Revilre

AFter writing something and then loosing it... I wish people knew what they were talking about!!! Windows has always had the default codec limited to 56kbps. What MS is doing with XP is not new, in fact it has ALWAYS been that way.

And WMP7 never has allowed use of it. Now WMP8 allows use of it (the limited FHG codec). So now we are griping that they ADDED more funtionality?

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SHS: ...but like I said it is limited support across other OS. It has nothing to do with the government. MS is trying dominates everthing this had been know for yrs. B]</font> There is WMA support for Mac OS, while not great yet it will be there. Plans for Mac OS X look to be good, which means it will be easy to port to any unix like OS also. Any capitalist company wants to dominate and get big, that is the goal of capitalism. The anti monopoly laws initially pertained to railroads where they were merging right and left to try to obtain a monopoly. Sure, microsoft is BUYING technology that they can use, however they don't have direct competition of thier own to that technology. What they are doing is not monopolistic behavior, its growth oriented capitalism. Its obvious you don't speak english natively, so my I as what your native language is? I know enough german to get through short posts.

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by felix: I think that you "Revilre" need to take a step back. You state that you encode your mp3s at 256/44. I must point out to you that your CD's only have a rate of 172/44. Thus you are using up excess harddrive space to allow you to enjoy the sounds of silence. If you want really top quality mp3s you should encode them from DAT which uses 1xx/48. Beyond that, remember not everyone here has english as a first language and thus much of the so-called animosity that floats around this board is simply due to lack of experience with the Anglo speak. For more information about mp3 encoding details, do a search for Napster and cross reference it w/Felix and you should get a large post I wrote about 3 months ago. </font> Um, no lets take a look and do the math: 16-bits per sample, 2 channels, 44,100 samples per second 16 X 2 X 44,100 = 1,411,200 bits per second Now lets take my 256 kilobit per second mp3. Its exactly 262,144 bits per second (1024 bits per kilobit). Looks like you have no leg to stand on. Maybe you were thinking that CD Audio is 176 KILOBYTES per second. That is 8 bits per byte, multiply your 176KILOBYTES by 8 to get the KILOBITS, and you will get about the number I arrived at before. (gotta account for the fact that its really 176.2 KILOBYTEs if you use 1000 BYTE for a KILOBYTE instead of the proper 1024 BYTES.) This is why when you copy CD-AUDIO to your hard drive you take up about 30MB for a 3 minute song. However at 256kbps (kilobits per second) you take up about 6MB. So since you tell me to look your stuff up, I will tell you to look someone elses stuff up. Go to www.r3mix.net and you will find the truth about MP3 encoding, and how to make it sounds as good as CD-Audio - yet be 1/5th the size or less. [This message has been edited by Revilre (edited 13 April 2001).]

Netgear is making a $250 DSL/Cable router that has true firewall capability, content filtering, connection sharing, etc. The firewall isn't just NAT, its has true statefull packet inspection. Oh yeah, if your local DSL is compatible with the Cisco675 DSL Router, try to get one and use it. It has all the built in NAT capability of the external routers, it kills two birds with one stone. It provides the DSL modem and the connection sharing in one small box, and is made by Cisco.

wells fargo is stupid. It should check that the SSL is good - thats all thats necessary. It doesn't need anything else - the thing works fine with any browser - it just needs the SSL to work. Unfortunatly the people don't think that a new browser will have good SSL?!?!

I must say one other thing. WMA8 encoded files at 256kbps sound BETTER than MP3 at 320kbps with any encoder except LAME. For many songs WMA can achieve the same quality at MP3 using HALF or less the size. For the average user LAME is out of the question, it is too complicated. Therefore to have good quality audio the general population will use WMA8. WMA8 is a great format, and will become the standard for the future. Its funtional, easy to use, economical, protected, and offers feature that nothing else has. I would place my bets that MP3 is going to die. Many of the good portable MP3 players will upgrade to support WMA too. The real reality is that MS is going to dominate our lives, not by illegal monopolies, but by making products and services that are so far superior to anything else that the competition can't succeed. I would gladdly switch to Linux if it were as functional is Windows. Sure it has tons of feature, its free, but its not usable. Even with the latest XFree86 and KDE 2.1, XWindows doesn't hold a candle to Windows 2000 for usability and speed. Windows is a native GUI - the OS is designed to operate in a GUI. Linux is designed to operate in a shell environment - with a GUI plopped on top. I also like Windows ease of installing programs. Sure linux has RPM's but all to often you have to edit some text config file, or download and compile a 3rd party config utility. Windows you buy the program, run the installer, and it shows a dialog where you configure stuff. Sure maybe MS doesn't perform like Linux in the server environment. But it will someday. Its all a matter of time before Windows makes a server environment that no one can compete against. There are companies switching to windows right and left, not that many going from windows to unix. Windows will come to dominate. This is not bad, its good. Imagine the possibilites of a single OS and single tech for all computing. Don't say that when MS dominates they will charge us an arm and a leg. They will have so much customer base that they can charge less and still make more profit than they know what to do with. I know of no company that is not trying to get right quick that charges exhorborhant prices. Any established company knows that maintaining profits is not based on how much you charge - its based on how much you sell and how much it costs to make it. If ever person earth is buying a product - you don't have to charge much to recoup your development costs and make profits, any company that charges rediculas amounts to obtain a profit will never sell the product - people will live without. People at the DOJ never realize that all of this computing industry is a WANT. Sure businesses need it now - but if it were too expensive they would find other ways. It is this that prevents a monopoly from charging more than the market can bear. Sure maybe they charge more - but people are WILLING to pay the price for it. The only monopoly that is bad is one that regulates your life - the government.

I don't care who is and isn't an admin. He said I was wrong and had such a condecending tone that I got pissed. I was allowed to use that tone, because I was right. Anyone knows that windows has an MP3 codec that allows up to 56kbps encoding. Yes maybe WMP7 didn't allow access to it, but if WinXP's WMP8 does allow access to it, then shouldn't we be PRAISING Microsoft for adding more support? Yet the articles come out and suggest MS has committed some heinieous sin against mankind. They have not done anything, except maybe ADD functionality! The functionality is not crippled from what it has always had, and I am sure can be uncrippled to allow full encoding, by installing the Radium codec - just the same now as it has been and will be. [This message has been edited by Revilre (edited 13 April 2001).]

No WMP itself never had MP3 encoding, however there has always been the FhG Advanced (not professional) codec BUILT-IN to windows. MP3 encoding WON'T be built into WMP 8 either. The point is that MP3 encoding has always been a codec since Win98, and that continues in WinXP. If you still think Windows98 doesn't have a native encoding codec built-in, I can't do anything to convince you otherwise. Just go look on a Win98 machine, and you will see that there is a MP3 codec that allows up to 56kbit encoding. [This message has been edited by Revilre (edited 13 April 2001).]

Do people realize these are recommendations for PC manufacturers? I doubt it. These are recommendations because a huge vast majority of people who buy off the shelf systems will NEVER upgrade, NEVER look in the BIOS, etc. I personally like these guidlines for the systems I sell. The power-up stuff is good, i wish they made recommendations as to the NOISE level too. What we as enthusiast do, is nothing like what the retail market needs/wants/does. They are two totally different things. In addition there will be versions without activation - for large networks / bulk licensing. These will be common place in the black market. I am also sure that activation will work, without hitch, and be fine. It will base itself on your hard drive, and it will be just your hard drive. The reason : you hard drive has a publically availible serial number! I am not positive but this makes absolute sense. By limiting to one hard drive, you can never have it running on multiple PC's! If you change hard drives - you will have to reactivate. Using just the hard drive is as effective as the overall machine, and fits PERFECTLY with the strategy. How often do you change your HD? If you get a new system with new HD, you activate on that one and you can no longer use the old drive to run from. The HD by itself will provide complete piracy protection, and will have little or no bearing on the user.