Michael Moore and I share two things in common. We're both from Michigan and we're both grew up in the midst of Big Three blue collar workers. But that's where the similarities end and the different readings on what the "majority" of Americans think about things.
Michael Moore seems to have two basic beliefs:
(1) The majority of Americans have liberal opinions.
(2) Conservatives are all about "me me me me".
To extrapolate on that, he essentially feels that most Americans are good honest folks but that a small minority of greedy bastards (called Republicans) get a big advantage over the majority of Americans because they put themselves first and everyone else second.
Unfortunately for Moore, reality doesn't work out very well. As a crude characterure of American beliefs, you can see what he's getting at. But the reality, expressed in the policies and results of the Republican and Democratic parties do not work out so well.
The Republican view could generally be expressed as "Just keep the government out of my way so that me and my family can live out our lives without interference." The Democratic view could generally be expressed as "We're all in this together!" Certainly the latter slogan is more eloquent than the former. And Moore latches on to that idealism without recognizing the actual result of policies. Many people, myself included, believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If good intentions determined the inherent value of a political ideal then sure, the liberals would be kicking butt. It's easier to be a liberal than a conservative because liberals have a monopoly on warm fuzzy thoughts while us bastardly conservatives are stuck having to live and work in the real world.
In social policy, the conservative adage could be "Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." Self-determination, self-reliance are the go words of the conservative movement. Society is made up not of groups but of individuals and the best, strongest society is made up of healthy productive individuals. Social policy by a government, if any at all, should focus on allowing individuals to be all that they can be. It also recognizes that not all individuals are going to make the cut and is willing to the chips fall.
By contrast, liberal social policy, the other half of the adage "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day." Policies like Affirmative-Action, Welfare, Unemployment benefits, High minimum wage, Free health care, and so forth all fall into this trap. They worry about the "today" without recognizing that they aren't helping empower individuals so that they can take care of themselves over time. Their policies, given enough time, would turn us into a nation of dependents.
Conservatives recognize this and strongly oppose this. They also oppose this because it tends to be conservatives who foot the bill. So it's a double whammy. Conservatives are forced to pay for a misguided social policy that robs their fellow citizens of the incentive and ability to fend for themselves.
And for this, Moore and his ilk deride conservatives as "greedy" or "selfish" or more to the point about "me me me me me". But which group is really the selfish group? The one that objects to having money they earned confiscated so that it can wreck society with the slow poison of welfare or the one that demands that they get free money?"
Moore may indeed believe that most Americans have liberal views. But he's quite mistaken. It's understandable for him to believe that. He spent a lot of time in union towns. Unions exist (today) principally to extract more "Stuff" for Union members even if it has a long term cost (such as eventually causing manufacturing jobs overseas -- and then having the gall to blame the manufacturers for moving overseas when it was incessant union demands that made it a competitive necessity). To me, union attitudes are quite "greedy". But not to Moore. To him, it's a lot easier to point to a few fat cats at the top living it up than to recognize the thousands of union workers around him who use pressure tactics to get artificially high compensation. They destroy their futures to live in the now in other words. This is quite in line with liberal policy.
When Moore began to hang out with other liberal minded people, the environment changed from union people to the more stereotypical "intellectual" liberal who evaluates the value of an individual based on his or her intentions rather than deeds. And over in hollywood, the left dominates. And so, no doubt in Moore's world he can say "When I was with my poor friends in Flint Michigan, they had liberal views and when I hang out in Hollywood it's the same thing."
I'm working on a political strategy game called The Political Machine. It's based on actual census and polling data and I can assure Moore that the majority of Americans hold conservative social and political views. The only reason why elections are so close is that Republicans have failed to attract moderate or mildly conservative voters. Many Democrats ("Truman Democrats") are quite conservative in outlook but vote reliably for Democrats.
But Moore is right about one thing: The long term bodes well for Democrats. But only because he's dead wrong about which side is about "me me me me me". Democratic policies tend to focus now on giving free stuff to individuals. And so people vote for the party that's going to provide them (me me me me) with free stuff. Hence, even many conservative elderly voters now vote for Democrats. It's not conservatives demanding free stuff, it's the liberals. Conservatives just want to be left the hell alone.
DesktopX is shaping up much better and I think we'll be able to have that public build today (fingers crossed).
Today me and Paul Boyer (Mormegil)
worked on a bunch of little DesktopX objects. Actually, what happened is that he
made a really cool set of objects and then let me use his Corel Draw file (he
uses Corel Draw for his art needs -- not 3D Studio as many believe) and I went
forward and tweaked them to make individual objects.
The kinds of objects I wanted to start with were ones that display information like CPU usage, drive info, clocks, network traffic, etc. So I put that together and started uploading them over to the WinCustomize library.
Making objects in Corel Draw rather than Photoshop is an insight that Paul Boyer gave me. Holy cow does it make life easier. DesktopX objects have so many advantages over the various stand alone meter and monitoring apps. For one thing, DesktopX objects support alpha blending. This means no jaggies around the edge. And Corel Draw makes that really easy. When I export as a .PNG it auto creates the alpha channel so that my objects never have jaggies.
Example of what Paul's project looked like
So things are coming together. They don't have IconX able to support multiple monitors. Hopefully that will be in next week's build. But the more egregious bugs have been addressed. I still have some crashing now and then which needs to be addressed but it's getting better. Hopefully we'll finally get this out next month!
. .
WinCustomize.com is one of the sites I administer on. It gets nearly 2 million unique visitors per month. Oddly, in the last couple of months it's relative ranking has been dropping (i.e. bad). This has been strange because the sites's raw traffic has increased substantially. Which would imply either that the top sites are getting more popular faster or there's some sort of flaw in the Alexa system that is not showing up.
I do tend to take Alexa's numbers with a grain of salt. For some reason, many foreign sites some how have ridiculously high numbers:
Here is the top 100:
| 1. |
 Provides
intuitive, context-based guides to online content, Web search capabilities,
third-party content and community and personalization features which enable
Web users to locate and access desired information and services. (Nasdaq:
YHOO). www.yahoo.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 2. |
Dialup
access & content provider www.msn.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 3. |
No.
1 우리 인터넷. 무료 이메일 서비스, 온라인 쇼핑, 동호회 서비스 www.daum.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 4. |
네이버 통합
검색과 디렉토리, 웹페이지, 해외사이트, 멀티미디어, 뉴스 검색을 지원하는 검색 포털. www.naver.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 5. |
Google Enables
users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank,
caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The
company's focus is developing search technology. www.google.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 6. |
Yahoo! JAPAN 掲示板、オークションなどの参加型コンテンツがあるディレクトリ。
www.yahoo.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 7. |
Passport.net www.passport.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 8. |
Microsoft Corporation Designs,
develops, manufactures, licenses, sells and supports a wide range of
software products. (Nasdaq: MSFT). www.microsoft.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 9. |
E-Bay Consumer
to Consumer Auctions www.ebay.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 10. |
Sayclub.com www.sayclub.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 11. |
Bugsmusic.co.kr www.bugsmusic.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 12. |
新浪网 提供新闻、经济和生活资讯，网站目录及电邮。
www.sina.com.cn
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 13. |
넷마블 즐거운
게임세상 배틀가로세로 퀴즈마블 워드크래프트 워드워 워드빙고 최강헥사 최강테트리스 파워 알까기(장기) 파워 알까기(바둑) 바 둑 장 기 오
목 따 목 상 목 고스톱 섯 다 세븐포커 슬롯머신 www.netmarble.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 14. |
Amazon.com, Inc. Retails
books, as well as limited selection of cds, videotapes, audiotapes and other
products, on its online retrieval service through the company's web site. (Nasdaq:
AMZN) www.amazon.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 15. |
Go A
searchable directory, news, stocks, sports and free e-mail. www.go.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 16. |
Sohu.com Inc. Produces
Chinese language Internet portal and internet communities. (Nasdaq: SOHU).
www.sohu.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 17. |
网易 提供虚拟社区和电邮服务。
www.163.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 18. |
Nate SKT의
유·무선 종합 포털 www.nate.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 19. |
AOL Anywhere America
Online's official site. www.aol.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 20. |
CNN Interactive News,
weather, sports, and services including e-mail news alerts and downloadable
audio/video reports. www.cnn.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 21. |
TOM.COM 提供新闻、生活资讯、电邮、聊天及短信服务等。
www.tom.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 22. |
3721网络实名 提供中文网址软件服务、网络实名介绍和相关服务。
www.3721.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 23. |
Gator Fills
out online forms and remembers passwords. Free. www.gator.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 24. |
프리챌 현실사회의
공동체를 사이버에서 더욱 발전시켜 갈 수 있도록 하는 커뮤니티 전문 인터넷 서비스 www.freechal.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 25. |
BBC Online British
Public Broadcasting for the United Kingdom. www.bbc.co.uk
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 26. |
한미르 웹검색,
전화번호 검색이 동시에 한미르 www.hanmir.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 27. |
MSNBC Provides
up-to-date news and weather information from around the country. www.msnbc.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 28. |
드림위즈 인터넷
포탈서비스 이메일,무료홈페이지,검색,클럽 ... www.dreamwiz.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 29. |
다모임넷 옛날
짝꿍,지금 짝꿍,모두 모여 떠드는 곳. 학교찾기, 동호회, 프로필 만들기, 경매, 아르바이트 구인광고, 게임 등등. www.damoim.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 30. |
Msn.co.jp www.msn.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 31. |
옥션 auction,
인터넷경매,경매 사이트 옥션 www.auction.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 32. |
Bugs.co.kr www.bugs.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 33. |
Hotmail.com www.hotmail.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 34. |
엠파스 자연어
검색엔진. 사운드 및 mp3, 이미지, 동영상, 업무문서, 압축파일 검색 제공. www.empas.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 35. |
Cliks.org www.cliks.org
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 36. |
Infoseek Japan 日本語版インフォシーク。ロボット型サーチエンジンと、特選サイトのディレクトリ。
www.infoseek.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 37. |
조선일보 디지틀
조선일보 (Digital Chosunilbo) www.chosun.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 38. |
Searchscout.com www.searchscout.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 39. |
Premium-offers.com www.premium-offers.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 40. |
Google.co.jp www.google.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 41. |
楽天市場 各種の通販サイトをバーチャル店舗として入居させているショッピングモール。オークションや共同購入も開催。
www.rakuten.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 42. |
Overture Services, Inc. Provides
web directories, internet search and information services. (Formerly known
as GoTo.com, Inc.) (Nasdaq: OVER). www.overture.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 43. |
HiNet 台灣的網際網路服務公司。
www.hinet.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 44. |
Comcast.net www.comcast.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 45. |
百度搜索引擎 提供智能型中文搜索引擎。
www.baidu.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 46. |
Com.com www.com.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 47. |
Lycos, Inc. Develops
and provides guides to find, index and filter information on the internet
and the world wide web. (Nasdaq: LCOS). www.lycos.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 48. |
KBS KBS,
한국방송공사, 프로그램 정보, 뉴스, kbs news. www.kbs.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 49. |
TrafficSyndicate Generate
revenue from your website traffic with TrafficSyndicate. www.trafficsyndicate.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 50. |
Kbstar.com www.kbstar.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 51. |
Match.com Personal
ads with photos, anonymous email, advice and date ideas. www.match.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 52. |
The Weather Channel Site
offers forecasts for over 1600 cities worldwide as well as numerous radar
and satellite maps. Also includes the latest weather news stories and
allergy information. www.weather.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 53. |
Trafficmp.com www.trafficmp.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 54. |
Mapquest Provides
online maps, driving directions and trip planning. The toolbar provides the
map functionality in your browser. www.mapquest.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 55. |
Netscape Composer Additional
component of Communicator suite (includes Navigator). www.netscape.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 56. |
EBay UK Person-to-person
trading site with over 4,000 categories. www.ebay.co.uk
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 57. |
ジオシティーズ ジャパン 容量12MBの無料ウェブスペース。各種ツール(カウンター、ゲストブック等)の使用が可能。
www.geocities.co.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 58. |
MSN 마이크로소프트
네트웍 www.msn.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 59. |
Hanafos.com www.hanafos.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 60. |
PC home 電腦報 網路家庭
[Taiwan] www.pchome.com.tw
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 61. |
New York Times Online Official
site and online edition of this famous New York publication. Free
registration required. www.nytimes.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 62. |
스포츠서울 대한매일·스포츠서울
뉴스넷(Korea Newsnet) www.sportsseoul.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 63. |
DoubleClick Inc. Provides
comprehensive Internet advertising solutions, including fully-outsourced ad
sales, delivery and related services, and technology that provides the
ability to control the targeting, delivery, measurement and analysis of
online marketing campaigns, to advertisers and web publishers worldwide. (Nasdaq:
DCLK). www.doubleclick.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 64. |
AltaVista This
search engine also offers a directory provided by the Open Directory.
www.altavista.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 65. |
Webshots Download
free screen saver, wallpaper, and photos. www.webshots.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 66. |
MGame 위즈게이트
게임의 통합 사이트 .'넷바둑', '넷장기', '넷오목', '넷체스', '넷테트리스', '넷고도리' www.mgame.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 67. |
Google UK The
local version of this pre-eminent search engine, offering UK-specific pages
as well as world results. www.google.co.uk
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 68. |
DoubleClick Inc. Provides
comprehensive Internet advertising solutions, including fully-outsourced ad
sales, delivery and related services, and technology that provides the
ability to control the targeting, delivery, measurement and analysis of
online marketing campaigns, to advertisers and web publishers worldwide. (Nasdaq:
DCLK). www.doubleclick.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 69. |
Universo Online O
Universo Online é um grande provedor de acesso e de conteúdo em língua
portuguesa. Salas de bate papo, noticias e suporte ao usuário. www.uol.com.br
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 70. |
IMBC 인터넷
MBC www.imbc.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 71. |
Google.ca www.google.ca
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 72. |
Pogo.com Provider
of family-based games for everyone including card, board, word, trivia,
bingo and casino games with no software installation, plug-ins or long
download time. www.pogo.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 73. |
Excite.com www.excite.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 74. |
중앙일보 중앙일보
(JoongAng Ilbo) www.joins.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 75. |
Kinghost.com www.kinghost.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 76. |
Maxmp3.co.kr MP3자료
| 음악감상.음악편지 | MP3순위 | 곡평가하기 | 가사자료 | 사진자료 | 프리보드&클럽 | www.maxmp3.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 77. |
디어유컴 사랑,
안부, 우정, 유머, 생일, 결혼/축하 카드 등 다양한 종류의 카테고리 www.dearyou.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 78. |
Goodday 좋은신문
좋은하루 www.hot.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 79. |
IG - Internet Grátis Correio
bastante vulnerável a Spam, acesso de qualidade mediana. www.ig.com.br
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 80. |
WindowsMedia.com A
portal for online streaming media using the Windows Media format. Includes
music videos, radio stations, and news headlines. www.windowsmedia.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 81. |
Monster.com A
one-stop career management resource. Job search, resume management, 1200
pages of advice from career experts, plus chats and message boards on dozens
of topics. www.monster.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 82. |
Revenue.net www.revenue.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 83. |
Goo.ne.jp www.goo.ne.jp
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 84. |
Dell Computer Corporation Designs,
develops, manufactures, markets, services and supporst high-performance
computer systems and related equipment, including workstations, desktop
systems, notebooks and network servers, as well as software, peripherals and
service and support programs. (Nasdaq: DELL). www.dell.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 85. |
Internet Fuel Internet
marketing agency using Exit Direct and Exit Fuel marketing tools. www.internetfuel.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 86. |
About.com, Inc. Web
portal and directory providing Internet news, information and entertainment
service which focuses on particular topic and is managed by a human guide. (Nasdaq:
BOUT). www.about.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 87. |
Chol.com www.chol.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 88. |
Nastydollars.com www.nastydollars.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 89. |
Cgiworld.net www.cgiworld.net
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 90. |
The Internet Movie Database Features
plot summaries, reviews, cast lists, and theatre schedules. www.imdb.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 91. |
Exitfuel.com Affiliate
programs for webmasters' exit traffic. www.exitfuel.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 92. |
Fastclick An
advertising network designed to provide clients with the most advanced
technology available to ensure successful campaigns with real-time results.
www.fastclick.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 93. |
Adult Friendfinder Adult
personal ads with pictures and chat. [Membership] www.adultfriendfinder.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 94. |
모교사랑 학교별
동문커뮤니티를 운영하며 선배들이 방문할 때마다 누적되는 포인트를 현금화해 모교에게 장학금으로 지급. 친구찾기, 계시판, 아바타, 게임,
대화방, 쇼핑 등등. www.iloveschool.co.kr
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 95. |
Tripod 50
Mb. Provides tools to help beginners learn HTML. www.tripod.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 96. |
21CN 免费电子信箱，并提供新闻报道，短信服务和不同方面的专栏。
www.21cn.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 97. |
Yam.com www.yam.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 98. |
IWon Portal
and search engine that gives away cash prizes daily, monthly, and yearly.
www.iwon.com
-
Site info |
|
|
|
| 99. |
EzBoard Designed
to be a seamless addition to a website. Free. www.ezboard.com
-
Site info |
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Com.ne.kr www.com.ne.kr
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Sorry but some site called Naver.com is not more popular than Google. I am almost convinced that some of these foreign language sites mess around with the Alexa system to manipulate their rank. I wish Alexa took a more active roll in trying to resolve that. I'd be interested in knowing our site's ranking in the English speaking world anyway since we're not going to be competing with Korea any time soon for visitors.
Samurize is a program that uses VBScript to let users put together widgets on their desktop that can provide system information and other useful data.
The new version has some new features and lots of bug fixes and is now on a brand new website.
Are you a skinner and want to share your ideas, techniques, projects, experiences with other skinners as well as users? Check out http://skinning.joeuser.com (skinning.joeuser.com). It's a new JoeUser.com blog group where individual bloggers can get together.
Want to join and contribute articles to it? Here's how:
1) Logon to JoeUser.com (your WinCustomize.com account info works there automatically)
2) You can create your own blog group by clicking on the "Account" tab at the very top.
3) Once you create a blog (your own site on JoeUser.com) you can then go to skinning.joeuser.com and click on the "Site information" aka http://skinning.joeuser.com/siteinfo.asp and from there youc an join.
We're hoping we can turn this into a real treasure trove of skinning experiences put together into a single place.
Network Probe gives you an instant picture of the traffic situation on your network and enables you to identify and isolate traffic problems on your network. The network probe is java based and runs as a server on Windows NT/2000/XP. The client is applet based and runs in any java enabled web browser.
Changes in Current Version:
1) Added possibility to use an interface without an IP assigned
2) Added a -loadtest probe startup parameter to test and print the network load
3) Multiple bug fixes
Ever have one of those days when you're extremely busy but you don't seem to get very much done? I got back from my trip and my todo list is huge. The trip seemed to go well but won't know for a few weeks still but now I'm left with tons of things to do.
We were supposed to go out with a new public DesktopX build. DesktopX is going to be great...when it gets the bugs out. I ran into so many buglets today that I had to kill today's public beta announcement which is a bummer because there's a lot of good stuff in it.
But until the glitches are worked out, it's just plain frustrating. For instance, I couldn't change the size of my IconX icons. And when running with IconX on, I couldn't change my wallpaper. Definite showstoppers. IconX is really cool but it has to be bulletproof before release. What is IconX? It basically lets you replace your desktop icons with "extended" icons (IconX) that can be any size you want, have shadows, zoom up when you put your mouse over them, etc.
We also ran into a bunch of buglets with the new extended abilities (plugins) that are new to this build. Those got fixed today but the IconX stuff has to be taken care of. There are also still problems with combining various objects together where the z-order gets messed up or the combined window behaves oddly. It'll get fixed but I was really hoping to get that out today.
The build is up on Object Desktop via Stardock Central for those who want to monkey with what we have right now.
I also created a crummy looking DesktopX object to show off some of the new features. The main one I wanted to show off was the gauges. To create one, you just need to put together X number of gauges together into a single bitmap, png, targa, or whatever your favorite graphics format is. Then you tell the plugin how many frames there are and it takes care of the rest. So I made one with 5 frames to represent the arrow going from pointing straight left (0) to pointing up (50%) to pointing right (100%). I'm not a graphics designer so I can't do it justice but it worked. Hopefully skinners will be able to do stuff with it.
Next week we have a new version of WindowFX coming out. That's ready to go. Just have to get all the marketing stuff ready for it. The PR people are getting ready to do their thing. The public version will be a lot nicer in that it now provides shadows, morphing, and other features in the free version. We have so much new content that we can afford to give away some of the previously "must-have" features for free. I've always felt that WindowFX should be nearly as popular as WindowBlinds but it's never happened. I figured anyone who runs WindowBlinds would want WindowFX.
Of course, a lot of what WindowFX requires is beyond our control. nVidia just can't seem to get their act together with regard to their drivers. On an ATI Radeon, WindowFX runs great. But the "Detonator" drivers make WindowFX look like a bloated pig which is really too bad because WindowFX, when running on a card with properly written drivers, can enhance the visuals of windows (animated minimizing/maximizing, shadows, etc.) with no performance hit (all done via hardware). But when they're not hardware accelerated, it becomes a performance sucking toy.
The next version of WindowBlinds (4.2) due out probably in mid October or early November will be able to replace the various animations in progress dialogs. You know that ugly Windows 95 looking copy animation (for instance)? You'll be able to make your own and put it there. That will be sweet.
Well that's all for now. I still haven't even checked my email yet!
Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular file-sharing network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement.
Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to snoop out users.
Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users.
Sharman's lawsuit also revives its previous allegation that the entertainment companies violated antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa.
Source: http://www.neowin.net (Neowin.net)
So does putting copy protection on CDs thwart pirates or does it create more? How can you reduce software piracy?