HolyLiaison

I hate that damn show to death. Actually I hate most shows on TV. They're all the devil. :bigsmile:

System Restore has to do with the restore points I mentioned earlier. It makes back ups of crucial files on your hard drive which you can use to restore settings if something goes wrong. If I were you I'd check out this site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/h...temrestore.mspx

Internet music piracy not only doesn't hurt legitimate CD sales, it may even boost sales of some types of music. Those were the counterintuitive findings released in March by Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and his co-author Koleman Strumpf, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their paper, "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales," caused a ruckus in the music industry not seen since the British invasion of the Beatles. Many recording executives were not singing "Yeah, yeah, yeah," however. Convinced that illegal downloading and file sharing has robbed them of billions of dollars after four consecutive years of falling music sales, they criticized the team's methodology, which consisted of monitoring 1.75 million downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, scouring through server logs from OpenNap (an open source Napster server), and comparing the sales of almost 700 albums as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. Oberholzer and Strumpf concluded that there was almost no relationship between the two. How could this be? The researchers believe that most downloading is done over peer-to-peer networks by teens and college kids, groups that are "money-poor but time-rich," meaning they wouldn't have bought the songs they downloaded. In that sense, the music industry can't claim those downloads as lost record sales. In fact, illegal downloading may help the industry slightly with another major segment, which Oberholzer and Strumpf call "samplers"—an older crowd who downloads a song or two and then, if they like what they hear, go out and buy the music. Interestingly, the first half of this year saw the release of numbers seemingly supporting this theory: The number of illegal music downloads continued to increase—but so did music sales. If in fact the research is correct, the strategic implications for the music industry are profound. Instead of conducting a high-profile campaign against pirates, should the industry instead target "samplers" to encourage them to buy more music? Should the industry consider peer-to-peer services as marketing tools rather than the enemy? Should online pricing be different from in-store pricing? What happens when broadband makes it as easy to illegally download an entire CD as an individual track or two? HBS professor Feliz Oberholzer-Gee recently spoke to Working Knowledge about these issues. Sean Silverthorne: The draft of your paper with Koleman Strumpf came out almost three months ago, and caused quite a stir both inside the entertainment industry and out. What are your impressions of the reactions so far? Felix Oberholzer-Gee: Two recent developments are important. Our study provides the first serious evidence that file sharing cannot explain the decline in music sales in the last couple of years. In addition, in the last two quarters, music sales increased while file sharing has become even more popular. BigChampagne.com, an Internet monitoring firm, estimates that there are now up to 9 million simultaneous file sharers, up from about 4 million in early 2003. In view of our evidence and these new trends, even the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) now states that file sharing is only "one factor, along with economic conditions and competing forms of entertainment that is displacing legitimate sales." The industry is rethinking its position, although change occurs slowly. Q: Let's talk strategy. What have been the recording companies' strategies to date for combating their loss of property rights via illegal downloading? And how effective has that strategy been? For example, is it a good thing to sue potential customers? A: Suing potential customers is not exactly a standard entry in the book of good CRM. More importantly, the RIAA's legal strategy is hopeless and smacks of short-sighted panic. Our research shows that only 45 percent of music files downloaded in the United States come from computers in the U.S. More than 100 countries supply files to the U.S. file-sharing community, and many of these countries do not have strong records of protecting copyrighted materials. The RIAA does not stand a chance to implement an effective legal strategy in all these countries. The RIAA's legal strategy is hopeless and smacks of short-sighted panic. Those who dream of legal solutions do not recognize the truly global nature of the peer-to-peer (P2P) phenomenon. Even worse, the RIAA's legal strategy does not even seem to work here in the United States. Despite the lawsuits—the RIAA has sued about 2,000 individuals to date—file sharing is more popular than ever. Q: Assuming your conclusion is right—that there is no evidence that illegal music downloads erode CD sales—and in fact might help top-selling record sales—what are the implications for the recording industry in terms of strategy? A: Our research shows that people do not download entire CDs. They download a few songs, typically the hits that one would also hear on a Top 40 station. This suggests that P2P is much like the radio, a great tool to promote new music. The music industry has of course long recognized that giving away samples of music for free over the airwaves can stimulate sales. The same seems to hold for P2P. The problem with radio as a promotional tool is that it can be quite expensive for labels to get radio stations to play their music. P2P networks are promising because they make the market for music promotion more competitive. From the perspective of the music industry, the more competition among P2P services, the less costly it will be to promote music. Q: Apple's iTunes has seemingly validated the concept that people will purchase music online. But it seems the recording companies themselves have done little on their own to experiment with models here, such as tiered pricing (hits cost more) and bundling. A: The classic business model was a teaser model: The music labels provided one or two hit songs for free by promoting them on the radio and on MTV. If consumers liked the samples, they purchased a dozen songs at a price of $15. We now have gone from one extreme to the other. While inflexible bundling was the rule, services such as iTunes now completely unbundle CDs and offer all music by the song. The difficulty with this approach is that the economics of producing music are characterized by significant fixed costs. It is not much more expensive to promote an entire album than to promote an individual song. With complete unbundling, the revenue streams generated by a new album are likely to be much lower. How many consumers will pay a dollar for song number thirteen? Clearly, there is a profit-enhancing role for some type of bundling even with digital distribution. For example, consumers might be willing to pay full price for the core songs on an album if they get the rest at a discount. We need systematic experiments to find out which types of bundling are economically most attractive. Q: What's the current state of your research? Where does it go from here? A: A key uncertainty relates to our finding that file sharers do not download entire CDs. We do not know why they sample only a few songs. One possibility is that the current patterns of file sharing reflect consumer preferences. Consumers do not know the quality of new music and sampling one or two songs is good enough to assess quality and make a purchasing decision. If this view is correct, the radio model is well and alive, and P2P offers great opportunities to promote new content. Clearly, there is a profit-enhancing role for some type of bundling even with digital distribution. However, it is also possible that the observed behavior is due to technical difficulties. In our data, only one out of three downloads is completed successfully. File sharing is fairly cumbersome for many consumers with poor Internet connections. If this is the reason for highly selective sampling, we can expect consumers to download entire CDs when broadband connections become more common. This is a less rosy scenario for the music industry because downloads of CDs are likely to be closer substitutes for CD purchases. If poor Internet connections explain file-sharing patterns, general access to broadband would have profound strategic implications, suggesting that music companies ought to pursue a strategy of selling complements to recorded music. We see some examples for this strategy even today: Apple sells songs to promote its iPods. Prince gives away his most recent release to promote his concerts. We need careful continuous monitoring of the effects of P2P to know which strategies are most appropriate in the digital age. Source: HBS Working Knowledge

The Recording Industry Association of America launched a new round of lawsuits Tuesday against online music swappers, targeting 482 individuals around the United States. As with previous rounds of suits filed by the music industry group, the "John Doe" lawsuits come without names attached. The identities of the individuals are expected to come out through a court discovery process. The new round brings the total number of people sued in the United States for trading music online to 3,429, the RIAA said. "It's as important as ever that we continue to enforce our rights and ensure that fans enjoy digital music in a fashion that supports the creative process rather than one that robs it of its future," Steven Marks, RIAA's general counsel, said in a statement. "The online marketplace has changed dramatically since we began this campaign." The RIAA announced its legal campaign against file-swapping individuals a year ago this week. The efforts have seen substantial growth in the public perception of file trading as a potentially illegal activity, but the overall effect on music swapping remains unclear. The number of users on Kazaa, still the most popular file-swapping network, has declined somewhat over the past year, while showing considerable seasonal fluctuation, according to analysts. However, the popularity of other online networks--particularly a newer rival called eDonkey--has grown substantially over that time. Close observers of the networks say file-swappers are keenly aware of the lawsuits, however. "There have been a couple of big impacts from lawsuits," said Marc Morgenstern, CEO of Overpeer, a company that seeds file-swapping networks with fake files in an attempt to protect copyright holders' work. "Many more users are not offering files for upload, while still downloading. Many users are moving to other networks (aside from Kazaa)." Most of the lawsuits are still going slowly through the court process, as the RIAA seeks to match its digital evidence of copyright infringement to the names and identities of actual Internet subscribers. About 600 cases have been settled so far, a representative for the music industry organization said. Tuesday's suits were filed in St. Louis, Denver, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey. Source: CNET News.com

Slipknot - Scream (Unreleased) Up next: Quarashi - Stick 'Em Up

Na, but I'll be borrowing one. :bigsmile:

Awesome. Glad to hear it's fixed.

I actually might have 5 to give away. I'll wait and see how it works out.

Now Playing: Orgy - Blue Monday Ahhh...reminds me of the good'ol days. :bigsmile: Blue Monday Lyrics: Orgy - Blue Monday - Lyrics ------------------------------------- Up next: ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin' Gimme All Your Lovin' Lyrics: I got to have a shot of what you got is oh so sweet. You got to make it hot, like a boomerang I need a repeat, Gimme all your lovin', all your hugs and kisses too, Gimme all your lovin', don't let up until we're through, You got to whip it up and hit me like a ton of lead, If I blow my top will you let it go to your head? Gimme all your lovin', all your hugs and kisses too, Gimme all your lovin', don't let up until we're through. You got to move it up and use it like a scrweball would. You got to pack it up, work it like a new boy should. Gimme all your lovin', all your hugs and kisses too. Gimme all your lovin', don't let up until we're through. - Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill & Frank Beard

I'll be getting my old oak corner desk back that I bought before I moved out of my Moms house. That thing cost $1200... I didn't take it because I was to lazy to take out all the screws, and it weighs more than my car does. Not to mention I wanted to get the hell out of home as fast as I could. :bigsmile:

I'll randomly pick 4 people from this thread on June 28th. I'll be in contact with the 4 people via the message system on this forum once they've been chosen. Read about Gmail here. Good luck. :bigsmile:

That arcade sure looks familiar. Same one I used on the old version of Swapciety. ;)

I'm always the one with the newest coolest geek toys on the block. I'm willing to spend anything just to see if the hype is real. So expect me to spend the benjamins on this toy as soon as it's available to the public. :bigsmile:

I saw this on CNET just browsing around. It's a full desktop computer (1ghz no less!) that fits in your hand (14oz!!) I'd definately buy one if it lives up to the hype and does everything they say it does. The link is for streaming video. You'll need either Windows Media Player or Real Player installed to view the video. http://news.com.com/1606-2-5222650.html Here's another link to a few pictures and the specs of it: http://www.oqo.com/hardware/basics/ There's also another video there which shows a little more. http://www.oqo.com/hardware/video/

Now that I could stand. Nice desk btw. :bigsmile:

Tis me!

You people are terrible. lol Clean your desks at once! Everything in my house is spotless. I couldn't stand it otherwise. :P

:bonk :bigsmile:

My god I would die. :good job:

Super Furry Animals - Sex, War And Robots (Wauvenfold) Up next: Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze

Well, this is my desk. I try and keep a tidy environment. Makes it easier to get work done. Every item has it's designated spot on my desk. :bigsmile: Items usually on my desk: - Checkbook, Wallet, Car Keys - Assortment of writing ustensils - Various CD's for programs/games I run/play - DVD-R's, CD-R's - Webcam - Gameboy Advanced - Small CD Wallet - Talkabout T5820 (So I can mess with people that have CB's) - Shitty Digital Camera (I took this picture with) - Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo - TV Remotes - Dictionary - Notebook - Speakers - 17" Kogi LCD Monitor - And my computer (For easy access to remove/add parts)

- Sir Mix A Lot - Baby Got Back (Friggen classic people!) :bigsmile: - Tone Loc - Sugar Hill Gang - 2 Live Crew - Young M.C.

That pacman game is ok. There's a better one here: http://www.pragmaticutopia.com/index.php?o...rcade&Itemid=91 Not to mention a bunch of other cool games. :)

http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

True... *puts gun back in closet* I dunno about the jar lids one.... I might shoot off my hand. I have bad aim. :x