We read it in the news everyday. The major music industry players like Sony BMG or EMI are reporting losses all over the place and blame it solely on internet pirates. Internet pirates are actually a very good excuse for bad times. Hard facts do not exist and no one is able to check on the numbers the MI provides for losses due to internet pirates.

They don´t seem to realize that they criminalize their own customers with measures like copy protected cd´s and rootkit software installed on customers pc.

More and more customers are becoming aware of this and are looking for good alternatives. Don´t buy Cd´s from the major record labels anymore but still enjoy music, is that possible at all ?

Yes it is possible, there are numerous ways one could get his daily dosis of music and even download it to his personal computer without feeding the dragon.

Link via Lifehacker.com

A great example of how to use Photoshop’s tool in the eight basic applications. Could be applied to any image editor.

Editing an image is like editing text. When you edit text, you take an existing piece of text and fix what is wrong with it. The same is true for editing an image. But first you must learn to speak the language of the image. This series of steps will help you to focus on the individual problems an image might have. It will also help you to understand how to use Photoshop’s tools together.

Image Editing

Step 1: Crop, Rotate & Scale
Step 2: Fix Scratches & Dust using the Clone Tool
Step 3: Expand the Tonal Range using Levels
Step 4: Add Contrast using Curves
Step 5: Adjust Midtones using Curves
Step 6: Adjust Color using Curves
Step 7: Improve Sharpness using Unsharp Mask
Step 8: Compare

Link

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  Docsvault
Docsvault by Easy Data Access is best overall. It has a number of things going for it:

• Microsoft Office integration
• Clean and easy to learn UI
• E-mail documents from within the app
• Integrated scanning
• Search
• Database backup
• Password protection
• Upgrade options

One major drawback in my opinion is that it requires the .Net platform, but whadda ya gonna do?

I did have a little trouble getting the free activation key, and I have had no response from their technical support department, but you get what you pay for.

Avignon Concept

This joker was difficult to learn, and difficult to use. There seems to be no facility for browsing which document to add–you have to know the name and document location. Then, once you have the full document path plugged in, you can’t really do anything with it.

InfoRapid KnowledgeMap

I’ve included this because you can attach documents to each of the nodes. So, if you think about it–this would require some planning–it could be used to manage project documents. KnowledgeMap is really more of a document Swiss-army knife than anything else.

I think I’ll stick with DocsVault–it is free (unless you need the pro version) and feature-rich.

Warner Brothers is getting the jump on everybody (except maybe the BBC) by bringing back classic television episodes as online content.

Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will let fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year. — Internet Service to Put Classic TV on Home Computer

I can’t use all of these tips, but the ones that apply to me are cool. It makes me want to spend more time blogging.

Since my last three “hack” posts on bookmarklets, RSS and Technorati were so popular, I thought I would follow up with my ten favorite blogging hacks. Don’t ask me why, but I like the number 10. These work on most if not all of the major weblog platforms, including TypePad, Blogger and Wordpress. (This post is in memory of Ben Hammersly’s killed book, Blogging Hacks, may it RIP)

Link via Technorati