I use linux and apparently have no access to Real Audios software because its produced for Bill Gates, Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh only. Rather than choosing to suppot someone who is as rich as the bottom half of the poorest people in this country, I've chosen to use Linux. I've never had it crash once in 11 months. It's too bad you guys choose to use RealAudio's proprietary format.
Perhaps the convienience of its use outways the support its use gives to Microsoft. Perhaps it provides you with the, "freedom to innovate"
Since you do though, perhaps you could provide a transcript for those of us who wish not to give Bill Gates our money. Bill Gates, the guy who helped the WTO to Seattle. In fact, wasn't he chair of the U.S. delegation to the WTO?
Hooray for you, speaking out against the monopoly.
It's refreshing to see, because it seems that
generally people dare not criticize the richest
dweeb. And they may have reason to be paralyzed
by fear, given that the products of both MS and
RealNetworks actively follow users around the net
and gather profile information on them... not to
mention the myriad security holes of the crappy
but dominant Operating System. Anyone peviously
unaware of these realities should look up the
better Boycott Microsoft sites, and also Linux
sites/groups/lists.. with your best bet probably
being your local Linux users group, where someone
can personally impress upon you the unacceptable
nature of a Micro$oft-dominated existence.
That said, as a programmer from way back, I retain
a Win32 partition on my hard drive simply because
it's unfortunately the defacto standard and there's
so very many people developing for it.. as someone
needing to take part in this digital battle for the
hardware on everyone's desktops, I like to know what
we're up against. I did pay for it, technically, as
a used hard drive which had a M$windows installation
on it. But of course I've not shelled anything out
to the disturbing Corporation. It's an older release,
which is actually preferable when it comes to analyzing
what it's doing with my computer, and trying to keep
all the security holes plugged up and whatnot-- because
it's been around awhile, alot of freeware and shareware
programmers have studied it carefully and put out some
interesting tools for it.
The reason for advocating that you get a RealAudio-
capable setup is again the regrettable reality that
it has kind of emerged as a standard for streaming
media. Video's kind of a failure with the internet now
so congested with neophytes clicking on all kinds of
stupid animated advertising, but radio stations every-
where are recognizing that audio can be streamed pretty
reliably, the result being that you can listen to programs
from a plethora of college, community, and shortwave stations
that become available once you have capability to plug into
the format owned by the crappy RealNetworks company. The
good news is that there is a high quality, free alternative
streaming protocol-- mp3. Winamp is the best player
(www.winamp.com) and has Linux versions.
As for your particular situation, have you ever tried the
Linux app which runs MSWindows stuff? Such emulation might
cause too much of a CPU drain to carry out real-time audio
decompression, unfortunately. If you haven't, certainly
avail yourself of winamp. There are a couple realaudio
"plug-ins" that contributing users have written for Winamp,
(I've yet to try them out) but they're possibly too dated
to deal with the latest Real format, "G2".
You're certainly right to criticize an entity as
iconoclastic as IMC for bending to the forces of
monopoly-minded technology. Mp3 streaming would have
been the far better choice. And for non-live reports,
such as the above one, encoding to a voice-quality mp3
file would be best, to be simply downloaded by the
audience for listening on-demand from their own hard
drive. (In fact they should just save the Real .rm file
for downloading instead of streaming... the cheesy
G2 standard kept switching quality levels while I was
listening to it due to varying levels of net congestion
at the time.) But then again, another very unsatisfying
facet of IMC's output has been "radio IMC", (also using
the unfortunate RealNetworks protocol) which has been
dominated by somebody-or-other's tastes in music CD's,
when there's been probably a lot of spotlight on the
site and hence a priceless opportunity to educate and
energize folks with debates and background reports, in
addition to the updates from the street. But really we
have no place to complain at this point, since we didn't
get in there on the ground volunteering in the weeks
of preparation, and should now restrict our feedback to
expressions of great THANKS for all the hard work, with
hopes to continually improve and increase the quality
media that IMC's are all about.
If staff could find time to post the .ra or .rm files
as downloadable, I believe I have a tool capable of
converting to mp3, for re-posting at IMC or wherever.
No guarantee I'll have time to, but might as well try.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hooray for you, speaking out against the monopoly.
It's refreshing to see, because it seems that
generally people dare not criticize the richest
dweeb. And they may have reason to be paralyzed
by fear, given that the products of both MS and
RealNetworks actively follow users around the net
and gather profile information on them... not to
mention the myriad security holes of the crappy
but dominant Operating System. Anyone peviously
unaware of these realities should look up the
better Boycott Microsoft sites, and also Linux
sites/groups/lists.. with your best bet probably
being your local Linux users group, where someone
can personally impress upon you the unacceptable
nature of a Micro$oft-dominated existence.
That said, as a programmer from way back, I retain
a Win32 partition on my hard drive simply because
it's unfortunately the defacto standard and there's
so very many people developing for it.. as someone
needing to take part in this digital battle for the
hardware on everyone's desktops, I like to know what
we're up against. I did pay for it, technically, as
a used hard drive which had a M$windows installation
on it. But of course I've not shelled anything out
to the disturbing Corporation. It's an older release,
which is actually preferable when it comes to analyzing
what it's doing with my computer, and trying to keep
all the security holes plugged up and whatnot-- because
it's been around awhile, alot of freeware and shareware
programmers have studied it carefully and put out some
interesting tools for it.
The reason for advocating that you get a RealAudio-
capable setup is again the regrettable reality that
it has kind of emerged as a standard for streaming
media. Video's kind of a failure with the internet now
so congested with neophytes clicking on all kinds of
stupid animated advertising, but radio stations every-
where are recognizing that audio can be streamed pretty
reliably, the result being that you can listen to programs
from a plethora of college, community, and shortwave stations
that become available once you have capability to plug into
the format owned by the crappy RealNetworks company. The
good news is that there is a high quality, free alternative
streaming protocol-- mp3. Winamp is the best player
(www.winamp.com) and has Linux versions.
As for your particular situation, have you ever tried the
Linux app which runs MSWindows stuff? Such emulation might
cause too much of a CPU drain to carry out real-time audio
decompression, unfortunately. If you haven't, certainly
avail yourself of winamp. There are a couple realaudio
"plug-ins" that contributing users have written for Winamp,
(I've yet to try them out) but they're possibly too dated
to deal with the latest Real format, "G2".
You're certainly right to criticize an entity as
iconoclastic as IMC for bending to the forces of
monopoly-minded technology. Mp3 streaming would have
been the far better choice. And for non-live reports,
such as the above one, encoding to a voice-quality mp3
file would be best, to be simply downloaded by the
audience for listening on-demand from their own hard
drive. (In fact they should just save the Real .rm file
for downloading instead of streaming... the cheesy
G2 standard kept switching quality levels while I was
listening to it due to varying levels of net congestion
at the time.) But then again, another very unsatisfying
facet of IMC's output has been "radio IMC", (also using
the unfortunate RealNetworks protocol) which has been
dominated by somebody-or-other's tastes in music CD's,
when there's been probably a lot of spotlight on the
site and hence a priceless opportunity to educate and
energize folks with debates and background reports, in
addition to the updates from the street. But really we
have no place to complain at this point, since we didn't
get in there on the ground volunteering in the weeks
of preparation, and should now restrict our feedback to
expressions of great THANKS for all the hard work, with
hopes to continually improve and increase the quality
media that IMC's are all about.
If staff could find time to post the .ra or .rm files
as downloadable, I believe I have a tool capable of
converting to mp3, for re-posting at IMC or wherever.
No guarantee I'll have time to, but might as well try.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 6.5.3
iQEVAwUBOZ6i4iyjsZdUZ8yXAQHRFQgApzYl1Fx9ykPR26LKpVdtSWzoTOjPm2t6
N/yAPZgJi9ZWhptW6FhYRl7ehijhH+EGeOtnTc61t7zxa9rgwHUfFSH9PgM4H6kE
Zsl6ES9tTalxYqhhV5CZxQU8J3VPXN1Zdj+LdH6hqKYt62m8++jMYRbAJXJXMfSX
JZ9upkNIg1P55XIGbGLPq7Xm1kJ2oYBL6qDGgYd2wEmDf9ST6Kg6JySb+lAale5E
yJHYppsux0xB9i8C+vnIGMYr7xHfWZdBbQg2pdYdXzH9UJ0npT6M14ZWpFNhBwMY
RM6LLA4UOn30fKPj2b9bu9VEQq/MArNrcdjFIUvncMsYGxBNGPuNEA==
=HOx9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
grackle -=- FREE tech consulting to good causes.
PGP-encrypted e-mail highly preferred!
Remember, unencrypted e-mail is never secure!
grackle@lokmail.net PGP (RSA) Public Key ID=0x5467CC97
Fingerprint= B282 E5C5 C55B C65B 87D8 D521 3979 5D82