. The injection ECU in my car uploads 10 bits if everything is fine and additional 10 bits per recorded error code. A state of the art car can upload up to 50 Megabytes - at least that's what I've personally seen two years ago. Could be gigabytes now or in the near future! |
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 4, 2013 16:25:05 GMT
I don't really see the connection, but it does bring up an interesting point. What would a car be like if Apple made it. You could only buy gasoline from an Apple gas station and only drive it to Apple approved locations. In addition, where you went and how often you went there would be automatically uploaded to Apple each day. That, of course, would be to help them make a better car in the future, or so they would tell you.
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Post by PK on Apr 4, 2013 16:31:13 GMT
And every two months you'd need to download a version of the software that runs the car. An update that would be so useless you'd leave the car at home and ride the bus.
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Post by kharnynb on Apr 4, 2013 17:46:40 GMT
But it would look SOOO HIP parked outside the coffeeshop
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Post by c64 on Apr 5, 2013 23:18:42 GMT
And in case you would choose a car from Microsoft: - For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
- Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
- Occasionally you car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would accept this, restart and drive on.
- Occasionally executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to start, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
- Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But, then you would have to buy more seats.
- Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, 5 times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on 5% of the roads. - The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
- New seats would force everyone to have the same size butts.
- The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
- Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, you car would lock the door and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
- GM would require all buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
- Every tine GM introduced a new model car, buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
- You'd press the " "START" " button to shut off the engine...
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?.) that Fire-wire was owned by apple?... 
