This is interesting, but I have to agree, if you are not going to prosecute the gun companies for providing a way to kill people, you should not prosecute a company for providing a way to pirate music/software/movies. As much as I hate the practice of piracy, I have to be fair.

Judge: File-swapping tools are legal

A federal judge hands a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast and Grokster, dismissing much of the music and film industries' lawsuits against them.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies.

In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry.

News from Business Week, read the full story.

Oh two last things for today:

I just got this email:

Hi,
Just a quick note to say 'thank you' for submitting your site to blogwise.com. I've just confirmed your site listing in the directory, so it should now appear
on http://www.blogwise.com/.

John M.

Silicon.com has a story about the Sony, Cell processor that will power Playstation 3 and other products.

Tom's Hardware has an article Duel of the Titans: Opteron vs. Xeon of the new Opteron 64-bit CPU from AMD. They also compare it to an Intel Xeon.

Gaming Horizon looks at a new GameCube Bundle that is sure to win the hearts of Zelda lovers.

Infogrames, Inc. and Shiny Entertainment announced that Enter the Matrix has gone gold. The title will be released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC on May 15, in conjunction with the theatrical release of The Matrix Reloaded.

In a follow-up to my Sunday post about RipBurnRespect.com, Suzi of Diary Date, drops this tidbit off in the comments:

I couldn't agree more! Not only that but Kazaa is one of the biggest sources of computer problems on the net. It is a hotbed of viruses and spyware/malware. For more info see:

http://www.imilly.com/kazaa.htm

I read a lot of computing help forums and there are always many requests for help related to problems from using Kazaa, viruses, crashes, slow downs and so on,

Also: Enjoy the sales/rental charts below, comment if you like/dislike that kind of info. I will be out for the day, so no updates. This is a busy week, lots of papers and projects due before the end of the semester. Yea, even Hip Old Students stress over that sort of thing!

For those of you who may not know,
I go to Mississippi University for Women and a few smart men. (like me!)

Like the LOGO? Soon we will have Hats and shirts and stuff with it on, we expect to have it on October 1, 2003!

Time for the "Lockergnome: Tip of the Day":

For those of you who know me you will know that I am very vocal about the use of P2P programs like Kazzaa. While they are good in concept, in practice they are used mostly to trade in illegal MP3s, Movies, and Software. Use of content you have not paid for is stealing, plain and simple. A couple of sites regarding this are Ethos and Legal MP3 Downloads. The second one actually lists many free music downloads that are sponsored by the artists or record companies, and many are top notch artists.

RipBurnRespect.com is a site put up by Gateway that explains about the 'fair use' of music and does quite a good job. Their outlook is almost the same as mine.

This article and thread at SlashDot.com talks a little about it and the comments are from all corners and opinions.


I find it funny how the more people try and justify the theft of 'content' the more persuaded I am that it is wrong.

Hello Folks, I want to THANK David Lawrence of OnlineTonight.net for posting this GREAT new Honda Accord commercial Cog.

It is 2 minutes of viewing that are well spent. The whole commercial is one shot with NO computer effects or 'tinkering'. David has a link to the full story of the commercial on his site.

Check it out.

Here is a look from the Honda UK site, you can pause and 'play' with the slider and the buttons. But the OnlineTonight.net is a nice BIG version.

David has put a page up for it alone at : http://onlinetonight.net/001396.html

Time for a sample of the FARK.com headlines today:

- Court rules man must pay for ending marriage because of loud public abuse
- Florida law prohibits having sexual relations with porcupines
- Exotic dance club at high school career fair; insists they were recruiting "bartender's assistants"
- Wife-subduing air raid siren confiscated
- Theme: How would you get rid of 30,000 diseased chickens? Link goes to one method
- Asshat on welfare spends all his money on lottery tickets then sues when he doesn't win
- Kim Jong Il wants to feel on a par with the world's only superpower
- Man falls overboard from cruise ship, treads water for 17 hours before getting rescued
- Vietnamese prostitutes taking English classes to improve chances of luring lucrative customers
- Police evaluations of doughnuts. Chief Wiggum too busy eating to comment
- SpaceShipOne (the first "private" spacecraft) unveiled by famed aircraft designer
- Pet cat shoots boy
- Take a picture of your child breastfeeding, get arrested for kiddie porn
- 20 N Korean scientists and military officers defect to US and allies
- A tribute to the Transformers Cassettes -- Laserbeak, Ravage, Rumble and the Pink Gorilla

Time for the "Lockergnome: Tip of the Day":

Question: How do I install IIS on Windows XP Home Edition?


Answer: First, for the readers who may not be familiar with this acronym, let's define it. IIS stands for Internet Information Services, which is a cryptic way to say "the program that can turn your computer into a low-end Web server." You may have heard of an Apache server, which is basically the same thing. Apache is a Web page serving application and so is IIS (and no, I don't want to get a million e-mails telling me Apache is better).

Get the rest of the answer to this question and another full GnomeTIP HERE!

Remember Wesley Crusher from Start Trek: The Next Generation? Yes, I do too, the actor, Wil Wheaton has a very popular Weblog, he has been quite busy of late, in fact I saw him on a recent episode ot The Screen Savers on TechTV. I have been visiting his web log for a few years now and I own fantasy 'shares' in his blog through Blog Shares. Check out his web log. Kirk out.

Don't click this: LINK

I am really not sure why I am posting this picture, but it is a Bra, and you don't see enough of them these days, well at least I don't.

Hello to John, Byron, Mark, Brian, and all the Coffee Shop folks, it is Friday night, there is Creamer and Coffee, and the MIKE is CLOSED!

Time for the "Lockergnome: Tip of the Day":

Question: I have an NEC laptop that came with a 6 GB hard drive. Since I have updated to Windows 2000, when I restart I get a line that says, "You have an invalid hibernation partition." How do I rectify this problem? My system is set up in NTFS, not FAT32. Also, this laptop has a Pentium II processor but seems to be slow at accessing programs. My hard drive isn't more than a quarter full. How do I speed these things up?

Answer: Let's start with your first question about the hibernation partition. My Dell Inspiron laptop had the same problem when I formatted the hard drive. The computer uses this hibernation partition/file to back up the RAM when your system goes to sleep. On my Dell, there were options for "Suspend to Disk" or "Suspend to RAM."

Get the rest of the answer to this question and another full GnomeTIP HERE!

Ok this is a RANT! Now those of you who know me are aware that I am a pretty laid back guy and into all kinds of cool things. Please tell me! What is the deal with OPEN MIKE NIGHT!

So I go to my local coffee shop on a very regular basis, and every week I swear that I will not go back on Thursday night, because Thursday night is OPEN MIKE! So what did I do last night? I went to the coffee shop and, arg! of course It was OPEN MIKE night.

Now I have no problem with supporting budding artists, in fact I like live music in the background while I sit, drink coffee, and chat with my friends. It is relaxing and an nice change. Well it is no longer in the background at the local coffee shop, NO NO NO! now the 'performers' have full ROCK CONCERTS with Loud lyrics and screaming guitars. It is not like they are very good either, they are very so-so, and the people who are good are not as loud, it is like the worse the group the louder they play, they must think that HIGH VOLUME = BETTER. YOU can't hear yourself think much less hear anything your friends have to say. So we end up yelling at each other, the band gets louder, and well we all end up on the sidewalk outside talking.

See my vision of open mike night is, well, a long haired hippy person with a guitar singing folk type songs, a young guy popular ballads like Matchbox 20 or similar, or an angst ridden female singing Alanis type songs, you get the picture 1-3 people singing and playing nice and 'backgroundy'. But NO! at the coffee shop they have the dial cranked all the way up to 11! and it really only goes to 10!

So last night not only did I have to put up with "SUPERSTARS" at high volume, but for my coffee had to bring my own little packets of Equal sweetener, AND they were out of liquid creamer so I had to use powdered crap, AND they have no 'real' mugs so I got a nasty styrofoam cup.

Ok I am over it now, just wanted to share.

BTW: People who try and sound like Sting/The Police should record themselves and listen to it before unleashing the torment on the rest of the world (read: Coffee house patrons), and NEVER sing "Message in a Bottle" if you can't do the 'oooh wooo woo oooh' part right.

Oh and This: This is my new blogchalk:
United States, Mississippi, Columbus, English, Mark, Male, 36-40, Computing , Travel. :)

I was visiting a friends gaming site G4mer and their forums so I decided to take a peek at the many things they have in their store.

Well I had almost forgotten about Cafe' Press, the people who make cool products for your LOGO in ones. The nice part is you don't have to keep an inventory, you don't pay anything, and they make the products as they are ordered by your customers. They also have pretty good prices. If you have a website or want a one off item with your LOGO or a picture etc they are hard to beat, and they are Free to join.

The really nice thing is now they can make Audio and Data CDs, and package them like they are professional. They are really worth a look.I am thinking about designing a Hip Old Guy tshirt and Mug.

I have a test in Art Appreciation today. I am not happy about it and I am up this late/early trying to study. I am feeling 'OLD' at the moment.

Oh and if you get a chance check out Diary Date a great BLOG that I found has linked to me.

We would like to welcome our two new mascots, on your left is 'HIP' and on your right is 'OLD' together they form the Hip Old Guy website. They are the brain child of Ryan Brucks, the designer of the site. Thanks again Ryan!

I was sitting talking to a buddy earlier and I mentioned FARK.com and was suprised that he did not know about it. Well, just in case he is not the only one who has been to FARK.com , it is a site that aggrigates odd and topical news and pop culture stories. It also has a very active user base that comments on EVERY story and does things like Photo Shoping images etc. It is had to explain, the best way to undersatnd FARK is to visit.


Time for a sample of the FARK.com headlines today:

Some examples of the headlines today:


"People are more likely to be injured by a hamster than by a shark"
Montreal Expos fans travel 1000 km to find out what PR means
Farker Halfempty is doing a writeup on Fark for his school paper. What should he include? Voting enabled.
Laci Peterson possibly found dead. As usual media decides not to wait before confirmation before running with the story
Feathers ruffled at Humane Society over farmer pitching live fowl into wood chipper
Leeann Tweeden supports our troops with boobies
Bad: Son calls dad to pick him up after DUI arrest. Worse: Dad gets DUI while picking son up


What are you waiting for! Go NOW! ..go on!

If you are looking for some good free music downloads be sure to check:

http://www.onlinetonight.net/mp3 the site is called Legal MP3 Downloads : helping you legally download digital music that rocks]. There are well known bands and artists listed that are offering free or low cost downloads.






Here are some examples of what is there today:

SonicYouth.com: Sonic Youth/Plastic Sun (JANE Magazine version) [US$FREE ]
SonicYouth.com: Sonic Youth/Parts 2 and 3 [US$FREE ]
SonicYouth.com: Sonic Youth/Halloween II [US$FREE ]
SonicYouth.com: Sonic Youth/Silver Rocket [US$FREE ]
Amazon.com: 50 Cent f- Eminem and Beyonce/In Da Club (DJ Mac Mix) [US$FREE ]
Amazon.com: 50 Cent/Bump Dat (Street Mix) [US$FREE ]

There are many more..... Guilt Free MP3's etc...

It is run by a guy called David Lawrence of Online Tonight the Tech Radio Show.

I have the same opinions as David regarding music sharing, Pop-Up blocking, and Software Piracy.

Check out his site and also check out his Ethos Page, for information and comments on pop culture and ethics.

David also runs Net Music Countdown. He is heard on over 50 radio stations, XM Radio, Sirrius, and Live365.com.

The site will be in UPGRADE MODE for a day or two.. sorry folks but while I have been a content person for many years, the technical parts of making websites work are not my bag. We plan to be back at full blast on Thursday!