Kevin Bresnahan Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Kevin - does this mean I am 'reported' to Bill Gates every time I rip a CD (my own) to transfer to MP3 (WMP) format to play on my MP3 player? I don't know exactly what it means but if you look through the preferences, there are several that mention going to Microsft with one of them saying, "Update music files by retrieving media info from the Internet" and another that says, "Acquire licenses automatically for protected content". This last one is the one that will probably give you trouble with copy protection. BTW, in EAC, under the "Compression Options" menu, I have -V 3 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d in the "Additonal Command Line Options" entry. Make sure "Parameter passing scheme" is set to "User defined encoder" and check "Delete WAV after compression" or else you'll have some huge WAV files clogging up your hardrive. Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) Also, be forewarned that by default Windows Media Player reports back to Microsoft when you stick a CD in there. It's set by default in several places. It looks for "licenses", which is a buzzword for "copy protected". Windows is big on copy protection. Kevin Yeah, that's correct Kevin. But you can turn all that stuff off in a second The Tools > Options > Privacy dialog gives you total control over settings related to relaying and/or acquiring any/all info to/from anyone over the web. I'm not a big Microsoft guy, but the anti-MS paranoia is kind of getting out of control. When the dot bomb blew up lot of the best software architects, developers, and designers in the valley went to MS because no on else had any money (Anders Hejlsberg among them -- Turbo Pascal and Delphi inventor). MS is putting out some amazing shit these days. Plus, in recent years Gates has been quietly donating vast amounts of his money to medical research and other projects to treat and cure massively deadly diseases in Africa such as sleeping sickness and malaria. We're talking about diseases that kill millions per year, many of them children. He's already donated something like $8 billion, and he says he's going all the way, and I believe him because I know people who know Gates and they tell me he's very serious about this ... so that's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion that he will ultimately donate. That amount of money alone dwarfs the amount of money the World Health Organization (funded by the totally corrupt World Bank) provides (on a time-period-adjusted basis). Plus, Gates is not making a big publicity stunt out of it. It's all being done very quietly. It's a private matter, not related to MS. Additionally, Gates is donating the money in such a way that the researchers, doctors, etc. are held accountable for producing results -- or their funds are cut off. A lot of medical research money is totally mis-spent ... wasted, in my opinion. The accountability problem really needs a serious business style approach to be solved properly. At some point, you gotta give the guy some credit for giving it all back -- even if he's not your style of person. Edited March 23, 2006 by johnagrandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) Also, be forewarned that by default Windows Media Player reports back to Microsoft when you stick a CD in there. It's set by default in several places. It looks for "licenses", which is a buzzword for "copy protected". Windows is big on copy protection. Kevin Yeah, that's correct Kevin. But you can turn all that stuff off in a second The Tools > Options > Privacy dialog gives you total control over settings related to relaying and/or acquiring any/all info to/from anyone over the web. I'm not a big Microsoft guy, but the anti-MS paranoia is kind of getting out of control. When the dot bomb blew up lot of the best software architects, developers, and designers in the valley went to MS because no on else had any money (Anders Hejlsberg among them -- Turbo Pascal and Delphi inventor). MS is putting out some amazing shit these days. Plus, in recent years Gates has been quietly donating vast amounts of his money to medical research and other projects to treat and cure massively deadly diseases in Africa such as sleeping sickness and malaria. We're talking about diseases that kill millions per year, many of them children. He's already donated something like $8 billion to such research, and he says he's going all the way, and I believe him because I know people who know Gates and they tell me he's very serious about this ... so that's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion that he will ultimately donate. That amount of money alone dwarfs the amount of money the World Health Organization (funded by the totally corrupt World Bank) provides (on a time-period-adjusted basis). Plus, Gates is not making a big publicity stunt out of it. It's all being done very quietly. It's a private matter, not related to MS. Additionally, Gates is donating the money in such a way that the researchers, doctors, etc. are held accountable for producing results -- or their funds are cut off. A lot of medical research money is totally mis-spent ... wasted, in my opinion. The accountability problem really needs a serious business style approach to be solved properly. At some point, you gotta give the guy some credit for giving it all back -- even if he's not your style of person. Yes I agree - I'm not anti Bill Gates - and indirectly or directly even he's changed my life at least for the better in many ways. What I do object to is large technology companies giving us technology to do things which are potentially illegal - and knowing this is the reason for us buying them - and then trying to monitor what we do. For example, it is a copyright law violation to videotape anything off air but who doesn't do this? Why offer MS users the facility to rip CDs when it is (technically) illegal even to do this for a back-up copy? This is a facility, which IMHO, goes beyond merely temptation, and becomes pretty much provocation. I don't think in a court of law it would be defensible (certainly not morally) to suggest piracy of a music CD which the transgressor had bought and then ripped to MP3 format for convenience. But I don't know that there have been any test cases of this. But to compound this by using spyware without warning consumers they are being spied on is indefensible. It is indefensible ethically and in the long run will damage the good name of companies. This is Big Brother territory. But I admit it's not new and is probably rampant. Edited March 23, 2006 by RogerFarbey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Gone Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) When the dot bomb blew up lot of the best software architects, developers, and designers in the valley went to MS because no on else had any money (Anders Hejlsberg among them -- Turbo Pascal and Delphi inventor). Let's hope the .NET bomb won't blow up too soon... If I remember correctly, Hejlsberg left Borland for MS in 1996 -- what was the dot bomb's status at that time? Edit: typo. Edited March 23, 2006 by Mr. Gone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Bresnahan Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Where did I come off as some kind of Microsoft basher?? I like Microsoft. What I don't agree with is *anyone* who uses *anything* except EAC to rip CDs. EAC is the only tool out there that accurately pulls the music off of the CD. When used in combination with LAME and a high VBR rip, the results can't be beat. Matched maybe, but not beat, at least to my ears. I wanted to make it clear to users of Microsoft Media Player that you must go through the settings to use it without contacting Microsoft. BTW, if you want to get me going on "bashing" a ripper program, start talking about iTunes! I hate that program. Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel A Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Thanks for bringing the thread somewhat back on topic, Kevin. Naturally, it's quite up to everyone to decide how much time they want to invest in setting up ripping/encoding software. However, as has been pointed out, it's not too difficult to get EAC/LAME going. If only sound quality is of importance a lossless format is the way to go. But the most common reason for encoding audio is the need for reducing the file size as much as possible while retaining a chosen quality level. There are better formats than MP3, but for many (me included) hardware support matters too. My portable player plays OGG, which is a more modern and efficient format, but I also have an MP3 player in my car, and sticking to one format is more convenient for me. And if MP3 is the format of choice, LAME is the best codec available. Regarding ripping, there's probably no audible difference between different rippers for most undamaged CDs. Personally, I wouldn't want to use use anything but the best software available since it works reasonably fast as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Where did I come off as some kind of Microsoft basher?? I like Microsoft. What I don't agree with is *anyone* who uses *anything* except EAC to rip CDs. EAC is the only tool out there that accurately pulls the music off of the CD. When used in combination with LAME and a high VBR rip, the results can't be beat. Matched maybe, but not beat, at least to my ears. I wanted to make it clear to users of Microsoft Media Player that you must go through the settings to use it without contacting Microsoft. BTW, if you want to get me going on "bashing" a ripper program, start talking about iTunes! I hate that program. Kevin Being a relative newcomer to ripping (<12 months) I plead guilty to finding WMP quite good (for my purposes) but then I'm just converting CDs to MP3 to listen on an MP3 player with cheap earphones (not even headphones). So my level of hi-fi requirement is quite low. I can't comment on how much better the ripped CD might sound using another product, but to my ears, the sound I obtain is acceptable with absolutely no signal loss. I can't determine any difference between the CD and the ripped MP3 file but even my hi-fi equipment is pretty low-fi compared to some I guess (albeit the usual separates). Maybe I'm a bit deaf from all the (electric) gigs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) Where did I come off as some kind of Microsoft basher?? I like Microsoft. What I don't agree with is *anyone* who uses *anything* except EAC to rip CDs. EAC is the only tool out there that accurately pulls the music off of the CD. When used in combination with LAME and a high VBR rip, the results can't be beat. Matched maybe, but not beat, at least to my ears. I wanted to make it clear to users of Microsoft Media Player that you must go through the settings to use it without contacting Microsoft. BTW, if you want to get me going on "bashing" a ripper program, start talking about iTunes! I hate that program. Kevin I extrapolated off into a general statement based on a lot of anti-MS stuff I hear every day. It wasn't directed at you personally. Apologies for the confusion. Edited March 23, 2006 by johnagrandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 When the dot bomb blew up lot of the best software architects, developers, and designers in the valley went to MS because no on else had any money (Anders Hejlsberg among them -- Turbo Pascal and Delphi inventor). Let's hope the .NET bomb won't blow up too soon... If I remember correctly, Hejlsberg left Borland for MS in 1996 -- what was the dot bomb's status at that time? Edit: typo. That's true. Anders wasn't the right example. But he is one of the biggest names who used to be on "the other side". I think the main dude behind the original Mac OS is at MS now too. Today the Mac OS kernel is quite different ... it's essentially BSD Unix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) Yes I agree - I'm not anti Bill Gates - and indirectly or directly even he's changed my life at least for the better in many ways. What I do object to is large technology companies giving us technology to do things which are potentially illegal - and knowing this is the reason for us buying them - and then trying to monitor what we do. For example, it is a copyright law violation to videotape anything off air but who doesn't do this? Why offer MS users the facility to rip CDs when it is (technically) illegal even to do this for a back-up copy? This is a facility, which IMHO, goes beyond merely temptation, and becomes pretty much provocation. I don't think in a court of law it would be defensible (certainly not morally) to suggest piracy of a music CD which the transgressor had bought and then ripped to MP3 format for convenience. But I don't know that there have been any test cases of this. But to compound this by using spyware without warning consumers they are being spied on is indefensible. It is indefensible ethically and in the long run will damage the good name of companies. This is Big Brother territory. But I admit it's not new and is probably rampant. Well now we're getting into really whacky territory ... because MS bought Giant and released it as "MS Anti-Spyware" beta 1 ( the executable was still called GIANTAntiSpywareMain.exe ! ) .... and then for the beta 2 they changed the name to "Windows Defender" ... So, from what I hear, MS looks to be on track to have the best anti-spyware app for Windows, and yet, as you point out, they're delivering spyware bundled into Windows ! Not only that but, by default, the Windows Defender install tries to get you to join the "Microsoft SpyNet community", which means that all the anti-spyware actions you take on your machine are reported to MS. So MS is spying on your anti-spyware activities ! ... well, not exactly, because the (probably legitimate) justification is that it allows MS to improve the anti-spyware software, but nonetheless ... that's some weird ass shit. Edited March 23, 2006 by johnagrandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 You gotta love a cat who relentlessly pursues being friend and foe with equal vigor. That's vision! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Gone Posted March 27, 2006 Report Share Posted March 27, 2006 Trying to steer this thread off topic a little... (sorry). johnagrandy, thought you might enjoy reading this blog. What's the difference between OS X and Vista? Microsoft employees are excited about OS X... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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