For anyone thats ever tried to save a YouTube movie, you would probably like this link.
LINK
It will save them to a .FLV file, it also works with a lot of other sites eg Google Video etc
Currently Listening to: Breaking Benjamin - Diary of Jane
LONDON (Reuters) - The British music industry’s trade group has been cleared to sue the controversial Russian music download site AllofMP3.com in London’s High Court.AllofMP3.com, which offers album downloads for as little as 1 pound ($1.85), is Britain’s second-most popular online music service behind Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, according to one survey. The Russian site claims to be in compliance with local copyright laws, but music labels say they have not given permission for AllofMP3 to sell their songs.
The High Court has given its approval to serve legal proceedings against AllofMP3 and its owner Media Services in Russia ahead of a UK court case, the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) said in a statement on Monday.
“The reason AllofMP3.com downloads are cheap is that neither the artists nor the record companies are being paid,” said BPI General Counsel Roz Groome.
Earlier this year, U.S. lawmakers warned against signing a bilateral trade deal with Russia until Moscow moved to reduce intellectual property theft, including the shutdown of AllofMP3. Russian prosecutors are conducting their own investigation of the site.
The music industry has fought back against online piracy by promoting legal online music stores and cracking down on illicit file-sharing services and their users.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Currently Listening to: Stone Sour - Through Glass
Sounds like it is not meant to be a “PayPal replacement” but I really wish it was…
Chances are good that at least once you’ve been ready to make an online purchase, only to abandon it after being thwarted by the Web site’s ordering process. The new Google Checkout service looks to close the sale by making online order placement foolproof.
Although its e-commerce roster is short on big names, Google’s new order-processing service, which started today, makes placing and tracking your online purchases easy.
My first Google Checkout transaction–a purchase from service partner CD Universe–went smoothly, although I wasn’t provided with the shipping options I’ve come to expect from online vendors. I suspect the little green Google Checkout cart will soon be all over the Web.
Universal Checkout
The Web has long needed a universal checkout process. eBay’s PayPal and other online payment services rely on the various “shopping cart” applications of the Web sites they serve. While browser add-ons such as Siber Systems’ RoboForm can complete much of the order-processing information that different sites require, they exhibit little consistency in the type and quantity of data they collect.
Also, as you place your personal information on more Web servers, your security risk grows. Last but not least, the Web forms themselves are often poorly designed: How many times have you had to reenter all the information in an order form because a single field was skipped or included invalid data?
The Process and Passwords
Google Checkout stores your credit card number, mailing address, and other ordering information. You can view all of the orders you place through the service on a single page, and Google limits how much of your information it shares with its vendor partners.
While having a single repository for all your orders makes makes online purchases much faster and simpler (and potentially more secure), Gmail users and other people already registered with a free Google service may have to beef up their security–one log-in name and password opens them all.
Until I signed up for Google Checkout, I didn’t worry much about someone gaining access to my Gmail inbox, because it contains no sensitive data. The first thing I did after adding the Google Checkout information was to change my Google password, and I’ll continue to do so regularly as long as I’m using the service.
The current roster of online stores displaying the green Google Checkout icon and order button includes such big names as Buy.com and RitzCamera.com, but the list is dominated by specialty stores such as All Barstools and Snorkel Bob (the combination of which could make for an interesting Saturday night). Joining the lineup soon, according to Google, will be Ace Hardware, Rockport, and Sports Authority.
My Experience
I placed my first Google Checkout order just minutes after signing up, buying two CDs from CD Universe for just over $10 each, including shipping, after entering a $10-off coupon code provided for Google Checkout users.
Seconds after placing the order, I received confirmation in my Gmail inbox, including a link to follow if I want to cancel the order, and another to track its progress. The only thing missing: an estimated time of arrival, information that Amazon.com and many other Web vendors provide when you place your order. (Okay, so they’re not always so accurate, but at least they try.)
All Google Checkout told me is that I paid $3.99 for “Standard” delivery. In fact, I’ll be curious to see whether the time it takes CD Universe to receive and process my order from Google Checkout delays my order’s arrival. That potential complication will be something for us to test the next time we review online shopping sites (our last look at e-commerce services was Grace Aquino’s “Deal Finders”).
My first impression of Google Checkout: I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful online relationship.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it would delay the release of its Office business software suite, citing “product performance” issues.
In a statement released by the company’s Waggener Edstrom public relations firm, Microsoft said it would now release the product to big business customers by the end of the year, instead of in October as planned.
Consumers and other business users are now scheduled to get the product in early 2007. Microsoft had previously said it would be broadly available in January, to coincide with the delayed release of Microsoft’s Windows Vista computer operating system.
“Feedback on quality and performance will ultimately determine the exact dates,” the company said in the statement.
Microsoft has made early versions, or betas, of Office 2007 available for technical experts to download and test. In the statement, Redmond-based Microsoft said the delay was due to “internal testing and the beta 2 feedback around product performance.”
The company declined to comment further.
The release of the next version of Office, which includes popular programs like Outlook, Excel and Word, is important for Microsoft because, despite its expansion into myriad other fields, the company still depends on Office and Windows for the bulk of its profits.
But Microsoft faces a tough challenge in convincing users to upgrade from previous versions of Office, which may seem just fine to many users. The company also is hoping to sell users on a slew of other related products for things like note-taking and advanced communications, as a way to grow revenue amid a more saturated market for the traditional Office software.
The new version of Windows, called Vista, also has faced a number of delays. It is currently scheduled to be released in January, missing the all-important holiday season.
After my expierences with it, I don’t doubt there are “performance issues”
After years of dipping its toe in the waters of unified voice and data communications, Microsoft is ready to dive in headfirst, and will unveil its Unified Communication Product Roadmap and Partner Ecosystem here today.
The product road map calls for changes to product lines to better integrate voice features with Microsoft’s business software. It includes several new capabilities and name changes: Office Communications Server 2007 replaces Live Communications Server and adds presence-based VoIP call management, Web, audio, and videoconferencing to IM features.
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, a unified communications client for that server, will have a VoIP softphone and Web, audio, and video conferencing. A product called Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging will offer a unified e-mail and voice-mail inbox, and speech-based access. Microsoft will also update Live Meeting, adding VoIP, video, and e-learning support.
One example of the potential for the new integrated products is Microsoft Office RoundTable, a reference design for an audio/video conference-room device with a 360-degree camera with video switching and beaming technology that can focus on active speakers.
Rather than replacing the corporate phone system or IP PBX, Microsoft is floating a unified communications architecture built on Active Directory and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The company is also moving ahead with efforts to build voice and other communications directly into mainstream applications such as Office, CRM, and supply chain, according to Gartner analyst Bern Elliot.
“Microsoft has some failures behind it and recognizes that unified communications is a difficult area,” Elliot said. “For now, they’re not as much interested in replacing the IP PBX as they are in developing a new way to communicate.”
Exchange server will ship in late 2006 or early in 2007, according to Microsoft. The other pieces will be available in the second quarter of 2007.
A number of major communications and PC makers, including Polycom, Quintum, GN Netcom, Motorola, HP, and Plantronics, issued press releases today announcing their support or involvement in various aspects of the Microsoft effort.
Currently Listening to: Stone Sour - Through Glass
Because all the cool kids are doing it, and using the posterize filter is so 90’s
Currently Listening to: Days of the New - Enemy
A private security company has found a way to nuke the controversial callback component in Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy tool.
Firewall Leak Tester, a company that provides tools to test the quality of personal firewall software, has released a utility called RemoveWGA that blocks Microsoft from “phoning home” from Windows PCs on a daily basis.
“Once the WGA Notification tool has checked your OS and has confirmed you had a legit copy, there is no decent point or reason to check it again and again every boot,” the company said in a note explaining its motive for releasing the tool.
The WGA tool, which is a mandatory part of the Redmond, Wash., software maker’s battle to curb Windows piracy, includes two separate components: WGA validation and WGA notifications. Validation determines whether the copy of Windows installed is pirated or not, and Notifications is set up to nag users whom Microsoft believes are not running “genuine Windows” and “suggest” where they can “learn more about the benefits of using genuine Windows software.”
However, Notifications has been “phoning home” to Microsoft’s servers on a daily basis, and Windows users are up in arms over potential privacy and security risks. Microsoft insists the callbacks are a “”safety check” to ensure that WGA can be terminated quickly if things went amok, but this was never communicated to users until the week of June 4.
On June 8, Microsoft announced plans to tweak the WGA to only check for a new settings file every 14 days.
I find myself listening to XM Radio a LOT and thought I’d list a couple things I like, the first is a program called XampDesktop, it is used instead of the XM Online web page. It sits in your system try, integrates with MSN Messenger, allows you to create artist/song alerts, channel presets, and perhaps most importantly - doesn’t time out!! I leave mine running 24×7.
XampD can be downloaded at: http://xampd.imomo.net/download/
Another one I like is Mini XM - it allows you to play XM Radio on your mobile phone, browse to http://mobile.minixm.com/DS/MOBILE/ on your mobile phone to listen.
Currently Listening to: Nine Inch Nails - Ruiner
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