[Techtalk] "I need to use Windows because ..."

[Mick Timony]

> He put them all back in as MP3s instead of wmp 
Eeeeeek, he used Windows Media Player! At least now he's using the MP3
format, which is not entirely free but is well supported on many other
hardware platforms and means that your not tied to one vendor. The ogg
format looks interesting and sounds good (and is entirely free) but as
yet is not well supported on many hardware platforms.

I don't want people to think I beating on WMP but it's an entirely
proprietary format and will mainly work only on Windows system. I'd also
suspect that mp3 sounds better than WMP. In testing WMP and Winamp using
mp3's I felt that Winamp sounded better than WMP, which would lead me to
suspect that mp3 would sound better than wmp's.

I have most of my and my better half's CD collection ripped to MP3
format, I know I'd be upset to find it all gone! What you might want to
do, is remove the 2nd disk from the case, and put it somewhere safe, dry
and warm so the OS can't hose the drive again. 

Personally I'm tempted to back all of mine mp3's (and home directories)
to a second drive and store it offsite (so to speak) so if anything
every happened to my computer/apartment/building I'd still have all our
music and personal files. But, I'm like most other people, we never
worry about backups until we lose some data (plus a spare harddrive is
expensive).

> Microscope they were filled with zeros.
What is Microscope?

Wow, I wrote a lot, sorry for rambling on so!

Luck
Mick

> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 14
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] "I need to use Windows because ..."
> From: Beth Johnson <linux.chick at verizon.net>
> To: TechTalk List <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
> Date: 11 Aug 2002 08:36:21 -0400
> 
> On Sat, 2002-08-10 at 21:48, Scott wrote:
> > 
> > Other problems I had recently have been solved by my tinkering.  CD
> > burning now takes 9 minutes compared to 22 minutes on the XP box.
> 
> Hey, it could be worse.  My Mr. (WinXPPro) spent 3-4 days putting our
> entire CD collection onto a separate physical hard drive, then backed it
> up (because of the 3-4 days' work) to a second, identical hard drive. 
> We were all happily sharing music in our own house (5 node network) for
> several months.  One morning the music wasn't there.  Not only not
> there, but the disks, both of them, were completely wiped clean. 
> Windows wasn't even seeing the disks.  When I looked at them with
> Microscope they were filled with zeros.  And no, there wasn't any
> automatic mirroring going on so it's not like the first disk went goofy
> and then got copied to the second disk.
> 
> The scary thing is, that is what the music industry wants to be given
> permission to do, except I think they'd put some code on your disk to
> taunt you after they'd wiped it.
> 
> He put them all back in as MP3s instead of wmp and is using MusicMatch
> now.  MusicMatch was incredibly faster at writing the files.  Funnily
> enough, when we tried to uninstall Windows Media Player we found no way
> to be able to do it.  Hmm, I thought they got into trouble about an
> uninstallable MSIE.
> 
> regards,
> Beth
> -- 
>   /\/\    Beth Johnson
>  / o o\   Cosmic Wonderer
> ( / ^^\)  Springfield, MA USA
>  \ M_M/   "Ruling a country is like cooking a small fish--
>            you have to handle it with care."--Lao Tzu
> 	
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Mick Timony
madra at gis.net