Hi
I have had my mac for 2 months and just recently it will not shut down. Why does this happen and how do I shut it down? Every time I try it tells me that it has timed out because another application open.

I played a game on shockwave a few weeks ago and after I shut down the browser it still played the sound. It went away once I turned off the computer (I usually just close the lid) but when I went to view something today the sound from the game came back. :confused:

Silver State bank was shut down Friday by regulators because of losses on soured loans, mainly in real estate. Republican presidential nominee John McCain's son, Andrew, sat on the bank's board from February to July 2008.

Rhonda from MySpace says the network has had a spam infestation in its application profiles. So much so that it shut down the forum display. Complaints were coming in like crazy. Now users interested in “more exciting forums” are advised to carry on their conversations elsewhere for the time being. Free bulletins are suggested. How’s that suit you?

At the risk of making an irate user base even more angry and loud, perhaps this is the only way to really put the spoilers in a chokehold. Though as Nick O’Neill of Social Times writes, “it shows that MySpace doesn’t have…control over (its) spam situation,” which only puts the site in negative light it’s spent quite some time working to emerge from. Facebook, meanwhile, has instituted a spam reporting system that’s considered to be at least partially effective, if not fully.

So, how should should one look at this outcome? Glass half-full, or half-empty? The first category is where I fall. Better to have nothing than lots of nothing, I think. How about you?

How does the closure of MySpace App forums sit with you?
( polls)

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What the hell is the CRIA? Think of it as Canada's RIAA, well, because it is. Now it is also a target of a preemptive suit from troubled torrent tracker Isohunt.

As Wired's Threat Level reported in May, Isohunt founder Gary Fung was already in hot water with the MPAA, but was defiant as well. "I'm not building a business on the backs of others' works," he told David Kravets. "There are a lot of unprotected works as well."

Evidently, the clash brought out the fight in him. Fung decided to be proactive with the CRIA, who sent him a cease-and-desist in May, demanded he take the site off-line and threated to sue for $20,000 per song. Fung struck back on Friday, filing a petition for Declarative Relief in British Columbia that asserts his company isn't engaging in copyright infringement. It also aims to explain the finer points of torrents, which few outside of the downloading community fully understand.

He's ready for the long haul.

"We intend to take this all the way up to the Canadian Supreme Court," Fung told TorrentFreak, "unless CRIA settles with us out of court in any reasonable way. There are some interesting parties in Canada in our camp I’m not disclosing yet, this is going to make an interesting case and the most important copyright case in Canada currently."

Photo: Isohunt

See also:

• Isohunt Founder at Center of U.S. Torrent-Tracking Legal Battle
• Web App Downloads Torrents onto iPhone, Wii, PS3, More
• RIAA Training Video Leaked onto Torrent Sites (Updated)
• The Only Torrent Search Engine You'll Ever Need (While It Lasts)
• MPAA Secretly Tells Court Why BitTorrent Tracking Sites Violate Copyrights -- UPDATE
• Demonoid Torrent Tracker Site Shut Down by Canadian RIAA

Radio Zamaneh (Persian: رادیو زمانه) is an Amsterdam-based Persian language radio. “Zamaneh” is the Persian literary term for “time”. Radio Zamaneh (RZ) is an independent broadcasting organisation, registered as a non-profit organisation in the Netherlands, with headquarters and a studio in Amsterdam. The coordinator of the radio is the Dutch NGO Press Now. It lauched about two years ago and calls itself a ‘radio for bloggers'.

Kamran Ashtary, blogger, photographer and Zamnaeh's director of Communication & Development shares Zamaneh's challenges, hopes, achievements and Iranian citizen media.

RZ has called itself a radio for bloggers. Why such a slogan? How much influence have bloggers had at RZ ?

In Iran many journalists have turned to blogging to communicate since many newspapers are continually harassed and shut down. Most of Radio Zamaneh's contributors were, and still are, bloggers. Our director, Mehdi Jami, started blogging several years before joining Radio Zamaneh.
As Radio Zamaneh has based its media policy on Citizen Journalism, reaching out to bloggers is natural. Since August 2006, when Radio Zamaneh started, we have actively promoted bloggers on our site and in our radio programs. Many were involved in the development of RZ.

Radio Zamaneh in many ways is connected to bloggers and blogging. Just take a look at our extensive blogroll. Radio Zamaneh aims for two-way communication. This is something that blogs are known for. This is why our site is working like a set of blogs. Each regular contributor has their own page/blog and readers can comment on every page.

There are several news sites, outside of Iran, such as Deutsche Welle (DW) Perisan site, covering Iranian blogs. Is there a difference between RZ's approach toward blogging and theirs?

We don't just cover bloggers, we are bloggers and our style is bloggish: friendly, informal, different, personalized, and diverse. Blogging is a part of our daily life. We are talking on blogs and quoting blogs. We see them as a source of information about how people think about politics and social issues. We see Iranian youth culture as a culture promoted by blogs and we are working to make the informality of blogging a trend in media making. Radio Zamaneh is derived from and inspired by blogging. That is very different from just covering blogs by other media outlets.

How have Iranian bloggers reacted to RZ? Collaborating or criticizing?

A search at Technorati, will show you that there are more than 30,000 links to the items we publish on our site.

In addition, Canada-based Iranian blogger, Arash Kamangir's Didish Report, which searches Iranian site feeds for links to other sites, consistently shows that we are at the top of the list for receiving links. These show that many bloggers are interested in RZ and referring to us. Many of them work with us in different ways and some are critical too. Bloggers are not ignoring what we publish.

We welcome both collaboration and criticism. In fact, one of our contributors thinks we could use more people poking fun at us.

We invite criticism of Radio Zamaneh and even sponsored a competition with a review of the site as its focus. This competition helped us discover some of our current colleagues. Radio Zamaneh has a solid record of publishing differing opinions.

RZ has a list of bloggers in its first page. Some have criticized RZ for only listing “politically correct” blogs, and not ones that are against the Islamic Republic. How do answer them?

The Berkman Center at Harvard University reports that more than 60,000 blogs in Iran are continually updated. Obviously, we cannot link to all of them.

Radio Zamaneh does not promote bloggers based on their political views. While we try to remain independent, we link to blogs with strong political points of view, including those that can be seen as *for* or *against* the regime. We read many blogs and do not limit our list to a select group. That said, Radio Zamaneh tries not to link to blogs with strong affiliations to political groups or extremists.

Some news sites are afraid to give more voices to citizen media because they consider them as unreliable sources of information. What do you think?

It's hard to give up control. Fortunately, most of us have been bloggers ourselves, so we see both sides. What we normally get from blogs are views, not news. Any news from blogs must be checked against other sources. Blogs may be a starting point for a news story, but we do not rely on them as a source. At the same time, we try to do training and work with citizen journalists so that they can provide reliable information. In fact, we are currently working on a special training site for citizen journalism which will be for our network and for registered users.

Outside of Iran many Persian sites covering politics, such as DW or Gozarr, have blog sections. Inside Iran very, very few mainstream news sites have such a section. Why the difference?

Inside Iran, they want to have more control over what people read. They just don't have the habit of presenting points of view that they cannot control. To be fair, major Western news sources have been slow to embrace bloggers as well. It's not normal for a news organization to link to competing sources of information.

What has been RZ's most important added value to Iranian media?

RZ has proven that it is possible to present an independent take on Iran and the news. It provides a voice for the unheard, and highlights marginalized groups in Iran: writers, Sunnis, women, bloggers, Armenians, Zoroastrians, and other ethnic and religious minorities. Radio Zamaneh republishes, highlights, and links to articles written on the web by domestic critics of Iranian politics, which are ignored by domestic media in Iran.

In addition we run programming that challenges the taboos of Iranian society such as relationships and sex. Sometimes, the challenge is with the official reading of politics and news; sometimes it is with the dogmatic views held by many inside and outside Iran.

What are the most important challenges?

If we want to stay on top of the game and hold on to our audience, we constantly need to stay in communication with them. You have to have an open communication channel. We need to encourage more reader and listener participation. We need to keep our ears open. We have to stay fresh and be our own harshest critic, and we have to work hard to remain fair and independent.

A lot of people would like us to take sides, whether it's against the government in Iran or for them, but we work hard to remain independent despite whatever personal beliefs we have.

The other major challenge for us is how to survive and make a sustainable media. We believe that for a sustainable civil society in Iran we need sustainable democratic media in and for Iran.

How does RZ deal with filtering?

It's a cat and mouse game. We have to continually find new holes to hide in. We have changed our domain name 5 times! We send our newsletters every day to many people who want to read RZ and have no direct access. But we cannot say that we can evade filtering. Many pages are blocked. Despite that, more than 60% of our readers are from Iran.

Sometimes a piece gets published from provincial or local bloggers. Are there any sharp differences between what Tehran-based bloggers write and provincial ones?

In many ways those who live outside the capital feel isolated and ignored. For many, Iran means Tehran. Tehran is very important, but we do not ignore cities in Kurdistan, Khorasan, Azarbayjan, Khuzistan, Fars, and the rest of the country. We try to see them all and give them voice and confidence and support.

We have a program designed to find good provincial blogs and promote them by quoting from them and talking to them. We always welcome contributions from provincial areas even though we cannot spend as much time covering them as we do major cities.

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

Did you “get” the new Microsoft commercial? Apparently, some people didn’t, so Microsoft officials were calling reporters Friday to explain it. The Redwood, Wash., company started airing a commercial Thursday night in which comedian Jerry Seinfeld encounters Bill Gates shopping for real leather shoes at Shoe Circus! - “quality shoes at discount prices, why pay more?” - and helps Gates squeeze into a pair. As they walk out of the store together eating churros, Seinfeld asks Gates if he and the other great brains at Microsoft “are ever going to come out with something that will make our computers moist and chewy like cake so we can just eat them while we’re working?” In response, Gates wiggles his bottom.

The ad barely mentions the word “Microsoft” and never mentions Windows. Nevertheless, the Microsoft officials who phoned reporters Friday said it is indeed a campaign to brand Windows, “the start of a conversation … easily the largest marketing campaign we’ve ever had.” Microsoft plans to hire 155 “gurus” by the end of the year to work in Circuit City, Best Buy and other retailers to help customers pick out PCs, said Eric Hollreiser of Microsoft - presumably the way Seinfeld helped Gates pick out shoes. Microsoft is also working with PC manufacturers to deliver “a compelling Windows experience” - to study how long it takes, for example, for Windows to start up and shut down. Mobile phones and Microsoft’s Web site are also part of the plan. Hollreiser said Microsoft will do “a terrific job of delivering consumer information.”

Source: SF Gate

more at RLSLOG.net

My reliable summer 2007 MacBook Pro has decided to fail me. I shut down the computer while using Vista (via Boot Camp). I came back an hour later, pressed the power button, and it powered on... sort of. The hard drive turned, the fan quietly accelerated, but the screen remained blank. The Apple logo also did not illuminate (on the top of the case/back of the screen). The power indicator/sleep light on the clasp button (on the front edge) illuminated as if I had the case closed or as if it were asleep.

I tried resetting PRAM, a combination of key combos while pressing the power button, and booting from the system DVD. The screen remained blank, completely non-illuminated. I called Apple Care (still good for another 2 years) and they had me do everything I already tried. Finally, they said I'd have to send it in.

Unfortunately, I'm in Afghanistan, near bad guys, and far from the Genius Bar.
I know the heat and dust of a combat zone is no place for a MacBook Pro, but it's lasted 7 months without a hitch.

Before I send this home to my wife, for her then to send to Apple, is there anything else I could try to bring it back to life? I've tried hooking up an external monitor, and had no success. I'm out of ideas, other than crossing my fingers and hoping nobody decides they want a broken MBP as it travels around the world.

During the September 5 edition of Fox News' Studio B, after Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn stated that "[Sen.] Barack Obama believes strongly that health care has to be accessible and affordable, that you should be able to get health care without having to shop all over the country," guest host Gregg Jarrett interrupted Dunn, and said: "All right, now you're getting into your talking points. ... Now you're getting into your talking points." Dunn responded, "No, no, Nancy gave us the talking points here," referring to McCain campaign senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, who also was on the program and had brought up Sen. John McCain's position on "health care" earlier in the conversation. Dunn added: "Come on, guys. Come on." Jarrett replied, "I'll shut down the microphone if you continue doing that," and then asked Pfotenhauer about Gov. Sarah Palin: "Nancy, the personal narrative -- hockey mom, special needs child, is that especially appealing to undecided female voters who are trying to figure out what to do?" At no point during the interview did Jarrett interrupt Pfotenhauer because she was using "talking points" or threaten to cut off her microphone.

From the September 5 edition of Fox News' Studio B:

JARRETT: Joining us now from Washington, Anita Dunn, a senior adviser for the Obama campaign, and from Arlington, Virginia, Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign. Good to see you both. Nancy, that's a pretty shrewd, pretty smart strategy, right? Get the women out there to criticize the woman on the ticket.

PFOTENHAUER: Yeah, well, and it's entirely anticipated. We are prepared for this and we're gonna go out and make the case for why Senator McCain and the McCain-Palin ticket have the policies that will bring about the things that women care the most about. And those are jobs, making sure they keep their jobs, that their, their families stay safe economically, that health care is available and that the costs come down, that we've got an energy plan that will keep us from ever being in this situation again, and that we certainly don't raise taxes in an economic downturn --

JARRETT: Yeah.

PFOTENHAUER: Which has never helped any country, anywhere, any time.

JARRETT: Anita, women rallied around Hillary Clinton when they perceived -- right or wrong -- that she was the victim of sexism during the primary campaign at the hands of Barack Obama. That was the perception. So, by using women here, as surrogates, to attack Sarah Palin, does Barack Obama therefore avoid being accused of sexism?

DUNN: Well, Gregg, I think if you talk to most supporters of Hillary Clinton, they will tell you that the sexism that they saw during the primary was, by and large, on the part of the media and we've seen a little of that towards Governor Palin --

JARRETT: Now --

DUNN: -- as well, and it's totally inappropriate. But let me address your real question here, which is what is the Obama campaign going to do to appeal to women, and the answer is, we're going to do what we have always done. We've always had high-profile women out there campaigning for Senator Obama, people like [Sen.] Claire McCaskill [D-MO], [Gov.] Janet Napolitano [D-AZ]. Obviously Hillary Clinton is a great surrogate for us because she's an eloquent voice for the working men and women of this country. And on the issues, which Nancy brought up, there is a real difference. For instance, Barack Obama believes that women should have the right to sue for equal pay if they are being discriminated against.

JARRETT: Yeah.

DUNN: John McCain doesn't think they should be able to sue under those circumstances.

PFOTENHAUER: That's not true.

JARRETT: Nancy --

DUNN: Oh, yes, it is. Oh, yes, it is.

PFOTENHAUER: No, it's not.

DUNN: And Barack Obama --

PFOTENHAUER: I'd be happy to have that conversation.

DUNN: Well, maybe we should have it, but Barack Obama believes strongly that health care has to be accessible and affordable, that you should be able to get health care without having to shop all over the country, that you should be able to get health care --

JARRETT: All right, now you're getting into your talking points.

DUNN: -- without having to worry about pre-existing conditions.

JARRETT: Now you're getting into your talking points.

DUNN: No, no, Nancy gave us the talking points here.

JARRETT: You are.

DUNN: Come on, guys. Come on.

JARRETT: I'll shut down the microphone if you continue doing that. Nancy, the personal narrative -- hockey mom, special needs child, is that especially appealing to undecided female voters who are trying to figure out what to do?

PFOTENHAUER: Well, I think what it does is it shows -- you know, it's a real life. It's a look into real life, if you will, on who Sarah Palin is. And it helps them -- folks understand how she knows what they're going through and she knows the things that they're balancing, the struggles that they have to make it through the day, the hopes they have, but the fears they have. You know, one thing that women tend to believe --

JARRETT: All right --

PFOTENHAUER: -- if you look at polls and focus groups, is that they'll be kind of the last hired and the first fired and so any time you've got economic downturn, their focus is very clearly on that topic.

JARRETT: All right, I got to go. I'm getting the hard break here. Anita Dunn, Nancy Pfotenhauer, thank you both.

Wippit, a UK-based P2P service that sold music through subscription packages, has finally shut its doors. A company spokesperson told the Distorted Loop blog that Wippit "succumbed to tough market conditions" and eventually became a victim of its own vision and optimism.

pic oh wippit shut down notice

I'd suspect that the absence of a clear value proposition for end users might have something to do with the failure as well. Wippit originally marketed itself as a legal alternative to file sharing networks like Napster, but always had a far to little catalog to compete.

It tried to change this by moving more towards the model of a centralized download store, even selling music from EMI, but those tracks were DRM-protected and couldn't be swapped. It also experimented with home-made ringtones and apparently even had a limited number of video downloads. I reviewed the service early on, but found it confusing and too limited.

Add to that the fact that Wippit used anti-P2P sentiment to market its own service, taking cheap shots at companies that advertised on P2P sites, and you begin to understand why not enough people were sharing Wippit's vision and optmism.

(via dmw)
Tags: wippit, p2p, uk, ringtones

Last month Guns N' Roses managed to sic the FBI on a blogger who was leaking tracks from Chinese Democracy, its perpetually delayed album. Guess what happened next?

The following is an email exchange between music writer Bob Lefsetz and Eric Garland, who runs BigChampagne, the online media measurement company. It was originally published via Bob's Lefsetz Letter.

From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 3, 2008 11:12:17 AM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.com

So often I hear "artists, labels, and publishers have the right...". Well of course they have the right, both under law and in principle. Is anyone you know really disputing that?

Let's all agree:

1) Artists/owners have the right to control their creative works.
2) These rights will be habitually, and increasingly, violated (sometimes by your most loyal fans).
3) As these rights are violated, of course artists can avail themselves of legal remedies.
4) However, this will not impact the ongoing, chronic, and mass violation of those rights. See #2, above.

What is there to argue about? Your work has been illegally wrested from your control. Hey, that's not right! Agreed. Now you have a simple strategic decision to make: pursue criminal or civil relief, or don't.

But let's be very clear about the facts and the numbers.

Arresting the GNR leaker has had a measurable impact on GNR piracy. It has increased it, necessarily, by drawing a lot of attention to it. News cycles do that every time.

All of the leaked tracks continue to be easily obtained from a wide variety of the most popular destinations on the web. Google, for one. Same as it ever was.

___________________________________

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Eric Garland
Sent: Wed Sep 03 18:14:59 2008
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks

Can you provide me with statistics as to the increase after the
leak, after the lawsuit, etc?

___________________________________

From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 4, 2008 12:41:13 PM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.com

Well, only the leaker (nd now the FBI) knows for sure how many people grabbed the tracks directly from his own blog before he was shut down, but nothing like the more than 60,000 people (and counting) who have snagged it since the story of his arrest hit.

Most people learn about these leaks in the press. The bigger the news cycle, the bigger the leak.

___________________________________

From: Bob Lefsetz
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 1:23 PM
To: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks

But how many downloaded it before the story about the arrest hit?

___________________________________

From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 4, 2008 1:39:18 PM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.com

Sorry, should have been clearer: almost no one on torrent sites, as the initial downloading was directly from his blog. The news story broke five days later and the torrent downloading has been going gangbusters ever since.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/06/24/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-leaker-gets-fbi-visit/

___________________________________

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Eric Garland
Sent: Fri Sep 05 11:29:02 2008
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks

Just so I'm clear, and maybe you have the statistics...

How big was the jump after the arrest?

Thanks.

___________________________________

From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 5, 2008 10:16:09 AM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.com

Since the news cycle broke, almost all of the public (torrent) downloading has taken place, as the increased media attention created awareness. 90+% of torrent activity has been since the story broke. But what's more important is that people are _still_ downloading it apace and it is more public than it was when it was only on the leaker's blog.

Do a Google search for keywords "chinese democracy torrent."

Photo via Dave1968

Three times in the past two weeks my screen has suddenly turned black on my MBP and I have had to pull the battery and do a reset to get it to work again, sometimes a couple of times. When it initially goes black I can still see the screen (no backlight) and get it shut down, but multiple reboots do nothing to help. Additionally, the computer doesn't seem to be starting up properly until the screen finally comes back.

The computer is no longer under warranty, so I would prefer to try fixing this myself.

Any suggestions?

Electronic Arts Free Gas Stunt Gets Shut Down @ Telegraph
Far Cry 2 Release Date, Collector's Edition Details @ VE3D
Settlement Reached In Team Ninja Lawsuit @ Kotaku
SKATE 2 Movie #2 @ FileShack
Square Enix Backs Down from Tecmo Takeover Bid @ Shacknews
Tokyo Game Show - John Schappert Keynote Address @ Gamerscore Blog

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