Talk about viral marketing! Recently a friend of mine told me to check out some new software that makes it possible to make VoIP calls (VoIP = Voice over IP) to anyone on the internet. Now, this has been around for years already but usually its a big hassle to set it up especially if you have a firewall our router. Without getting to technical; VOIP (which is also possible with MSN Messenger, Netmeeting etc.) uses so called port numbers to communicate (a port is an endpoint to a logical connection and the way a client program specifies a specific […]
CNN.com – 261 music file swappers sued
CNN reports this morning that261 music file swappers are sued but also that an amnesty program has been unveiled. The federal lawsuits and amnesty program are the latest moves by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its fight against illegal music file trading on the Internet. According to them filesharing is responsible for a 31 percent drop in compact disc sales since mid-2000. So what do you do? First they tried to put the companies out of business that were making programs to share (like Napster). They did succeed in that; most filesharing sites were using a central […]
Music to go?
This weekend I almost bought a MP3 player: the iRiver iHP-100. This neat little machine at first seemed some good competition for the Apple iPod. It is very nice looking and has some interesting features. For instance it has built-in radio, 16 hours playtime (or so they claim), optical in and output and you can record with it. It also supports most current formats including WMA. They sell it here at the local Media Markt for about 475 Euro. It seemed a good deal. But now there is the brand new Apple iPod in 10-20 and a whopping 40 Gig!! […]
SomaFM: Internet Radio
Want to listen to streaming audio? Do you like lounge, triphop, downtempo fuzed jazz and other music? Then check out SomaFM, it is listener supported, commercial free Internet Radio. I listen to it at work, at home and about everywhere else where I have internet. I really love Internet radio. You can listen to it almost anywhere (if you have internet) and the cool thing is that there are so many channels out there that are “special interest” which means a lot of so-called “non-mainstream” music. One of my other favourites used to be Massinova but they are offline now […]
Vampire!
This morning I had a close encounter with a real life bloodsucker and it nearly gave me a heartattack! Want to know what happened? Ok, I was in my study editing some video that I shot way back in ’97 when I first visited my girlfriend Carrie in Florida. I was just making some nice scene cuts and adding a few effects, when I noticed the noise coming from my guest bedroom. It seemed as if my cats were tearing up the place or – which sounded the most logically – they were fighting each other. So I yelled a […]
I hate mondays
Mondays really fuck up my life (pardon my French). I get up in the morning, slowly forcing my body to actually move to the bathroom. Looking back at me on the other side of the mirror, I see some freak with small eyes, exploded hair, yawning like I’m trying to get a new world record. O yeah, it’s Monday alright. Monday tells you 2 things: A. Your weekend is over B. Work, Work WORK! A typical Monday for me looks a bit like this: 7:45am – Starting up movement-coordination brain cells 8:05am – Starting shaving feature (trying not to bleed […]
Never too old to be a fool
CNN.com reports: Texan, 91, arrested for bank robbery – Aug. 14, 2003. I guess you are never too old to be a fool. Apparantly it wasn’t the first time he did a robbery: Rountree left a prison in Florida, where he was the oldest prisoner in the state, about a year ago after serving a three-year sentence imposed on him for a 1999 bank robbery in Pensacola. He was caught holding up a bank in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1998 when he was 87, and given three years’ probation. Police said he always used the same tactic — walking unarmed into […]
I’m blogging this.
Recently I bought a T-shirt from Think Geek (“I see Fragged People”), but now they added a new new one that is kinda funny: ThinkGeek: I’m blogging this. Put the world on notice: I’m blogging this 🙂
Xmas in the States.
Ha, sometimes I suprise myself. I already booked my next vacation and I also got my tickets this week! This time I decided not to mess with renting a car and driving over to my girlfriend; I just transfer in Atlanta and fly to Tallahassee in a hour! I fly on December the 22nd and return on January the 4th 2004. The suprise this time came with my tickets: a booklet with all kinds of info on what I can take with me and what not. Also they made sure that insurance doesn’t pay more than 10-20k in case you […]
Enter the darkness
CNN.com – As power slowly returns, the questions begin – Aug. 15, 2003 The above article is a nice example of how authorities always try to blame others for mistakes and problems. Since I’m not old enough to consiously remember the poweroutage in new York in ’77, this one is having more of an impact. It was really weird seeing all the footage from a blocked up Times Square, people running around with flashlights and candles. Good to see though that – once again – New Yorkers are not in a state of panic. The power outtage in New York […]