QTrax Smells Like Fresh FailBrownies
Hell, it’s already over before it got started and all I can find on the official sight is apparent lies in the authorization process. QTrax claims that to allow a better user experience they are limiting the amount of users and slowly allowing access to groups at a time, but all major news outlets seem to have a different story.
According to the news none of the major record labels gave rights to QTrax for the distribution of their music library. Apparently, it’s fubar, broken, and now just a heavy browser with the potential to leech music…if the rights are ever given. As of now, I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon.
Sourcesauce
QTrax Fact or Fiction
Midnight tonight, 25 million songs will be released upon the world, for freeish. According to press releases the RIAA is taking a step in the right direction and providing a new substitute for purchasing $.99 tracks or paying full price for a ‘mainly’ crappy CD. QTrax is a network of legal, free music downloads, but they do come with DRM attached. In addition, to listen to the songs you must use their player, obviously laced with some advertisement.
I think it’s great under a few if’s, which are as follows:
- It’s real, the jury is still out for me whether this is a media stunt, false ‘legal’ premise download site, or just a funny, funny ha ha move on Anon’s part.
- There are no root kits installed, spyware, adware, or anything else I’m not aware of kickin around on my system. I don’t want the player checking my hard drive for ‘illegal’ copies of music at the cost to listening to a few ‘legal’ copies.
- Ads aren’t popping up everywhere and changing my homepage, replacing cookies, or wearing down my system resources.
- Speeds are good. Inventory doesn’t mean a thing if it’s not obtainable in a timely fashion, at least use half of my 10mb line.
- It’s not a trial then pay to play, been there done that. I don’t want to have access to play all songs once and then pay a ‘nominal’ fee for every time there after.. Damn’t FREE means FREE, otherwise I’ll stick to my newsgroups.
Those items being said, I’m not against people making money for their product. I’m totally cool with some ads in a player, as long as the service is comparable to FREE. Hell, I’m not even upset about DRM, of course I don’t own a portable media device, but the songs better be transferable to a CD.
I’ll guess we’ll see at midnight tonight if this is the real deal Holyfield or another ploy to get consumer private details by the likes of the RIAA.
Styckr.com Image Hosting
After some testing it looks like my Ad FREE, No Limit, unlimited image hosting site is complete. As of this posting I’m serving up several hundred pictures and the server is wide open for plenty more. I’d encourage everyone to check out Styckr.com for FREE, NO ADS, Image hosting.
At Styckr.com you can upload images up to 10mb, setup a private gallery, public, and get access to all the easy posting code. Ideally Styckr.com is perfect for hosting large photos for your MySpace profile or facebook account.
Granted eventually I may need to do some small amount of advertising, but for now enjoy the clean slate.
Slopsbox.com And Butterfly Marketing
More often than not curiosity gets the best of me, just like my kitty Halo, but I hate giving up any personal information to potential spammers. The ugly truth to Butterfly Marketing is that they will use and abuse your email for sending you time sensitive offers. I’m not interested in that. I want to know the meats and potatoes, methods used, how to compete, and just generally find out what’s going on in my niche of choice.
The use of Slopsbox.com allows me to give up an email and check said inbox for a period of up to 24hrs. I can set any email address I want, like dontripmeoff@slopsbox.com or interwebsFTW@slopsbox.com and both will work and receive emails, less attachments. Now, I can sign up to questionable marketing sites, find out what they have to offer and leave without ever having to receive another annoying piece of failed marketing.
Thank you Pirate Bay for another useful tool in my arsenal.
Cinema Gouging
My wife and I used to go to the movies almost every single week. We love movies, we love seeing them in the theater, the experience, everything. One of the best parts of going to the movies was getting a taste of the previews, to see what we could look forward to in a few months. That ‘good point’ about going to the movies has now been bastardized, at least on a local level.
Last Saturday I went and saw the new movie Cloverfield and mixed in with the previews were national ads for shit I could care less about. An ad for Musinex sinus medicine, the Marine corp, something else, and something else…I was so disgusted. I’m a paying customer who has already paid a fee for seeing a movie which may or may not be good, why am I being subjected to advertising at this point?
Maybe I’ll get a discount on the price of my ticket since the Cinema owner just whored out my eyes.
Nope, I still paid $9 per ticket and a $8 for a coke and popcorn. What a rip. Am I the only one who is outraged by such senseless advertising and selling of ones soul? I’m strongly considering boycotting the local theater because of this, but it looks like there are no alternatives in my city. It’ll go on and it’ll just get worse, because no one speaks out, especially since no one is listening.
Cloverfield Cloversucked
…if you get car sick, like I do. I loved the movie, I loved the way it was filmed, but christ I had to turn away more times than the first time I laid eyes on tubgirl or lemonparty. But, it was worth it.
I’m terrible at reviews and I know most people don’t care, but here is the jest, less the spoilers. The way the film was recorded and presented allowed me to get closer and feel more attached to the characters. Quite possibly one of the most intense military scenes in a movie I’ve seen, in terms of immersiveness(I don’t think this is a word).
I’d recommend this movie to anyone with an appreciation for non-traditional movies. Those of you looking for a man in a costume, ala Godzilla, need not apply. Also, don’t forget a dose of Dramamine before attending, there were literally dozens of people who left the theater, due to motion sickness. Again, worth it.
Cloverfield Has Been Hiding
I’m impressed, a movie that has allowed nerds to fall over each other for clues and spoilers has remained a secret all the way up to a week before opening night. Of course tonight the movie Cloverfield will be opening nationwide, but until prescreenings started a week ago no ‘real’ movie clues had been found. Instead, the marketing department of J.J. Abrams decided that an ARG (alternative reality game) would provide sufficient buzz and it looks like it worked.
For those of you not familiar with ARG’s, it’s a fairly new style of marketing that companies are now trying out to establish a ‘buzz’ about their product. Nine Inch Nails did it for their latest album Year Zero, Halo 2 did it with their ‘I love bees’ campaign, and now Cloverfield has marked itself in the ARG playbook as well. While I didn’t contribute to any of these games, I did enjoy following all the nifty clues, details, and speculation that follows such an event. Unforums provided the background for the Cloverfield ARG and many others for those that are interested.
Probably what I enjoyed most about this little social experiment was the fact that spoilers were hunted and I have no self control when it comes to them. Myself and others were tired of speculating since July over what the monster looked like and a week ago we were given our first picture of it and even YouTube videos of the nasties that will be in the movie. But I am truly impressed that with so many technonerds looking for clues that we didn’t have something sooner, Cloverfield had hid himself very well. Congratulations to the J.J. and everyone involved with keeping it a secret for so long.
I’m looking forward to checking the movie out tomorrow night with my wife. I’m taking my Dramamine, drinking some 7-up, and hopefully be entertained for a little longer than the standard 90min porno.
Frustrating Realization
People are asshats. As I type this simple and to the point message I can’t help but wonder, is asshat one word or two? Also, do the asshats of the net know that they are asshats? Are they aware that the weight of their impact online could be measured on gnat balls?
Too many questions, not enough frequent postings, I’m sorry. The reason for this post was to let loose a little tension I’ve been under recently over comments made back and forth on social networking sites like Reddit and Digg. There are simply too many idiots with an internet connection that think everything is a conspiracy, the government hates them, the US is the devil, and Hillary Clinton is gonna fix it all.
As I type this I feel another patch of hair coming loose.
I’ll hopefully get back to my normal posts soon, after all it’s a new year and time for a new me. Later.
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