Ya Fake Niggas Not Settin’ A Trend

Now, there are many reasons why Macs are better than PC's. And since MTV Overdrive is now cross-platform, a non-gaming fellow such as I is having a time at finding a reason to crank up the Dell. It's getting to be that the only thing it would be good for at this point would be inflating this site's Alexa numbers, because even a crusory understanding of Wikiality would tell you:

Alexa ranks sites based on visits from users of the Alexa Toolbar which is only available for Internet Explorer and must be manually installed. There is some controversy over how representative Alexa's user base is of typical internet behavior. If Alexa's user base were a fair statistical sample of the internet user population (e.g. a random sample of sufficient size), Alexa's ranking would be quite accurate. In reality, the sample is not random and has many sources of bias. Alexa itself notes several [including] Omission of all browsers except Internet Explorer: Users running any browser except Internet Explorer are not represented. Thus users of Firefox, Opera, Safari, mobile phone (WAP) browsers are all ignored.

Also, Alexa rankings represent:

Exclusion or strong negative bias for users of non-Windows computers: There is an unknown but strong bias with respect to operating systems, since almost all Internet Explorer users are running versions of Microsoft Windows. This both influences the sites they visit and misreports sites visited by users of other operating systems. Other platforms such as Linux and OS X do not use Internet Explorer and are ignored.

and:

Omission of sites and visits using secure https, RSS or other non-HTML feeds: Visits to secure pages (https:) and newsfeeds (RSS) are not taken into account. Some sites serve a high proportion of these pages. RSS services and users are also under-represented from sites that serve both html and RSS because RSS feed-reading and aggregation software can't use the Alexa toolbar and so are not counted.

and:

Strong bias against experienced Internet users: Experienced users fall disproportionately into many of these categories. They are more often users of non-Microsoft browsers and operating systems, and they possess the technical knowledge to be avoidant of adware and spyware.

I bring this up because bragging about Alexa numbers is pretty much like rappers who sold under 200,000 records talking how they went gold when you factor in the mom and pop worldwide sales, word to Koch. It's a good ruse to rile up the children in the online hater's support group, but that's about it(a).

But I digress...

Lest my Dimension E310 totally become a glorified paperweight, some good men have come up with FairUse4WM, a program which strips Plays For Sure Window Media files of their DRM. If you didn't know, DRM is the way that the digital music merchants and the RIAA have agreed upon to keep you from, I don't know, buying one song and making 100 copies for all your friends. Now, stripping a file of its DRM is basically illegal, but then again, I'm thinking that some of you guys don't care about such things.

Depsite having been very much on record as a proponent of all things legal and unsinful(b), I must reiterate that my suggestions here are strictly theoretical—you know, for research purposes only. I am of the spirit that we should support our artists, even if those artists brag about having a decade's worth of your parents' salaries in their teeth(c). Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that the guys who would go through hoops to get free music aren't about to chuck 15 bones(d) for a CD, anyway.

Now, I'm not telling you to get a free trial to Urge or Rhapsody, go on a 14-day frenzy, and then cricumvent any anti-piracy measures you may come across(e). That would be like downloading all the porn you can during a 72-hour subscription and then cancelling, which would just be wrong(f). Nor am I telling you go animal on SpiralFrog(g). But I am saying that all gravy trains come to an end of the line, and you should get in while the gettin's good. If you're that type of person.

Me? I'm a Pandora man, myself. Because, only a fool would pay for internet radio.

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(a) We finna have the whole industry at a stand still. Up your speed.

(b) Cock-a-doodle-doo.

(c) But, going with my gut, I'm guessing sure that the vast majority of artists whose music you can legally download are getting fracked by their corporate slave owners, anyway.

(d) Or whatever they cost these days; which is a shame because we all know that the price of CD-Rs is down to like 30 cents.

(e) But, if you do go through that much trouble, you'd might as well cop EasyWMA and get all that musical goodness on your Mac/iPod.

(f) Even if it would be the furthest you can take 5 bucks in today's economy.

(g) Which, you can bet your bottom non-music buying dollar, won't see the light of day unless this little problem is patched before December.