I went to the library the other day. It was an awesome experience. I could sit and read a book for free and if I wanted to read the whole thing, apparently I can just check it out, and take it home. For free.
Happy to see Borders shutting down stores. Unfortunately a few have been left open. Yes, it's unfortunate that people running these businesses will go out of business and have to do something else. In these changing times they need to change their business or close their doors. My experience of bookstores these last few years have been interesting. I could order the book in the store and wait a few weeks, or go home, find it online and wait one week and get it for half the price (including shipping) than what the bookstore wanted. Their books on the shelves look about the same age as the ones in the library are (years old and only good for the study of history). Or best sellers/new releases that you want there and then. I'm with you, give us access to the global market. Heck, even shoes fall under this category. I wanted a pair of NewBalance shoes. Could only find brown ones in the shoe shop. wanted black. I know they exist, I've bought em before. Went to online shoe shop and ordered a black pair. It told me they could not ship that brand to me in Australia. So I picked a brand I'd never heard of, picked the right size and got them in a week. Fit great! On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Michael Minutillo < [email protected]> wrote: > Yeah I had this last week with an Amazon eBook too. Apparently there are > laws in Australia to protect our local publishing industry (there is > probably the same deal with music going on). I find it hilarious that this > is happening and at the same time I'm getting multiple emails per week from > Borders and Woodslane begging me to give them money. I find myself very > carefully standing aside and waiting for them to die so that the stupid laws > can be revoked as no longer relevant and the big players can move in (Can I > please have Netflix now?). I feel bad for the local companies and I will > miss being able to wander around a book-store but as none of them have been > able to entice me into paying them...good riddance. > > > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Stephen Price > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Yeah I understand that, but cmon. It's Microsoft. If they don't have the >> power to wangle the deals, and Apple does, what's that tell me? >> >> Same deal when I was trying to buy an ebook. I found an ebook on a number >> of different ebook sites (including one that is run here in Claremont about >> 10 minutes from my house) and because I'm in Australia I was not allowed to >> buy it. That left me the options of getting a US credit card with a US >> postal address, or finding it on bittorrent and pirating the damn thing. >> Guess which is easier. >> >> There's nothing more frustrating that sitting with credit card in hand >> wanting to pay for something that doesn't physically exist other than being >> a sequence of magnetic 1's and 0's, and being told no, sorry, your in the >> wrong country. #whatcenturyisthis? >> Licensing fail. >> >> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:02 PM, David Kean <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> I know people like to bag Microsoft for a lot of things, but with the >>> music licensing the ball is solely in the content providers. They make it >>> extremely hard for companies like Microsoft, Netflix, etc to provide content >>> *everywhere*. >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* [email protected] [mailto: >>> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Stephen Price >>> *Sent:* Monday, April 11, 2011 8:44 PM >>> *To:* ozDotNet >>> *Subject:* Re: [OT] Windows 7 and Parallel port card >>> >>> >>> >>> Good luck with that. >>> >>> >>> >>> I find best way is to remove all songs and re add the folder. It all >>> depends if your music is IN the iTunes folder or if you added it from >>> another folder (and let iTunes copy what if converts into its own folder). >>> If you have bought music via iTunes then it will be a mix of both. >>> >>> If you don't then you end up with a mix of broken links and duplicate >>> songs. You can make it not show duplicates but they are still there. >>> >>> >>> >>> You'd think with all their UX experience they'd have figured this shit >>> out. I'm also stuck in a world of using Zune and getting the two to play >>> nice together. Most of my songs are other peoples and I don't like them >>> anyway so I'm forever pressing skip. I think I'm just going to delete the >>> whole lot and start over. >>> >>> >>> >>> On another rant, I'd be buying music through Zune if Microsoft ever got >>> off their fat lazy arses and made it available to Australia. Stupid bloody >>> licensing lawyers. *grumble grumble* >>> >>> In the US people pay $15 a month for unlimited access to songs, and a >>> bunch of songs they can keep from what you download. I'm happy to PAY for my >>> music but they don't want my money. They'd rather I went to Apple and >>> suffered their iTunes store. >>> >>> *glare* >>> >>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Greg Keogh <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Chaps, two of you have already found that my friend’s EPSON doesn’t have >>> drivers and is even on the not supported lists. So that solves that. I rang >>> my friend and gave him the bad news. As Corneliu says, and as I said to my >>> friend ... new well featured colour printers are really cheap these days. >>> The thing to beware of is the cost of consumables. He spent $600 on the box, >>> $90 on a USB drive, $8 on a new mouse, $12 on the parallel card that doesn’t >>> work, so now he spends a bit more on a new printer! Your wallet has a slow >>> leak. >>> >>> >>> >>> We’ve got another stupid problem now. I copied his complete My Documents >>> (and music and pictures) over to the new box and we installed the latest >>> iTunes. When it starts it comes up with a complete list of music from the >>> old machine and every file is “broken” because the physical locations don’t >>> match. So now I’ve got to find a way of clearing iTunes of all music and >>> refreshing it from disk. There is no obvious way to do this and the Apple >>> style menus are foreign and ambiguous (*D*elete, *C*lear?). I suppose >>> there is a “database” behind iTunes that I can delete and cause a rescan?! >>> >>> >>> >>> Sheesh! How do normal suburban carbon blobs migrate to a new machine. >>> I’ve spent about 6 man-hours with my friend. I’m helping him get his email >>> migrated from Outlook Express to Outlook (it hit size limits), his cable >>> modem wasn’t recognised (you have you power it off and on), his printer is >>> outdated (my fault for not checking on this), Kodak EasyShare photo links >>> are all broken like iTunes, and so on... >>> >>> >>> >>> Greg >>> >>> >>> >> >> >
