Metropol

Gavin Scott wrote:I use RealAlternative for Real Media. Its bloat free, and runs niftily in a Media Player 6 player.

Not that anyone asked.

I just wish VLC would support RealMedia. Then we'd finally have a player that can support every format.

That said, I can't think of anywhere that really uses Real a/v any more. Old ident sites used to be obsessed with the bloody format, but now you can see all the idents you want on Youtube. The BBC also likes it but even they are turning the corner toward Flash with their iPlayer dealie.

Sput wrote:You're using realplayer voluntarily?

Sadly. I've just found it the easiest music library/player program to use. Winamp is nice, WMP11 is complicated... I dunno, force of habit really.

Oh bollocks. They're going to shaft me AGAIN for a software upgrade in June.

ULTRATSK.

Sput wrote: They're going to shaft me AGAIN for a software upgrade in June.

Why don't you start charging them money for software upgrades instead?

James Hatts wrote:The reason for the £12.99 charge is supposedly this.

I know that Sarbanes-Oxley is the scourge of corporate America, but I honestly don't understand what it has to do with levying an additional fee on consumers - especially non-American ones. SOX is meant to ensure transparency in accounting practices. Does Microsoft charge consumers for updates to Windows? No - they're freely available (assuming you've got a valid version of Windows - or have managed to work around that), even where they do offer 'new' (unadvertised) features. The reason Apple are charging a fee is because they can, pure and simple. The fact that they get to blame Sarbanes-Oxley - an especially onerous law which was cooked up in an overreaction to the Enron and WorldCom scandals - for it is just a nice benefit.

My guess (hope) is it'll be a cheaper update this time around, since it opens up additional revenue streams in the form of buying applications.

and quicktime... the thing that annoys me that is the developers seemed to think that you actually want some pointless background process constantly taking up resources on your pc checking for the latest version in the system tray... i noticed the other day that if you move the shortcut to quicktime player from the default location in the start menu it re-create it again. you have to create a new shortcut to the executable directly to stop it from happening. fecking thing.

Although not as bad as the Real Player "Message Center"...

I have spent thousands of pounds with iTunes over the past couple of years, I made a back up of all my music and when both computer and external hard drives go tits up, I email Apple to request that I can redownload my entire library again, as I am such a loyal customer.

They return saying that I cannot be an exception to the rule that if you download songs once, you cannot do them again.

So, I sent them a nice angry email saying that I am disgusted at their Customer Service, and I was planning to buy an iPod and a Mac Pro with them within the coming weeks - and now I was going to take my business elsewhere.

Almost instantaneously I received an email of apology back saying it was an "error of lower staff," a link to redownload all of my tracks and 48 hours later a check up to see if all things worked out smoothly.

They say you will catch more flies with honey and all... but in my experience, it is probably you will catch more flies with money!