Adamness

Adamness

Joined Member # 2181693
7 Posts 103 Replies 14,850 Reputation
Reply to Norway bans iTunes store, cuts nose, spites face in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I'm not saying Apple has a monopoly on the entire digital music. They make 70% of all digital music sales, but I wouldn't consider that a monopoly. What they do have, though, is a monopoly of certain artists whose labels only made deals with Apple. If you want digital music from those artists, you have to go through iTunes. I knew someone would bring up video games, and it's a valid point. But the difference is that games available only on one console are often made by the console maker

52 Replies 22,852 Views
Reply to Norway bans iTunes store, cuts nose, spites face in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

The library is a proprietary piece of intellectual property for which Apple charges you, the user, a fee. A collection of songs no other digital music store has, which they pay a royalty fee for, is not proprietary. They're just acting like a middleman between the consumer and the record label, much like a Best Buy or Tower Records is for CDs. C

52 Replies 22,852 Views
Reply to Norway bans iTunes store, cuts nose, spites face in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Before iTunes, you didn't have a legal non-DRM free way getting music convenient. Today, you have lots of choices besides iTunes. Just because Apple essentially created the market, it doesn't mean they have free reign to run the market any way they choose. There are certain rules, both legal and ethical that the company should abide by. Apple do

52 Replies 22,852 Views
Reply to Norway bans iTunes store, cuts nose, spites face in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

What if every store made you use their own equipment to utilize a product that you bought? That would really suck. Indeed. Apple doesn't force anyone to use iTunes, but a lot of the music on iTunes isn't available on DRM-free or more relaxed DRM digital music stores. iTunes has special deals with record labels that their music will only be on iTu

52 Replies 22,852 Views
Reply to Master Skins: Early results in Community WinCustomize Forums

One of my instructors told us that even as students, we should always charge people for our work. Maybe not the same million dollars that one would get for a big corporation, but an artist should always try to charge something whenever possible. It makes the artist value their work more, make higher quality work, and most importantly, it makes the buyer value their purchase more. It's easy to download dozens of skins a week and change them everyday, but if you spend a few bucks, you might apprec

27 Replies 9,182 Views
Reply to Windows Vista is almost GA! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I think most people will at least wait until this Fiji service pack is released towards the end of the year to see if there is anything worthwhile. A lot of the scrapped features in the initial Vista launch will be added back in with Fiji. If you take out the GUI redesign, including Aero and whatnot (which many people will not like anyway), Microsoft hasn't offered enough to make Vista a worthwhile upgrade, especially for that price. As a student in art school, I have to wait for compan

16 Replies 3,811 Views
Reply to WGA Flags 22% of Windows Installs Invalid in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I'm curious what would happen with no serial numbers or activation or any of that business. Maybe piracy would jump a few points, but I doubt it's really enough to warrant such a pain in the butt for legitimate customers. The kind of people who will pirate will find a way to do it with any level of security or protection. The kind of people who will be honest and pay don't need to be authorized or monitored (or hassled) with this stuff.

17 Replies 7,509 Views
Reply to Start the New Year with a Clean PC Pt.2 in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

Adaware, Spybot, PCcillin, Ccleaner, Diskeeper, WinDirStat (I've never been able to see DriveScan in the software list in Stardock Central. For backup to my external drive, I use Memeo, which is kind of a mix of Keepsafe and Acronis. I have a lot of those to run at 2 or 3 AM so I don't have to worry about doing it, and it won't run when I'm working on something.

11 Replies 21,574 Views
Reply to WinCustomize 2007 Launches! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Looks really great. Huge improvement over the previous design. Of course it will take some getting used to. I was just wondering how skinnable the new site will be. I'm not used to the menu on the right side, and was wondering if we would have the option to have it on the right or left. Also, the site is pretty wide, and while it would probably be a pain in the butt, maybe have the option to have a wide and a narrow view, much like the Yahoo homepage. Other than those pretty minor "personal tast

195 Replies 80,880 Views
Reply to Telecom Consolidation: Cingular Wireless Becomes AT&T in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Well, I'm not surprised that they're all back together. Kind of the natural flow of the market. I'm sure we'll all end up getting screwed from it eventually. What I don't understand is why the FCC, SEC, and Commerce Dept allowed all the mergers and acquisitions. I guess they're more worried about a boob falling out of a shirt or Martha Stewart stock deals than something that actually affects the country.

8 Replies 5,541 Views
Reply to Touring Windows Vista - Part 3: Controls, Apps & Games in Windows Vista WinCustomize Forums

OSX has a lot of good features. So even if Vista was an exact clone, we get those features and programs along with the compatibility, customization and ease of use as Windows. I, and most people, don't use an operating system because the company comes up with a bunch of new and original features, we use them because they work the best for our purposes. I agree that reading all the reviews don't make me want to upgrade right away, but at leas

27 Replies 19,755 Views
Reply to The Best printers in terms of quality in Printers WinCustomize Forums

Epson that had pretty good output but it required 4 - $45 cartridges to operate....no wonder it only cost $99 I hear that. I have an Epson R200. It's just okay, but costs an arm and a leg to keep printing. It's a 5 color printer plus black, with each color costing about $15 and black costing a few bucks more. Ouch. Plus as a design major, I have

14 Replies 19,034 Views
Reply to Painting Plastic Hardware in PC Hardware WinCustomize Forums

I tried this once. It did not go well. Of course, I used regular acrylic paints. Acrylics belong on canvas, not on mp3 players. (Although I did use acrylics on my laptop on the top and a few other places, and it worked out.) Be very careful when you mask, and use the right kind of tape. Otherwise paint could seep under it. Be careful not to get paint into the cracks and seams. It would be a lot easier

6 Replies 4,271 Views