Neil

have done both, seems slightly slicker but browser scrolling still jerky...it's infuriating :@

Have you installed the graphic card drivers?

It's unlikely to be the CPU at fault if the hard disk is still constantly grinding away. The first thing I'd check is that you have all the correct and latest chipset drivers installed for the laptop (the ones Windows XP installs by default will be rubbish performance wise) and I'd also check to see you have the latest BIOS firmware installed. If the firmware has never been upgraded before then you almost certainly won't.

In which case the mainstream music industry is in the business not of promoting good music, or letting people make their minds up amongst themselves, but in the business of telling people what is good music, and that music just happens to be the stuff they own the rights to.

Yup, pretty much.

Doesn't that argument die by the fact that record sales aren't the only way to make money out of music? Does your argument extend only to The Beatles and Madonna or should new bands be coming up expecting to hit the money with album sales?

Well, not really. Don't most artists (major or minor) make most of their money from the sales of their various releases as opposed to touring and selling t-shirts? That's the impression I've always been given.

Just to point out, maybe less people releasing music would actually be a good thing, when you remember 75% of it is total gash anwyway. There's no point in protecting bad art, beyond its proven ability to make large cash hauls.

Last time I checked the appreciation of a specific artist, be it in music or any other art form, is entirely subjective. So you, and anyone else for that matter, is in no position to say 75% of music is "total gash" (and where do you get this 75% from exactly? You've listened to 100% of all music output since the beginning of time have you?).

Speaking as someone who has been responsible for hiring people in IT before, I've helped picked candidates with relevant work experience over qualifications every time. That's just in IT though where what they teach you at Uni is so dated and often irrelevant that it proves mostly useless in the real world.

They could come up with a way to utilise the enormous amount of free exposure they're getting..?

Which they will only be able to then make money from if they were to tour extensively and sell a whole load of other merchandise. What if I told you the only way you can make money as a music artist was to do this? Would you bother even realising records? Would you even bother making music in the first place?

What I'm trying to get at is that it isn't just the "major record labels" you're depriving of "profit". It's the artists as well - be they signed to majors or otherwise. I don't think you fully appreciate that.

Well in that case (illegal downloading as a concrete reality) they should find new ways of making money, even if these prove less profitable than the old.

So rather than discouraging people from downloading music illegally, music artists should now stop trying to sell their recorded works and find new ways of making a living?

Ahhh, ok. Anyway to tell if it was going to be positive or negative?

I'm afraid not. All we've got to go on is the comment.

I think it's to do with that person not being cool enough to affect you.

Pretty much. It's actually grey (to my eyes anyway) and it means the person has given you reputation (be it negative or positive) but they have a reputation power of zero and so it has no effect on your reputation total. New users, users with a low post count and/or bad reputation usually fall into this category of user.

my most listened to tracks from the last 2 months aren't even due for release for another 2 or 3 months. I don't even know what half of them are called, and in some cases don't even know who made them.

Well, you've picked me rather unnecessarily there, so I'll just go ahead and keep making the same point, that music is too expensive. Why should anyone give a toss about these record labels? Seriously, who actually gives a fuck when it affects what is essentially the musical aristocracy, and a pop music form that has degenerated into a truly sinister, worthless pile of near-porno sludge.

I've picked on you because I disagree with what you have posted.

You seem to have missed my point. I'm saying that the reason the majority of people download music for free (regardless of the artist or record label in question) is that if it cost anything more than that (even a 1) then people would still download it illegally to avoid even paying this small amount.

Like I said in my last post, people are downloading the music for free because it's free. Not because they think record labels are ripping them off.

But they're only out of pocket because their product was overpriced anyway. All of the other examples are merely consequences of that fact.

So the only reason people download music illegally is because it's overpriced normally? No, reason people download music for free is because it's free. You put a track online for 1 and the exactly same track online for free - which will be downloaded the most?

At the end of the day unless the artist decides to give his/her work away, they are quite right to expect people to buy it legally and for those that don't to be punished by law. Anything else is theft regardless of the format or means of distribution.

Heard this?

http://squar3.com/site/traxx/ApparatFeatRazOharaHoldOnModeselektorMix.mp3

It's good.

Cheers for the link - not too keen on that track to be honest (although I'm a big Apparat fan). Much preferred this that I found on the same web site:

http://squar3.com/site/traxx/Modeselektor-TheWhiteFlashfeatThomYorkeTrentemollerRemix.mp3

Or even just install Virtual PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx) on Windows and install Linux using that.

straightforward environmentalism...

A newspaper has less negative impact on the environment than any mass produced electronic device that might take it's place (mobile phone / pda / laptop etc).

Two words people: Wii Fit

Agreed, it does look shit but at least i can read the text properly now. What was wrong with the way it was pre-update. Is that non-replicable now?

And that is us back to before. Now everyone else can start complaining again.

And this is why Linux adoption is so poor. Driver support is rubbish. I don't know how many hours of my life I've wasted trying to get network, sound, video and capture cards working with various Linux distros.

Personally I think this looks awful, but what about now?

I would prefer blue.

Do you have the ability to start a poll?

I do. But there is a rather lot of colours out there...

So, you don't want the links blue or red. What colour do you want them?

My top tracks at Last.fm

Yes, I have been enjoying In Rainbows that much.

It always makes me laugh when people go on about "artwork" from mass produced albums printed on cheap paper/card stock. Yes I could understand this if you mean something like a handprinted, hand folded cd sleeve that has been made with care and attention and in numbers less than the hundreds, but to go on about album artwork on the average cd or album sleeve is just as sad as admiring the design of a frosties packet.

Not to mention the fact that with a lot of the online music purchases you now get the full artwork and lyrics either embedded into the music tracks or supplied as a separate PDF file with the download. So the only thing you are really missing is the physical CD and plastic case.

I'm not "reluctant" to see anything, I'm telling you that I think people posting photos of their guitars and amps online like this is pathetic.

And that's fine, you can keep that opinion to yourself thanks. It has no place in this particular thread as it contributes nothing useful to it. Instead it all only serves to trigger the usual hostility that no doubt you quite enjoy generating.

Back on topic please everyone. Any further discussion about the merits of posting photos of your musical gear into a MUSICIAN'S FORUM can be posted in the Comments & Suggestions forum instead. Any further such replies will be deleted if they are posted in this thread.

you would on a car forum.

Being that this is a musicians forum, there might be musical instruments on it. Its not really worth getting worked up over.

Exactly. Just ignore Stripey and get back on topic.