So I was told that buying music and programs is “retro.”  I asked several others for their thoughts, and many actually agreed.

The was mostly a discussion of purchasing music online, but we also talked about applications and programs.  Most of the people I talked to felt it was fine to download music illegally.  Most said you should purchase applications, with a few saying alternative methods should be used.

I personally believe you should buy the music, movies, or applications.  I know that some of the stuff is expensive (and I’ll agree that some applications are over priced), but most of the time, the pricing is reasonable.

The main argument about music was a bit odd.  You can have 7,000 to 40,000 songs depending on your iPod (not including the suffle).  Songs normally cost anywhere from $0.69 to $1.29.  So assuming you’re luck enough to buy all of you music at $0.69, then you spend at least $4,000 (all prices in USD).  Larger iPods could go up to ~$30,000 to fill.  If you’re caught downloading music illegally, apparently most of the time, it’s a $3,000 – $10,000 fine.  So they were arguing that if you do get caught, it can be cheaper than filling up your iPod (but some get charged millions).

Some other arguments were that there are other crimes that are much worse that have a lower fine (don’t know how that’s an argument).  Apparently if you’re caught shoplifting a CD, it’s a lot cheaper.  I argued you don’t get as good quality when you rip the CD…  That was a joke… Anyways, I found this blog post analyzing some different crimes in Illinois that are cheaper than illegal downloading.  Instead of struggling to make ends meet though, you’ll be given a free room and meals in prison.  I’m not sure about you, but free food has me sold.

Some of the more sound arguments were that if it’s not made available to a person, then illegal downloading could be fine.  I still disagreed, but I do understand.  If a dead band you liked isn’t signed anymore and published an album on a vinyl record independently (and the songs weren’t sold on CD or anything else), there’s no way you’d find that in a store or an online store (you might, but chances are slim).  I wouldn’t say “Go and download it.”  I’d first say check eBay or check some pawn shops or something.  I’d advise not to download it illegally, but I wouldn’t be calling the music police if they did.

Anyways, in looking at some previous cases, it’s really odd.  One woman downloads 24 songs and pays $1.9 million (although she was just being tried for 24 songs when there were over 1,000?).  Another guy downloads 30 songs and pays $640,000.  I’m guessing it varies by song?  I’m wondering if the RIAA would take it easy on you if you logged all the people you shared music with or downloaded music from and gave that to them (not that people should try to find out).

So yeah, I do know this post is late on the whole “OMG RIAA is suing people!”  But the conversation just came up recently.  So what are your thoughts or feelings on the debate?  Apparently a lot of my friends disapprove of Obama now because he supports the whole RIAA fining up to $150,000 per song.  I didn’t vote (so I don’t think I can argue so-and-so would have been better because I didn’t voice my opinion at the election), but I do think the punishment is a bit high.  A song is usually at most $1.29, so I think the fine shouldn’t be 116279 times that.  $150 for downloading a song is punishment enough (I think), but then I agree that people distributing the music should pay more (but it should be proven that they distributed to # number of people, so they pay $150 * # of people or something like that up to a certain amount).

Posted in: Internet, Life, Rants

So Parallels Desktop 5 is out!  About a week after VMWare Fusion 3.

Both are awesome, but I guess it depends on what you’re doing that determines which one you want to buy.  Here are some viewpoints and yeah.  Don’t take me on my word, both offer trials, but this is just from my experience.

Developing

If you’re developing, I say go with VMWare Fusion 3.  VMWare Fusion 3 feels more stable and crashes less on me.  Parallels is pretty stable, but I run into a few quirks every once in a while (mainly with how the windows move or programs closing without notice).

VMWare Fusion also offers some cooler integration features (in my opinion).  Both show the windows notification area, but VMWare introduces an application menu as well (which works on Linux as well, at least Ubuntu).  Parallels shows the start menu if you click on the icon in Mac’s Dock (while in Unity), but it shows the Windows start menu, not feeling very Mac-like.  Okay, okay… that’s not really development related, but when I’m testing stuff, I like feeling some connection between everything.

As for speed, Parallels does feel faster, and it does perform some tasks faster, but it’s not as stable.  I’ve had Visual Studio crash a couple of times so far while it’s pretty stable in VMWare Fusion.

Gaming

Not that I do much gaming.  Parallels wins.  That sums it up.  Sure VMWare has made tons of improvements, but it’s not as good as Parallel’s.  I’ll post a video running some stuff in Parallels, then running in VMWare.  I play some simple games, like The Secret of Monkey Island, and there’s a difference.

So if you’re gaming, then I suggest using Parallels.  Some of the bigger games will die or slow down (in both Parallel’s Desktop 5 and VMWare Fusion 3), but the games that do run tend to run better in Parallels.

Office & Productivity

I say go with either.  Parallels is less stable with some applications, but for general office and productivity applications, it ran well.  VMWare runs fine too.

If you’re buying it to run general Windows apps under Mac OS X, then pick either.  If you want to watch some wmv’s under it, pick either.

Linux Support

Go with VirtualBox.  It provides a really awesome Linux experience…  The only issue is it doesn’t integrate with Exposè or the Dock.  It does do OpenGL and DirectX (for Windows) though (I think).

If you don’t want to use VirtualBox (because you’re running multiple VM’s at once, or just want to spend some money), I say go with VMWare Fusion 3.  In my opinion, the features offered by VMWare beat Parallels making the Linux experience better.  It’s mainly just how they handle the “Unity” or “Coherence” modes.

Other Points

• When switching to Unity or Coherence, VMWare Fusion 3 is faster (at least for me).
  • VMWare has better integration with the Dock.  Applications minimize to their place in the Dock (so I.E. minimizes into the I.E. icon).  Parallels doesn’t do this.
  • Parallels has better integration with Exposè.  Overlapping windows aren’t drawn overlapping in Exposè.
  • For dragging windows, Parallels looks a lot nicer.  I tend to get a trailing effect with VMWare Fusion.
• For running and starting applications, Parallels Desktop 5 is faster (for things like Firefox, Internet Explorer and whatnot).
• In terms of stability, VMWare is better.
  • Applications tend to crash less.
• Feature wise
  • Windows Support: I think Parallels is slightly better at running Windows.
  • Integration with Mac OS X: VMWare Fusion wins in number of features and usefulness, Parallels wins in quality of features (definitely looks nicer).

Buying Advice

Like I said, it depends on what you’re using it for.  I feel safer with VMWare Fusion 3.  It feels more stable, but it is also somewhat sluggish.  If you’re developing, or just looking to run simple Windows apps, VMWare Fusion is good.

For gaming, I like Parallels better.  It’s faster, and the graphics seem smoother.  It also support OpenGL 2 on all versions of Windows, unlike VMWare which only support OpenGL 2 on Windows XP (or is it the other way around?).

Hope this helps you.  Don’t blame me if you spend but don’t like, there’s a free trial for both.

Posted in: Computer

So...  This is mainly just for me (so I can keep it somewhere), but here's a dynamic DNS script for use at webFaction.

I like to carry around my computer, and my computers like to talk to each other (seriously)...  The only problem is that the IP addresses of the computers change throughout the day.

The easiest solution was to use DynamicDNS.  There's probably several other ways to do this, and you can probably use some free service with an easy to install script, but if I have a host that supports it, why not use it?

So this is just a modification of the script originally post on the forums.  I tweaked it so the settings are at the top (to make it somewhat easy to modify), and so it can update multiple domains (because one of the computers is setup to send stuff to the older domain, but I bought a new shorter and cooler one)...  The last ip file is also hidden in Unix/Linux.

So here's the script:

Chmod the file "chmod +x updateIP.py"

Add it to your crontab, I have:

0,30 * * * * /Users/scripts/updateIP.py >> /dev/null 2>&1

This runs the script every 30 minutes and redirects any output to null. Every 30 minutes is probably a bit of overkill (since I think the TTL is about an hour, and I'm not too experienced in the matters of DNS), you can probably run it once an hour or so.

So this let's my computers talk to each other. They steal and store files on each other. There's some other minor things as well that are cool.

It also allows me (and others) to SSH in without having to remember numbers and do some cool stuff, like compiling homework on a machine more powerful than our laptops.

Posted in: Computer, Internet, Python